I keep trying to remove myself from love,
extract ego like a mass, irradiate
adoration to wither any lingering whiff of self
so I can see it clearly—what is facet,
what is fragment. I wore white shoes
to my confirmation and now I hold everything
to that standard of purity. I want love
so clean that when I put my self back into it,
I can forego fear. Peel off every edge
of need. Find love a fencepost, its root so deep
and concrete I could never bend it
to my aching will. If I could anoint
your feet with oil, would you find me right
after the resurrection? Would you love me
like a fencepost, manmade and immobile?
In all my mythology, there are only two
loves: selfish and selfless. Both
have fractured me.
and you are sure you’re doing all this
wrong. You commend yourself for stretching
deeper than the old women
on either side, you admire the tendons rippling
in your foot and still,
you can't figure out how
to love. You don't smell it yet, but next week,
if it’s still warm enough for bikes,
their dying will certainly
reach you. Always
the grieving, even for the squirrels
who escape, who remember
where their past is buried.
Is this your mother’s
voice? Still overruling
your own? It’s cuffing
season—everyone is knitting
their socks together, making sacrifices, waiting
for the sun to stop
trying so hard. You pedal faster
past the browning
flowers and hope
-Not actually Walt Whitman, so I guess Ted Lasso gets credit?
In Ted Lasso, the titular character uses this prescription—be curious, not judgmental—to advise against judgments and assumptions about others. It’s solid advice, and has served me well, especially in difficult conversations that are likely to veer into defensiveness. When I feel the urge to defend myself or lob an accusation, instead, I try to ask a question. Perhaps, Are you saying… followed by a paraphrase of what they said, to make sure I understand. Maybe a question that probes deeper into what they’re saying, a reach at its roots. Sometimes, asking about the feelings underlying their words increases empathy enough to defuse my explosive feelings.
But you know where I always struggle to be curious rather than judgmental? With myself.
By way of example: At any point in the past two decades, if you’d asked me what my greatest fear is, I’d reply invisibility. Not being seen, not being valued, not having my needs met. In short, not mattering. This, to me, feels like death.
And when I feel that fear, usually because nobody is actively paying attention to me at any given moment, I don’t get curious. I get angry.
How stupid and needy I am! How ridiculous to be a grown, independent woman and still want someone validating me 100% of the time. Why can’t I just meet my own need for visibility? Why can’t I just heal whatever stupid wound causes this feeling, already!? Pathetic.
In case it’s not immediately obvious, this is judgy as shit. And unkind, and unhelpful, and I would literally never say anything remotely like that to someone I cared about. Except me. Because I do care about myself! I’ve worked really hard to care about myself.
It’s just that, sometimes, that gap between the way I want to be and the way I actually am is frustrating as all hell. I want to be someone who doesn’t need validation from others in order to be okay. I want to be someone who has healed the deep wounds that cause the anxiety about not mattering.
But when I actually get curious about that feeling, its origins, and the meta-feelings I have about that feeling—like, when I decide to focus on them long enough to write a blog post about them—here’s what happens in my brain:
What’s this feeling really about? Hmm…it’s not invisibility, it’s not a bid for validation…Oh! It’s a desire for connection!
Is that bad? No, no, that’s just human.
So why does it feel bad?? Well, because I’m probably not going to get it. I probably don’t even deserve it.
Where does that idea come from?? Oof. Childhood.
And the thought of not deserving connection, or never getting it, makes you feel angry? Well, yes, but also, I get angry at myself because I don’t want to need anybody. If you need people, they can let you down, and then you feel bad. And I don’t want to feel bad. I don’t want to be a human person with a need for connection and unavoidable bad feelings. I want to be perfect, untouchable, invulnerable, and magic. I’m a unicorn.
Can you hear it? The voice answering the questions? It’s her:
It’s Krista, she’s 5, and she’s a unicorn, because unicorns don’t need anybody, because by 5 years old, Krista had already learned that needing people hurts.
Are you gonna judge her for it?? I’m not. Nobody should have to learn that by 5 years old.
Interestingly, what 5 year-old Krista feels when adult Krista gets curious about her feelings (instead of judgmental) is seen. Acknowledged. Understood. Validated. Held. Loved. Safe.
What do we owe each other? More than we usually give; see the chasms everywhere, the violent individualism.
Individualism demands we rely on ourselves, each an island. Be special, be strong, be capable. Need is a failure of individualism. Failures of individualism are gifted contempt.
Since we are called to be self-reliant, are we given tools to meet our own needs? Deeper than lavender candles, bubble baths, yoga and massages? Do we know how to see ourselves? Or only the gap between ourselves and how the world wants us? Are we taught to tend a circle around ourselves, define and assert where we and others may not overrun? Everyone loves a border, until they want to cross. Are we allowed? We are, but, are we?
I’m the child of an alcoholic, the eldest of three. Independence is safety, self-sacrifice is love. Untangling that is a full life’s work.
As I untangle, threads of imperfect questions: Want, or need? Selfish, or necessary? Reasonable, or dramatic? Mine, or others’? Over and over, How? Ultimately, What do I owe myself?
Sometimes, there is no avoiding hurt, and we can only try to mitigate. I owe myself consideration. But oh, it is so much easier to hurt myself to mitigate the hurt of others.
This is not clean: sometimes, we should—must—hurt to mitigate the hurt of others. Privilege, the discomfort of its end. But I know what I owe others, inside a lifetime of that relentless education. What do I owe myself?
I am drawing circles so I can give myself without losing myself. I owe myself protection. I am bad at making them round, at keeping lines unbroken, at speaking in italics. Untangling is a practice. Self is an untangling. I am trying to black my ledger, so long and so bright red. It is messy. I owe myself grace. It is tangled. I owe myself patience. It catches others in its threads. I owe myself forgiveness. Kindness. Tenderness. Love.
I owe us both the truth of my circles. I am teaching you how to love me. I owe myself those lessons.
Krista, do not fight your grief. Your throat
is an eruption but lava forges
worlds. Close your eyes. Your mother
went dormant long ago and you live
so far from the caldera, now.
Yes, you still burn on the back
of a shoulder, the tip of your index finger, each
of your tear ducts, but here, now, you
no longer smell of smoke.
Krista, you are safe. You know
the size of your footprint
in ash and, love, it has grown
so large. Here is a bed
with sheets of water. Here is a fireproof
lover. Krista, do you remember
how to rest? Stomach still
as an aftermath? Forget
the summit. Forget the men
buried in your
cliffs. If you shudder
long enough, you can shake
their anchors from your angry
skin. Some day, you will
wake to find your mother
crumbling into some
distant sea. Here is a sky
so clear, just waiting to be filled. I promise—
I promise you, this smoldering
is not your ruin.
Now sewing brings the pain back, eases it. It reveals holes in my own loving.
– Stephanie Sauer, Almonds are Members of the Peach Family
When I first loved, there were no holes, save for myself. I gave everything, kept nothing, a firehose emptying every well. I was the hole, and I wore it well.
When I noticed the whole of my emptiness and its longing, I found another firehose, and we collapsed together every night, soaked and wholly hollow.
I called this life without holes.
(It was not.)
There is no avoiding holes. I am a mess of holes, so there is a mess of holes in my loving.
I learned to love people who see my holes and see me through their own. The stinging bliss of love is seeing yourself through someone else’s holes—that is to say, an accounting of every lack, a negotiation of our respective failures.
I want to love both others and myself wholly and with minimal failing, so this accounting is a thorny gift we open tenderly together.
Loving reveals holes in my own loving. I cannot fill them. In my wholeness, I move them somewhere safer, and hold them somewhat gentler.
Lately, I’ve been riding my bike to and from the gym. It’s only about a mile away, and it’s an easy ride. I could say that it helps get my heart rate up so I benefit more from my workout (true), or that I’m saving the planet in my tiny, non-commercial way (true), but the truest truth is that I feel like an utter badass rolling up to the gym with my yoga mat slung across my back.
Today, dozens of tiny grasshoppers had made their way to the sidewalk, presumably seeking an unfiltered sunlight. As I passed, they’d leap several feet into the air, startled or fearful or perhaps angry I’d messed with their sunbathing. Every few seconds, poof!hop! pop!, a handful of baby grasshoppers pirouetting all around me.
It’s a popcorn of grasshoppers! I thought joyfully and audibly giggled.
And then, immediately, If I hadn’t been biking to the gym instead of driving or skipping altogether, I would have missed this!
I thought of the red tail hawk who swooped into the field just in front of me on yesterday’s ride, surely to sniff a goldenrod or for some other entirely nonviolent purpose. I wouldn’t have seen that, either!
But then I thought of the other red tail hawk I saw yesterday, slowly hovering just above my windshield, then veering into the ditch (also definitely for a nonviolent purpose), as I drove to work.
Well, wait. Then what’s the lesson, if it’s not “bike places so you can see cool things“??
Reader, I am obsessed with “the lesson.”
Uncomfortable or unfortunate events? What can I learn so I can prevent this happening again? Happy happenings? What can I learn so I can make sure this happens again?!
That’s not to say there isn’t a lesson. Maybe it’s, Pay attention. Or, There is joy all around you, if you look. Or maybe it’s, Red tail hawks are very hungry. Who knows?
I guess what I’m learning — or, if you will, the lesson — is that I’m a bit tired of myself at the moment, of the constant popcorn of my thoughts grasping for some sense of control.
So if you need me, I’ll be lying in the unfiltered sun, sniffing a goldenrod, tying big red balloons to all these analytical thoughts and watching them disappear into the endless sky like a totally nonviolent hawk.
Hello again! I’ll be reading at Poems Photos Coffee at Zen Cafe in South Bend this Saturday, August 11. Doors open at 8:00 pm. They’ll have a zine available with work from all the readers — how cool is that?! (Answer: very cool.) I’ll be reading a few of my erasures of Men’s Rights Activist nonsense and I am very excited about this skewering.
