Last Saturday, on the first day of the Chinese New Year, I repeated the Polar Plunge I’d done with friends on January 1. We met at the same spot—a small, semi-secluded beach in Lincolnville, Maine, climbed over the detritus from last month’s storm, shrugged off our outerwear, and walked into the chilly Atlantic. It was 43 degrees out, unusual for this month, and a far cry from the last time we’d been there, when the windchill dipped things down to the low teens and we stumbled out of the water in a state just slightly north of shock. This time, walking into the ocean, I felt an unexpected serenity come over me. Maybe it’s that I sort of knew what I was in for, or that the conditions had improved considerably. Or maybe there was something in me, having been jarred by January, was finally finding its tempo in February.
I didn’t stay in the water long. No one did. But unlike the previous month, when I had girded myself for the immersion and essentially tried to lock out any sensation of cold or discomfort (and failing), I found myself making contact with the water in a way that felt, dare I say, like a conversation.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about conversation. The kind we have with other people, the kind we have with ourselves. The ones we’re too afraid to have, or too angry to have, or ones that we’re too uncertain about whether or not we can stay in the room to finish. I’ve been thinking in terms of offerings instead of outcomes, entrances instead of exits, the shape that leaning in makes verses the shape of leaning away.
In service to the leaning in, I’ve been making some very new-to-me moves during the past few weeks, like emails to famous poets asking them to come to Maine, and grant applications and funding proposals and OMG reading a poem in front of my local City Council JUST BECAUSE. And instead of feeling like I’m peering over the edge of cliff with no one there to catch me, I discovering the opposite of a void: connection.
Connection to the City Council member who said, “You can come back and read us a poem anytime.” Connection to the person at the granting organization who made themselves available for a phone call. Connection to the rep in Kentucky who waxed rhapsodic about Maine and wrote “I really hope this works out” and gave me one of the top ten compliments of my life.
There are so many reasons to despair. But these three things alone are reasons to do the opposite. Even if it doesn’t last. Even if the funding falls through and the poet doesn’t come. Even if the answers all turn out to be no. These light-bearing breaths like moons orbiting a troubled earth, moving at the speed of their own making.
Breath. How to breathe. How to be a breath. How to occupy your lungs fully, taking in the whole of their oxygen potential. How to occupy yourself fully, take in the whole of your potential.
I’m reminded now of comments on my high school and college papers I’d sometimes get, something to the effect of “I know you are capable of more.” I remember how much I was troubled by those remarks on the page, feeling like I’d stretched enough, that I’d done enough. What more was there?
And yet now, with the distance of all those years behind me, I understand my teachers were not telling me that I wasn’t enough, but rather than I hadn’t leaned in, not with the whole of my own oxygen. Not with the whole of myself. I’d shrugged off a little of my outerwear, yes, but I hadn’t committed to the swim.
Commitment. This is what makes the difference. In marriage, certainly. But beyond that, in the rest of the things we give our oxygen to. From the lectern at the City Council meeting, I committed. In my note to the famous poet, I committed. In my grant application, with the germ of an idea that may or may not blossom, I committed. I had to. I have to. We have to. To let ourselves off the hook from the planetary demands of holding it all. To lean into the lunar grooves of our lives, where this year, the dragon has returned with its breath of fire. Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
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so inspired by your beautiful writing on conversations, connections and your winter ocean plunge as a ways to connect with light-bearing breaths and fight despair.
Scrolling through old emails I wondered why I kept this one. Then I read it again and remembered. So good, worth saving. I need this reminder to lean in, early and often. Thank you.