Movement and repose

rivers + roads + coffee shop culture + a partial account of the total eclipse

I drove an hour down my favorite river road today to reach a new location to write.

I think the river called me as much as the road, as much as the time it would take to get here, as much as the location itself, as much as the writing. Was this coffee shop the destination, or was all of it? My thoughts unwound as I drove the winding road, my heart felt bathed by the sight of the river, and I felt my focus clarify as I entered the fresh, well-ordered interior of someone else’s vision come to life.

The friend who introduced me to this spot loves that that they play country music here (his favorite), but today they’re playing music that is more my wavelength (Paul Simon, Todd Rundgren, Stevie Nicks, hello!). This radio must be responsive to our individual signals (like all of life).

What do I love about coffee shop culture?

Let me count the things.

I love the conversations happening, the contemplations, the quiet individual work happening in community. I love the caffeine and the sense that this shop is a node on a wider circulatory system that stretches through much of the world—locations like this, with people like this, working things out together.

I love that no one’s talking to me but they’re talking around me.

I’ve been feeling off my self lately, trying to get back on board but then a wave knocks me off again. I catch my breath and pop my head up and another wave washes over. I’m picturing a surfer in a set of waves and getting the timing wrong, even though I’ve only tried surfing once (in Cornwall, England, which is another story).

Call it cosmic weather or collective energy or individual hang-ups coming to a crisis. Call it what you want, really, and I’ll call it whatever too. I certainly sensed ahead of time that this season was best spent floating and wrote a post about it (here), but doggone I really wanted to get my legs under me and stand up on this board, I’ve been restless to prove that I can.

Soon. Maybe even today. But not if I keep taking water into my lungs.

So I’m rolling onto my back and rolling with the waves again, otter-style.

Once this set calms down, I’ll find out where I am. No sense drowning trying to look around or rush a result that can’t happen if I’m not ready.

I think a major switch I’ve made (or am making) is perceiving that the current isn’t against me or malicious, but on my side—more on my side than I can see from this spot—and taking me inevitably where I deeply want to go.

The discomfort comes from holding onto rocks, roots, trying not to be taken, mistrusting the flow.

The discomfort comes from thinking I’ve got to paddle there on my own.

The discomfort comes from thinking I’ve got to coerce and micromanage how everything goes.

Woo weee.

Feel that?

Yeah, let’s let go of that…

I wanna be a voyager that trusts the wind and waves, knows how to read the currents.

I wanna be a blithe spirit that inspires others to let go of their white-knuckle grips.

I wanna embrace every unfolding experience like it’s all medicine, and through that belief, make it so.

Lines from a Mewithoutyou song are coming to mind that I haven’t thought of in years. Turns out they’re quoting from the “apocryphal” (lol humans determining what is or is not divine) Gospel of Thomas, but without knowing the words came from anywhere else, they struck me as truth when I first heard them and they strike me that way still:

When they ask you for the sign of the Father

Tell them it’s movement, movement

and repose

Last week I drove with two beloved humans and two beloved dogs to witness the total solar eclipse in the Ozark St Francis National Forest. Well, the dogs didn’t witness it so much, although Wolf gave the sun itself a good hard stare the next day (no, he doesn’t seem to be blind).

Side note, it was the wizard and my first time camping with both dogs and I wish there was aerial footage of our first night “sleeping” in the tent.

Total eclipse from Iphone.

Watching the eclipse through glasses was one thing—the crescent orange light slip-sliding away to an ember, and then fully out. But that fully out, without glasses, was another thing entirely. I don’t have words for it, but there are chills on my legs whenever I remember it. We looked only briefly, not sure if it was “safe” to, and our only mutual regret is not letting ourselves look the whole time it was total.

The image is burned into my memory, not my eyes.

Total eclipse from memory.

It felt like a jolt. Like someone shaking the shoulders of my mind and spirit, not so much my body. Like a wake-up call except I didn’t have an immediate sense of what to do or even where I was. It felt more surreal and more real than anything I’d ever seen. It felt like holy shit, we’re on a planet and also like what the heck is a planet and who am I?

That sense of jolt is gradually working its way through my system.

I don’t so much feel like I don’t want to stay the same so much as it’s impossible to be the same.

Change is inevitable.

Change isn’t an option.

Change IS.

This wasn’t a total eclipse of the heart, after all, but a total illumination. Nothing else feels worthwhile, or even possible. Half-heartedness can’t carry on.

I came here to work on my novel and I don’t have a lot else to say, but I wanted to check in and at least tell you where I am today and where I was last week.

For whatever it’s worth: I believe the current is for you too, I believe that movement and repose is indeed the sign of the Father, I believe that power is inside you and doesn’t have to (can’t) be handed to you or taken away, I believe it’s on your team even when you don’t feel like you are.

How’s your float going?

Vive le evolution!

Esther