I die every day! –the Apostle Paul, née Saul of Tarsus
For the first time in I-don’t-know-how-many-years, I battled my ongoing need to stay relevant (as though this blog even accomplishes that, LOL) and skipped a week of posting. Our family was on the Gold Coast, which is the Florida of Australia and no I will not explain further.
We spent Easter weekend there, in the sun and intermittent rain, mostly sitting by the pool; I mostly waited for drinks to be brought to me. It was not the most somber of times, given it was our first real vacation in what feels like years (trips “home” do not count as they include too much travel, vomit, and obligatory events that involve talking). But there was plenty of time to think–a rare luxury these days, afforded mainly by the fact that the boys are now obsessed with reading, Praise be to God–and reflect on what shape Easter takes in our lives right now, after two years of an ongoing pandemic and its associated displacement from formal church and, well, life.
What I came away with, between Citrus Splashes and episodes of The White Queen, was this: I don’t have a hard time believing in resurrections because I see them every day.
I don’t know how it works for people who haven’t repeatedly watched their identity–the self-forged version that is user- and social-media-friendly, polished and pleasing–go up in flames. It’s likely harder for them to buy into rolled-away stones and empty tombs. But I’ve burned my own shit to the ground (accidentally, usually) so many times that, now, I just sit by the fire with sticks and marshmallows and wait to see what emerges from the ashes.
I’m still afraid of failure, which is hilarious because I’ve accomplished it so many times, and when I remember that, I am free. But that remembrance–that re-membering–most often occurs after a dismembering brought on by trying to avoid failure at all costs: to write, or believe, or parent, or live, perfectly. How cute of me. How desperately-in-need-of-resurrection of me.
This week, after the vodka had run dry and the pool was just a memory, we were getting the boys ready for bed. Our routine has, as of The Kid’s most recent psychology appointment (which has turned into a session with Little Brother and me too, #efficiency), been prolonged due to a therapy-mandated mindfulness exercise. In much the same tradition as my sprints from work to yoga class in New York City, which involved me dodging human traffic and muttering under my breath for people to hurry up so I could f*ing RELAX, this new addendum has increased our (my) stress quotient before reducing it. TK was particularly tired after a day in which I dragged them to a magical secret garden and bought them donuts (the nerve of me, making them do real shit during school holidays), and kicked off a complaint session that quickly overrode the calmly-voiced instructions of the Zen woman on my phone.
So I lost it, naturally, and apologised, por supuesto, and was forgiven, thank God, because that is how dying and coming back to life works on a daily basis: these moments of flames and ashes and rebirth scattered just everywhere. I’m trying to avoid the flame in the first place, though you can guess how well that usually goes, but I’ve been burned enough to know what’s on the other side. Might it be that there are no real wrong turns, when all roads lead home?!
Later, the boys and I were in the car and LB began to explain how he thinks TK’s autism works. TK was silent for a moment, then whispered, “Wow. I didn’t know you understood.” And I nearly stopped breathing (another way to die, if you’re keeping count) at the beauty of it. Death, resurrection, death, resurrection–I can’t stop seeing it.
And today, after five minutes spent at a museum exhibit that we paid way too much/waited way too long in line for, we spent the last few minutes of the sunny part of the day walking to the car, climbing in, and making a wrong turn. “Why are we going this way?” asked TK, and I explained that wrong turn I’d taken, then pointed out a part of Sydney we’d never seen but were currently driving through. I held my breath (not a mindfulness technique, FYI) and wondered if this would be the beginning of a tense and regretful exchange.
“It was a right turn,” he said. “A turn for seeing things.”