all lit up

on anger at the holidays

I got angry twice last week. The kind of mad that makes me grind my jaw at night so I wake up exhausted. The kind of mad that has my hair follicles on fire and tiny, red veins popping out of my cheeks. The kind of mad that’s hiding what I’ve buried—for me, the STUFF is always abandonment; a sense of being left behind; of being ‘the last to know.’

My friend

Whitney Voûte

is good at conflict, mostly because she’s curious about it. Heat between people makes her cock her head and squint her eyes and grin as she leans in closer. She doesn’t seek disagreement, but she doesn’t shirk from it, either. Me, I’m a shirker…the kind of gal who boils in her bed then drifts away into a cold, punishing silence. Classic big sister stuff. But Whitney’s curiosity has rubbed off, and for that I’m grateful—and also, better rested.  

Last week I re-read the first paid post I ever published, which was about the hurt anger defends. (Included below.) I called Whitney for counsel. Even as I raged, I investigated—am I feeling left behind? Yes, I was. {JUSTIFIABLY!}

Still, the question of blame was secondary. The primary recoil was from an old sense of aloneness. Acknowledging this gave me a bit of distance from my frustration, which meant I could look at the facts without feeling electrocuted. After a while, I offered my version of events to the offending parties in language that was firm, but not charged with adjacent, unwitting junk. I wasn’t wrong to be angry; but I didn’t have to keep going to bed with my scalp on fire.

The Last of the Spirits — The Pointing Finger — John Leech

The next six weeks are special…and spicy. Loved ones will dance on our most ancient minefields—sometimes on purpose, but often, by infuriating accident. It’s extra maddening—insulting, even—to have spent years on self-inquiry only to sit with Uncle Harold who has done none of *the work* yet whose off-handed remarks send steam shooting out your ears and eye-holes.

It helps to keep our own vulnerabilities in mind, I think. It helps to remember that every projection, nastiness and defense we see in others is a cover for whatever tender thing they can’t abide. What if we could stay curious about these buried mysteries?

Of course it’s always the folks whose pain-points are most proximate to mine who heat me up the hottest. I wonder if I might find some deeper point of connection in that friction and its spark.

Peace, love and cool hair follicles to you and yours—

Xx Isabel

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BE CRUMBLED from July 2023

My coach, hero and friend, Helene, read me this poem by Rumi a few weeks ago:

Very little grows on jagged rock.

Be ground. Be crumbled.
So wildflowers will come up
where you are.

You have been stoney for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender.

I’d heard these words before, but never directed at me with such graceful specificity.

I had some big feelings last month—mostly fear, which is natural in this confounding state of pregnancy where the bigger I grow, the frailer I feel.

Christopher has been working a lot—away at least two days a week since June. Two weeks ago he was in Sweden. (Saturday: “I’m going to Sweden. Tomorrow.”) The night he came home, he had a work outing and left again, his suitcase unpacked in the hallway. I’d misunderstood and bought dinner, flowers & new candlesticks. I felt like an asshole when I realized I’d be eating chicken nuggets and baby carrots with the kids again. These shrimp were previously frozen the label read, mocking, haughty.

Post-golf drinks ran late and Christopher didn’t call because he didn’t want to wake me (huge, fragile bodies are also tyrannical about sleep), but I stared at the ceiling, telling stories. I love my imagination, but alone, in the dark, the tales get a little freaky.

When he came in, I popped out of the sheets, fists up like the fighting Irish leprechaun… with a distended belly. “I don’t think you went to a business conference, I think you’re financing foreign beauty pageants! Why would you not?! Nordic women are all so good looking!” It seemed more logical than golf.

Emotional shadowboxing did not garner the loving response I craved. I got confused apologies and explanations, but I still buzzed with indignation, especially when I heard snoring. How dare he sleep? I had a zillion more accusations—a cult; a second family; a naked circus! I tromped to the boys’ room, lay between Augie and Clyde and listened to them breathe and shift in their blankets. The Rumi poem came to mind and I repeated it until the light went pale blue under the blinds.

I got up and walked through the field behind our house to the graveyard beyond. The rising sun hung gold in the fog. I read Entangled Life a few weeks ago and have been fascinated by lichen since: these organisms break stone into dirt, making life where none was possible before. Lichen are the reason we exist on Earth. As I wove in and out of the laced tombstones, I pictured myself covered in green scabs.

When I got home, I felt soft and open. Whoops! What I meant to say was: I love you and I miss you when you’re gone and I’m scared about having another baby. It’s a weirdly lonely process. Can you make me some tea and rub my cocktail-weiner toes? Somewhere between dark and dawn, Rumi turned me from quartz to crumbles.

The poem has me wondering: what if I could bypass the fight and come from hurt the fight defends? What if I could start as crumbles? Maybe I don’t have to scorch the earth to get to where the wildflowers grow.