Notes on Surrender

The liquid space between truth and fantasy, maybe?

By the time you read this I will have spent my last night in this borrowed room in a new city I’m not sure when I’ll see next. I’ll have transitioned to a neighboring town, testing out past daydreams and asking myself, truly, if I want to weave them into my future. I don’t know if the answers will be clear then. But it’s the questions themselves that are most important, remember?

I’m writing today with notes on the space between truth and fantasy, the fluid way in which they flow into each other. What I (we) fantasize becomes truth. What is truth informs my (our) fantasies. Yet — there is a clear distinction. You know, the slap down when what you imagine does not line up with what happens. And even if it did in some ways, truth reveals itself as a kaleidoscope. What is true in this moment might not be true in the next. What is true for me might not be true for you and vice versa. This all stings and inspires me.

It’s on my mind for two reasons.

(1) I’ve met with three people from my past on this trip, and none of us are who we were when we first walked into each other’s lives. We have known each other through our distance, the space between phone calls, facetime, visits, and in some cases just our memory, which shifts with every recollection. Now face-to-face, we have a different energy about us, we aren’t the same. Whatever once held us close or in proximity must reshape now, surrender.

(2) There are a few started/half-done essays and scripts waiting for me. It’s not that I’ve been avoiding them - I’ve actually been trying to get back to them, wipe off their dust and touch some of the magic I felt when I first started writing them. It isn’t working. I wonder now if the truth is, I just don’t want to hear what they have to say now there is a different energy between us. Now that the fantasy of what I imagined they’d be feels so starkly different than what they are in truth. Whatever once held me close to these works must reshape now, surrender.

Both (1) and (2) sting and inspire me.

I wonder if somewhere in the sea of truth and fantasy is a boat made of an honesty that does not flinch at the varying tides of their distinction. Or maybe the honesty is flinching—but keeps going all the same.

Our relationships are not the same. I’m so happy that we’re meeting and it feels weird that in some ways, we don’t know each other anymore. Some of me mourns what we must let go of for us to continue. I am afraid we will never find each other like we once did, but I’d like to see how we might find each other now.

The essays and screenplays want to be something else. I will miss what I could once access through you, but I will try to let go now, so that you can tell me who you are instead.

I surrender.

****

….section evolving….

Something someone said this week 🗣️: “While making our way out we accepted that a sign wasn’t coming. I realized as an artist I create signs.” - Alberto Aguilar, from I just really want to tell you this one thing.

Currently Reading 📖: Baldwin: A Love Story, in earnest. But Check the Library for an ever-evolving list of the books that challenge, hold, and nourish me. I hope they may do the same to you, and find you right on time.

Something sweet I saw this week 🌻: Two little girls, sisters I think, playing together in the park. One fell down, and dad came running over with this kind of joyful bounce in his step. He squatted down to her level, where she waited for him with big eyes asking “Am I Okay?” you know, like kids do. The relief in her eyes, when he scooped her up with a laugh saying, “you’re just muddy, that’s all!”