Hi there guys -

I'm reading along, and thinking about you all. It seems like so many of us have some really challenging stuff that we have to make our way through right now.

I'm trying so hard to find my balance between allowing myself to feel my feelings, feel my sadness, feel my despair, feel my loneliness so that I can process the feelings and allow them to move through, vs. not getting stuck in them, and remembering the niceness of now, the goodness of now, the peace and safety of now.

I know, from my therapy, that my work is all about learning how to integrate. How to live in that place where I am anchored in the now, and grounded, but with my integrated little self that is so sad. It's also about living in the middle place that is so terrifying to someone with disorganized attachment - not backing up from people so that I can stay safe, and not chasing them in an effort to burrow into their sides like a small child would to get my needs met. My job is to tolerate what it feels like to stand in the middle.

Sigh..

So, I had a dear, dear student write a "Dear Sugar" letter to me after I gave her the book "Tiny Beautiful Things." If you don't know Dear Sugar, please please go read some of her work right now. And TBT was a book that I always say broke parts of me, and fixed parts of me, so terribly, wonderfully, amazing. So, my student wrote this letter, and I'll copy below what I wrote to her.

This is the best that I can describe what it feels like to me when things are good.

What does it feel like to you, when things are good?

_______________________________________

Dear Scared Shitless of Falling-

When I was young, I didn’t know myself. Or, I didn’t know the world. I thought that every person who walked around in the world was the same as me. I thought that every person could feel the feelings of every other person, that every person was kept awake at night by the physical sensation of the full moon pulling on his chest, that every person held her breath when she felt the wind whistle through the branches of a pine tree. I learned the sharp edge of the truth - that I was one of few who live their lives this way - who are born into bodies that are built to hear (and see and smell and taste and feel) a symphony of notes, when other people are just listening to the drone of a single note, a dial tone unending. The truth of my unusualness is sharp, like the blade of greengreen grass so minutely serrated that it can slice.

I think sometimes about what life would be like if I didn’t feel so fucking much. What does feeling just. one. thing. feel like? What would it mean to walk through a day without having to simultaneously navigate the oceans of my own internal systems, whirring and clicking and blaring and whispering, as well as the feelings of every other other, too - the feel of every tree blooming in perfect winter sun, or every heartbroken old woman twisting the rings around her wrinkled fingers, again and again, sitting across from me on the bus.

I stop here, almost afraid to write what I want to say to you, Scared. It helps for me to know that you speak some of the language that I hear in my head, that you have seen, dripping, the paint of the world, that you have seen the world, too, drained of every pigment.

I want to give you something. What I want to give you is a feeling, but it’s hard to give that to you, first through me, and then through words, through this paper. Instead of this, I should take you - I should take you there, and put your hands on the trunk of the tree, rub your open palms over the rough bark, from the highest place you can reach to the place where the tree disappears into the earth, and up again to where you would be looking straight up through the leaves to the sky - I should trace your finger along the tree’s rivulets and whorls.

I want to give you the feeling of a tree. A tree doesn’t stand - that isn’t the right word at all. A tree begins in both its roots and in its leaves, simultaneously. A tree is the feeling of what is held between the roots that are buried, buried in the warmth and darkness of the earth and the leaves that are held aloft, that are turned completely transparent by the light that floods them. Can you feel what a root feels like, Scared? Can you feel the way the root is formed in waves, how it undulates there, movement in solid form, beneath the ground? Can you feel the fingers of those roots, pointing down into the dark black earth, down into the center of all things, and then rising to point up, towards the surface, towards the sky? Can you feel what a leaf must be, how it is the very farthest extension, the very softest edge of everything the tree means to be, of everything the root creates it to be - how the leaf floats, suspended, in both light and dark? Can you feel what a leaf must be, Scared?

And then, can you feel the feeling of what is held between? Can you feel tree? Tree is the feeling of ancient, the feeling of silent, tree is still, tree is knowing. Tree is feeling of your spine held completely in line, the crown of your head lifted, reaching for sunlight, the warmth of the feeling of the top of your head, alight, and the way that warmth floods your entire self. Tree is the feeling of the bones of your spine in perfect alignment, lifted, and light, the spaces in between. Tree is the feeling of the sky pressing its hands against your sides, holding your ribcage, solidly on each side. Tree is the feeling of your feet, anchored on the earth. Tree is the knowing, the absolute knowing, of being held, of support, tree is erect, tree is extension, tree is firm, and tree is breathing, and tree is free.

Being a person like me means that I can feel tree. And when I can feel tree, I can feel the truth of many things. And I can feel that part of me that is true, that is tree.

You’ve asked me about love. And the truest, strongest, most righteous thing I can tell you about love is tree. We are meant to love each other like two trees, growing together, growing forever, would love. They would each start, must start, with their own feeling of tree selves. They would be their own trunk, they would be their own roots, they would be their own leaves. In their love, they would find their roots growing together into knots, nestled quietly below the earth. They would find their branches interweaving, leaves laying next by each other, warmed in the very same light. The trees would know, must know, their own value, their own shapes, their own divine, and separate, place in the world.

Your girl is falling, Scared. It sounds as if that is true. I believe that trees can feel each other, can feel the despair that must be when a tree falls. But no tree can prevent another tree from falling. You have a self, Scared. You have a tree self - you always have and always will. Feel that - the treeness of you. Make being the tree of you your life’s best work.