The Here Year

It’s February, and the Here Year is drawing to a close.  It’s hard to believe.  This month’s topic is love.  I can’t wait to read what Aidan has to say on this (substantial) topic and to spend some time thinking and writing about it myself.

I believe that the basic building block of love is presence.

I wrote before that friendship is made of attention and that’s actually true for all kinds of love.  Love underlies all, doesn’t it?  It’s the alpha and the omega, the reason we get up in the morning, what we think about before we go to bed at night.  I don’t just mean romantic love.  I mean love for our families and our friends, love for our work and our hobbies, love for the things we read and think about and do and the people we encounter.

Just last week, in answering questions designed to build vulnerability and hence closeness, I asserted that what I really want out of friendship is someone who stays near, no matter what.  This is true of love.  What love means to me is being heard and listened to, someone standing with me in the kitchen while I unload the dishwasher, someone remembering to inside out their socks before putting them in the laundry just because I asked them to, someone believing that I meant well even if I messed up.

Love is abiding.

And love, like life itself, is made up of a zillion small moments.  Years ago I wrote about the dailiness of life, observing that “we build our lives – our commitments, our desires, our identities – through quotidian acts that can feel infinitessimal and meaningless as we enact them.”  I think you could substitute the word “love” for “life,” and it is absolutely as true.

Love is made up of the smallest acts.

Whit and I read a wonderful book this weekend called On a Beam of Light by Jennifer Berne.  It tells the story of Albert Einstein’s life and at one point talks about how he was interested in things enormous (the universe) and tiny (the atom).  That’s what love feels like to me in some ways: simultaneously unfathomably big and exceedingly miniscule.  Both of these characterizations make it hard to really grasp.  But I’m pretty sure love is composed of our attention, and is built out of an infinite number of small things.

What does love mean to you?

blue post-blizzard morning

This month of the Here Year has been particularly thought-provoking for me.  Aidan chose vulnerability which I think is a rich, complicated, and fascinating topic.  A couple of weeks ago, there was a widely-circulated Modern Love essay called To Fall In Love With Anyone, Do This.  I was particularly struck by a piece I read in the article’s wake, which listed the specific questions the author refers to, and asserts that “mutual vulnerability fosters closeness.”

Aidan and I decided it would be fun to together answer some of the 36 questions.  In the name of vulnerability and in the name of our project, we each agreed to share our responses to five of the questions.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on the basic premise that being vulnerable to each other is the (only?) way to build true intimacy and, eventually, love.

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.

We both have parents who are still married to each other.  We are both from New England.  We both lived in London for a formative stretch during our childhood or young adult years.  Aside: I’m curious about the “appear” in the question.  These are all facts that we definitely have in common!

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?

I have long dreamed of writing a book.  I still dream of this, though, candidly, that dream is changing.  I haven’t done it because I haven’t yet convinced a publisher to take a chance on me!!

16. What do you value most in a friendship?

The knowledge that a friend will be with me, no matter what.  That they’ll tolerate me and love me in spite of myself.  That they’ll show up and listen and be there, whatever comes. Abide with me, as always, plays in my mind.

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?

I last cried by myself last week, out of fear and frustration and the unknown.  I cry in front of my children all the time.  I last cried in front of a friend in December when I realized I had behaved thoughtlessly and in a hurtful way.  I drove over to her house, showed up, and just started bawling.  It was most definitely the Ugly Cry.  I think she heard me that I was sorry.

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?

One of my photo albums from before digital photography (I still make old-school photo albums but the photos are also saved digitally).  Or else one of my four quote books that I’ve been keeping since 1985.

I’d love to hear your responses to any or all of these questions.  Furthermore, do you agree that mutual vulnerability is what love and closeness are made of?

Thank you Lindsey, it is a huge honor to appear on your blog.  I’m grateful for you, my friend.

That which we love

Three years ago, a night nurse broke my infant son’s legs. The abuse was intentional and she served (only) one year in jail. In the course of the investigation, we learned that six months before coming to work for us, the thirty-one year old woman also broke ten bones on two-week old twins in Belgium, before fleeing in the middle of the night when the parents took the babies to the hospital. A native of Utah, she was convicted and sentenced to four years in Belgium, with an extradition hearing set for March.

I share the story above only as context for the letter below to my sweet, hilarious, healthy, happy three-year-olds regarding vulnerability. Because the only thing I know for sure is the things and people we love most make us vulnerable. And the path of being truly alive includes how to remain that way.

To my sweet little unfurling souls, Kalvin and Grace,

Vulnerability. The concept has always been a tricky one for your momma having been raised in a Midwestern family where emotive displays contrasted sharply with the stalwart moral value (dare I write) of keeping a stiff upper lip. Add to that years exhibiting steadfast calm behind the goaltending hockey mask regardless of thousands of people yelling insults, and to say I was less than comfortable with being vulnerable would be an understatement.

And so in adulthood, I tackled it from a cerebral point of view, defining vulnerability as having the ability to say, “I don’t know” and “I’m sorry” and “I feel x, y, z.”

Then you.

Actually, then Daddy and then you.

The three of you cracked me wide open, drastically changing my definition of vulnerability, because it’s like this: the people and things we love utterly and completely, and dream for and about from the deepest place within ourselves, and yearn and ache for such that our chests feel too small; they are what make us vulnerable. Disclosure warning. Your momma has suffered public and private humiliation, crushing heartbreak, the betrayal of close friends, violations of trust and love, pain, loss, rejection, devastating guilt, and deep, deep profound loneliness. All because I have loved. The pain exists; it is real. And it will be for you. The fact that there is nothing I can do to prevent your pain is at the heart of what I’m attempting to convey in this letter to you.

Because, my sweet little beings, I hope you love the world anyway. I hope you have the courage to fall in love with as many things as possible, over and over again.  I hope you always remember how to melt into the moments in front of you, as you do so naturally now; how to be present with the stars in a clear mountain sky, the spontaneous laughter of a great friend; the yearning regrets of a parent, the curiosity of a toddler touching snow for the first time, the dog who will not leave his injured owner’s side, the snow crystals than hover suspend in the air, as if we all lived and breathed amongst billions of tiny diamond fairies. I hope you feel it all.

I think Momma’s friend Lindsey is right, vulnerability and presence are inextricably linked.  And being present for the good stuff is much easier than remaining present for the hard. But to truly live, I believe you need to be open and vulnerable to both. In order to evolve, you need to learn to carry those contradictions gently in your hearts.

Someday you will ask me about what happened to you. You will ask about depravity and pain, and I hope I will be able to convey with empathy and compassion that yes, evil exists.  It lived and breathed in our home, it smiled and laughed at our dinner table. It tortured babies. It injured you.  And yes, knowing of evil is different than experiencing its existence, as you have.

But the same is true of love. And you know so much love. And I know so much love.  And our home is full of love. And so I hope you will have the fortitude to choose, despite human depravity, to see beauty and live in a way that is a tribute to overcoming the darkness.  I hope you will have the courage and the grit to know you can handle anything life throws at you.  I hope you will have the bravery and the resilience to stay open, vulnerable and porous (Lindsey’s word) such that even when you feel like a lonely drop in a vast ocean, you will remember you are not alone, for you are the ocean itself.

Because here’s the spoiler alert, even the people and things you love will break your heart. Wide open. Especially those. Sometimes they break it to let the light in. Sometimes they break it so your heart can heal stronger. Sometimes the things we love break our hearts so we know just how strong we are.  And sometimes, the heart just breaks.

But therein begins the challenge, path, and destination all in one. Can you continue to honor what your heart is feeling and the life you’ve been given, no matter what? Can you stay open anyway; can you live with what is?

Because more than anything that happens to you, how you react and the choices you make will determine the quality and course of your lives.  Your choices will define you, not the darkness, not the hard, not the evil, not what anyone else says or does.  Just you.  Life simply unfolds.  It’s going to do its thing. And we all have the choice to jump in, lean in, learn and grow. Or we can choose to shut down, resist, and close. We can be the victim. We can live in fear, afraid of what happened or what may happen. We can live in tight little boxes of routine and comfort, secure behind the walls of distractions, rigid belief systems, over-exercise, strange restricted eating habits, closets full of perfectly folded clothes, calendars full of social engagements we don’t really want to attend, DVRs full of whatever, and the myriad of other ways people hide and defend themselves against the world.  We can blame, justify, rationalize. We can fold.

Or we can live.  Laugh, dream, cry, play, break, weep, despair, love, fight, hate, dance, and do it all again. Stand up, fall down, get back up, be your own hero, forgive yourself.  Forgive yourself, my little Gracie girl and Buddha bear.  Honor the manifestation of creation that is unfolding right in front of you, whatever it may be, each and everyday, knowing you will be okay. You will be okay. You are already okay. So you don’t have to close. You don’t have to shut yourself off from life.  It may hurt at times, okay. Ouch. Huge ouch. But try not to close. Try to surrender and melt into the magic because that is where the good stuff is found. That is where you reside now, even within our busy and chaotic days that are changing at a dizzying pace, you live totally and completely, with effortless resilience and affection, open and aware in each moment, ready for each adventure.

And so I want to live there too, with you. Your Daddy already lives there. His innocence and vulnerability both terrify and inspire me, just like yours. I’m all too aware that my need to live with three of you in wonder and awe leaves me vulnerable. And that’s ok. Because we are alive, together.

I love you both, with all my everything, love, Momma

It is a huge honor to share Sarah‘s beautiful words with you today.  It has been a privilege to get to know Sarah, in person as well as online, and I count her among my dearest friends now.  I hope you loved her writing as much as I do.  You can learn more about Sarah on her Writer page, here.

Aidan has chosen vulnerability as this month’s Here Year theme, and I’m thrilled by that selection.  I hear that word a lot.  People ask why I’m so comfortable making my self vulnerable on this blog, and I also am quick to say that it’s people who are real and vulnerable themselves who most interest me.

But what does the word really mean? I fear that “vulnerability” has become a bit of a catchphrase, in the vein of “authentic,” and I want to really understand it.  I turned to Google and found one definition that I particularly liked: “the inability to withstand the effects of a hostile environment.”  It reminded me of years ago, when I learned about a syndrome called atopy: “a group of symptoms that demonstrate acute sensitivity to the world.  I am reactive to the air, to the very stuff of everyday life.  Just living in the world is a stress on my system.  This seems like a physical manifestation of my emotional porousness.”

So, yes.  I am familiar with vulnerability.  When I talk about being porous to the world, maybe I am simply describing vulnerability.  But it’s not quite that simple.  People ask me all the time whether writing this blog makes me feel vulnerable.  I’m not sure I know how to answer that, to be honest.  In some ways, yes.  Clearly I write about personal topics and share the prickly, complicated contents of my heart and spirit.  But in other ways, no.  And candidly, part of the reason I’ve backed away from writing a book-length memoir is my unwillingness to share certain aspects of my life.  I’m comfortable being vulnerable when it comes to my own issues, wrinkles, and flaws.  No question.  But when it comes to being open about others in ways that make them vulnerable, I balk.  This is true with my husband and children in particular, and I realized that with a book-length memoir the expectation for disclosure was much higher and more universal than it is on my blog.

So here I am, happily sharing things that are true and honest, trying to be candid about the good and the bad.  One of my favorite posts I’ve ever written, It’s Not All Shiny, dealt with this particular question, that of the gulf between reality and perception.  I share photos on Instagram with the hashtag #everydaylife in part to try to show the good and bad and messy and beautiful.  It’s true that one of my most fundamental goals in life is to see the glory and the holiness even in the most mundane moments.  I wrestle with this, because I doubt myself and think: does that mean I’m glossing over the ugliness?  But I don’t think so, ultimately.

Maybe the practice of showing what is and trying to see the beauty in it is the essence of vulnerability.  Do you think so?

For me, vulnerability is wound around being present to, and in, my daily experience.  I can’t really engage with my life – with the dark hole at the center of it, with its joys and pains – without letting down my guard.  The practice of showing up here day after day for years on end has forced me to confront both the beautiful and the difficult aspects of this life of mine.  That has made me vulnerable.  To myself, to those close to me, to anyone reading.  I’m still understanding the precise contours of the relationship between vulnerability and presence, but I know they’re strongly related to each other.

I’m looking forward to thinking about and writing about vulnerability this month (I also have a great guest post planned!) and am eager to hear your thoughts on the topic.