That’s the thing about the quietness I exist in now: I can sit in a chair for 7 hours reading, walk home, cook dinner. And it’s enough.
This might be the first time, for me, that I can see it is enough, and I wonder about why when you are heartbroken, or identity-shattered, or simply unsettled, you want more of the same. For two years after my life changed, I woke up everyday hoping for something life changing to happen that day, too.
Why did I think so much change was a good thing? Why did I hope my world would crumble?
For the first time in a long time there is a sense of my external world standing still. Every Tuesday I go to Tom’s for dinner. Every Wednesday run club. Every Thursday salsa. Everyday the library, or the PGR law hub.
I think about my plans tonight: make gnocchi with Eli while we wait for Leyla to arrive, and it is delicious this plan. Saborally and also, just, momentarily.
I wonder if I should get an extra candle or two, if I should mop my floors so my flat feels fresh inside. I wonder what kind of vegetables we should eat for dinner alongside the carbohydrates.
These are the kinds of things I think about now:
How can I plan my food for the week, so it is both healthy and delicious?
How can I fit in my 16 miles this week, so I might be able to run 17.5 next week?
How can I write the words I need to write, while also making sure I am reading enough, and I am also sitting still enough that I have time to hear my own voice (I must make sure I have time to meet with myself: we consult on the big life matters — life, love, being okay in this world, feeling connected to the earth and to community)?
Once in awhile I will skip my weekly planned activities. On Wednesday I got two pints with Callum, who is also studying law and who is the other supervisee of my supervisor. I tell him that sometimes I feel tortured because I have to relearn another discipline. Sociology, to anthropology, to law. Why couldn’t I have made it easy on myself, I ask? Why do I keep having to switch and learn a whole new way of thinking?
Well, he says, it is telling that you ended up in law. I bet you think that law is a place in which you think you may be able to have the most impact.
Spoken like a lawyer, but I suppose he is right, I reflect later.
This calm is delicious, and I know it will probably not be forever. Nothing is!
I might fall in love again, or my PhD will get harder than I can anticipate, or the world could implode (this does not seem too far fetched). My life will change againm it always does.
But today, I read, write, go home and cook gnocchi.
Today I read an article on new materialist approaches to property law.
Today Leyla will arrive off the train from Manchester for a weekend of friendship love.
And I let myself get to know her, this new feeling: calm. A sense of being where I should be. A sense of life settling down.
I appreciate these feelings now, while they are here.
Chaos dies, but me affero a la vida.
