la vie suspendue – interrompue

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Toujours là, kind of.

Yesterday in a pinnacle of irony I found myself panic-stricken that the very cough I’d previous resisted, denied, been in a bad mood with etc etc before I finally accepted that I was ill might be actually be nearly better.

Suddenly it was clear that I wasn’t ready. Whatever was being accomplished by the enforced quiet of being ill-ish (very different from actually ill) had not actually been accomplished yet. In a kind surely-this-only-happens-to-strange-me moment I found myself relieved when the cough reappeared. Relief. I was still protected by the circumstances from emerging back into whatever demands I associate with being well.

But there is a turbulence, nonetheless in this unfinished mid-air living. Last night a friend visited with a variety of provocative thoughts and imaginings about my situation, which despite being sweet and light, shook the depths of myself in places where, so it turned out, I had already settled into what might become a staleness. This morning the inhabitants of the piano apartment announced an imminent visit moments before I expected to play. And there is torrential rain so my beloved garden is out of bounds.

I lean in, listening to my own music, my own heart… what do I do with this, with this ruffling of the still depths, obstacles?

And I hear the answer, ‘deeper’, the kerfuffles of the small disturbances can be allowed to herd me into deeper places, deeper depths, the music of my own being. I elude the obstacles with a deeper intention.

The turbulence of suspendue en l’air, echoes the turbulence of the water. I let myself be carried; I swim deeper. These paradoxical realities do their work with me, within me, wildly. I am sky, I am sea.

la vie suspendue en l’air – pretending unconsciousness

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Toujours là.

Yesterday’s recognition of an importance to là vie suspendue en l’air was at once an encouragement and a danger.

When the work of deep substance is going on, too many overly conscious or rational thoughts can disturb the process.

As someone who is often a galloping herd of conscious and rational thoughts, in particular, stories, the moment the recognition that a work of deep substance is afoot is the moment all sorts of theories and ‘good ideas’ can line up presenting themselves as the way to ‘manage’ the process.

One of my wildest works, now that I have actually surrendered to the silence, is to stay out of the way of myself while whatever takes place takes place. To give it space and not to intrude, bustling, with ‘are you ready yet?’ and ‘would you like a cup of tea?’.

The only way I have found to do this is to pretend as if an unconsciousness that anything might be going on at all, to pay an almost excessive reverent attention to everyday rhythms and chores, albeit it quietly, and, then, to avoid those who might see my quiet as a chance to visit their stories and theories onto my existence. I skirt the contours of myself, respectfully, and hope that by carefully holding my attention elsewhere, I can allow the mystery of the luminous uncanny the time it needs to accomplish its fullness.

la vie suspendue en l’air

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Je suis toujours là.

(Why do I want to express this time in French? It’s so particular; a form of linguistic escape, I feel, from the everyday. And sometimes you cannot live in the same linguistic air as certain politicians; a factor perhaps in my emigrating).

Je suis toujours là in this liminal space of mid-air suspension, a mid-air that is also a depth. And stripped by illness and everyone else’s holiday plans and still being a relatively recent inhabitant and not entirely speaking the language and the violent convulsions of the pandemic of everything pressing and usual and demanding. There is a certain quality of silence. And, it turns out that this silence is allowing some deep places of myself to make themselves known.

The day is almost excessively mundane – well, perhaps ordinary is a kinder word, as playing the piano and writing are hardly mundane for me. I’m hemmed in by my depleted energy levels. So there are only quiet activities going on. Yesterday: writing, lunch, listening to a friend, pondering aloud, reading, dinner, quiet conversation with a friend (quiet as I’ve almost lost my voice, alongside the other diminishments.)

But in that quiet space something is stirring. I am encountering my own deep substance, a being of myself that I have had so little chance to be in these last frenetic months. I have reached, it appears, a truth, a tenderness of self, a deep substance of my own being, a home of sorts, perhaps. It is a work of some experimentation to capture the texture of this encounter, the purity of it and its luminosity-with-substance quality. It is perhaps – suddenly it comes to me – the substance of the ‘eternity in the hearts of men’ that we cannot fathom, written about in Ecclesiastes.

So then my silence is making a space for this luminous goodness – the luminous uncanny I now remember I once called it – to intensify. I also know that in my personal history, these moments of imposed stillness are often of great import, places of gathering ahead of some unknown moment of vast renewal.

Je suis toujours là suspendue en l’air.

And in only a few short days I have moved from wrestling to treasuring, feeling this moment as something precious to protect and defend from whatever might disturb it before it is ready.

So then here I am, writing, playing music, attending to the ordinary, trying to be humble to my humanity while eternity does its work within me.

toujours suspendu en l’air

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I’m still here, in mid-air, which is uncannily like a depth, it turns out. In the wrestling match between maintaining a normal pace and slowing down, slowing down has won. And yet now I’m here, I feel strangely at home. I don’t feel the fret of missing out, I’m no longer disappointed, I’m kind of content, and curious, because at other points in my life when I have found myself in this imposed suspension, often something very deep has been at work, beyond my thoughts, words, understanding or control.

So it’s a little bit like I’ve set up tent here, in mid-air, and now find myself delighted. It’s so peculiar; how can I resist it so much and then turn out to be glad? Sometimes I feel like I don’t know myself at all; I can sometimes so little predict my true feelings about things that are in prospect.

I am still playing the piano (although today I didn’t because the neighbour was using the apartment) and writing, but I have seemingly slipped into a complete harmony with quietness and ordinary chores. Small unexciting things are getting done and I’m not feeling lonesome or deprived.

And the deeper stillness means that I’m more aware of the rumblings of movements in unknown places, and this awareness increases my patience because instead of fearing nothing, I can feel something. And what is a creative process for if not to prepare a space to welcome and embrace that?

perseverance: suspendu en l’air

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There I was all in persevering mode with happenstances aplenty and ferocious efforts and all of a sudden (well actually it snuck up on me):

Heat, and a cough.

It sounds so prosaic. Probably it’s meant.

All my wishes, intendings and momentum are scrambled. I am slowed down in a kind of ancient and insistent pace. I can’t do the things I wish to do; I can’t go to the places I want to go. It’s the first summery weather here for weeks and I can’t cycle to the seaside or bear to lie on a hot rock even if I got there. I’m in a continual internal argument with Little Miss High Achiever who seemingly cannot help but persist in believing that concrete reality is for losers and wishes should triumph. (And I should have compassion on her because indeed the feeling of disappointment is intolerably near to defeat).

I am well enough to do this and that (here I am after all, and I played the piano although the piece sounds slightly less rippling punctuated by a rasping cough). But it is as if everything has been suspended in mid air, that a certain kind of time has stopped and I’ve arrived into a different one, chronology displaced by eternity.

Oh the wriggling and squirming before this kind surrender.

But yes, I let go of everything, I choose to let the moment of suspendu en l’air be a kind of grace to me, to whatever is going on. (And somehow it is always a consolation to experience the exquisite perfection of the phase in French).

Something beyond me is at work, and in accepting this I find a renewal of hope.