July 12th: Little Deaths
An insistent tune this morning:
Shadows are falling and I'm running out of breath
Keep me in your heart for a while
If I leave you, it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while
When you get up in the morning, and you see that crazy sun
Keep me in your heart for a while
There's a train leaving nightly called "When all is said and done"
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la, love
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-lo
Keep me in your heart for a while
Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
You know I'm tied to you like the buttons on your blouse
Keep me in your heart for a while
Hold me in your thoughts, take me to your dreams
Touch me as I fall into view
When the winter comes, keep the fires lit
And I will be right next to you
Engine drivers headed north to Pleasant Street
Keep me in your heart for a while
These wheels keep turning, but they're running out of steam
Keep me in your heart for a while
Warren Zevon wrote, recorded, and released this song in the weeks before his death. There's no masking what it's about. Just to show my frame of reference, "Keep Me in Your Heart" always makes me think of this scene from Funny People:
Funny People is a fantastic movie, by the way. Adam Sandler plays a comedian who has been diagnosed with cancer and given only months to live -- Seth Rogan plays the guy he hires to write him some jokes for what may be his final comedy tour. This scene, probably the most memorable of the movie for me, shows the power of Warren's song.
There's earnestness in the everyday human experiences.
"Keep Me In Your Heart" is not unlike the Avett Brothers’ "No Hard Feelings" in this way.
I don't know why Warren's final farewell song pinged my brain this morning. I don't know why it pinged again, even more loudly as I was finally agreeing to wake up and start my day. I just know that those things happened.
So I honor it.
I think it's important for me to say that death, to me, is not a final curtain call. Death is a transition -- and we go through them daily. Who I was when I was a baby is different from who I was as a toddler, different from who I was as a child, teenager, young adult, mature adult, invisible woman over 40... Curiosity changes me. Learning changes me. Evolution changes me. Uncontrollable circumstances change me. Every seven years, our bodies have fully regenerated every cell -- think of the deaths going on at the cellular level, parts of us that we never even knew we had, that we took for granted, gone before we even realize we should be thanking the natural processes of life that allow us to continue filling our lungs with air before expelling that air back out into the world around us.
We live, we die, every single day.
Because it's July and because July is a month that is a landmine of key life moments for me -- starting most emphatically in July 2009, all the way to the present -- I feel that push-pull of the life to death cycle. It's like an emotional portal opens up and I can be swooped back through time to any of a number of places where I was pushed to my emotional capacity limit.
Sometimes I like to go back and try to find those resources that documented moments in real-time. And I'm not gonna lie: the way I wrote about what was going on at those times is sometimes cringey for me. Sometimes I am petty or mean or hateful. Sometimes I'm just so willfully ignorant or simply unable to see how much I was letting my emotional state be controlled. I'm not ashamed of any of this, to be clear -- I'm in awe of it. I read those old, cringey emails and I can see my personal, emotional, spiritual growth.
I am the same person but I am also not the same person. I have lived and died hundreds and thousands of times since I experienced those difficult Julys.
I'm getting a little emotional thinking about it now. Because, look. I have been through a lot -- we all go through a lot. But I have intentionally dug in on the parts that hurt the most. I have made myself stand there in the thick of discomfort and look it in the eye. I have chosen a path of learning, healing, and growth. That doesn't mean I don't still sometimes play the blame game or try to deflect from my own process or my own level of participation -- but I always return to my cooler head and I own my part in my own life. I am not a spectator. Life hasn't happened to me. I have faced challenges, I have admitted mistakes, I have had the opportunity to look back and see how I once behaved with the ability to know how I'd choose to behave differently, knowing what I now know.
I cannot express in human words how humbling, powerful, and meaningful that is to me.
Timehop reminded me of this eye-opening sentiment:
Our mood, our perspective, our body chemistry, our ability to contend with the elements on any given day can shape everything. If we lean into a paranoid stance where we believe the world is out to get us, we will view everything through that lens. If we lean into an open stance where we believe others have good intentions, then that's the lens we use. So on and so forth.
I've really noticed this a lot working with people -- depending on what they've been through, they may look at the exact same set of circumstances so differently from someone else. I've learned that a key role I can play is looking to understand someone's why and working with them from that starting point.
As I told someone yesterday who has been frustrated with someone else: Talk to them about your frustrations, but don't goal to "convince" them of anything. Just share your story and let it be just that.
As a culture, we are primed to want to WIN all the time and to PROVE OURSELVES RIGHT. But what if there's no such thing as "winning" and what if there's no such thing as "right"? What then? All we have left is this bag of bones and blood and water and cells and all of it is being recycled constantly, automatically, even. Let the moment be what it is without controlling it. Let your story be told without dictating someone else's response.
That is true freedom.
Maybe Warren Zevon was on my mind this morning because of how much "Keep Me In Your Heart" speaks my current mood:
If I leave you, it doesn't mean I love you any less
Keep me in your heart for a while
When I left Tom, I didn't even know that I was leaving Tom. I knew I was leaving, of course. But my brain had to trick me into thinking he was forcing me out, when it was evident he was not. The time had come and there's no clearer evidence than how totally I was able to leave him. Even now, as far as I've come in my healing process, I have no interest or desire in contacting him. I love him. I hope there will be a chance for us to heal our relationship. But I also know that he will have to want that, too, in order for it to come to be. Tom will have to choose that and he will only do that when and if he's ever ready to do so. He might not ever be ready. But if that day ever comes, I welcome it. Because it will mean that he, too, chose to leave old patterns behind in order to forge a new path.
In the meantime:
Sometimes when you're doing simple things around the house
Maybe you'll think of me and smile
I dunno, Tommy, maybe you don't ever think of me and smile. But I think of you and smile almost every day. It's how I see the world: joyful, resilient, hopeful, and full of possibilities. Through every little death I've encountered, my optimism has always placed love, strength, and opportunity in the center of the frame. No amount of hardship has broken that lens. In my core, I am a woman who speaks, who loves, who learns, and who evolves. Sometimes I even surprise myself with my commitment to this life-framing. For me, there is no other way. Not through little deaths, not through anything.
Humans, we impact each other in countless ways every day -- strangers, loved ones, and everyone in between. There have been people in my life who were once so important to me whose names I might struggle to remember now...and there are people I maybe only met once whose names are right at the tip of my tongue. There are many ways to keep each other in our hearts, in our memories, in our collective experiences. And the first step to doing so is in acknowledging that we make a choice, every day, about how we experience life while simultaneously going through these little deaths.
For me, one of the biggest takeaways is what remains when all is said and done. What is it that the tide never seems to pull away from the shore.
That's where you reside, you know. That's why I still think of you and smile.