Bumping into Linear Time

I rang in the new year like many of us did, home, seperate from the people who inspire us to get sparkly and stay up late to cheer and kiss in unison, while wearing old pajamas. Between you, me, and the cats, I went to bed before midnight. A sort of attempt to outrun the loneliness. As these things go, I woke up for no good reason at 11:48PM to pee.

Earlier in the day, when I was cute and full of all kinds of energy to embrace solitude, I wrote myself a love poem in the form of a prayer. All I needed to step into 2021 was me and all the things rattling around inside. This is that love-prayer-poem:

May you spend your year

noticing the magic

in the little things,

in the broken things,

like the dandelion growing in the cracked pavement,

like the hole the bug chewed out of the banana leaf into a perfect heart shape,

like the shy smile that lasts just a few seconds,

just like the new coffee mug that broke and became the favorite little planter.

May you spend your year

living intentionally

even the little things,

especially with the broken things,

like multilingual invitations and practicing unfamiliar words until dinner is burned,

like knowing who you are in the moments you’re exactly who you hope to be,

like Christmas presents wrapped and unwrapped and wrapped perfectly again,

or like being on time because you don’t want to help anxiety have her holding her breath and counting seconds like years.

May you spend your year

with someone who, with many who,

notice you like magic,

and your little things,

even the broken things,

like the way you prefer to eat all foods with your fingers,

like the way you gasp in fear when you’re woken, even gently,

like the way you can find home inside most people and make home out of most things,

and like the promise of kisses, or lessons, at Midnight on New Year’s Eve.

May you spend your year

living intentionally,

even the little things,

especially with the broken things,

like driving around the block because you’re early trying so hard not to be late,

like loving yourself in the moments you are too ashamed to lift your eyes to a mirror,

like extra preparation for vegetarian guests for recipes that never had meat anyway,

like understanding magic has been mostly intention in caring relationship all along.

May you spend your year

noticing the magic

in the little things,

in the broken things,

living intentionally,

in caring relationship,

even the little things,

especially with the broken things,

like

like

like

like praying with friends who used to be strangers.

After sharing it on social media on January 2nd (because, I'll be honest, on New Year's Day I was pretending to be too cool to conform to linear time celebrations, as a means of holding myself together), it occured to me that perhaps writing myself a love poem on New Year's Eve, alone in my pajamas, before eating cereal for dinner and watching EVERYTHING in YouTube existence on Tig Notaro, was something everyone should be doing. If everyone was getting all mushy about me loving things about me, perhaps writing their own poem would carry them just a little further into 2021. There was an open mic I was facilitating that evening, so I decided to make a New Year's Love Poem prompt, in part, in case no one showed up. Or worse, like two people showed up. (I'm not sure when I should mention that until 12/31/2020 I had been pronouncing it Tig Nitario, yes, in public, so I'll just tuck that little compulsive truth right here for you).

As it turned out, just enough and exactly the right people attended. And we built ourselves a little community and read each other dusted-off poems or raw-new poems and paused and wrote from this prompt together. You should give it a try, if you're inclined. Know that we learned that resisting it is part of the process. I mean, I crafted it, and I still swore at it. But after all of that and some shared laughter, some remarkable love poems were born of this prompt. Here is mine:

Bumping into Linear Time

This year, I choose

the way you bump into this world,

as if you’ve only just arrived here,

each day, for nearly 50 years.

The way you show up to your life

as if everything you dream is possible.

The way you’ve known,

since before you could talk,

which rules to follow and which ones to light on fire.

The way you shrink and grow in community,

the same way flowers open and close with light, or water.

I choose the fullness of your fragments

and the warmth of what you’re trying to be,

the worn and threadless parts of you.

I choose the way your swing moves between lullaby and playground and back again,

that you’re made of the place plant seeds and human hands meet,

grind and cup, knead,

that you steady us,

whether or not our voices shake,

the way you reach toward,

even when you feel uncertain, and like

you might just be making it all up.

I've decided beginning a year in pajamas, eating your favorite cereal, convincing strangers to write themselves love poems isn't a bad way to start a year at all. Plus, I learned a lot. Mostly about Tig NOTARO.