The Lessons of Loss
“won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
a kind of life? i had no model.
born in babylon
both nonwhite and woman
what did i see to be except myself?
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay,
my one hand holding tight
my other hand; come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.”
Lucille Clifton’s poem “won’t you celebrate with me”
I turn 26 today. 26 years before a new decade. This birthday has brought me maturity. It has brought me healing, hope, rebirth, clarity, potential, sobriety and new beginnings. My world completely rearranged this year, I find myself back home, out of the classroom, sober, solo, slowed down to really take stock of my existence and my journey thus far. I have faced death this year in metaphoric, relational ways and in literal ways. I have lost a sister, a job, all false sense of security. Yet I wasn’t confronted with actual loss until the foothills I live within went up in smoke. Waking up to fire threatening my neighbors, my family, my home, me. And I know the phoenix stage had begun this year, but that moment was my actual rising from the ashes. All that day I could taste the soot on my tongue and the ash in my eye. Through the fire I am purified, I am clarified.
come celebrate
with me that everyday
something has tried to kill me
and has failed.
I am grateful for life —for life’s surprises, — life’s challenges, —life’s potential, because I am —still living —and daily I get another chance to persist in my passion.
I am not asleep but still I dream.
I have been at a wake.
In the wake of the centuries of pain, trauma, and parasitic illusions of this land.
In this wake I pray. I have prayed to ancestors, recorded stories, pieced together family trees and have become of service to my community to find a fortitude in my spirit that will allow me to persist.
This year was a deep journey inward. Moving forward I have immense hope and aspirations romantically, professionally, and creatively. But just because I am not this idealized version of myself, or have not found myself at an ideal marker of a life well-lived, does not mean I am lacking. I am so humbled and honored by much I already have. This year I learned that just because I am not where I want to be does not mean I have to reject the joy or love that is now present to me.
Car crashes, depression, anxiety, violent separation, physical breaking of the body, hallucinogenic breaking of the mind, funeral after funeral. Death has stared me in the face my entire life, aging my spirit, but it’s really been a process of purging and renewal. The energy of the vulture has been consistent. Misunderstood and feared but so necessary. He is the guardian and the purifier. He balances and prevents the spread of disease, doing the dirty work to clean up the messes for which no one wants to be accountable. Once the mess is managed, a reorientation towards cleanliness is required to commit to. I’ve been so compelled to praise, constantly, the abundance that abounds me. I have faith, a deep faith and certainty, that I am blessed and protected and my life is for living and loving. I am certain my life is destined because death has come for me, death has come to teach me, has revealed itself to me, but it has not yet taken me.
So I have learned to recognize pain as a blessing, in fact to expand my entire concept of blessings. Just a few months ago I was so upset that blessings weren’t happening or appearing as I envisioned. The devastation in that lack of control, in those small false appearances I made up, has brought me clarity and recognition of the blessings that are held in the supposed poison we fear to drink.
Truth is not a poison but is feared as such.
It’s feared for the chaos that comes when truth buckles the foundation which lies built. But everything actually re-orders appropriately. It actually a much clearer path to walk on.
I am cleaning my mirror of rust. I polish it daily. May the Divine love be reflected so rich and so angelic and so crystal clear.
This crystal mirror is my cup, and this birthday I find it overflowing with gratitude, love, peace and hope…“Wont you celebrate with me?”
