ON MOLDERING THROUGH THE DOLDRUMS, STARTING ANEW, AND SCREAMING INTO THE VOID
Friday August 27 2021
Dear Sarah,
It’s been a nutty week and I’m starting my letter mid-afternoon on Friday with the fresh knowledge that we will have impromptu houseguests coming through tonight. Time to tidy up a bit! The tides, the waves, the rapids, and the intermittent eddies of life keep coming!
I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by all things lately, while also knowing that as usual, the only way out is through. I’m trying to anchor myself to something stable, to act from some place of “we’re all doing our best here,” and to find a path through for myself while helping to shine a little light on the path for others where I can. I am feeling hollowed out by the needs of my family members and the needs of my day-to-day work, when all I want is to have time to look my own needs in their beady little eyes!
My current mood, a continuation of my inclination toward escape: I am ready to claim some kind of energetic and emotional bankruptcy! As in, I would like to be relieved of my debts — commitments of all kinds, not specifically financial debts — in order to clear my slate and start anew. It is impossible, but it feels like what I need! In some part of myself I am contemplating disappearing and starting fresh with a wig and a new identity. Brunette or blonde? Scratch that question: look for me with a bleach-blonde bob in my new life. I will send cryptic details via smoke signal to let you know where you can find me! Don’t spread the word! Last week you said you were comforted by the web of humans and commitments within which I operate; they stabilize me. We have come together to the fork in the road; perhaps we’ll go in two different directions!
I’m working on a project with a client that has pushed into the territory where, for a variety of reasons, it is coming to fruition later than we would have desired. Hard to just say: it is very late. My mood with this project is now a certain kind of last-gasp practicality: how can we make the best thing possible within the framework of the current demands of the moment, and then put this baby to bed? That kind of lens offers a certain kind of clarity and a willingness to be firm in my approach that I may sometimes be lacking; it is probably possible to be firmer along the way so that I am making myself clear and making processes smoother from the get-go. It’s hard to navigate different people, different workplaces, different ways of working, and to prioritize among the many nuances of all of the above to actually get some things done!
Earlier this week, as I moldered in the doldrums I described to you in our chat today, I found myself wondering if I would like to go back to school to become a nutritionist. Why not! I probably won’t do it, but I'm feeling like I can't quite fathom continuing on in my current field of work for the next ten or — shudder — twenty years. I will be the first to observe how quickly ten years can go by, as three years have already fallen behind me in Minneapolis, but still. I thought about how I’ve been in fundraising for more than 15 years; I thought about how I could consider spending the next five years learning new skills or upping my current skills in order to take on something to which I might then commit the following fifteen years of my life (assuming I live to sixty and beyond). What I’m really talking about, as usual, is: what work am I going to do in order to make money for the rest of my life? Exhausting! Perhaps I’ll start hunting for jobs that have housing included — thus reducing our monthly expenses — and see where that’ll take me!
I’m riding the waves of my ramble a bit, and I wonder what your letter will bring this evening? M and I went to lunch at Culver’s, so my weekend has basically already begun. Looking forward to reading your words and talking again soon! Have a very happy first weekend of the school year — precious summertime recouped!
Yours,
Eva
P.S. I just read your opinion piece in the Des Moines Register, and you are on fire! Not in a climate change way (I hope), just smokin’ the baddies with your words! I’m wishing you and the boys well as you all take on the wild-west of a new school year in this charged political climate crossed with our ongoing global pandemic. Pinch down those masks, people!
August 27, 2021
Dear Eva,
This week has been a bit of a weird one, where I feel like I went through several cycles of emotions and experiences in just seven short days. Round two of a summer cold came and went, peaking on Tuesday up to the point where I actually decided to lie down on the couch in the mid-afternoon to fight the fatigue. That is rare! Our preparations for back-to-school readiness crescendoed on Wednesday, when we sent the kids off their first day back in a real life elementary school, donned with fancy masks with filters tied to lanyards around their neck so they don’t lose them in the first week. I was surprised by my emotions that day, though in retrospect I do not know what was unexpected about it. They are unvaccinated children heading into a school that cannot require all teachers and students to wear masks during a pandemic. This mix of fear and anger at my state leaders overshadowed the normal mix of excitement and wistfulness I wanted to have, especially for the milestone of sending S off to kindergarten. I sat down Wednesday evening to write about it, and a short little piece flowed out and I sent it off to the local paper. It felt good to use my voice, even if I am screaming into the void.
If I am honest, which I have decided I should be, the week has also had an undercurrent of grief about the prospect of ending this letter-writing project. The fact that I am sad is not a surprise, but the level of emotion has been. I have been trying to unpack that a bit in these last few days, and trying do so in a way that is not too self-judgey. To echo my previous robot-like self, I wonder what I am so sad about? I think there are a lot of reasons, but most of all, I think I am just plain sad about giving up a sense-making, connection-building ritual that has been so palpably generative in my life.
If and when we go forward with closing this project out in four weeks, I imagine I will rekindle my prior plans to sift through this pile of material we have accumulated these past three years. How much will we have changed? Will it be obvious that Week 1 Sarah is a different person than Week 156 Sarah? There is a way in which these three years feel like they contain a lifetime of learning and reflection. The consistent pace of our practice, the steady and thoughtful gaze we placed upon each others’ words and our own—they resulted in what felt like supernatural growth in our understanding of ourselves and the world. What a gift! And it may be that looking back upon the riches of this project will earn me even more insights in the months and years to come. A gift that keeps on giving perhaps. (Related to this, do we want to renew the site for another year to maintain the archive in that form? Perhaps a boring administrative point better left for another forum, but I am bookmarking it here for you to ponder.)
You previously mentioned wanting to try to replace the letters with something new, and I am curious to hear more about your thoughts on that. Or perhaps you meant it in a less literal sense, and more in the “we shall see what the future holds” sort of way? I wrote last week that the possibilities are limitless for future projects, which may yet be true, but I also acknowledge those possibilities may very well not generate the spark this one managed to. I think that is okay. We must not fall into the trap of the early success that nothing else ever lives up to! We will undoubtedly try things that fizzle along the way. Come to think of it, we already have; I am recalling several projects we have started and abandoned in our years of friendship and collaboration. Such is the way of things.
I am beat tonight! B and I headed out mid-afternoon for a 30 mile bike ride in 90 degree heat, and it took a lot out of me this time. I am looking forward to a low key weekend sans garage sales, most especially to the prospect of sleeping in. I hope your weekend is off with a bang!
Your friend,
Sarah