There are not many people in the world who don't interest me. I can find a story around any corner, and life becomes more and more beautiful the more I listen. It's so easy to miss the mystical in the mess of the mundane, so easy to trade the everyday magic around us for perfection and plastic smiles. I find that these days, the more I fight for success the more I lose it, and the harder I rage against powerlessness, the more helpless I become.
So I learning to listen and live.
And I am astounded by the difference.
Recently I went on a trip to Miami and all I wanted to do, all I told anyone I was going to do, was lay on the beach in the sun and read. From morning to night, I did not want to move. I wanted to be so still that people would mistake me for a freaking sitting Buddha. This, I declared, would solve my burnout. This would fix my weary soul, this stillness.
Wouldn't you know that for the two days I was in Miami there was a wind advisory so strong that we literally could not even stand near the beach without wincing in pain? That the weather was so incredibly chaotic that the sand itself became mother nature's own personal weapon against humanity? In the words of every teenage girl in America, I simply could not.
I wanted to be still and instead I spent my vacation in a wind tunnel where everything was constantly moving. Where all my intricately designed plans were literally blown to pieces, right before my very sad, very tired eyes.
And yet, what was there to do? I could flail against it or let it fill my sails--the choice was mine alone.
Turns out when you go to a beach town and you can't go to the beach, the only other options are eating and making friends with strangers, which happen to be two things I'm very good at. I encountered so many, fully alive, enthralling people.
I got to listen to the ramblings of a woman in the airport, who was convinced that her flight was cursed or blessed--she really couldn't quite put her finger on it. After arriving at the airport three minutes past check-in, she was placed in row 33, and our flight was slighted to leave at 8:43. She quickly called her sister to fill her in, superstitious and wide-eyed and slightly panicky. "Should I get on the flight?" She pondered this question up until she set foot on that platform, and her circular worrying followed her all the way on to the plane and that fateful seat of threes.
In the terminal I also got to see a group of young college girls, giggly and excited and annoying in the way only a group of recently graduated adolescents can be, as they ventured on their first collegiate spring break. I also got to see the less giggly but equally excited posse of college bros, slyly checking out their counterparts and carefully calculating their chances. They watched each other from across the room, the tension mounting until finally one of them had the courage to just walk up and start a conversation. In teen mating rituals, this was an act of pure courage, especially in the public arena of a major airport with all parties watching. But initiate they did, and what fun it was to witness and remember the simple joy of talking to your crush for the first time.
Then there was our barista at our hotel, a skinny little thing not a day over 25, with a handlebar mustache to boot. Always smiling, always greeting you with a warm hello and a hot cup of coffee. Whenever you thanked him for anything, no matter how small it was, he replied sincerely and with great earnest, "you're very welcome", as though your simple gratitude was a gift and he was the happy recipient. He taught me the power of appreciation, of the contentedness you can experience by merely delighting in the satisfaction of others. He wanted nothing more than to see us well cared for, and that in itself was enough for him.
Next was the uber driver who also moonlighted as a champion for the elderly. In our pool ride he picked up an old woman so kind and so naively sweet that you couldn't help but love her. She recounted to our patient chauffeur the woes of ever changing technology, and stated that she once loved her uber driver so much that she braved navigating the uber app for the sake of giving him a good rating. However, she somehow mistakenly gave a one star rating, and was so incredibly committed to righting this grievance that she spent hours on the phone trying to contact the company to change it. Our present driver remained respectfully reflective during this story, until this concerned, thoughtful abuela lifted her hands in exasperation and said "he was just so nice!" to which our driver responded emphatically, "well NOW he's probably driving around Miami looking to RUN YOU DOWN!" To which none of us knew how to react but to collapse in a fit of laughter.
Finally, there was another uber pool with a mom and daughter, come to Miami together to celebrate the passing of midterms and a well-deserved break. I wouldn't have guessed they were related in this way, as they were both happily chatty and high-spirited, likely by way of Jack Daniels. Not surprisingly, they were from New York, with the daughter studying at a prestigious college in Pennsylvania--who also made it very clear that she was not in Florida for your typical spring break. Every time the daughter spoke the mom would finish her sentences, and vice versa, both increasingly excited to share the high-brow adventures they had embarked on since landing in Miami--all museums and fancy bars and historic hotels. They insisted that we visit this one restaurant because it was "to die for", and quickly pulled up pictures on their phones to reinforce their opinion. We dropped them off and promised to go, and then promptly returned to our own hotel to eat ice cream in bed and watch a TV movie. At 7:30 PM.
You see, I had this grand idea that I would rest and remain in solitude this trip, that I would be still and listen to my heart and all that crap. And you know, I even had this idea in mind of how I would do this. I had found a letter I had written, almost a year ago, when packing for this trip. This letter contained some of my most painful feelings, some of the hardest parts of my life to let go. I had decided I was going to bring this letter to the beach, that I was going to make a big dramatic ceremony of it--that I was going to rip it into pieces and let the sea carry it away. But here's what happened instead:
I got to Fort Lauderdale, where we landed and were going to take a cab to the much more glamorous Miami. I went to the bathroom. I placed my book on the counter, which also contained the letter.
And I left.
I forgot it.
I abandoned it in the bathroom of Fort Lauderdale.
And I was so sad. I hadn't even read this letter fully, waiting to digest it and process is and leave it on the serene beaches of Miami. I was going to prepare myself, slowly cleanse myself of everything that had been dragging me down for so long.
And I left it in THE DAMN BATHROOM OF FORT LAUDERDALE.
This was not how it was supposed to go.
Nothing goes how it's supposed to go.
And well, if there was ever a tagline for my life, that would certainly be it. I fight, and I wrestle, and I try so hard to grow and challenge and change myself, day after day.
And it. is. exhausting.
I'm exhausted.
And I thought that I could just manage my rest and rehabilitation the same way, that I could "do it" right, that I could control it in a way.
But healing, oh healing is not controllable.
Healing is wild and slow and unpredictable, it takes time and unexpected resources.
It never comes the way we think it will.
So this trip, I learned to listen.
I learned to not spend money on what is not bread, and my labor on what does not satisfy.
I learned to listen, to eat what is good, and to delight in the richest of fare.
I learned to listen and live.
I let my healing come in the wind, changing as ever, chaotic and constantly moving and at times threatening to knock me down. I let its powerful whisper call me and overwhelm me and tumble me about, because it was only the wind that could fill my sails and gently push me forward.
I had to listen to find what was good, I had to stop pushing and pressing and fighting to let myself settle into what made me whole.
And most of all, I had to connect.
With those around me, with nature, with myself.
What gifts I received in return, what simple beauty found in the stories of everyday people.
I never want to miss out on listening again.
I don't want to miss out on living, for the sake of fixing myself, when the answer is so often the same:
We will never know the answers if we don't listen.
And we will never listen unless we learn to let go of what we wish to hear.
So let go.
Listen,
and live.
I had to listen to find what was good, I had to stop pushing and pressing and fighting to let myself settle into what made me whole.
And most of all, I had to connect.
With those around me, with nature, with myself.
What gifts I received in return, what simple beauty found in the stories of everyday people.
I never want to miss out on listening again.
I don't want to miss out on living, for the sake of fixing myself, when the answer is so often the same:
We will never know the answers if we don't listen.
And we will never listen unless we learn to let go of what we wish to hear.
So let go.
Listen,
and live.
No comments:
Post a Comment