Underneath It All

an essay that's really a prayer

We have fruit flies in our kitchen. They move around with no real destination, catching the light like animated dust motes. When they first appeared, I was confused—I keep the kitchen clean. It’s almost compulsive. Growing up, mess wasn’t tolerated, clutter sent my mother into rage: I was trained to see every dot on the floor, smudge on the mirror, grease splattered in the sink. Yet the mess bloomed freely, algae on a still pond, reflecting our stagnant reality.

Occasionally, I achieve a great sparkling clean. This ushers in a sense of calm that borders on euphoric. For an instant, I can shroud myself in the illusion of control. Then my dog drags old socks onto the couch because she’s an artist and building an installation of found socks is her life’s work. The facade cracks. Then Boyfriend comes home with camera gear and a few bags of LED lights and maybe a suitcase. We shuffle dishes into the sink, we rumple the bed sheets. Mess is generated in movement as much as it feeds on immobility. The very act of living is messy—we’re creatures born of primordial muck.

The flies keep flying. I count my winged housemates.

My focus hinges on the small stuff, always has. The big wide frame of existence is there, but early on I had to live alongside the abyss. My foundation was built on a basin of uncertainty after fate swung hard, rendering my mother disabled by a mystery, pushing space between my family and the world. Every choice was shaped by the weight of unresolved questions with half baked corners. Instead, I turned to the small things: checking my mother’s breath with a mirror morning and night, doling out her medication, walking one step behind to catch her body when it slipped. The morning I discovered her empty bottle of sleeping pills, I wasn’t even surprised. I was 15, and I had a sudden horrible feeling: this was the day I’d been waiting for. All my vigilance led to this. To my surprise, she survived. It took a real miracle, or several, but she’s still here.

After all this, at my very core (surrounded by sharp points, but tender like an artichoke heart) I know within the uncertainty exists real fucking miracles.

Now I clean to pinpoint my focus in our multi-dimensional landscape. When you are surrounded by uncertainty—as we all are all the time—it can be tempting to float away. Unlatch the body from the mind, coast on a hum of anxiety while viewing bone chilling images of tragic death and unchecked destruction. It seems easier than feeling, because feeling an iota of the grief might be too much.

Living on a global scale is new for us. Not for lack of trying, but the body, the mind, is not equipped for it. Evolution takes time to rewire our brains. Right now, the brain is capable of processing the social information of a small town—that’s how we lived for centuries. In a matter of years, technology escalated beyond our wildest dreams. There’s no overnight software update for our brain, but now it’s processing the entire world 24/7 nonstop.

Now our eyes can see everything that happens. We’re watching history repeat itself through the worst tumble dry cycle. World powers shake hands over rising death tolls while the people call for ceasefire. Lives are being lost in such great numbers, who knows where to put all the anguish. It spills onto the floor, separates the air from our lips, blocks out the sun.

From the small rectangle of blue light in our palms, we’ve learned nothing good can happen in a day. And life ends in an instant.

Every morning I pray while walking my dog. Usually I send up thanks, look for guidance, talk aloud to the air. Now I ask for a ceasefire in Gaza, for everyone separated from their families to return home safely. I pray aid reaches those in need, I pray for the lights to come on and the water to run. I ask that the souls pulled from this earth find rest in the infinite. I pray for deep peace to find a way, I’ve heard darkness comes before the dawn and I pray this rings true, right now, no time to waste.

Somehow it feels the air is listening more than my government representatives, who ask me to leave a message after the beep. I talk to the voicemail and I pray to the air every morning because I still believe in miracles.

And I know that anger boils into despair. An ambient paralysis, fogging out our light of being. We lose touch, find only the spiral, descend. To where? Numb and roving. I know that feeling well.

I also know that this is what They want. The powers in control want to break and subdue us so we cannot imagine a life outside the systems that benefit those in power.

Right now, my old patterns are tempting: unfeeling comprehension, which is not true comprehension. I will not let the layers of unfelt feelings pile up. Ambient paralysis eats at compassion, the thing we need most.

Dissonant times call for full hearted measures. Harness inner space, wade through emotion, come back to center. It is necessary. I tell myself, feel towards the flame in your heart. In that light, we can cradle the grief. Find the body, the breath within it, find the parts of you that are still here.

When I find myself, I remember I have seen miracles. I remember none of us are separate from the air that listens, the divine in our midst. I remember there is still a chance for ceasefire, there is still a chance for peace.

A breath, then another. Heartbreak swells. Love stirs. Keep coming back.