small magic

In some ways, I’m a fast learner. I take in large amounts of information quickly and speed through books, always anxious to find the meaning, to derive the lesson, to know and to share what I know with others. 

Many of my past relationships have been defined by witty banter and rapid exchange of information – an eagerness to show up, to one up, to outsmart. I used to think this was a sign of compatibility. Now I know that it’s actually in the silence – the space – that we really find each other. 

The older I get, the more I am coming to realize that while I might be quick to know, I am often dreadfully slow to understand. And this slowness is an invitation and a gift. 

I’ve thought a lot about my relationship with work since moving to New York. I’ve had an almost accidental career path and haven’t really figured out yet what I want to be when I grow up. I admire my friend Gail who has intentionally lived her life in five year chapters – navigating all sorts of interesting challenges along the way. She once told me during a rough period to just think of it all as performance art. I’ve never stopped thinking about that. 

But I keep coming back to some of the same questions: does work have inherent meaning, or do we ascribe meaning to it? And how much of this meaning – whether real or ascribed – truly comes from us? How much of it actually comes from others? How do mindsets of scarcity, of fear, of learned helplessness get in the way of us discovering what it is that we’re truly after? And how many of us are caught building a life that looks good on the outside, but on the inside, just never feels quite right? 

Having recently moved, there are parts of my life here that don’t fit quite right just yet, in the same way that there were some gaping holes and unanswered questions in much of my life where I lived before. And as I’ve wrestled with this transition, I am finding that while I may learn quickly – and find immediate answers to some of these questions – there are so many others that I simply need to learn again and again and again.

And this, as it turns out, is the real work. 

Wendell Berry captures the sentiment far better than I ever could: 

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Copyright ©1983 by Wendell Berry, from Standing by Words

Because the real work is being honest with yourself about where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’ve yet to go. The real work is finding the courage to have hard conversations with those that you care about most.The real work is being able to listen to the songs that remind you of those you’ve lost without crying. 

It’s taking the time to maintain all that makes up your life, even while you’re working towards something different. It’s holding space for those who are hurting, and not projecting your own experiences onto that space. It’s letting go with grace and humility. It’s being okay with not being okay.

It’s loving what you have, while you can, where you are, even when some or all of these things may be temporary. It’s staying in the moment even when it is a truly painful one, and letting the discomfort teach you. It’s allowing yourself to un-learn, and to un-know, so that you can make space for what might be. 

These are all things that I’ve learned, but don’t quite yet understand. I’m okay with that, the same way that I’m okay with drinking a little too much wine sometimes, hitting the snooze button for upwards of an hour every single morning, and only washing my hair once a week. There is such a loveliness and grace to be found in the imperfections that reveal themselves over and over as we come, yet again, to our real work. 

What is your real work right now? And what is it teaching you? 

Think about it. Tell someone you love about it. Or tell me about it, if you feel like it. I’ll be here, working.