BornWilder

Author. Certified Coach. Catalytic Speaker

On...

On Accident

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When we want to heal after tragedy, we look for answers. Answers aren’t easy—if there are answers at all.

People reassured me a car crash wasn’t my fault, even though I was behind the wheel drunk, because it was an “accident.” “Accident” was their answer, and it seemed to provide closure. The word “accident” made me feel even more alone.

When I spill a glass of water or trip and knock over a lamp—those are accidents. When I drive drunk and crash a car…

Yes, the crash was unintentional. I didn’t plan to drive drunk or lose control of the car. I didn’t plan for my friend in the passenger seat to suffer brain damage. But this didn’t absolve my actions leading up to the crash. And “accident” didn’t help me heal: I didn’t know how to live in a world where I was capable of this tragedy. I needed language that held me personally responsible. (I’m not talking about stricter incarceration laws—that doesn’t help.) Until that happened, I couldn’t begin to forgive myself. I couldn’t learn from my mistake in the way I needed and wanted.

Anything That Happens

It wasn’t until I looked up the definition for “accident” that I realized why the word made me feel lonelier and even more helpless than I already did.

accident (‘ӕksidәnt), sb. [a. Fr. accident: —L. accidens. –ent, sb. properly pr. pple. of accid-ӗre to fall, to happen.]

  1. Anything that happens.
  1. † a. An occurrence, incident, event. Obs. b. Anything that happens without foresight or expectation; an unusual event, which proceeds from some unknown cause, or is an unusual effect of a known cause; a casualty, a contingency. the chapter of accidents: the unforeseen course of events. c. esp. An unfortunate event, a disaster, a mishap.

[The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., s.v. “accident.”]

I’m not alone in this thinking. Here’s two articles: “It’s no accident” and “When a car crash isn’t an accident.” Both talk about the “Crash not Accident” effort started by Transportation Alternatives and Families for Safe Streets based in New York City.

On a similar note—and yet a whole other discussion—restorative justice “is an approach to justice in which one of the responses to a crime is to organize a meeting between the victim and the offender, sometimes with representatives of the wider community.” (Wikipedia)

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On Planning

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100-year-old tobacco barn on snowy mountainside

I’m not a natural planner. I was born to go with the flow (Hello, Pisces!). Spreadsheets and lists make me want to run for the hills. And please don’t ask me to write an outline. But over the years, I have succumbed to the daily planner and made great use of it until the pandemic. My planner has all but grown legs and escaped out the window.

For example, the paragraph above was written for my January blog post. But I wrote the incorrect publish date on my calendar and only realized it a week after the post was due. Then, my book release date was decided, and pre-sale started. January’s blog post quickly became a mere memory of an idea.

I do blame Covid-brain. I do not allow it to define my year.

So, this month I’m relying on the efforts of my past self and that of family and friends. In other words, I’m pivoting from my original plan. Enjoy a little reading smorgasbord while I get to work on book promotion!

Reading Smorgasbord

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On Reflection

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There’s no way around it: 2020 felt like walking blindfolded onto a roller coaster with no safety harnesses. How do I reflect on the year when I’m still holding on for dear life, and the roller coaster hasn’t stopped?

I follow the advice of fellow Waterwheel Review editor, Claire Guyton: “I’m doing two things this month to say a firm goodbye to 2020 and walk with intention and strength into whatever the next year holds: Taking stock and making joy.”

Easier said than done. But here goes.

Taking Stock

My piece of the world is so small right now. If I had to count the times I left my house since March, I could. My youngest children have left the house even less though they boast at having attended more Zoom meetings than my husband and I combined. Their school district has been in full remote learning for seventeen weeks. And since they are in second grade, I have been in full remote hall monitor, teacher’s assistant, cafeteria cook, and principal for seventeen weeks.

I have lived anything but solitary since the pandemic began. Even so, I was compelled to reach out beyond my immediate surroundings during the early stay-at-home orders in March and April. I wrote a daily poem and posted them to Facebook and here on the website. I wanted to live what poet Stanley Kunitz says in his poem, “Revolving Meditation”:

The voice of the solitary
Who makes others less alone.

I may not be alone in my house, but as a poet, one of my strengths is the ability to express my single human experience.

Making Joy

When my husband asked me to think of a positive that came out of 2020, I answered, “Freeze dance.”

We had a quaranteam Halloween party while our neighborhood flooded—like it does every year—with trick or treaters. Our quaranteam consists of eight adults and three kids. We had so much fun we decided to do it again next year, in addition to resumed trick or treating. The favorite game: Freeze dance.

Why does freeze dance sum up joy for me? Dancing, for one. Stress release. Letting go of the world’s ills. Everyone separate in their rhythm. Then, stop. Be startled. Look at everyone around you. Laugh. When the music starts back up, get lost again.

Freeze dance reminds me of Kunitz’s point. We dance singularly, each one of us experiencing our own solitary emotions. The music abruptly stops, bringing everyone back together. We’re laughing and connecting—feeling less alone.

When my youngest was eliminated because he didn’t freeze, he asked me, “Can I still dance?

“Yes,” I said. “Of course, you can keep dancing.” Please keep dancing.

We played freeze dance again at Thanksgiving. We’ll play freeze dance at Christmas, New Year’s, and for years to come.

Word for 2021: Intention

My most pressing question: How long will my youngest kids be in remote learning? Yes, when will a vaccine be available to my family is on my mind. But seriously, when will my kids go back to school, even part-time?

Since I have no clue what my schedule will be, I can only look into 2021 with intent. There is no waiting for something to work out, no putting off until tomorrow. I can’t find a to-do list from last week. I can barely hold more than two ideas in my head at a time. The only way forward is through determination and resolve.

However, I am neither discouraged nor upset (just mentally and emotionally drained). I have an intentional act I already rely on, one that I have spent twenty-five years doing: Wake every morning with contentment. 

When I first started, I had to reach beyond my station. Reach for who I wanted to be. A “fake it before you become it” approach.

Some mornings, I still have to reach, especially in 2020. I will always reach if it’s necessary. Not because I need to be better. And not because I need to fulfill someone else’s belief in what I should be. I do it because I believe in more than I am in any given moment. And when I’m content, I can be fully present and available to others—the version of myself that I like best.

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On Plenty

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Recently, I came across Henry David Thoreau’s well-known quote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” His sentiment inspired a Google search where I found Just Enough is Plenty by Samuel Alexander, a book that examines Thoreau’s alternative economics.

“Just enough is plenty” has been circling my mind ever since, reminiscent of how I felt during quarantine on April 3, 2020 when I wrote:

I relearn what is essential,
balance worth on payday
by my smile lines.

In his book, Alexander examines the events leading up to Thoreau’s journey to Walden Pond, “the young Thoreau was confronted by those great economic questions all of us must face when trying to establish financial independence in a world of scarce resources: How best to earn a living? How much time should I spend at it? How much do I need to live well and to be free?“

Thoreau wanted the poetic life. But how?

How to live?

Thinking about Thoreau’s “vocation of crisis,” I reflected on a few of my own decisions when faced with how to live in the society I was born in to. Like Thoreau, I wanted to be a poet but didn’t know how to live like one.

My first economic decision was whether to pay my bills on time. After high school, I lived with roommates and worked part-time in a trophy shop. I knew I’d pay bills until I was dead. The only people who didn’t pay bills, I reasoned, lived in communes. I ruled out moving to a commune and decided paying bills on time simplified adulthood.

In my early twenties, I looked for a more holistic approach to life as a poet, and “how to live” led me to Bronnie Ware’s top 5 regrets of the dying:

  1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
  2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
  3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
  4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
  5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

If this isn’t a blueprint for a poetic life, I don’t know what is.

I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

Artists must live a life true to themselves and definitely not what others expect of them. The Art demands it. As historian Sigfried Giedion put it:

The artist, in fact, functions a great deal like an inventor or a scientific discoverer: all three seek new relations between man and his world. In the artist’s case these relations are emotional instead of practical or cognitive. The creative artist does not want to copy his surroundings, on the one hand, or to make us see through his eyes, on the other. He is a specialist who shows us in his work as if in the mirror something we have not realized for ourselves: the state of our own souls. He finds the outer symbols for the feelings which really possess us but for us are only chaotic and—therefore—disquieting, obsessive stirrings. This is why we still need artists, however difficult it may be for them to hold their place in the modern world

I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.

Okay, poets work hard. But, if we’re to take the advice of Rainer Marie Rilke, (and we do take his advice), we get another perspective on work: “We have to mix our work with ourselves at such a deep level that workdays turn into holidays all by themselves, into our actual holidays.”

I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Done.

I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

The last two regrets speak to the importance of community and being kind to oneself. I wouldn’t say they are natural to a poet’s life; more like a poet’s two biggest obstacles. Poets like to be alone. We’re tough on ourselves. And we’re prone to melancholy.

What if you’re not a poet?

You don’t have to be a poet to live a poetic life. You might be looking to slow down and find the extraordinary in the ordinary. Maybe you’re having a “crisis of vocation” like Thoreau or questioning how to live (especially as we face a cultural shift in the wake of a pandemic).

As a poet, I’m driven by the need to understand how to live. It doesn’t pay all the bills, but my life is enriched in ways that money cannot buy. Thoreau knew this to be true. Yet, it wasn’t a new idea. “Just enough is plenty” is another way of saying what philosopher Lao Tzu taught in 6th century BC, “Those who know they have enough are rich.”


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On Optimism

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balloons held to a door with crepe paper

A recent Washington Post headline, “Time to ditch ‘toxic positivity,’ experts say: ‘It’s okay not to be okay,'” made me question whether I have answered too many pandemic texts with an “always look on the bright side of life” attitude.

The answer: probably.

I have a history of optimism. For example, when I was twenty, a co-worker said she couldn’t hang out with me because I was too optimistic for her. I have no idea what we were talking about, or what I said that prompted her statement. The point is, our conversation happened while I was at my lowest, only months after the car crash I was responsible for. Where was this optimism coming from?

One study says 25% of people are born optimistic. Maybe I’m one of the 25%. Perhaps, innate optimism put my feet on the floor when I didn’t want to face the day. My genes kept me searching for a solution to shame and self-hatred while I believed my feelings were deserved.

I’m okay that I’m not okay

As an optimist, there is one thing I know: it’s okay not to be okay.

Not being okay in my twenties helped me define what I wanted out of this life; it provided opportunities to tap into strengths I never knew possible. Wait. I just turned “not okay” into a positive. Is that optimistic?

Let me try again.

I believe in sitting underneath a blanket on the couch, and looking “not okay” in the eyes. I believe in learning every nook and cranny of painful emotions. In asking, Where does my pain originate from? How did I get here, to this place that is so heavy and hurtful?

Why do I believe in addressing pain this way? Because going through emotional hardship is what helped me move through it. If it wasn’t for facing what made me not okay, I wouldn’t be sitting here on this rainy Thursday morning searching for ways to connect with you. I wouldn’t feel worthy.

If I hadn’t brought “not okay” into my fold, and made it part of who I am instead of something I didn’t want in my life, I wouldn’t have found the path to contentment. And I really like feeling at peace with myself. Embracing my pain gave me the power to let it go.

Hardship from the pandemic is not over. Far from it. When I receive a distressed text or call from a loved one, I’ll be more mindful to not be “toxic positive.” But the optimism stays. I will continue to remind others to breathe, take a nap, cry all afternoon if necessary. After all, accepting “not okay” is the optimistic thing to do.

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On and On and On

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top half of footprint in sand as if child was running

As the days of 2020 melt into one another, Erykah Badu’s song “On & On” replays in my head. The song was released in 1997, the year my eldest son was born, and I hadn’t listened to it (or the album Baduizm) in a long time. Listening now, in what seems like a warped version of the movie Groundhog Day, I’m transported back into the rented brick house where I walked in circles with an infant in my arms.

I had no idea what I was doing. The matriarchs in my family lived far away, and I had no close friends who were also mothers. For perspective, I thought about all the pregnant women and new mothers throughout history. Women who trusted their bodies and instincts instead of books and Lamaze classes. They had elders too, and eventually midwives. But when I saw myself as one bead on the string of mothers throughout history, I gained a new inner strength. I believed I could be a good mother.

Around the same time, I decided to–one day–tell my story of the car crash. My goal was to influence others not to drive under the influence, or help them through the aftermath of making the same (or similar) mistake. There was a long road ahead–I had barely started the work toward healing–but I held the seed of an idea.

Seeds and Trees

I’m pretty good at not giving myself credit where credit is due. There’s many reasons for this, but one has to do with the shame I felt after the crash. While I wanted to turn my trauma into something that helped others, I equally felt I didn’t deserve any good in my life. My emotions and my intellect were at odds with one another (and would remain that way for years). So, I compromised, and threw my seed into the wind.

Twenty-three years later, in the midst of a pandemic, I watch that seed branch out in ways I never anticipated. As I sit here, my instinct is to say, “I’m glad I sent those emails last January.” The truth is: “I’m glad I decided in 1997 to one day tell my story and help others.” If I could go back in time, I would reassure my younger self to believe in the tree before she ever saw the first sprout.

My eldest son is now on his own artistic path. His younger brothers are experiencing the first remote-learning school year in history. I’m doing what I’ve been doing since 1997: juggling kids, writing, and a career. But my long ago planted seed is now a tree. And as 2020 turns toward fall, I continue my juggling act with Badu singing in the background, “The world keeps turnin’ / Oh, what a day / What a day, what a day.”

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