Surrendering to the Dark

“Endings seemed like sanctuaries in which humans hid to protect themselves from a larger, wilder landscape, and it hardly mattered to me whether they were happy or sorrowful, since the story kept unfolding.”

The above passage is from Pico Iyer's new book, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells. It has been echoing in my thoughts since I first read it a couple of weeks ago.

Of course, the sentence is in the context of a great story Iyer is telling, one of his marriage to a Japanese woman and slow integration into her culture over the course of many years. The book is a meditation on death, beauty, impermanence, and the seasons of life as well as the seasons of the year. 

We've all experienced our share of endings. And the end of the year is certainly of those sanctuaries we create, a reflection of our relationship both to nature and a kind of collective imagination.

And as we approach Solstice, it's that larger, wilder landscape I find myself contemplating.

I spend so much of my waking life in front of a screen. I don't track my hours, so I couldn't tell you any data-driven information about this statement. But I will be honest with you, because really what is the point of writing if I'm not being honest with you? I look at my phone nearly first thing after I wake up and last thing before I turn out the light. I try to remember life before social media, and I am hard-pressed but feel a definite pang that blends yearning with curiosity. It's a pang that deserves attention. Ironically, it's also a pang that gets passed over because I'm checking my phone again.

Now, this is not a social-media-is-the-root-cause-of-all-evil kind of thing, I want to make that clear. No, it's a recognition that I am feeling so saturated -- by other people's programs, ideas, classes, and offerings -- that I do not even know what I envision for the new year. This has been unsettling; I've been pressuring myself to "come up with something," and that is simply the least creative approach under the sun to creating. It's one thing to line your window sills with Amaryllis and Paper White bulbs this time of year; it's quite another to expect a spring garden in the depths of winter. In other words, I need to rediscover my own thoughts, and see what quiet streams are flowing underground. I can only trust that this will make room for the kind of listening that leads to ideas, ideas that lead to ways for us to write together, connect, and keep learning and growing in community. 

I turn 46 next month. I joined Facebook when I was 35. I wrote poems and essays and filled journal after journal for the first two decades of my life before there was even email. If you had said "Google" to me back then, I'd have thought you were playing with nonsense words; maybe I would've replied, "Shmoogle."

So instead of coming here with a big exciting announcement about the big exciting new community that will support your big exciting writing life in 2020, I'm coming to explore this realm of quiet. The fact that it freaks me out a little and reminds me of the experience of quitting smoking speaks to just how much my relationship to time is affected and veritably shaped by my time on screens. I trust that big exciting things are coming, and that they will be all the more authentic, grounded, and true if they result from unplugging and not pushing.

Surrendering to the dark can be a scary thing.

But like most scary things, thinking about it is the worst part. From the moment of stepping off into the unknown, things have a way of unfolding, just as Pico Iyer reminds us stories do -- with and without us. In order to be clear on the story I want to live and write in the new year, I must first take some time to tune back into my innermost rhythms. I am curious about how the days will look, and of course plan to report back.

So, I'm sharing this both because it's where I'm at, and also so that if you see me lurking on Facebook next week, you have my permission to give me the boot :)

You know what's funny? I think I actually *do* have ideas. I know I do. They're there. They're deep underground streams. Sometimes when I'm sitting in my office, I can almost even hear their gurgling. I just need to allow myself the time to do nothing but listen. I suspect this will also include walking, yoga, napping, baking, cleaning, and connecting with friends. We'll just have to see what happens. A writer in my Wednesday night group reminded me of these words from Gloria Steinem:   

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”

It didn't used to be such a big deal to take time off, which speaks to the "never sleeps" nature of social media along with the hustle culture of self-employment. Well, I do want some sleep, and I do not want to hustle, though unlearning those ways continues to be a practice. Hustling and the wild landscape of dreams are antithetical, at best. 

For now, I intend to plan in the form of dreaming, knowing in my bones that trust is such sweet medicine and writing what's true is such sweet connection. Ending the year with intention and curiosity sure sounds better than starting a new one feeling dull or disconnected.

Wherever this Solstice and holiday week finds you, I hope it finds you making room to really listen to what your mind, body, and spirit are asking for. As I write this, the sun is going down -- it's close to 4:30pm -- and the shapes of the leafless silhouetted trees against the sky look like art. I could watch the branches sway for hours, but by then it will be fully dark out, an invitation to rest, to move slowly, and to trust that the endings are never really endings at all.