The everyday, the details
This is an ode to the ordinary. A reminder of the love notes we should be writing to ourselves, in recognition of our daily lives.
How do we know ourselves? How do we know one another? When was the last time you stood in front of the mirror and looked at yourself? Without commentary, just looked. I hope it was with the eyes of a lover, longing for a caress, to put one hand on those hips and one hand on those lips. I hope you noticed the new tiny mole on your shoulder (it’s been there at least a year). I hope you’ll let me count the freckles across your back and draw a treasure map back to me.
You rested your head on my chest and said you could hear the ocean. I used to rest my head on my father’s chest when I was a child and count the beats. Perhaps I was making sure he’s still there. He’s still there, but I no longer find my way back to him. I’ve done it with every lover and friend since, we probably all do this. How soothing it is, to hear the sound we heard first as we grew our little ears in her womb. Floating in that first sea of love, we would hear our mother’s heart beat, keeping us alive, feel ourselves growing in our own safe little ocean. Perhaps that is where we return, perhaps the ocean will take us all, eventually.
How do we grow in closeness rather than attachment? I am uninterested in new umbilical cords. There is, rather, a space of closeness to be co-created within every connection to someone. That space can be filled with curiosity and openness to see each other for who we are today, to update the sketch, perhaps on a daily basis. I wonder sometimes, if I collect enough data points on someone, if that will make me feel close to them. Help me draw a picture of their lives in my mind. Long distance relationships are difficult, but also how many data points before it becomes redundant? For me, not enough. I want to set out each day to see you anew, with a willingness to see your daily details to help grow in knowledge, understanding, and closeness. Paying attention as meditation and praxis.
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
But it is a bit like listening to your heartbeat just to make sure it’s still going: to know what you cooked for dinner, who you had a great chat with today, if you played with a puppy on the beach. I want to take apart the dysfunctional systems of the world, but I also want to know if the covers were too heavy last night and made you wake up feeling too warm. How do we do this without turning our loved ones into data collection sites? And what do I do with all this information?
Once, a partner told me I’m the one who knows the most about his daily life, even though we lived hundreds of miles apart. He said it was suffocating to share so much. Maybe it was. But how can I tell our story, your story to myself, if I don’t know enough, if I can’t paint a mental visual. I’m sorry you felt that some days were more worthy than others, some lives more interesting than yours that I couldn’t possibly be interested in your daily life. I was.
Some days are just so ordinary, it feels like there is nothing to report. Life just seemingly hummed on by. You woke up, made coffee, took a shower, went to work, texted your mother, put the kids to bed, folded the laundry, went to sleep. It seems that nothing is worth telling. But are you sure? The mangoes on the tree grew a little bit more today but she didn’t have the words to tell you, because you weren’t paying attention. The kids are growing taller but only the laundry tells that tale. A stranger looked at you on the train and saw the morning sun shining on your eyes and thought, what a beautiful face. Who decides what is significant enough to tell of your day today? If you tell me you spent hours in bed reading today, I would only be jealous, what a glorious day. Of course there are also the truly horrendous days, the ones we want to bury underground never to think of again. We even find those more newsworthy than the everyday so-called mundane details. What if I know the worst days marked on your annual calendar but don’t know how spicy you like your food? It is not terribly boring to want to feed you, while still holding you on your father’s annual memorial.
I am not trying to sell you that there is extraordinariness in the ordinary. No, it’s just ordinary. It’s here in front of our eyes. The emphasis we place on special-ness, on achievement worries me. The dopamine kicks, the addiction to cortisol. The pressure to have something worthy of telling at the end of the day, at the end of the project, at the end of the year… at the end of the life. What did you produce and how did it impact the world? Who did you raise and how well? Otherwise, should we just die in silence, forgotten? What if you make the coffee in the morning and I’ll grow the tomatoes and she will remind us to meditate and they will fold the laundry and that’s all there is to it? I refuse to be dictated to, that somehow the achievements are better than your favorite scent of incense, the details which color in your life for me, which color in my life for me.
This is not an ode to play small with your life. Write all the things, make the paintings, break the world apart, crack it open like a chestnut still smoking off the fire and devour it, let it burn your tongue even. Refuse the powers that be, rise above the script. But don’t forget to look in the mirror with love and don’t forget to see that the mangoes grew bigger today and don’t forget to tell me about the funky socks you wore to work. This is also how we dismantle systems; what if being present is truly revolutionary? Develop the headlines of your life if you must. But don't forget the details, the shading beneath the sketch you’re drawing. And if the shading is all there is to it, then let it be. This is what brings life. Tell me the details, show me your everyday, especially because they are the background to this painting of your life, and I hope you can see how beautifully rich it is already.
