'Is sorrow the true wild?'
Reading corner
Joy is such a human madness
by Ross Gay
Among the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard anyone say came from my student Bethany, talking about her pedagogical aspirations or ethos, how she wanted to be a teacher, and what she wanted her classrooms to be. She said, ‘What if we joined our wildernesses together?’ Sit with that for a minute. That the body, the life, might carry a wilderness, an unexplored territory, and that yours and mine might somewhere, somehow, meet. Might, even, join.
“And what if the wilderness — perhaps the densest wild in there — thickets, bogs, swamps, uncrossable ravines and rivers (have I made the metaphor clear?) — is our sorrow? Or, to use Smith’s term, the ‘intolerable.’ It astonishes me sometimes — no, often — how every person I get to know — everyone, regardless of everything, by which I mean everything — lives with some profound personal sorrow. Brother addicted. Mother murdered. Dad died in surgery. Rejected by their family. Cancer came back. Evicted. Fetus not okay. Everyone, regardless, always, of everything. Not to mention the existential sorrow we all might be afflicted with, which is that we, and what we love, will soon be annihilated. Which sounds more dramatic than it might. Let me just say dead. Is this, sorrow, of which our impending being no more might be the foundation, the great wilderness?
Is sorrow the true wild?
And if it is — and if we join them — your wild to mine — what’s that?
For joining, too, is a kind of annihilation.
What if we joined our sorrows, I’m saying.
I’m saying: What if that is joy?
[Listen to Ross Gay reading this except from his book of essays: On Being]
Healing notes
This past week has been hectic for me. I have tried to be my entire self a lot more. I began therapy with a new trauma therapist to find my way around some traumatic blocks that I really crave for. I revisited an old doc of mine who was so amazing through it all. Both of them asked me important questions that have shifted my thinking. One of them wanted to know "how to enhance joy in my life?" While the other wanted to make room in my body for emotions of all kinds: wonderful, good, bad, traumatic.
Suddenly, I found myself at these crossroads with a team of doctors who were all invested in my well-being. This is such a rarity and such a luxury, I cannot explain. My past few years have been strewn with doctors either dismissing my mental health as inconsequential or forcing me to imagine that all my life I hadn't understood my body-mind at all. There was so much dismissal that every time I had to go to a doc, my body shut down. I felt it go stiff and forget the truth it knows so well. Having this change is such a boon for me. Of course, the new set of doctors and therapists are specialists and therefore very expensive. Makes me wonder about the numerous people who are sick and in dire need of care and good medical care is out of reach.
Some part of me has changed because of the doctors but also because of understanding that I need to do the best I can with my body-mind. This is not to say I've given up on it but been more accepting of its limitations. For instance, I usually work on my newsletter - which matters to me a lot - on Sunday. But this Sunday and Monday were spent being horizontal in bed and recovering from the exhaustion of the week before. I cancelled many plans; I ate left overs; I stayed indoors. Before I would hesitate a lot more. My internal dialogue would shift from "you are not enough" to "Your friends need you".
Sometime during this week, I found this piece by Ruby Etc. She is an amazing artist and her words resonated with me: "Sorry if I am being weird I've been busy using up all my efforts to be lucid on other people and I trust you enough to see me like this."
This was a sentiment I knew so well. But learning to accept that some people, friends and loved ones, can see me at my lowest is helpful. It is what gave me the strength to do my entire therapy session while I was horizontal. No shame attached. Just accepting that sitting up is hard today and I need to rest it out. I think this internalised toughness is such a hard part of being on the spectrum of ill and well. I had a call with some amazing women who I work with on Sunday and many of them shared this pressure to be "able" and prove we are not as disabled.
I don't think I have any answers to this. Except I know my wellness is on such a spectrum and I demonstrate that spectrum in various ways. Sometimes in silently applying more volini or taking pain killers and in other days by accepting that I cannot sit up today. So, if you needed to hear this from me because of my emotional or physical absence: I am sorry I haven't been in touch. It has been hard. I shall try again tomorrow. Until then, thank you <3
Tomorrow might not be better. But I will try to be honest enough to show you myself.
Food experiments
I have began shopping for veggies at the local market. It is a beautiful experience where the vendors learn your face and you learn theirs. There is that smile exchanged when they hand you what you regularly buy every week with a smile. No words exchanged cause she knows what you buy and how much.
In one of these expeditions, a woman sold me lotus leaf. She said we can cook i dry or make dal from it. I was truly excited to try.
So I returned home and began cooking with it the next day. I fried some onions in the cooker. Added sliced up tomatoes. To this mixture I added ginger garlic paste. Finally, I added the lotus leaves cut up.. Fried it for a while and then added dal (Masoor) and poured water. Cooked it for 4 whistles and then served it with rice. Add turmeric, salt and of course some mirchi powder. Why you even cooking without these? :D
It was amazing!! Though I must add that my sisters cooked it as a vegetable and ate and it gave them a lot of itchy scratchy. So be warned!
Dear you,
It has been a hectic week of work, pain and subsequent joy coupled with exhaustion.
Hope you are hydrating and eating. And of course,
loving the beautiful rains.
Love, kindness and warmth,
Nidsitis
'I’ve been circling for thousands of years and I still don’t know: Am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?' - Rainer Maria Rilke