It’s What it Is
The return of DISPATCHES: looking back on November and getting back some of what I put in
The outlook for November was so spot-on, I almost want to apologize — for the reality of it all, if not for my lack of humility. Reading over my last few paragraphs, I can’t hold in a wry, grim laugh. What I was describing sounds particularly uncomfortable, and whatever positive things I am feeling right now, I’m not feeling comfortable at all.
Lest I get carried away, here, I acknowledge that November’s outlook lacked a lot of specifics — not a lot of specific predictions and not a lot of specific advice. It seems, fairly or not, easier to get it right when the tone is sort of “hold on and ride it out, do the best you can,” as opposed to more precise insight or wisdom. Here, however, I think it’s appropriate. We’re getting the divination we need, if not the divination we want (or even the divination we deserve). You all know the score. Even those of us still standing have had the crap kicked out of us.
The crap-kicking just doesn’t seem to quit, either. It hasn’t been predicted — by anyone — to stop, so nobody’s surprised. Nobody except everyone living it, because few among us actually thought the forecasts would bear out, thought it would be THIS difficult.
There’s a really key message in the somewhat generic statement of the outlook: nothing is stable and everything is in flux. It sounds dramatic and extreme, and it is, but in the day-to-day, times like these still often convey a mostly false sense of continuity. We were promised that in the second half of the month, certain aspects of things we’ve been struggling with would become more clear, and this is what’s become clarified for me. My biggest difficulties come in areas in which I’ve expected (or even just hoped) would achieve a sort of stasis, or at least a kind of balanced wobble. They haven’t. I’ve had no reason to believe that they ever would, I have even less reason to expect that they will going forward, and I need to stop wasting time and energy and breath hoping that things will just get smoother around this very next bend. They won’t, not right now.
That doesn’t mean, in times of desperation over the next six months or a year, that I won’t tell myself exactly that. Just a little longer. Can’t be much more that gets piled on all this. Just a couple more bends around the way. We all gotta tell ourselves that sometimes. It’s okay. But we’ve got a little bit of a ride ahead of us yet. It will relent eventually, but not for the next year. In the meantime, to whatever extent is possible, we gotta buck up and take deep breaths and dust ourselves off and keep walking.
It sucks and I don’t like it any more than you do, but, to quote The Irishman, “…it’s what it is.”
I don’t even really wanna look at the date of the last Dispatches from the Underground I managed to put out there. I’ve heard people say they miss hearing what I’m thinking about and I’ve been like “I miss hearing what I’m thinking about!”
I’m not apologizing, of course. I’m guilty of nothing more than correct — if strict — prioritization. Things had to go and a book and a magazine had to get our. And honestly, if I were willing to apologize, I owe one to myself, first and foremost. Never am I grouchier than when I need to be writing and can’t really go there in any meaningful way. It doesn’t matter if it’s the right decision, it still grates on my nerves.
But here we are, staggering though we may be across the finish line of whatever the shit this loop around the sun was all about. It’s all been like riding the old wooden Whalom Park roller coaster that always made you think you were gonna die, only this time it has an actual broken wheel, but you still survive in the end. It’s exhilarating and a major triumph of life and the human spirit in many ways, but also harrowing and pretty goddamn anxious even in the best of times.
Even still, there’s a wickedly mischievous side of me that knows already at this early hour — even with a whole one of the twelve months remaining — that for those who survive it, there will be many a story told and much wry and grim laughter (though gilded with the fondness time can ascribe even — or especially — to tough times) about all of this.
There will be some that no one will believe, and I suspect those will be the truest of them all — no matter what the people say.
I can’t be alarmed about the start of Advent this year; that is to say, I am unconcerned about the closing out of 2019. I’ve kept up with everything and there’s very little left for me to do. I did some planting and harvested some shit and laid down some plans for things to sprout up next year or even the year after and I can at least sort of pretend to relax, or imitate relaxation, whatever comes closest to the real thing. Maybe I can even get all the way there.
I’m certainly not sad to see the year go. We can go on to the next one.
The best thing about my plans for this sacred and contemplative season is that, without consciously arranging it this way, most of my activities allow me personally to be spiritually fed and few require a lot of my energy or performance. For most of this year I’ve felt on the other end of that — which is great, actually, having been one of my primary goals for the year. That was what I was supposed to do. But at this point, outward dad-bod aside, I’m feeling a little lean inside. Whatever happens in the coming month — and I have low expectations based on the stars and everything else — things are set up such that I may observe the season properly and maybe catch a little renewal.
This is the top priority. But, as with every other year, I have much upon which I am compelled to reflect, and that reflection demands to be shared — especially in such a year. I’ve got words to say.
Good to be back.