Begin Again
Death and renewal, sorrow and joy wrapped up in one season.
It’s November. If you have been following along with our Environmentalists Anonymous prompts, I hope your writing is going well. I made a lot of progress on my second memoir in October and am trying to use the support of NANOWRIMO to work on a novel that has been brewing in the back of my mind for quite some time. It feels good to be in a writing phase, but I have continuously relied on the phrase “begin again.” Trying to write daily is an ongoing goal for me and if I miss a day I try not to get too down on myself.
Begin again.
October was a hard month and my goal to offer some weekly reflections in this space went by the wayside. Like many, I have been glued to the news in Gaza and Israel and my heart seems to break a little bit each day for this insoluble conflict. Furthermore, the terror felt in the United States only adds to the heartbreak. The rise in hate crimes, not just in this past month, but over the last several years is very alarming. I have been at a loss for words. I have been donating and calling our elected officials, but I have fallen silent in the shadow of all this violence.
Being again.
In fall, sorrow and joy blend together. On our farm we lose daylight hours, but we gain rest. The winds return, but the dying leaves offer amazing displays of color. Illuminating, really.
I am reminded of Ross Gay’s words:
But what happens if joy is not separate from pain? What if joy and pain are fundamentally tangled up with one another? Or even more to the point, what if joy is not only entangled with pain, or suffering, or sorrow, but is also what emerges from how we care for each other through those things? What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks? Which is to say, what if joy needs sorrow, or what Zadie Smith in her essay “Joy” calls “the intolerable,” for its existence?
I am looking for little joys in my days and also trying to pay attention to all the changes happening around us. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing new Her Deepest Ecologies podcast episodes. At the heart of these talks we address two fundamental questions: How do we care for ourselves and each other? How do we nurture the Earth? These questions, and the space between them, feels timely right now. From loss, there are new opportunities to focus on care and humanity. To echo Ross Gay, “What if joy, instead of refuge or relief from heartbreak, is what effloresces from us as we help each other carry our heartbreaks?”
Begin again.
