boxcar kids

dispatch 24

Hi friends, how are you out there? We are moving into what (I hope) will be a quieter part of our summer. Max and I just celebrated our anniversary complete with that way the pandemic has made time stretch and condense at once, making us question how time has passed both so quickly and so slowly. But whatever shape time takes, I am happy.

Today’s essay started from a hike we took in the early summer and the deep gratitude I feel that this is my life. May I never take anything for granted.

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The lake that day, trying to hold the moment

Boxcar kids

“I feel like a child with you,” you said that day last month when we went walking and every few steps there was a new wonder. The deer leading us down the trail, white tail swishing, stopping every few feet to look back at us in a mirror reflection of our own curiosity. A bald eagle in the lake, so close we couldn’t believe it. That feeling of awe that words can’t capture, so we reach for each other instinctively, fingers flexing, grasping. Do you see this? Yes, I see it. Writing what we saw in a notebook with the date attached. Pressing a flower between the pages so that we will always remember. Every act is a reclaiming. 

Here’s to those kids that we were when just being them was brave. Here’s to that wonder and joy, that reckless, unselfconscious enthusiasm that we bottled and hid because shame so easily fits into the places where earnestness is more true. We placed a makeshift armor of performance and detachment over tender skin, pretended it fit. But my love, we were not made for armor. Dipped ourselves in the waters of the river to avoid harm, but the arrow always finds a vulnerable heel. We find ways to get hurt with these hearts, but in some moments we are sniff-the-flowers-listen-to-the-water-smile-at-every-passing-dog pure. The kind of pure that doesn’t require purity at all. 

And what I love most is that every downed tree is still a bridge to Terabithia. I hope they always will be; we came for adventure. I hope that no matter how many cardinals we see, they always stop us dead. I hope that we never take that impossible red for granted. That we always pick up that strange thing in the junk shop, never ever pass a used book without checking the cover for an inscription. Dancing in the kitchen to the songs from the decade when the drinking was at its worst for both of us. New memories that can exist within and beyond the old if you just turn on the music again. A snapshot, a time capsule, a reminder that we are here now. That this is what’s true and that is what’s true, and the truth is big enough for both. We are boxcar kids, finally home.

I love the way that we are. Sometimes I wander into the kitchen and you find me there hours later in the middle of one of my experiments, every cutting board we own spread across the counter. I bake a cake and make time disappear. The way that every morning when I wake up you’ve learned something that I don’t know yet, winding through history and finding new reasons to look back, when I can’t stop looking forward. We are here now. We are this now. In this place of our own making. You are what I know.

To this I commit my life. To you. To this way that we are when we give ourselves the space to be. And sure, there is fear of loss. You could wreck me against unfriendly rocks if you wanted to. We have let ourselves down and let ourselves go before. But the relearning is the thing. Love as wonder. The greatest gift you ever gave to me was my awe back. The courage to rediscover the things we left behind to become what we needed to be to get here. We can pick that vulnerability up again. And that is more than enough because it is everything.

Assorted, rad things: 

The section of this newsletter where I tell you what I’ve been reading, listening, watching, etc. Recommendations welcome!

• Damn the man! Save the empire! over on Dani’s Self Made newsletter: Man, do I love a pop culture metaphor, fresh takes on recovery, and lighting capitalism on fire! If you don’t already get Dani’s newsletter, you should! She’s an incredibly gifted writer, overall rad human, and she is deeply principled in her recovery work (a rare thing in recovery right now). If you’re seeking recovery resources, check out her recently launched community, coaching, and other offerings while you’re there!

• In Love And Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives of James and Grace Lee Boggs by Stephen M. Ward: This book beautifully weaves through the life, love, and work of this incredibly couple. I really appreciated a peek into how ideas and principles can evolve with experience and learning throughout a life, and seeing their movement work against their early lives and the life they built together.

• Charlie’s Angels with Niko Stratis on You Are Good pod: Max sent me this one on one of my recent long drives and it was a whole nostalgia-fest for the year 2000. Sarah Marshall is the Daria of our times, Niko Stratis has just about the dreamiest podcast voice I’ve ever heard, and some guy was also there saying words, I guess!

That’s all for today folks…see you next week!

with big ol’ love,

lisa