This is a post about agency. It is also about determination and hope. It began life as an exploration on whether honesty is dead or not but I needed something much lighter and more hopeful today. At this moment I need to cry tears of joy and appreciation and not those of fear. I feel like I’m about to give birth to something and have no idea what it is. I’m sure the current string of songs coming up on Amazon Music, taking me back to high school, has something to do with that.
I won’t hide from it at all. The world seems so dark and tribal right now. There seems to be pain and worry everywhere I look. Those same dark clouds are also infiltrating my body and mind as well. I guess everything really is connected after all!
But we have agency. We can do and we can do-not. We can think and also choose (at least try) to not think or believe what we find in our head. We can be kind. We can give. We can turn off the news and not open social media. We can go for walks and call friends. We can smell smells that bring us back to our childhood or a special trip. I have been on a news blackout for over a year. I talked with someone who is about seven years into that experiment. The world still gets in. I still perform my civic duties and manage our investments and go grocery shopping. I just have no idea who the secretary of defense is.
I find it much easier to live this way in the long hopeful communal days of summer. Winter winds are covering the driveway with an endless stream of evergreen needles today. The ease of summer is giving way to the more challenging winter months in the Pacific Northwest.
I can volunteer and make art and listen to good music. I can write and share my writing. I can consume uplifting movies, TV and novels. I decided that I needed to stop read Dostoevsky at this time. I need to gaze elsewhere. I can rest when I am tired. I can give myself grace. Why is it so much easier for me to be kind with others who are struggling but not with myself?
I can look through old photo albums. I can plan and dream and meditate. I can hug and connect with myself and others. I hug trees. I can sit and watch squirrels and pika and marmots. Well, not so much the pika and marmots until next summer out on the trail.
I can shift my gaze from my eyes to my ears and skin and nose. I can smell that little vial of perfume that transports me back to my Grand parents house. I can tickle that spot on the back of my neck with my scalp messenger melting all worries if only for a moment. I can close my eyes and tell my brain to just be quiet for a while. Be kind to it. It tries so hard.
