June Blues

I am sinking. These are the words I finally allow myself to say out loud to my friend. It isn’t quite the confession one would expect for my life, as it is now, is good. I pause now, wanting to find another word other than good, but nothing comes to mind. My summer days are exactly what I’ve always wished for. A break from work, from the unseen hours of lesson prep and grading, from the anxieties of standing in front of a classroom each week, hearing my own voice, showing up in constant engagement and negotiations with the world. From the sense that there’s always something due, something inching closer and closer, a deadline, a task to check off a list, emails and more emails, one foot in front of the other. Hoping I get it right this time, eager to make it out alive, again. Every day, something seems to be hurtling towards me, and I am caught between the tension of facing its impact or getting away from it as fast as I can. A chase that never ends. Go go go. Do do do. Always something to accomplish, somewhere to go, someone to be. I know I shouldn’t ask if it will end because I am afraid of what the answer will be.

But then summer comes around, and I can feel my body ease up. A loosening in my ribs. Something unfurling. A familiar weight slides off my shoulder, and my spine straightens. Everywhere there is a softening, a fresh tenderness exposed in its wake. I didn’t know, didn’t know this whole time, how much I was bound tight, how quickly the waves had pulled me under and held me there. So low that I had come to believe that flailing arms were, in fact, normal, that the fear lodged in my throat upon waking was nothing of significance to note, to name, to do whatever I could to yank it out. To break free. How terribly sad that it is only when the storm ceases do I see for the first time all the abnormalities. It is true; I am sinking now because it is all so clear. It takes me too long to put it together: If I am no longer fighting the waves, thrashing about with fervent madness to come up for air, is it not because I am finally caught up in it, stripped bare, and surrendering at last? Is it not because I am too far gone? Submerged. Lower and lower I go. A deep, dark nothingness.

These slow days have offered me rest, quiet mornings, hours at the library, pacing between stacks, my head buried in a book. I am moving my body more, calling my mother often, and spending time on the couch watching The Resident with Daniel. You should see how we both look away when there’s a scene of a surgery or a gruesome injury. We remind ourselves that none of it is real, that there’s no way someone’s truly cut open or wounded with all that blood, but still, we pull back, draw our legs close to our chests, and hold our breaths. Life with this man is friendship, an invitation to be, a door that stays wide open. I do not have to put on a show. I do not even have to be brave and merry and strong all the time. When I feel the sadness coming and I want to tuck it away like a private thing, pretend that it isn’t there even as it weighs me down, his is the kind of love that welcomes all of it. He is not afraid of the long and gloomy days. He is not impatient and insistent, wishing back a normalcy in which all else is numbed and forgotten. He waits with me. He walks with me. When I come out of the shadows, I do not feel as if I have come out apologetically to meet him, but rather, that we have both crossed the bridge together to the other side. That he, while my inner turmoil might be incomprehensible—sometimes even to myself, only wants to be close, to be within reach, to never lose sight of me in the dark.

Now also I have time to think, to really sit with myself in the silence, and this is what brings me here. With no papers to keep me busy, no sea of students to lose myself in, I, at last, have my mind to myself, and my thoughts are as loud as ever. I can no longer hide from them. The distraction of work and productivity has revealed rather bluntly that that is precisely what they’ve been all these years: a distraction. A way to cope. A machine I throw myself into that spins me dizzy, makes me numb, makes me forget, stretches me thin until I can barely recognize myself, rips me apart in tiny, inconceivable ways. But then Spring comes to a lush end and the machine somewhat grinds to a halt (but not really, for its ramping and whirring and clanking go on forever). There is the emptiness of campus before me. The long stairwell in Durham holds only the memory of students—their voices, their laughter, their tangible presence. All the bustle suspends just as quickly as it began. The halls are so quiet, I scare myself when I make a sound. I sit in my office with my hands on my lap and stare at the wall. Papers graded. Reports completed. First year of teaching done. I survived, I whisper to myself. I can’t tell if what I feel is relief or another kind of fear.

Here I am without the need to survive. What to do now? Write, of course. Read for my own pleasure. The answer is easy. But it makes me weep, for I have gone so long without it. I am convinced I do not remember how to do it anymore. To sit. To face a blank page. To make something up. I do not know how to bring the words together to make a poem or a story. I do not know that anything I write is good. I do not know that people would read it, champion it. I do not know if I want to keep doing it, keep teaching it, keep braiding the threads of my life with craft. I do not, in fact, know if I’ll ever write again. Real doubt. Real discouragement that can lead one to question everything, to walk away from it all. How swiftly I go under.

I am sinking. It startles me when I bring myself to admit it. I hadn’t realized just how low, just how bad. How did I get here? The sadness is a mighty one, and it catches me off guard. I do not need to make sense of it. Although I cannot name it, I understand precisely how I feel and why. How much I have wished for this moment to catch my breath, to slow down, only to realize that there is more to be faced on the other side. And this time, it isn’t a machine in which I weave in and out of consciousness, offering of myself until I am depleted and yielded to a routine of merely getting by. Sitting on the other side of the world is my devotion to a life of intention and simplicity, of keenly observing and listening, a life of presence, community, and service. A life of writing, I hope. I worry that something feels lost in the intensity that has often characterized my relationship with words. I understand now the pain of believing so firmly in one thing and waking up to face incredible doubt. Oh but I miss it. The heart of a good story, the mysteries of a striking poem. Simple lyricism. Interiority that bursts on the page. The rendering of sensuous detail. Language so beautiful you wish to lean close and kiss it. Words bristling with life. A pencil in hand. Deep breaths. The precision of the first sentence. The gesture of hope that is writing. One does not quite know what they’re reaching for when they begin. And yet, word after word after word.