Let go or be dragged.

A letter from my past and future self.

I wrote this the morning of Friday April 19th:

I’m in a swirl right now. It feels like I’ve been in a swirl for the past year. Like I’m being spun so hard all of my particles are expanding so that my shape is no longer recognizable, I know they’ll all spin back together one day… but into a completely new shape. That new shape is what I don’t know. The all too familiar feeling of a Work In Progress. I hesitate to show people this step because I know the finished piece will likely not look anything like this, so my hesitance is to say “don’t get too used to this” because what if you like this better and then it disappears, or maybe worse, the sketch is so rough that you can’t make out even the hope of a diamond.

And the root of this hesitance is the lesson that just keeps constantly showing up:

Letting go of the illusion of control.

The radio wave of what feels like a primal desire to command, always rippling through the air. Sometimes it’s quiet. And sometimes the antenna hits just the right angle so that the message comes in crystal clear. A voice mid sentence ringing out through the silence. There all along, but now you can’t help but hear it.

This is what is and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Let go or be dragged.

The first break came last summer. Like an AM/PM radio shift - all static, and word bites, flickering between broken melody and discordance. I was walking down the street with my grocery bags and I noticed a familiar feeling ripple through my body. I realized I was experiencing a sensation I’d felt before. I stopped, paper bag handles pulling my hands, bottoms sagging from the weight, feeling more and more like holding an hourglass as I stood there. What is this? Where have I felt this before… this ache?

The dial turned ever so slightly and a voice burst through: Codependency to addiction.

Years before, in my first serious long term relationship, I was in love with a man with a drinking problem. It was beautiful, and fun, and passionate, until it was absolutely none of those things. But because I had a taste of what could be. I held on for dear life. Watching a starving person standing next to low hanging fruit and they, for reasons I will never understand, could not or would not - just. reach. out. and. grab. it.

It’s agonizing. Truly. I can feel the wring and twist of it in my stomach now. It feels like those dreams where you’re screaming for a person’s attention or help but no sound comes out. The frustration and rage that comes from honoring someone’s free will and right to suffer even and especially when it makes no sense to you. No matter how deep the wish is for them to choose differently. Because no amount of healing in the world will help someone who doesn’t want it. Or feel they deserve it. Or trust they can have it. And in comes the devastating realization that love doesn’t always reach.

The radio cut out. Momentary silence. I’m back on the sidewalk. Staring up through the leaves of a familiar tree. Staring at the sky, while the hustle and rush of my neighbors brush past.

October. Blasted by cries of war. Feeling incapacitated by the ache of the world. Now, with what feels like 18 stations playing all at once, and absolutely zero delusion of control of the macro, I turned with extra sharp focus at the micro. I watched as my fury bubbled up at everything my loved ones did that didn’t please me, or agree with me. Things that even if slightly annoying did NOT at all warrant the physical response of the molten lava inside of me. Thankfully because of my morning practices, I could mostly not act on impulse, but it was EATING me up inside. The level of sheer pettiness was taking up so much space in my system. I was a walking volt of energy with nowhere to ground. I took it to the water. My go-to spot in Brooklyn to think. Where even though you never have a single moment of privacy, the sound of the waves, and the sunset sky create just enough space to listen.

I asked “What is the cause of this (very) specific flavor of pain. Why am I so angry with people I LOVE and don’t even want to be angry with. I heard “you’re angry because they are not doing what you think they should do … but tell me, why should they have to?”.

I couldn’t think of an answer. And the bulk of my rage flowed into the East River, cooled off and soothed for a time by her wisdom.

The new year. The time of re-evaluation whether you care about the calendar change or not. For me, this year, began ripe with dissatisfaction. Will running thin. Patience running thinner. I found myself at a friend’s apartment. Raw and tired from life and change, and lack of change. A friend I’ve been orbiting around for years, finally brought together for real through an artist residency. Meeting on this day for tea ceremony and much needed sisterhood. We caught up, and settled in, her young pup, round and all muscle, excited and bounding. She told me tea would be an experiment because her dog was a covid baby and still being socialized and learning to be around people. Learning to regulate the mix of excitement and anxiety - can’t we all relate. We sat on floor cushions to begin. Soft music playing, incense lit and calming. Hot water ready. Pup with chew toy.

Pour water. Dog runs by. My friend feeling bad for me at the distraction. Me feeling bad for my friend because I really don’t mind but don’t know how to fully express the truth of that. We ignore. We settle in further. We drink. The dog rests, then runs, sometimes inspects and bumps into me. I so deeply want to make this okay, make this the experience I believe my friend wants. Make it the one we expected. I think maybe if I drop further into my center - or be still, or give some love and attention, or maybe if I was REALLY dropped in - spinning spinning spinning. With all of the things I could be or should be doing to make this better, or help, or I don’t know - make this situation different than it is. Tears started to flow uncontrollably down my face. In this cyclone of feelings, both made up and true - I realized something very simple.

This is not my dog.

Suddenly I was flooded by ALL of my fixing, and tactics, and well-meaningingness, and ultimatums, persuasions, manipulations, bargaining, pleading. All to avoid the painful truth.

Sometimes we are powerless.

Often times we are powerless. Powerless in circumstance. Avoiding the only place we are powerFULL. Our response. Our attention. Our participation. Our presence. Using (wasting) our energy trying to change what we can’t. Spreading pain out into eternity with the dull throb of pretending, rather that taking the full acute shot of: this is not what I want. And so now what?

And so now what.

I ended there.

I went on about my day, thinking I’d step away and send the next morning. I was on the phone with a friend when my Mom called. I clicked over.

“Did you call me or was that a butt dial” she asked.

I told her “I definitely didn’t call you cause I’m already on the phone, but I’ll call you back as soon as I’m done.”

We have a way of being put together like that, but I didn’t know how meaningful this time would be. We hadn’t had a proper catch up since I came back from Colombia, she wanted to hear all about it, and I wanted to tell her. I also wanted to integrate, and I was busy and overwhelmed. Or she’d call just as I was about to sit down for dinner. And I’d keep saying let’s talk soon.

I called her back, and we had a proper long talk. I talked to her about all the things that had been weighing on me and some of the magic from the retreat. She told me I should come home a while and get clear. Something she very rarely, if ever does (confirmed by my sister when I told her later). My Mom doesn’t impose her beliefs on people, even if those people are her children. Deeply socratic at heart she stopped guiding us with explicit instruction pretty young, her MO is mostly asking questions and watching us make our own decisions, I can’t think of another time I’ve heard her say what I “should” do - there have even been times where I’ve WANTED her to tell me exactly what to do and she’d either tell me what she might think about as she was figuring out a solution or flat out say “that decision is yours to make”. Toward the end of the call, she mentioned she felt a sharp pain go through her head. Weird but not unheard of. We talked a bit more and got off the phone.

I went to see the final dress rehearsal of my friend’s play about life, death, hope, endurance. And afterward, standing next to the fountain at Lincoln Center I was called by the emergency room.

My Mom had a stroke.

When I began writing this that morning, I thought I knew what it meant to be blasted apart.

Now I actually know.

After a month of essentially living at the hospital with my Mom and sister, and now that she’s thankfully at rehab, I’ve caught just enough air to come back to this, and you, now. And if anything has become crystal clear, it’s that now is all there is.

Your fellow wanderer,

Allison

If you’ve made it this far let me leave you with a fun moment I remembered. I was 17 and my Mom and I were in the car, the radio DJ announced there was going to be a dance-a-thon that day at the Supermall (yes, the Supermall). There was a cash prize. My Mom loves dancing, she auditioned for Soul Train when she lived in LA but didn’t get on because “you had to know somebody” - some things never change. I was dancing professionally at the time. We figured why not, and made our way there. The dance floor was crowded, I’m not sure how they were judging but they’d quietly tap out different couples. Hours passed, and numbers dwindled. We were getting excited because we knew we really had a chance. When my Mom got extra tired, she would slow down and I would do turns and leaps around her. This is literally cracking me up thinking about it. Groovin’ on mall tile outside of some Spencer’s Gifts or something like that (for the old heads). 6…7…8 hours must have passed. We wanted to give up but we had made it too far for all those earlier hours to be for nothing. It was down to us and a ballroom team. They played one last song for each pair to give it all we had. A friend of my Mom’s came down to watch because she’d heard them announce there was a Mother/Daughter dancing and told us later she knew it had to be us. We got second place. Although we swore up and down the screams from the crowd voted our win. We rolled back to the car with not a single bone in our legs, disappointed by the injustice, tired, but laughing.

Housekeeping - I was updating my site and took it down the 19th (I really love to pack things into a day) thinking I would put it back up the Monday. Obviously that hasn’t happened. So if you’ve reached out to let me know, thank you. It will be up again at some point.