I am currently sitting outside, in New York City, in 28 degree weather. I am feeling particularly desperate to belong today. I know for a lot of people, the pandemic brought up feelings of isolation and loneliness—a great, sweeping stagnation of connection that even the gift of technology could not permeate. It is one thing to hear someone’s voice, another to hold their hand or look directly into their eyes face to face.
The space has brought up a lot of different things for
people. Old wounds resurfacing, experiences with mental illness, dreams
deferred, grief, loss…the list goes on. We are vulnerable and scared, mostly.
And with that insecurity comes a wild abandonment of the
present. I do not want to be here anymore. And here could be anywhere.
It could be a state of mind, a feeling, a situation…we are craving movement in
its purest form.
For me, there is something about the stillness that has
enveloped me that is maddening. Part of this is because I am child of crisis,
and there has been few moments in my life that have not been marked by the
steady stream of chaos. My habitual body wants to press up against something,
anything—and in its absence I have come undone. I feel like I am in an
emotional straightjacket, trapped by nothing but yearning for everything,
unable to break free of the monotony that is current living.
I think what troubles me most is that I don’t even know what
I’m looking for. I think at my core, I am yearning for relationship, for
belonging. I want so badly to belong, and NYC offers this readily, when its
heart is beating to the normal rhythm of the streets past. You find it on the train
in a smile, or in a secret joke shared in glances at something only two of you
have noticed in this preposterous city. But in the pandemic, all is still. All
is quiet. And the beloved community that once was a standard becomes a drag,
because somehow with all the stillness we are still too tired to fight to
connect.
And even if you are are fighting to connect, it can
feel like a chore. We don’t want to do one more zoom meeting, one more
facetime, one more phone call on what seems like the longest long distance call
in history. We feel helpless, or at least I do.
I want so badly to belong.
I keep asking myself what I’m missing, and frankly, I’m not
sure. I feel like a puzzle piece is hiding, like I’m trying to solve a problem
without all the necessary parts. It all feels foggy and out of focus, and all I
am left with in this space is…myself.
And it’s not like I haven’t been here before. I know what it
feels like to sit alone in the chambers of my lonely soul, I know what I means
to fight through loneliness in order to bring myself home.
This aloneness almost feels more like a slow suffocation,
like I’m going to sleep but don’t want to. And over and over I am reminded that
the only way out is through, the only way forward is to relax into the process.
But what do you do when relaxing feelings like giving up, when helplessness feels
like hopelessness and when you fear that if you stop moving, you might never
get back up again?
And yet, this is where we are. There is no way out but in,
no way forward but through. We go back to the basics. We value the moments. We
remember what it’s like to breathe in and out, to feel our own hearts beating,
to recognize the miracle that is simplicity, that is our very cells being born.
We learn to be here now. We learn to hold hands with the
present while always longing for a different future, we trust that the process
within is not over yet. We hope for better days while also acknowledging the
preciousness of this very moment.
And we learn to wait well. We embrace the frustration, keep
leaning into the seat of the soul, keep pressing our ears against the earth to
remember the ways in which we are all connected. We remember that our suffering
is not ours alone to carry nor is it unique to our own broken bodies. And in
the same breath we remember that neither is our healing—there is light, and
love, and connection in the air that surrounds us, if only we close our eyes to
feel it.
You see, the thing about wanting to belong is a paradox, because truly, we already belong. Belonging, it turns out, is a state of mind rather than a
state of being—it is a path that moves backwards and down instead of forwards
and up.
It is a journey of remembering.
So today, as I sit at this café in the coldness of January,
I will pause to feel the sun on my face and hear the beauty of connection. I
will remember that right here, right now, all is available to me. I will find
peace in the present, and in this way, I will find my way back to the belonging
that has always been there, the belonging that whispers—
All is well. Come home.
