It’s a new year again somehow and time feels even further from the grasp of my understanding than usual. Time - it just loops right back around. Another winter, another winter coat, old tights with holes, new pairs of socks, the wearing down of a boots sole. The same wood floors, the same winter light, the same leaky windows, the same body - except not.
I don’t like quantifying - my weight, year end lists, my tastes, goals, distances covered, forces exerted, etc. But I’m realizing my aversion to this often eschews the acknowledgement of personal growth and change, however slowly the change itself ebbs across my life. Is it like a day or is it like a lifetime or is it like lines slowly forming on my face, which were always going to come and which denote only the experience of life itself happening. How can it be measured amidst the constants of same limbs, same apartment, same pets, same seasonal onslaught of feelings? It’s hard to know or see, it’s very very easy to miss.
I haven’t had a day without a sink full of dishes these past few weeks. I’ve even gotten better about doing them, I bought dish gloves and I set up the little radio to play nearby, and still. I guess what this means, working backwards, is that I’ve been cooking more. A lot more. And when I was still in a period of grief I could barely cook, would barely want to eat, and didn’t feel moved to creativity of any sort whatsoever. But now it’s soups, experiments, fully stocked freezer, taking a bread making class on Sunday, really wanting to experiment with pulverized freeze dried fruit. I recently ordered a loop pedal, despite having no idea how to assemble a pedal board. I have my friend’s amp and the pedals he gifted me. It’s something. I also unearthed and cleaned off my sewing machine, found the correct plugs and set it up in my workspace corner. I don’t know what to make with any of this stuff yet, or even how to thread the machine, but it is there, ready for me to make, and those are small steps that once seemed all but impossible.
I started to row on a rowing machine with a group from D’s gym and found I actually enjoyed it. It’s ruminative and impactful, but not overly so. The past two days I went to the gym and today even went to run, even in the horrible weather, because I just felt like running. Imagine, just feeling like running! It’s a slow process and I have no “goals” but that I am going is good and I can feel the good chemicals surging through my body now that I’m at rest. A good ache. On Saturday I did 10,000 meters and the following exhaustion later was blissful.
There are other things, the resurgence of old pains. It was two years ago that life seemed to totally upend and unravel for me. It feels unfair to say this, because nobody died, nobody did, but I lost a lot of irreplaceable things and even when I’m doing better it’s still hard to believe I’ll ever pull out of how that part of my life left me. I put the work in and I’m still angry and hurting and unable to trust. It still hurts to hold an instrument, even when all I can think about is music. My therapist says the body anticipates and that most of what we do is actually anticipation itself. Walking, breathing, everything, all learned. It remembers and it has it’s own physiological calendar that drudges up the old guard for each occasion, whether significant to the surface of your thoughts or not. And so I felt suddenly so much pain jettisoning its way back to the surface. I asked if my body was remembering only to have that theory confirmed.
I still think that nothing will ever feel as good as singing a harmony felt, as working on all of that felt to me then. Nothing as good as a tiny space, pooling together voices, passing the aux later on and playing song after song I was obsessed with. Making music was like coming alive for me. I didn’t know it was there and had always, always dreamt it might be. I want to get back there, but I’m also not sure I’d ever be able to open up in the same way. It’s tough to think I’d give anything to go back, because I can’t, it sickens me to think of what happened and what my ex did to me and took from me, the way it was just fine with everyone else. But I’d give anything for that feeling that comes with learning and passion and genuinely loving a community so deeply.
Anyway. I bought a loop pedal. I’m cooking. I’m listening to music other than just the radio. I’m using my body. I’m trying everything I can to kick away the claws of grief grasping at me. Baby steps. One chord or pat of butter in a pan at a time.
