the door in between worlds
August to September
I begin to write this on the day of the eclipse. All week felt intense and ungrounded, all feelings heightened. Everything that has happened in the past year suddenly felt large again, even with the passing of time, and yet the vacant space in my life feels hungry. I learn that both can exist simultaneously.
There is a doorway that we are all walking through. A threshold we are standing on. I’ve been checking on myself again and again, witnessing myself again and again. Just to be sure this is who I am now, to sense what has become grounded and real in me. The summer falls away, the leaves become something new, the mornings get cold. There is a shift within and without. All of us feel it at once, subtly. We begin clearing, intentionally or not.
August leaves with a rush. The external was loud, vibrant, hungry. The heat pushing us all to the water’s edges, finding solace in the shade of a willow tree or lying in the river’s flow. I forgot who I was. I didn’t mean to. I don’t remember when it started, a long time ago and it was no one’s fault but my own, but this whole summer I spent finding myself again. Mostly it was alone or with the presence of the women I love deep in my soul. Sometimes I let the world hold me. Sometimes I let it know me again, on the dance floor in a wine bar, on the back patios with cocktails. But mostly I went to the woods with my dog. I fell asleep early, woke with the sun, watched it come up behind old buildings as I drank my coffee on the sidewalk. All summer I thought I’d run into everyone I don’t know anymore, but no one came, and that alone felt like a sense of protection for my journey with myself. Now I remember my own softness, curiosity, passions, dreams for my own self. I let my heart crave. I let it mourn. I know these things may exist at the same time. In August, I did what the moon told me. I cracked my heart open. I went with the flow of things this summer and didn’t make any big moves, didn’t make any big commitments. I spent it witnessing and playing. The dreams that held on will be brought forth as I move more internal with the seasonal shift.
September: I cut everything back. The queen anne’s lace, the black eyed susans. I prune the vines, pull the stinging nettle. I take everything out of the garden and make a plan for spring. This was not a summer of weeding and planting but one of dancing and talking on the phone for hours, of alone time in the woods, of journaling pages and pages each day. September begins the journey inward. We tame our wildness of summer. The impulsiveness settles. It is the month of letting go of control, which we never really had in the first place. Only the illusion of it, the craving. The veil begins to thin, slowly. I pay attention, I listen. I trust life fully for the first time in a very long time. We enter the doorway deeper into ourselves. September brings order, design, structure. It is a month for distilling, for list-making, for cleaning, for decorating the internal. It is time to do the things you said you would do for yourself.
I have learned many things about myself this summer, or maybe just remembered them. I know that I write in the afterlife of things. While I’m in it I can only feel it, know it, be it. And now the poems come. They all needed time to settle to the bottom of me. There is a presence that flows eternal from what once was. I move on the way a writer does —which is sucking the marrow out of it all to make it immortal in some way. That is the only way I know how to honor what mattered.
I know that solitude is more important to me than anything else, and that I have to be intentional with it. It can’t be filled with distractions. I have to honor its purpose.
I know that I can forgive everyone for everything, including myself. That is the only way to be full in my life. To hold on to everything is to be fragmented, to have cords in every painful thing in my life, will literally keep parts of me there. Which only makes it more difficult to be where I am now, to love myself now.
I know that I am not broken, and no one else is broken. I know that life is a series of reactions to something from long ago, and we are all mirrors for each other. Love is unavoidable and pain is unavoidable and human connection is unavoidable if you want to feel alive in your body. It takes time to get to the root of things, and then it takes even longer to see it clearly and understand it.
I know that healing can’t only happen in hiding. There is a place for healing in solitude, for repairing. But it isn’t the place you stay in forever. You can only do so much work from there. Eventually you have to be in the world again. You have to let yourself be seen and known and vulnerable. Let your heart be slowly cracked open.
I know that love doesn’t need to be erased. That life will continue and build around it. And more love always comes. It is inevitable.
August into September playlist:
Thinking of a Place | The War on Drugs
On My Mind Again | Dolly Parton
I Don’t Not Love You | Eleni Drake
Anything | Adrianne Lenker
Sweet | Lana Del Rey
One of Us Cannot Be Wrong | Leonard Cohen
River | Leon Bridges
Coney Island Baby | Lou Reed
Is It a Crime | Sade
My Little Lark | Marissa Nadler
Self Control | Frank Ocean
The Hardest Part | Olivia Dean
Space Song | Beach House
Animal Tracks | Mountain Man
Roseblood | Mazzy Star
Dream Night | Jamie xx
Something On Your Mind | Karen Dalton
From the Dining Table | Harry Styles
Amsterdam | Gregory Alan Isakov
Life Is | Jessica Pratt
Journal prompts:
Imagine your soul is a room. What will you decorate it with? What color are the walls? What furniture rests inside, if any? Describe it.
Is there a doorway you’ve found yourself walking through recently? Where is it leading you to?
Is there a persistent dream fueling you? What does it require of you to become true?
September ins:
— forgiving everyone for everything (again & again & again)
— making lists
— writing poems no one will ever see
— yearning
— letting people be exactly who they are
— 3 hour long walks
September outs:
— over-protecting your peace
— needing to fill in the gaps of your life
— doing things for the outcome and not for the experience
— acting like life is black and white
— Instagram therapists
— comparison, in any capacity
There is nothing beyond the paywall, it is only here as an opportunity to support <3