landing

This day sucked me dry and even so there has been the slightest glimmer of a notion that I may want to string some words together in this space for the first time in actual months, and so here I am. It has not been easy. I know I do not need to be telling you that and I am mostly positive that anyone on the receiving end of anything I put down is mostly in the same boat. Either it is internet trending right now or simply just so solidly on my radar that I am catching snippets at most every turn regarding a new and more equitably distributed definition of burnout. As in, everyone is experiencing it. And if I am understanding this expanded definition clearly it is meant to encapsulate the feeling of numbness associated with an absence of inspiration, a lack of motivation, and a near laughable dissociation with anything remotely resembling joei de vivre. That sounds about right. I had been trying to convey to my friends and family and myself for the past several months that I really feel quite like what I imagine a flat line to feel like. That is: nothing.

And so, it has been hard to write. Or I have avoided it. Not because there haven’t been words, but rather because the meaning of those words breaks my heart if I am in a space where I can manage in any way to have feelings. Sometimes I do. Have feelings that I can feel that is.

But now, that I am maybe beginning to see some glimmer of light, moving in slow, near impossible to perceive glimmers of waves just above the horizon of that flat line, maybe now it is safe to say a thing or two. Now that the darkness is not quite so absolute for the moment. However, I do not want to talk about how it has been. No, not that. That is too thick and familiar to so many of us that my own telling of the suffering that is life in the here and now (even a very charmed and privileged version) is too much the 2020s cliche. I will not. I abstain from that trope for now.

Instead, I am interested in any of the little bits of life that might be catching any authentic interest from myself right now. What are they? Where do they live in me? How can I best be of service to them without smothering them with the desperation of my desire to experience anything remotely resembling hope or purpose or, good lord maybe even passion? I gotta go lightly here as it were, cuz I know the parameters of my hidey-hole real well and it fits me just right. And it wants to for forever as far as I can tell.

I have been experimenting a little bit with differing combinations of THC and CBD, in edibles or oil. (not to worry, I still fucking hate smoking weed and being stoned is maybe one of the worst states that I can possibly conceive of for myself- none of that has changed.) But I am finding that I can lighten just enough of my mental burden and sometimes even most of my anxiety with just a few mgs of the two in tandem. I am getting some relief where before I really was not. I was nearly surrendered to the unending and uninspired monotony of my existence. Even when I knew (I know!) full well that I have more than my share to be beyond grateful for and inspired by. For real. It has just been concealed for longer than I am accustomed to and the muscles I had once used to rescue myself from my own shadow apparently atrophied in the three years since my big life transition that was swallowed by a global pandemic turned endemic. Which, as far as I can tell, simply means the new and forever truth of being in which we cannot unsee or unlearn the glaring inequity and misogyny and racism and classism upon whose backs all of our structures have been built. Anyway.

Something else that I have been doing since our return from Costa Rica which is by no means experimentation and is by every measure a homecoming is to leave my house twice a week to take place in a weight-lifting and metabolic conditioning class two towns over. It is every bit as fabulous as I knew it would be. A sweet and particular blend of unapologetic radical movement into and of myself. It is love by any measure. Plus, there is something about that sort of gym camaraderie that I have always found so wonderful and satisfying. Like everyone is there including your mom and your granddad and your kid and we are all just gonna try hard shit and see how it goes today. I love that. It satisfies something in me that is unmet by other means. And there is real medicine in my leaving my house all by myself to be in service only to me for a stretch of minutes that is fundamentally essential and too long absent in my weekly rhythms. I am reclaiming some shit now.

I am also considering the things that I obsess over regarding my kids and their wellbeing and education as something that is not outside the “value” of my attention and my efforts. I think that I may be steering in the direction of some additional work that doesn’t have a paycheck associated with it and understanding the value and worth of that in my life and in the world. In specific, I am working on getting Eider enrolled in “yurt school”, a local place-based small private pk-8 start-up school. They need to jump through some paperwork and approval hoops in order to be able to accept the tuition vouchers from the school districts that do not offer past certain grades (such as ours). This seems like an absolute no-brainer top of the list priority in my book, especially in an area without many alternative options at the middle and high school levels, especially if you want to expand into high school, and especially in an area and at an age when homeschool kids begin to dwindle and settle for whatever schooling options are local (and free) to them. Unless of course if the admin is completely oblivious to this and has no difficulty in remaining the area’s local “rich kid school”. Ahem. I mean, up to them I guess. But I am not going down without a fight on this one. I can fill out paperwork and pester school boards just as well as the next person, so this might be the mountain I die on. At least this year.

The other bee in my bonnet this spring has to do with Maple’s high school and services that the kids are needing there that very well may be mine to give. A couple of weeks ago I taught a little yoga to the Peoples Academy/Stowe High School track and field team. It was just how you thought it would be: some kids interested, some kids not, and a whole lot of variation in between. But it occurred to me while we were out there stretching and breathing under a hot Tuesday sun, that everyone needs someone to help them find their way back to embodied presence and offer up some compassion and empathy for the shit show that is being alive right now. Especially young people. It hasn’t been easy for any kid, as I am reminded every day by my own, who at the very least have support structures in place to access and accommodate to their needs day to day. That seems like the bare minimum to me, and yet… So, I am going to make an attempt at the very least. I am pitching a 1-2x week Yoga and Mindfulness class for the high schoolers to pop into during what they call “flex”. I think that means free time or choice time or something like that. We will see how it goes. Most likely it will be a project that starts up in the fall. But it feels right and it feels like some of the best use of me at this moment in my life.

Both of these efforts do honestly. Like this chapter is not so much about letting my kids go into the arms of their next educator so much as collaborating on how best to fill in the obvious gaps and absences that exist in the structures. I think I have some work to do here and it is both surprising and exciting. I have never been able to take a passive stance around my kids’ education or the culture of their childhoods, and this work feels demonstrative of that at a different level. I may not want to be a primary educator of a middle or high schooler the way that I still do for a younger kid, but I definitely want to help build and support the systems in conscious and meaningful ways. And what I am learning is that that desire to help is not just for my own kids, but for all kids, and at this older- oft-forgotten age- in particular.

All right. That is that for now. Keep on keeping on my dears. As you are able. Or take a nap and know that that is good too. loves.