Scan of a squash using my CanonScan LiDE 400 scanner. I love how shallow its depth of field is.
Yesterday I listened to a new podcast by Brené Brown. She calls it “Day Two.” I call it
The Messy Middle
Wow! It was just what I needed to hear right now.
Here’s a link to the latest podcast by Brené Brown. It felt so true to what I’ve been feeling about the pandemic, our country, racial justice, and climate change — the full catastrophe. As Brené says, “We are in day 2.” It’s that messy middle or in-between time when things get really really hard and we can’t see how it will all turn out and we just want life to go back to “the way it was.” Except life never was the way we thought it was. And there is no going back. The only way out is through.
I’ve experienced the messy middle many times in my life—during childbirth when I suddenly wondered why on earth I thought I wanted to become a parent, after surgery when it wasn’t clear yet whether the surgery would help and I was experiencing unrelenting pain, and when I traveled to Cyprus as a 20-year old, Hawaii and northern Minnesota at a later point in my life each time to spend 3 months living where everything was new and I had no idea how I was going to manage 3 whole months there.
Scan of the same squash, this time the top of the squash
Day 2 is where the hard work is done
Some of those transitions I navigated gracefully, others I went through kicking and screaming all the way. There is no one right way. However you navigate the transitions you learn something.
What I learned in all of those experiences (none which I regret, well maybe the foot surgery that seemed to make things worse in my foot) is that the only way out is through. And that fighting the pain and the fear makes it feel worse. Knowing that you’re in the messy middle helps. Staying in the present moment helps. And working on radical acceptance of what is along with holding hope for what may be helps. All you can do each day is the next right thing, whatever that seems to be.
Really, if you think about it, much of our life is spent in the messy middle because we are constantly growing, changing, and challenging ourselves to do new things.
I vividly remember the day I moved into the dormitory for my freshman year of college. My mother drove me from our farm in northwestern Iowa to Iowa State University in central Iowa and helped me take everything to my room. Knowing that she had a long drive home we said our goodbyes and she left me there in the dorm room by myself to unpack my things.
The only way out is through
As I unpacked tears rolled down my cheeks. Why hadn’t I asked her to stay for awhile and help me unpack? And then I realized that the answer was that this was a journey I had to take by myself. Stepping into the unknown, into my future. As excited as I was to finally be spreading my wings I was terrified also. Would I like my assigned roommate? As a somewhat shy introvert would I find friends? How would classes go?
This is our predicament now. We are navigating unknown territory. How will COVID end? What will happen to us and our loved ones? And after COVID, if there is an after, how will our world have changed?
What’s going to happen in the election in November? Do we humans have the intelligence and will to change the trajectory of climate change? How do we create a more just society for all? It’s enough to make us want to stick our heads in the sand like an ostrich, waiting for it all to go away. But it won’t go away. The only way out IS though.
Wicked Hard
To sum it up, it’s wicked hard in the messy part where you don’t know how it’s going to end, you can’t go back and you’re hurting and afraid. Above all, what we need to do now is to stay the course, don’t give up, keep on visioning what we would like to create, accept the discomfort, stay present, be kind, and take care of ourselves and others.
Sending much love to all today.
May you walk in beauty.
A scan of pine needles and leaves with background texture added in photoshop
Scan of three maple leaves found on the path where I walked
Photograph (actually four different photographs combined in Photoshop with focus stacking to get all of leaf in focus at once)
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