Help
Sand cradles the pads of my feet. A gentle breeze, I’m reminded, changes everything. This small white bird wades and then lifts off, breast and beak the shape of grace, glides low. In the diamonds of afternoon light, it’s a creature made of surf, returned to surf.
Then, too, behind the wheel of a borrowed blue Volvo, I’ve slid along streets I once knew by heart, rounded corners I hadn’t expected to see again so soon. I’ve thrown my arms around bodies my heart has missed.
You know that surreal state of returning? Or how, in a dream, you visit some long-lost place and, pillow soft against cheek, light soft against window, you can’t be sure whether you’re there or here? Whether there’s really even a difference? Your body, hurried, hurled itself straight through the between, where the rest of you lingers, more willing to risk uncertainty for the lessons of liminality. Or is it the other way around?
I have, in times of need, had visceral reactions to offers of help.
Over the last almost two years of my new autoimmune illness, the trickster part of all there is (which may be all there is or may not be at all) stepped in: “Oh you don’t want to need anyone? Try only being able to shuffle.” Chortle. “Try pain so enduring you become an open-mawed wail.” Wink. “Try returning to what you’re made of, foam and tide.” Nuzzle.
And still, still, I’ve felt it rise from the cave of my belly—the animal that is “no, no, no.”
“Let me pay for fill-in-the-blank.” “Let me give you x, help you with y, offer you open arms.”
“No,” the creature snaps, trembling, scouring for exits.
“No.” Shame rises from its hide.
“No.” Collapsing to earth, it sputters.
When, last week, a dear friend was rushed into emergency eye surgery, for a second time in mere months, and when I realized she’d be largely on her own for a recovery protocol of lying face-down for 45 minutes of every waking hour, in pain, I knew immediately I’d go south—toward a sea I once immersed myself in again and again.
But first, I tortured myself for a day: Drive or fly?
My mind, hawk, circled. Didn’t I, nomad, buy a new “more luxurious” home on wheels for just this? Swoop. Didn’t I, fool, buy an as yet not fully inhabitable home? Dive. Circle. Swoop. Dive. Circle.
And then, awww, a current, one often returned to: Rigidity comes in all shapes—even the shape of a home that rolls, even the shape of a saffron-lit window deep off a forest trail. I nomad to be where I want, where I’m needed, not to do it in a specific way.
You know, don’t you, that I’m also deeply grateful—me, cup, poured to overflowing.
“Let me pay for fill-in-the-blank.” “Let me give you x, help you with y, offer you open arms.”
“Yes,” the disconnected part of me purrs, glancing up in surprise.
“Yes.” Worthiness integrates.
Collapsing to earth, I let go a little tightness. “Thank you.”
I’ve always loved flying, me, an ancient, in abject awe. Me, child, watching one scarlet scarf turn into scarlet attached to saffron attached to sapphire and then a rainbow chain of scarves snaking from a clown’s open mouth. My body, coyote pup at dusk on a full moon night: All of this, you say, is mine?
Late last week, I swapped my aisle seat with a trio from France and settled in at a window. As thrust overcame drag, we split clouds! We rose, us to land, swallowed, land to us, swallowed. We passed the between, skimming the sea of the sky. And I sighed.
From a sink with a window overlooking a pool overlooking a cliff above that ocean of my past, I’ve washed dishes, prepped meals, shared stifled laughter (lest guffaws undo the surgeon’s work) and anxious worry, we two, cups, emptying and filling, again and again.
One night, three tiny clouds, lined up in a row, navied by sun slipping, coy, behind cliffs. For a long moment, my eyes saw birds, paused midflight.
Oh, my mind chuckled, savoring the space between gull and mist.
I’ve been, too, a faulty giver, me, balloon, emptying. What if I erase myself? How far do I need to disappear into your needs to be filled with worthiness?
Not this time. Me, no longer, pin.
I have seen a palm-sized lizard pause on a red brick patio and display power, body raising up and down, up and down, before scurrying into sunlight. I’ve met a leopard lizard named Moose, watched him lounge in his big glass home in the bedroom of a beaming 7-year old. I’ve breathed in the soft sweetness of flowers the color of table grapes, felt salty spray on my cheeks, marveled over hibiscus like sunrise and passion packaged. I’ve woken in three beds, each lousy with welcome. I’ve let the song of loved voices tickle my ear, ice cream and berries melt on my tongue, and abundance fill my breast and belly with grace.
Baudelaire said “Be Drunk.” I say be generous. Or be drunk on generosity—your own and others’.
Walk that surfline. Watch that small white bird lift into foam. And tell me abundance isn’t ever flowing, lapping its silvery, velvety tongue over the sandy shore of us, giving wing to mist and drops of navy cloud in sunset, turquoise and gleaming and vast. Be still in hurtling motion inside a 200-ton mechanical bird, flying just so, so upward force of lift matches downward force of gravity, so forward thrust meets backward drag. And tell me magic isn’t in this world. Share what “bends you to earth” and fill how it also lifts you. And tell me that magic isn’t in us.
Yes, take in wine or virtue or poetry. And then open your arms like wings. Lead with your breast and beak disappearing into foam.
Thank you for being here. Connecting with you here is like leading with breast and beak and belly fully, like lifting off, like returning to foam and tide. It’s like figuring how to be abundance. Your likes and shares and restacks (I do a little happy dance when you hit that little recycle button!) make me giddy.
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Talking to my sister, reminiscing with childhood and teenage stories. My “…surreal state of returning…” only plays out in dreams of loved ones and places where memories lie dormant until they are awakened under the stars, under closed eyelids and cozy blankets .Yes, “lessons of liminality”. Both my parents needed me, is there anything more gratifying and pure than the feeling of being needed? And like you, Holly, when the Phoenix was in a perpetual burn, boy oh boy did I need help, regardless of wanting it.
Appreciation becomes the end all , doesn’t it?
Give without thought, without consequence, because being able to give, far surpasses any of my needs. Well, let me rephrase that, needing to be able to give, goes hand in hand . I believe I have found the answer to one of life’s confounding questions, sometimes people pass from this life simply because they no longer feel needed. Curious, after I finished reading your stunning thoughts, I went back and stared into your “…hibiscus like sunrise…”. This time, not so surprised with what I saw, right in the very center, gorgeous pedals open like cupped hands, the giver, the receiver, the need. In other words, I read yours, and I guess I am thinking something very similar, in other words.
Love this -- the line from Romeo and Juliet played along: 'My bounty is as boundless as the sea, My love as deep; the more I give to thee,The more I have, for both are infinite.'
Giving -- always easier than receiving. I've begun to think that radical generosity is also the humility to ask and receive. -- years in the learning.
Roses -- but the list could go on and on.
Ice cream not so much but blackcurrent sorbet -- really sharp :)
And returning -- I find revisiting the place I spent my first 18 years so strange and hard -- two of my (now adult) children did their MAs there in the same year. My daughter's final show (she did Fine Art textiles and photography) was in a building not repurpsed by the university that had once been the hospital where I was born. 25 years on, I've never managed to go back inside the church in the UK Midlands where I was assaulted 3 times. And have not in the last 5 years revisited the tiny village at the foot of mountains in North Wales where I lived for 20 years -- wonderful place, wonderful neighbours -- and the move was right, but I still also miss it too much to be ready to go back -- one day.