Somewhere Between Limitless Possibility and Certain Painful Death
that time the tulips winked at me and said we’d be okay
Hi, it’s me. *knocks on screen* You still here? I’ve missed our Wednesday chats!1
I’m sitting in my living room early morning, looking out the east facing window at my garden, the cemetery in view across the street. The birds are starting to wake up, and the dark sky is fading into deep blue. I love sitting here on my cozy red couch, surrounded by cats, watching the neighborhood wake up.
It’s rare that I get to experience a quiet morning before anyone else is awake. Bryan has always been an early riser, and anyway… I’m a night owl who prefers to sleep in. But this morning I was awake before the automatic coffee maker clicked on. Whether it’s peri-menopause or stress or my aching joints, I’ve been seeing a lot more of 3:30 a.m. lately.
It’s Tuesday as I write this, and I’m contemplating the newsletter I’ve been working on for tomorrow, which is actually today as you’re reading this, I guess. I’m on the struggle bus. I have a good story nugget that came easily to me, but I can’t figure out where it’s going.
I never end things well. Ending is the hardest part – of writing, of relationships, of not realizing I just ate the last chip in the bag. I can meander into a point of truth or emotion and make an impact, but then it gets awkward. I struggle with endings.
So this morning in the predawn quiet, I switched to pen and paper and drafted this preamble. Just you and me. No screen, no keyboard. Just you, me, my pen, the coffee that just started brewing, and the hummingbird that should arrive momentarily as she always does at first light.
I’m hoping this analog exercise will help me get unstuck so I can finish the story that comes next, after the line break. Here is where I’ll put away my pen and get back to it. Let’s see how it turned out:
Somewhere Between Limitless Possibility and Certain Painful Death
Last month a memory and photo from a few years ago popped up in my journal app while Bryan and I were processing the news of his cancer. Let me set the scene…
On March 16, 2020, Washington State went into COVID quarantine. At the time, I was a Communications Manager for a transitional housing program for women experiencing homelessness, and my office was onsite with 10ish other staff and about 50 women in the program. While most people in Seattle were heading home to work remotely, I continued going into the office along with several of my coworkers. Technically I could have done my job at home because I did computer stuff and not people stuff, but it was all hands on deck as we shifted into … I don’t know… emergency mode?
I remember those first few weeks being extremely stressful as I worried about my own health and the health of our staff and residents, how I was doing three other jobs on top of my own, and my own job went completely off book as we attempted to communicate to our our donors and community how we were doing and how they could help. It felt weird to lock our doors and not let anyone in — we normally buzzed with activity as women seeking services and volunteers came and went. I had an overwhelming sense of not wanting our program residents to feel abandoned, so I kept going in and doing what needed to be done.
On top of my job, I had two teenagers and a husband who were now at home doing online school and work, feeling restless in the house. I would come home in the evening and rally the family to get out for a walk or to play a board game. Like a shark, I never stopped moving, because if I stopped moving I would die.
A few weeks into quarantine, we were still in the exhausting phase of figuring out how to be safe (Do we disinfect the mail!? Is COVID contagious through home cooked food!?). I was driving home through the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle and passed a little park on my route — a viewpoint I drove past every day but had never visited.
A rainbow caught my eye, and I immediately pulled over to capture a photo.
As I approached the east-facing vista to take in the rainbow and view of Lake Washington, I looked down and saw a patch of beautiful red tulips at my feet – literally at the edge of a cliff. The sun was behind me, lighting them up against the dark storm clouds in front of me.
It later hailed.
My personality is a weird combination of glass-half-empty and don’t-worry-we’ll-be-fine. I see and feel the weight of all that sucks and isn’t right, but I quietly believe we’ll still be okay in the end. I had been running out of steam and hopefulness without a clear idea of how long this pandemic would go on and how long we’d have to keep up this pace. After weeks of pouring myself out for everyone else, I took a moment to cry on the edge of that cliff – a little bit of grief mixed with a little bit of stress relief.2
I noted how the tulips stood tall and shined proudly in defiance of the looming darkness. They winked at me and said we’d be okay, so I stood up, got back in my car, and went home.
In this season of Scary Cancer Things I find myself here again, standing on a cliff, somewhere between limitless possibility and certain painful death. Strangely, I feel like that kid from The Sixth Sense who sees dead people. Only I see gloom. I see it everywhere – always have. I can’t unsee it. I saw the gloom in Bryan when we first met - he was recently divorced. I sensed the gloom in him, but also the brightness of hope. I liked his gloom, but not as a project or someone to fix. It resonated with me.
There’s a guy who’s seen some things, I thought. I was comforted by his gloom. I didn’t have the words then, but now I see he was a Tulip Cliff Dweller like me. He’d come close to a certain painful death but still held on to the limitless possibilities. Even with the dark storm clouds behind him, I could see the warm sun on his face.
The working title of my memoir is Somewhere Between Limitless Possibility and Certain Painful Death. It started out as a parenting memoir about the difficult and uncomfortable conversations we’ve had with our growing kids about things like death, racism, mental health, and broken relationships. But as I’ve been writing, it’s becoming a reflection on living a life in the In Between. It explores my near-constant awareness of where the edges of any situation lie and my desire to keep from falling off the ledge of either extreme.
Like the tulips shining defiantly on a cliff, I watch a dark storm roll in on one side and see the sun blazing on the other and wonder: How do I stay safe here, precariously balancing between joy and doom? How do I protect my kids from all the bad things? If I can’t control the outcome of uncontrollable things, can they learn how to be okay in spite of everything?
These big thoughts and feelings influenced our parenting. For instance, when the family dog dies and the kids are only three and five years old, we have a choice as parents. Do we shove them toward the sunny side of the cliff and say we sent the dog to a farm? Or do we all stand together in the space between joy and doom, helping our kids learn how to grieve, how to hold joy and sadness in tension?
Sometimes we got it right, sometimes we got it wrong. So far the kids are alright, and I’m looking forward to sharing these stories with you.
Until next time,
Jen
Your Turn
Well, look at that — my hot mess of a story that had me stuck feels more “me” now! Sometimes I slip into writing “for my audience” and end up on the Story Struggle Bus, losing the plot. This time I tricked myself into remembering I write for you, not “my audience.” Speaking of you…
If this story resonated with you, let me know in the comments. Lurking is cool, too.
If you’re a writer (or creative in general), what are some tricks you use to get unstuck?
What shows/movies did you watch in April? I list some of our recent watches below — we consumed a lot while recovering.
News + Notes 🌼
While regular Wednesday newsletters were on hiatus, I posted updates to Schrödinger’s Polyp regarding Bryan’s surgery for colon cancer. In case you missed these and are interested in catching up, here’s a recap:
On April 11, the day of Bryan’s surgery, I posted live-ish updates as the surgery team reached out to me.
On April 11, I also started a chat thread about what you’d put on a custom t-shirt to help distract me while Bryan was in surgery.
On April 15, Bryan was home from the hospital and I posted an update of how things were going at home.
On April 20, I shared results from the pathology report showing more cancer in Bryan’s lymph nodes, and I also wrote a little about denial.
🌼 🌼 🌼
We watched a bunch of TV while Bryan was resting: The Night Agent, Anatomy of a Murder (so good!), The Diplomat, Perry Mason, Ted Lasso, The Last Thing He Told Me, Good Will Hunting and Pulp Fiction with the teenager, and Dungeons & Dragons in the theater the weekend before surgery (fun movie!).
🌼 🌼 🌼
Goodnight, Gordon. Thanks for being my soundtrack in the Hudson Valley of New York that one summer in ‘96.
I’m back from a three week hiatus from regular Wednesday posting while my husband recovered from surgery.
Today it reminds me of the show Shrinking, where Harrison Ford’s Paul teaches Alice about grieving and crying for 15 minutes a day.
"My personality is a weird combination of glass-half-empty and don’t-worry-we’ll-be-fine."
I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure this is imprinted in the DNA code of all Gen X'ers. It's part super power & part survival tactic.
...and as a fellow Gen X'er, I should probably be saying this with a sneer & some defensive irony, but when I'm stuck, I have a fidget spinner I play with. That and taking the dog for a walk usually help turn the word faucet back on.
Watching: My wife has once again roped me into a show- this time it's Succession. Also, Cold Case is on again on daytime TV, so there's that, too.
I always love your writing, and hope to one day read your book.
Have you watched Jury Duty on Freevee yet? it starts a little slow and weird, but turns out lovely. Freevee also has ALLLL of the seasons of Magnum PI.