In which I will find something hopeful to say about... something
Or die trying
Okay let’s start off strong with the positive: it’s not December anymore!
If you don’t subscribe to the also-on-substack (yes yes, see below on that) newsletter where I send out sad little weird poems that I also do a voiceover so you can hear me sadly reading the sad weird poems, you might have missed my sad little sonnet about December. Check it out and maybe subscribe so you can get more sad little weird poems from me. I’ve been writing a lot of them lately, and unearthing more, and they want to be out in the world, free, for people to, maybe not enjoy, but something.
While we are on the topic of newsletters, I also have that Woe one, where I recently wrote about big feelings.
Also while were are on the topic of newsletters, I am aware that substack continues to allow actual Nazis to make money on the platform, and I probably need to seriously consider getting myself off the platform (as I have mostly managed to take myself off of the-social-app-formerly-known-as-twitter). Now, however, when it’s only just no longer December and every day I am waking up feeling like I have been punched in the gut, and then I spend a lot of the day crying — now is not that time.
Relatedly, speaking of Nazis, I am so, so angry that Claudine Gay has been forced to resign from Harvard’s Presidency (and having gone to Harvard, as much as I kind of hate the place, I do have skin in the game of what kind of dumb shit it gets up to or allows to go down) while actual antisemites like, say the owner of the-social-app-formerly-known-as-twitter just get to continue along their merry way. I AM SO FUCKING ANGRY ABOUT THIS.
But anyways, at least it’s no longer December, and eventually, eventually, I will feel less bad.
Still, everything is breaking my heart these days. My heart just feels broken all the time, very painfully, which explains all the crying, the endless, endless crying. Some of it is personal heartbreak, for which there is literally nothing to be done except live through it. Some of it, as I’ve written, is grief over the situation in Gaza, the death and destruction there, the failure of any government including ours to broker a ceasefire, the hostages who continue to be held, the children who continue to be bombed and to starve.
“Aren't all these notes the senseless writings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it?”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
***
The truth is, I’m not ever sure how I survive December. Some are worse than others. December 2002 was a nightmare. December 2012, a total fucking horror show, really surprised I made it out of that whole year, to be honest. December 2022, there was that demon trapped in my back, you might remember, and I had to figure out how to extract it, which it turned out required that I extract myself from my job. Wow, are my shittiest Decembers every 10 years, on the 2s? Are they timed with cicadas or acorn mast years or some other kind of astronomical or ecological event? Can any of my readers answer that question for me?
December 2023 wasn’t quite as bad as any of those Decembers, so that’s something else positive I just said.
***
Here, another good thing: I also got back into doing a bit of standup comedy this December; I did a 6 minute set (yes it was supposed to be 5) in a friend’s basement performance space. I thought I was hilarious, whatever anyone else thought of it, and I like turning my pain into funny little punchlines as well as sad little poems. I think I’m going to try to hit up some open mics soon. I’ve had to give up all my unhinged twitter alts, so something has got to give.
***
Another good thing: I continue to train for this thru-hike I got it in my head to do. I must be serious about it, because I do not like climbing up stuff (like, at all!) but I keep going on long hikes or walks involving lots of climbing, because I would like to be able to actually do the thru-hike. It’s gratifying to notice that walking up Summit Avenue, which goes up one of the highest hills near me, used to be really fucking hard for me, but now I can do it several times in a row while still having plenty of breath left over for all the sobbing.
I have a whole draft of a little essay about what it’s been like to go from “I have never been overnight backpacking before in my life” and try to learn everything I need to know and gain all the skills I need to have to actually do this pretty hard thing, but, well, it’s just a draft, so you’ll have to wait for it. What I will say here is that when, in 2022, I gave a talk about how to make choices in life, I said that if you let your body lead you, it’ll take you where you need to go. My body keeps leading me to this trail, so I have to assume it’s the right thing for me to do next.
I feel like the Amy I will become is waiting for me at the end of that trail, and I need to go and meet her there. Which is awesome, but also terrifying, because that Amy, who learned to backpack and got over her dislike of climbing up things and climbed 53 mountains over 270 miles to the end of the trail, well, she scares me. Who is she? How many bears did she run into? How many men did she meet on the trail who gave her advice she didn't ask for, and what did she say to them?? How did she deal with her fear of heights in the places where the trail is just a ladder bolted to the side of a mountain? What does she want to do next? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I guess I’m going to find out, and I guess that’s something hopeful too.
***
Ugh I hate all this active hope. I want to sink into the ground and decompose. The gray cat’s little paws are pinning me precisely where I am, however, desperate as I am, with my teeth clenched and my sinuses swollen and my stomach completely hollowed out and my chest just pain pain pain.
Still the sun sets, the moon rises. Here’s another poem I wrote, a more hopeful one.
***
Okay, okay, another beautiful, hopeful thing:
I spent New Year’s Eve with my family, with Max and our kids and the gray cat and the black cat.
Here is a story about how that happened:
26 years ago, just after midnight, as 1998 arrived, I sat in a small red room in an apartment in Cambridge, alone. I was at a party and everyone else was up on the roof watching the fireworks, but I was alone in that small red room. I had the thought then, “I would like to spend the rest of my New Years with Max",” who was, at the time, visiting a friend in Barcelona, and who, strictly speaking, I had broken up with in September.
I didn’t really understand this revelation, it seemed out of character (it was! and everyone was very surprised when I got married so young! just as I suppose many people are surprised now that I have this hike I need to do), but, young and scared as I was, as much as I thought this couldn’t possibly be the next thing I’m supposed to do, could it? — I knew enough, and bless that 22 year old Amy, who knew enough, somehow, then — I knew enough to follow my feet where they took me, which was to Max’s apartment, the moment he returned from Barcelona, to tell him I had made a mistake and I didn’t want to be broken up after all.
I have been lucky enough to spend every New Years since in his company, just as I hoped. My feet did not lead me astray, that 22 year old Amy was wise enough for what was needed.
And that, I suppose, is a very, very hopeful thing indeed — that sometimes people know what they need, and sometimes, instead of shooting themselves in the foot or pretending they don’t know what they need or bull-headedly walking the exact opposite direction from the thing they see they need — sometimes they actually allow themselves to go forth and seek it out, their destiny.
May 2024 be a year in which we all follow our feet to wherever we need to go next, fortified with love and with hope, even if we have to drag ourselves shrieking and crying up the hills we know we must climb.
PS I’m feeling pretty shitty about myself right now so if you have anything nice you’d like to say to me I sure would love to hear it. Smash that reply button and tell me why I’m not a worthless piece of shit that December stepped on and January accidentally tracked all over the house.
I always look forward to reading the words you share Amy. You have a way of putting them together that I deeply admire. And, my life is richer with you in it. So glad you are.