Sometimes a Man - Rainer Maria Rilke

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Hello All,

I hope this letter finds you well and engaged in your lives, as is Sally, and as am I. It’s that holiday time of the year, of course, and I find myself thinking about home and family, as the culture has taught me to do. I won’t be seeing any of you this year … again … and it seems right, to reflect on that for a bit, and see what peace such reflection might give me. I find it ironic in the extreme that I, a confirmed Scrooge-o-phile, has ended up saying to you “keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.” But there it is. And the fact is, these days, ol’ Scrooge’s nephew was quite correct: from the perspective of most people in our culture, I don’t keep it at all.

What is there to say, really? I spent the last dozen years and more, as Daniel Quinn advises and Colie Brice sings, “walking away.” I walked away from the culture into which I was born, the culture that was transmitted to me via my family, my school, my friends, by the various media that comprised the water in which I swam. I walked away, and continue to walk away, from the stories, the expectations, the beliefs, and the assumptions. I have walked away, as much as has felt sensible and meaningful, from the outward manifestations of those expectations and assumptions, slowly refashioning my relationships to work, play, food, consumption, body, exercise, time, space, love, partnership, and feeling. I have walked so far, so many standard deviations from the mean, so close to the edge, that some days I wonder if I might not just reach up and pull myself off this planet entirely, like the Little Prince and his flock of “wild birds,” and begin my journey back “home” to Asteroid B-612. I have, indeed, gone looking for that church in the East.

I hope you understand that I had to do this, that I was dying “inside the dishes and in the glasses.” Or, even if it makes no sense to you, I hope you might trust that it makes sense to me. I tried for so long to find a way to fit in, to find my way inside of the stories that had raised me up. But I couldn’t. The news of our quickly-changing world and our bankrupt cultural expectations knocked me down and broke me open and I have never been the same. What crawled out of that broken shell, that rusted suit of armor, that torn, papery, cocoon, has become, over time, the person I consider the “real me.”

Hello…

Whether moth or wanderer, I’m glad, finally, to have stepped more fully into the human body I now wear and the person I “be.” I have work to do still, of course. This fleshsuit fits imperfectly, and there are parts of it I can’t quite make work the way I want to. But by and large, stepping into who I am has been a prize worth my fighting for. I have never felt happier. But what a cost in loss and pain. I am so sorry that my journey has taken me so far afield from those who first nurtured me. And I am so sorry that walking away has been so difficult for us all, and that I left you with little to do but say blessings on me as if I were dead. I could not find another way to get where I am, but to leave where I was.

I have few points of contact with the holidays now. Though I find truths worth considering in the nativity story, I am not a Christian, and so do not much connect with the holiday in that way. Though I enjoy the ancient shamanic roots of the modern Santa story, there is little in that whole mythology that calls to me now, David Sedaris notwithstanding. And even the whole ritual of gift giving and receiving leaves me vaguely embarrassed, as it feels to me such a pale substitute for what it is I really want, which is close, intimate, vulnerable exchanges of life and love and aid and support with people with whom I can “belong,” rather than just “fit in,” to use Brene Brown’s words. So when I encounter the outer signs of the holiday season, be they decorations, parties, or people asking me whether I’ve “finished my shopping,” I am struck mostly with a sense of the surreal and a pang of nostalgia, as I am reminded that this world in which I once lived and participated is still going on all around me. I feel like a ghost, who walks a world out of which he has died away. Or a time traveler, who steps, momentarily, into his own past. The feeling is awkward, painful, dissonant, disturbing, distressing. I no longer belong there. It is time for this ghost to move on.

So it is very hard on me, to “come back,” even for short visits. The stories and assumptions and expectations in which I was raised are, from what I can see, still largely intact in my family of origin. Family stories about what we value, and how we interact, and who takes which role, expectations about what is allowable to do, to say, to want, to need, and to have, assumptions about conflict and vulnerability and acceptance and relationship and intimacy, these are the very “dishes” and “glasses” in which I was dying. I do not now fit into those stories, and am unconvinced that, on my own, I can find a way to find my peace with them. I know you to be good people doing the best with what you have, as are we all. It’s the stories you live from that can hurt me. It’s as if, so close to the edge, so ready to take off into the cosmos with my flock of birds, I now breathe air that would not sustain most of you, or you breathe air that stifles and strangles me. It feels that elemental to me. That difficult to overcome. That painful. And so, once again, I stay away, not knowing what else to do. There remain unresolved conflicts, and many painful wounds, and I am unable to heal them myself.

And yet I quite like the cold and snow and the dark of the year. I love the strands of twinkling lights. I love some of the old holiday music. And there are movies that Sally and I watch every year, movies like Love Actually and The Family Stone and Pieces of April, movies that touch, if only briefly, the family bonds we see as possible, the holidays as we might create them, and the sorts of connections we do find amongst that smaller tribe of fellow edge-people and asteroid-dwellers and shrews and mutants we know mostly from a distance. I’ve got lights strung in my office. Jethro Tull’s Christmas Song awaits the touch of a button. And soon we’ll dig out those old movies and watch them and cry and wish and dream and long. But mostly, this year, I think I shall just be thankful for what I did have then, rather than grieving for what I do not have now.

I want you to know two things. As painful as walking away has been, I would do it all again, because my life is exactly what I want and need it to be right now. I am well, out here on the edge. Well and truly and amen. I’m doing great, even as tears stream down my face. And I want you to know that, because I am okay now, I know that I need nothing from you. I do not need you to follow me. I do not need you to look at what I look at, think what I think, feel what I feel, believe what I believe, or know what I know. I do not need you to do anything, to “transition to a sustainable lifestyle,” to “save the world,” to “walk a spiritual path,” to “question your assumptions,” to live your lives in any way but the way you are called to live them, or to “keep Christmas” in any way but which brings you the joy and peace you wish to have for yourselves. If anything I’ve said or done over the years has communicated otherwise, please understand that I was merely trying to claim my own right to follow my own path. I have found my “church in the East.” I trust that you shall all find your own churches, in your own ways, and in your own times. This seems the design of things, to me. And that, even if there is pain and loss, makes it feel right and good.

Please, as you all gather this year, wherever and however and with whomever that happens to be, know that, from afar, I remember you all, and wish you the best. Know that I carry a deep appreciation for what you’ve all given me, from the nurturing I received as a child to the gifts of wisdom that even our separation now has to teach me. Please know that I know that you are good-hearted people who want the best for each other and for me. And please know that, even as you say blessings on me as if I were dead, I am not dead, any more than the Little Prince is dead. The Little Prince laughs still amongst the stars, and I am still here, still walking my path along the edge of the gravity well. And I’m quite a good fellow, actually, with much to offer, and gifts to give, and love to share. Should any of your own paths bring you this way, and should you wish to step into a house built on stories and expectations very different from your own, and should you care to taste the strange, brisk air I seem so much to adore, please know that I will welcome you in for tea. I’ll give you a tour of the church I found. You can feed the flock of wild birds. We’ll listen to some Jethro Tull and some David Sedaris. Probably we’ll cry.

That’s the way we do things here on the edge.

That’s how I walk through this dark of the year.

May the gods bless us, every one.

Pax.
T