Our Layers

Disclaimer: Feeling a little "off" for the last few days so this entry is a bit more serious than I usually allow myself to be here. However, there is a great poem at the end so feel free to skip to the bottom for a powerful piece of writing worth printing out! When I get back from vacation next week, I promise, back to my usual lighthearted self!

We are complicated beings. Ones filled with twisted, gnarled emotions, attached to memories, people and losses we should have let go of long ago. There are nights, like this one, when I cannot forgive myself for not being able to do just that. Let go.

The world I have constructed for myself is one that is full of questions, insecurities and fear. I can only recall a handful of times when I have actually just allowed myself to relax, have fun and not "overthink" (my husband's favorite description of me). Those nights are so precious to me because I felt wonderfully alive and free. Many of you who read this blog were probably at most of those events. Let's see...my wedding, a Halloween party at the "famous" NYC apartment (shout out to Super Jeff), a night at Sweet Melissa's (bar in NYC), a dinner party at my house, one night at the "upscale" campus bar for my 22nd birthday, and my senior spring college formal. Strange that they all involve alcohol, but let's not deconstruct that now.

What I do notice, though, is the events do have people in common. So while I search for a hobby that fulfills me, a place that feels comfortable, or a dream that is realized, perhaps I should just spend more time with the people who know me (really know me) and love me anyway. Perhaps I should dedicate less time to climbing a corporate ladder and accumulating materialistic goods. Maybe I should focus on them, on you, on the people who matter to me.

Stanley Kunitz writes "Live in the layers/ not on the litter." It is from one of my favorite poems (see below), and it is a line I repeat to my students time and again when they get caught up in the thorny parts of life. Maybe it is time I listen too.


The Layers

I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
"Live in the layers,
not on the litter."
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.

Stanley Kunitz