On Walking Through Storm
Or: Intensity from these weeks, World Cup, The Knicks, and On.
What a week it has been.
The Knicks won the national championship for the first time in 53 years. The World Cup kicked off, with splendor (and plenty of questionable elements, of course).
And my father turned 84.
Two weeks ago, I was in Europe.
This was a long-awaited trip, one I’d put off once due to dad’s condition and the need for me to help out in the hospital. It was to celebrate that I graduated grad school: that after two years of sweat and effort, papers written and classes taken, time spent in libraries and pouring myself into a body of work - I walked across a stage, was handed a diploma, and was declared a Master.
Two days before I walked, I ran my second half marathon. I beat my own time by a couple of minutes (I was happy with this!).
A few weeks before that, I submitted my thesis - the thesis I wrote, in part, in between hospital shifts, as I shuttled from my parents’ house to the rehab to care for my sick dad, my ailing dad, my dad who we didn’t think would make it to his recent birthday.
All of which is to say:
It’s been a big few weeks.
What does a body do, in the face of such intensity? How do any of us walk, through seasons where life shows up with raw, vivid honesty? Where we must wander the precipice between life and death, clutching to whatever we can? When we are in hospital rooms and funeral parlors, waiting areas and doctor’s clinics - when we look around and wonder, plaintive, begging, how will I ever get through this?
I wondered this question much, during that stretch. Turned my face up to the stars in weeping inquiry. The answer, when it came, was so simple:
You just do.
I have long thought that any of my processes have a way of dripping down my body. That is, I’ll understand something intellectually; but for it to really land in my body in a true and rooted way - takes time. Almost as if the idea, the notion, the experience - must make its way down, through the mind and fascia and bone, down to my belly, from where I know.
Perhaps these seasons of intensity, of whirlwind, are as such, as well.
Perhaps these seasons of intensity are also a bit like - storm. A clearing, a way of moving things through, and even nourishing the soil. Like a way to give nutrient, albeit through challenging means.
Perhaps these seasons of intensity are, in a sense, somehow good for us: like a workout, we feel sore afterwards, but strong - even though they are, of course, so tough.
Perhaps these seasons of intensity make us.
They are - not easy. I know. I am changed by the last few months, indelibly. Irrevocably. Twisted, in some way, like a towel on a line.
But this is what makes us, after all. The darkest nights; the most curious mornings.
I keep thinking, again and again, how none of our ancestors walked through this life without scars. We are all born of warriors. And it is through the storms - that we root, that we expand into, that we then - grow.
So, there is that. I have walked through one storm. Whether there will be another - well, inevitably, it rains again, but when? - we don’t know.
For now, it is enough that I get to go hug my father. He made it to his 84th birthday; we did not think he would.
For now, it is enough to let the last few months settle, deep, nestling into my bones. Expanding me. Becoming me. From school to running to travel to family: letting all of that again lace itself through me, rising once more out of my being into who I am on this earth.
For now, it is enough to give you these words.
For now, it is enough to listen to this song I am hearing (I will put it below!) and know -
The storms come.
The storms go.
Always, I’m here.
Always, I grow.
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