This is not going to be a post about the weather. It’s raining currently (for the past two days and a couple more to come). There’s been hail, or rather something called thundergraupel, which is some bizarre combo of Zeus-y sky rumblings and pelt-y ice offerings. Here’s a clip. But like I said, this writing isn’t about the weather. Not specifically anyway. It’s more about what I’ve noticed comes up when the ground is wet. First, literally: worms seem to surface. I was just out back in our patio area, which is now kind of like a tiny stream, and Desi&Lucille, who are sporting tiny swim caps and exploring, were toying with something-or-other in a way that they only do when a thing is alive. Crouching down, I saw a couple of wiggly worms who(?/that? sentient beings?) had been washed up on the pavement. I returned them to the small patch of what used to be dirt and now is legit mud in the corner where things grow. But like I said, I’m not giving column inches to Mother Nature specifically: tho much respect to her. It’s the stuff rising to the surface during emotive life saturation I’m more interested in.

In a literal sense, I have this way I arrange the books on my night table in order of how (I think) I’m going to read them. It gives me some sense of control as if I have all these stories to look forward to and I’ve arranged them in a way to take me on a specific adventure one after the other. Here’s why this arranging never works (altho I always have hope that THIS time, maybe): There are always new books being added to the pile, which as you can see from the photo above, is really incredibly tall at the moment. This is actually the largest the pile has been and I’m pretty sure I need to stop adding to it or someone might get injured. Yet, when I’m honest with myself, I know I won’t stop jenga-building the thing. For instance, a woman in my writing group just had her debut novel published in the U.K. (and in the U.S. March 7). Weyward by Emilia Hart. There’s been much buzz&chatter around it and for goooodddd reason! I remember reading some of the early writings from this novel back in 2020 when our Curtis Brown Creative course first came together and then watching as the novel took off into the stratosphere. And what rises up inside me from my own muddy place is a mix of inspiration (yes, despite mixed messages, it is possible to write a novel, find an agent, then a publisher, and have a book come out the other end without having to be born into the business), envy (I want that too), and frustration (I’m not working on my novel at all at the moment).

At any given moment I’m picking my way through that mud of seemingly contradictory emotions. Sometimes I give in to a sinkhole of stuff that is messy and I’m not wearing any emotional waders so I know I’ll be pulling myself out (cue: sucking noise and lost shoes) and then deciding whether to let the muck dry, wash it off, or take another plunge. Sometimes I choose to just mess around in the shallow bits of these emotions and watch what happens. Maybe I take a deep breath and keep going deeper. Maybe I forget to do that breathing part and find myself breathless with my heart beating out panic and a feeling of being lost. I do eventually find myself back on a stable shore of some sort and then carry on accordingly.

This week, I forgot to pay attention to how I was wading into life, which turned out to mean I wasn’t taking in enough sustaining air for my brain to function smoothly. Subtle things, but maybe not really. After a doctor’s appointment with my dad where I forgot to remember that medical folks, while certainly qualified to observe and recommend, are not 24-7 in the lives of the ones you love so, therefore, make large pronouncements often skewing toward big picture panic. And the doc’s pronouncements did set off a panic inside me around a checklist of stuff to do to keep my dad in tip-top shape. My 97-year-old dad who actually says he feels in tip-top shape and also that every day is a gift (Yep, he actually said that). With the exception of his cognitive slip&slides, he seems great to me as well. But on that Monday evening after our appointment, I hadn’t really regulated back to that way of thinking or paying attention and was carrying this panic that I wasn’t doing enough to keep him medically fit. I said out loud to Dennis, “I need help.” I wasn’t actually asking for help from him because he is tremendously present in the help department. I was more announcing how it would be so great to have help in a medical-aid-visiting kind of way. But because our effin’ health care system is so f&*kd up, those kinds of nurse visitation moments are not available unless my dad has just come home from the hospital or if you have enough dosh to hire someone independently. (I can’t even get started on the paperwork I’ve done and the denials we’ve gotten for state, city, county services. The kind of frustration that bubbles up when I think about it explodes my head and I’d like to keep that intact for the moment.) I said the words. “I need help.” And they hung there, then they took on some funny shapes and bounced around from guilt to frustration to pride. I felt them, said them, was glad to have expressed them when I normally would have kept all that on emotional lockdown.

The thing is, letting myself get swept away on that wave meant other things tumbled around as well. Things I think I’m normally riding on top of: a dentist appointment I completely missed, my therapy session that I was late to because I’d misremembered the start time. I made mistakes at work. I took on another project and started my teaching semester at NYU, two things that require time management and which, in that moment, sent me into a tailspin of heart-palpitating fear of failure. I thought I’m not this person who misses appointments. I’m always on time. Early even. Reliable. This hell-bent on presenting as solid and capable is obviously both exhausting and unrealistic. To be human. Translation: flawed and fine in often unequal measure. I can hear the people who know me and care (and even the ones I don’t) saying lighten up. Give yourself a break. I mean, I always say that to anyone I care about in response to these things as well. Yet also, I know I’m hardest on myself. And if I want to really dive into the muck of it, I also understand the big dose of ego that goes with wanting to present as all that. Ego, it can be helpful, yes, although what motivates it is certainly worthy of exploration. I’m not pretending I have the answers even as I get flashes of some sublime relaxation when I own my flaws and don’t work to cover or explain them. This is me right now. Often. The challenge: to let that feeling last longer than the millisecond it takes for the snow (yes snow that has now started in the time it took me to write this) that’s currently falling outside the window to hit the ground and melt.