Fighting for Color

I feel the need to write about this place. To say it has been formative would be a grievous understatement. Yet, I also recognize that attempting to convey the density of the past two years is not a task for words. Words may be the best we have, and even as they are- incomplete in the wake of human experience.

 I feel exponentially richer having known these people and this place. To call it luck would be trite. If this has a name, I do not know it. 

My heart is full of thankfulness for all I have learned while watching these beautiful people love and wrestle with their worlds. Leaving them- leaving this place…means leaving the richest existence I have ever known. 

 My self hurts- but I’ve known a lot of hurts and this kind…this is the one that reminds you that pain is only as great as what is being grieved- to ever have things so beautiful that their loss results in a hurting self- that’s a gift I am quite aware some people never receive. 

 But because nothing in life is static, this love and richness is not tethered exclusively to a place, or people. I feel it in my bones.

Yesterday was my little sister’s birthday. She would be 16. 

Her name was Alli- spelled with an ‘i’ at the end, just like my name, as I insisted.

I’ve spent most of my life choosing not to remember. Or maybe I only abandoned the particular intentionality of remembrance. Replaced by tears wiped quickly away, and a heart allowed to ache- but only for a moment. 

Where, when, how was it that I began to embrace the illusory notion that failure to forget is weakness? 

I don’t know why I feel compelled to remember you, 16 years later, when myth has all but overcome my memory of your brief, beautiful life. 

Well, perhaps I do. I found a letter a few months ago. A letter I wrote you at 8 years old, after finding out you weren’t coming home from the hospital. 

Sometimes, I wonder about the etiology of human consciousness. I cannot recall who I was in years prior- how I perceived the world and what I valued. I have an unsettling sense that my consciousness has somehow transformed beyond recognition. But the letter I wrote at 8 years old is the same I’d write you now- aside from two misspellings, which are forgivable, given my age.

Anyway, reading the letter, I’m struck by how much my eight-year-old self loved you, the sister I never really knew. How, even then, I was so at peace with the inevitability of life and death, of all that transpired in and beyond this world. Content with what I knew could never be. 

In my letter, I lament not being able to play with you when you grow up or swing you on the swing. Reading those words now, the awe-inspiring nature of human existence leveled me. My soul wept for the years I refused to remember you, and to use that history, however mythical, to inspire full living and loving.

I think of the fullness, pre-empted, in the lives of those I love. About all of us… flailing, trying to survive. Momentarily, I envy your ability to transcend this portion of the human experience. Though, it is possible you experienced this all in some microcosmic way while machines and tubes fought to keep you alive. 

But, yes, really- what is the point of remembering? Why is it discouraged? As if we could, by pretending, make historical context irrelevant. Nietzsche proposes one of the more interesting theories on this- asserting that the plastic force of humanity is determined by our unique ability to remember and forget. The ‘historical’ and ‘unhistorical’ are equally important if one is to use history for life.

It’s an art- this being alive thing. 

But why not remember? Why not harness the power yielded by history? Such a process is tedious and painful, evoking a natural sense of aversion in the human spirit. 

Yet, history will not be made weaker in its influence by refusing to acknowledge it. And we’re still left to answer what it means to use history in a way that yields life. 

Do I need a reason to remember you? Must I rationalize and derive meaning from this compellation to remember? The longing in the core of my being speaks louder than reason. It is enough- worth preserving in its most unknowable form. 

In this episode of On Being, Krista Tippett interviews B.J. Miller on how human beings relate to things both beyond and within our control. In their conversation, they explore proportionality, relativism, and composition as thematic elements that can shape the way we understand ourselves in relation to the world we inhabit. But, really, that’s a gross oversimplification, so listen for yourselves. 

Some of the points from Miller that I found most compelling: 

“We can step back and discuss it, and I love when people do, but otherwise you just accept on face, “disability,” that you are less, that it’s something pathological happening. But compared to what? …So this relativism of language and the idea of words as signposts, as imperfect reproductions of the reality they’re trying to point to, I just want that to be acknowledged whenever I’m in a serious conversation, that words are the best we have, but they’re so flawed.”

“Hope is very potent thing. But….I’m trained now to ask, to inquire, “Hope for what?” And that, too, is a relative phenomenon that needs to be contextualized, and is much more fluid and malleable than we in healthcare often give it credit for, or we humans give it credit it for. 

It seems to be like a monolith. Either you have hope, or you don’t. The truth is, we can change what we hope for.” 

“From education as the leading cause, the public character its color draws.” - William Cowper 

How might me weave together formal and informal education in such a way that yields vibrancy (diversity, inclusiveness, innovation) in public character? Much energy is spent contriving and revising structures of formal education, for good and productive measure, of course...

A little over a year ago, I met Whitney Mitchell. 

Since then, I've met a hundred ‘good’ walls in New Orleans. And I'll continue meeting them in every place I visit. 

It's remarkable, really, that a person can allow you to see something new in an old place, that life can be encountered in a space that has lain dormant for years, and that such life is fluid- evolving and wandering, even as you do. 

The world will always be visible; mutable. People, perceptions, and carefully crafted webs of significance- these are what lend meaning to the spaces we inhabit- making walls ‘good’, air ‘sweet’, and moments ‘rich’. 

Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. 

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. 

That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the “rat race” — the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.”

I wrote the post “One of Life’s Gifts” to a friend 8,435 miles away (or, 11 hours and 45 minutes in real time). She responds:

It's so trippy to be on a bus in Nepal surrounded by strangers and foreign language and smells, but to be reading your thoughts and feeling so close to you and knowing that I love you in the way you describe and that it's reciprocated! 

So weird and beautiful to be living such different lives in different places right now, but still humanity is the same and our longings are the same, even from opposite sides of the world. 

I really relate to what you describe (as always. which is why I can't wait for your first philosophical musings compilation to be published). I especially like your point that by giving love unconditionally, you awaken a fullness of life in another person that wouldn't be there (or would be less vivid) apart from your contribution. That's such a beautiful way to look at it, and is totally true. 

Like in every interaction, there's an opportunity to give a deeper richness to someone's life by considering them above yourself without expecting it in return. And over time this wears off on a soul, just like heartache or abuse or destructive actions. Actions of love wear on a soul too, and soften you. 

We both are seeing how heartache and pain can be equally beneficial in shaping us and in experiencing a full life, but I think some people who have primarily experienced destructive actions or self-centered versions of love in their closest relationships have been worn down and become numb. And that's our default mode, I think, to interact with selfish intent. 

So it's no wonder we grow up and become hardened and live with less energy and ability to engage fully in each joy or sadness of our own, much less dare to care equally about the joys and sadness of others.

I realized (remembered...felt), in a burst of joy, that it is a great privilege to love. That the opportunity to care for someone, regardless of reciprocity, is a gift 

And that love is not wandering why or how the person to whom you give affection will return that care and love, or even if they will. That’s insecurity. That’s seeking fulfillment in a place from which I will always return void, broken, and drained. 

Of course, in an ideal world, love is reciprocated. But I’m realizing that the ability to love and to care in deep, meaningful ways is something not every being is capable of; something not every being has experienced; and that I am among the lucky few who have known such love abundantly throughout my life.

 And so, it is a gift I gladly and willingly give to those beings who float into and out of my world. 

 It’s a privilege, indeed, to know someone, to know even a small part of them. It’s a gift to learn how to care to for and show love to a person in a new way, a way that you’ve never before known. 

 These things, among others, open up new parts of ourselves- expanding our humanity. Allowing us to be full, beautiful, bright. 

 Admittedly, I’ve spent entirely too much time evaluating what I am and am not receiving from someone or something. I feel a void, a negative emotion, and I rush to fill it with reason or rationalization. I rush to solve the problem of an uncomfortable feeling; rather than bear it, sit in it, acknowledge the moment for what it is- making it no more and no less than any other necessary, frequent, albeit slightly undesirable, facet of life. 

 And, oh, my heart is so full. Life is so full- I am dancing, today, amongst the screaming colors. 

I must remember that I live, and love, and give- not to receive, for I already have life- but so that those I love can dance among their own screaming colors. So that those I love know the fullness that comes from selfless giving, love and compassion. I forget, so quickly, that this is not a gift universally given and received. 

 Maybe they cannot or will not return such a love to me- but they will to someone else, because it was made known to them. And they will know life more vividly because love was shown unto them. 

 That’s the point. It has never been what you can get, but what you can give- generously, compassionately, without an ounce of resentment in any fragment of your bones…this is how you must love. Other things, for me at least, are not love at all. 

 It’s much like prayer- I don’t do it as an action with a prescribed end. I do it as a way to connect with God/ I do it to find new awareness and humility. To find my center, both within and outside of myself. I pray to connect my inner most being with something broader, greater, higher, and more expansive than a single soul. 

Thank you for reminding me of life’s fullness and my own fullness.

For encouraging me to claim all that is good when it I feel all is lost.

I want you to know…. It matters to tell someone truths, particularly those they do not care to hear or are not willing to hear. 

It matters to tell someone what they’re worth.

It matters to tell someone this: That surrender, asking for help, acknowledging that they are moved by life- to highs and lows and every space in between….none of this is weakness or failure, it is a great mark of strength – it is how they will claim the fullest life accessible to them.

It matters to tell someone that you love them. 

And because you love them, it hurts to see them living as a muted version of themselves  

That because you love them, you want for them beauty, goodness, peace, and life.

And that sometimes, people need help finding these things.

It matters to tell them to get help. To talk to someone. To acknowledge their pain and their weakness. And in so doing, their humanity.

It matters to keep telling them this. Even when they ignore you. And say they’re fine. Or that they will be…eventually.

Just because you can fight your way to some semblance of stability and happiness, doesn’t mean taking another route- a more direct route to a more desirable end- is cheating. It’s not. We all must use the resources available to create a life that meets our needs, yielding beauty and goodness and fulfillment and whatever else we value.

It makes a difference to say these things

Even to a face of disdain or apathy 

Even to a voice that is distant and hallow

Because when you think this is the last time you’ll try-Could be the time that finally breaks through the static.

I promise you it matters

It mattered- Even when I told you no. It mattered- Even when I told you I would be ok. 

I listened, always. 

And each word of love and encouragement built upon the ones uttered before it- So that in the moments of complete darkness, I heard them all as a beautiful symphony. And when I reached for a way out, I had something to hold onto.

Thank you- You’ve saved my life a hundred times over.

I know how insignificant and trivial life can feel. How exhausting and painful it can be to love someone, and watch them wallow, or wrestle; crumble, or fall. How shocking it is when you realize they’re drowning in an ocean you can’t swim in. That all you efforts, however well intentioned and heartfelt, cannot save them.