Last Tuesday, I read a piece I had written at a show in a little theatre in downtown Dallas. I’m not going to lie, it was some of the most fun I have had in a while. I got to work with an editor for the first time and she was amazing at helping me find my voice and massage my narrative. I got to wear a black dress, sit on a barstool in a blinding spotlight and have a captive audience sit and listen to what I had to say. I got to bask in a standing ovation (for the entire cast) and the bubbly feedback in the gallery afterwards. I loved it. (Okay, if you corner my husband he will tell you that there was a couple weeks of nerve-wracking re-writes, anxious last minute editing, day-of panic attacks over leaving baby with a babysitter and general bouts of insecurity ranging on everything from toenails to coherency. But I will never admit that. I maintain that it was just awesome.)
Taking a few cautious steps a little deeper into the world of writing has sent me running back into the arms of the books that bring me my deepest comfort and inspiration, which, quite frankly, is just about anything written by Barbara Kingsolver. The other day I was flipping through Animal Dreams and I came across a passage I had highlighted the first time I read it. And it blew me away all over again. It’s a letter between two sisters, one off in Nicaragua trying to save the world, the other in her small hometown trying to find herself. The sister abroad writes:
You’re thinking of revolution as a great all-or-nothing. I think of it as one more morning in a muggy cotton field, checking the undersides of leaves to see what’s been there, figuring out what to do that won’t clear a path for worse problems next week. Right now that’s what I do. You ask why I’m not afraid of loving and loosing, and that’s my answer. Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children’s bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don’t get lost.
Codi, here’s what I have decided: the very least you could do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.
I can’t tell you how good it feels. I wish you knew. I wish you’d stop beating yourself up about being selfish, and really be selfish, Codi. You’re like a mother or something. I wish you knew how to squander yourself...
I wish those words were mine. They feel like mine. But I didn’t write them.
On some days I feel like I am squandering myself recklessly. I look at my life and think, “Yes. This is it. This is worthwhile.” On those days I feel like I can touch the walls of that hope too.
But on other days I feel like I am hoarding myself up, too scared to dole out even a little bit. I think about raising a daughter in a refugee camp or not owning a house or, on some days, just being nice to a neighbor, and I recoil into my shell. People have often told me I’m brave (usually for something silly like ordering five star curry or jumping off a high-dive). But when I hear that, I always want to say, “If you had any idea how often I am terrified…”
For whatever reason, today has been one of those days. I feel the nearness of well-known fears breathing down my neck with unwelcome intimacy.
I am so thankful to be surrounded by people who make a regular practice of squandering themselves. They never cease to pull me back into the beautiful fray. They adopt nine year olds out of the foster care system. They work to develop charter schools in low-income communities. They make unlikely friends and plant gardens and write poetry. They go to Nicaragua and stay in the towns they grew up in. They inspire me. I’m thankful for them today.
Taking a few cautious steps a little deeper into the world of writing has sent me running back into the arms of the books that bring me my deepest comfort and inspiration, which, quite frankly, is just about anything written by Barbara Kingsolver. The other day I was flipping through Animal Dreams and I came across a passage I had highlighted the first time I read it. And it blew me away all over again. It’s a letter between two sisters, one off in Nicaragua trying to save the world, the other in her small hometown trying to find herself. The sister abroad writes:
You’re thinking of revolution as a great all-or-nothing. I think of it as one more morning in a muggy cotton field, checking the undersides of leaves to see what’s been there, figuring out what to do that won’t clear a path for worse problems next week. Right now that’s what I do. You ask why I’m not afraid of loving and loosing, and that’s my answer. Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up. It goes into the ground, into crops, into children’s bellies and their bright eyes. Good things don’t get lost.
Codi, here’s what I have decided: the very least you could do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it. Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.
I can’t tell you how good it feels. I wish you knew. I wish you’d stop beating yourself up about being selfish, and really be selfish, Codi. You’re like a mother or something. I wish you knew how to squander yourself...
I wish those words were mine. They feel like mine. But I didn’t write them.
On some days I feel like I am squandering myself recklessly. I look at my life and think, “Yes. This is it. This is worthwhile.” On those days I feel like I can touch the walls of that hope too.
But on other days I feel like I am hoarding myself up, too scared to dole out even a little bit. I think about raising a daughter in a refugee camp or not owning a house or, on some days, just being nice to a neighbor, and I recoil into my shell. People have often told me I’m brave (usually for something silly like ordering five star curry or jumping off a high-dive). But when I hear that, I always want to say, “If you had any idea how often I am terrified…”
For whatever reason, today has been one of those days. I feel the nearness of well-known fears breathing down my neck with unwelcome intimacy.
I am so thankful to be surrounded by people who make a regular practice of squandering themselves. They never cease to pull me back into the beautiful fray. They adopt nine year olds out of the foster care system. They work to develop charter schools in low-income communities. They make unlikely friends and plant gardens and write poetry. They go to Nicaragua and stay in the towns they grew up in. They inspire me. I’m thankful for them today.
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