This Way to Experience The Impact

According to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, echthesia is a noun which means “a state of confusion when your own internal sense of time doesn’t seem to match that of the calendar–knowing that something just happened though it apparently took place several years ago, or that you somehow built up a decade of memories in the span of only a year and a half.”

In December of 2022, I wrote that I wanted to be “more present to the now” because I felt I had evidence of a lot that happened (in the form of photos on my phone and emails etc.), but I couldn’t recall any of it happening to me. It was all hindsight, recounting events. I wrote:

And I want to check in with myself, every hour if need be, to remind myself that Now is all we have. That time called Now which I experience when traveling, when horseback riding, when printmaking, I wish to bring that Now to my writing and being and all that I do and am in 2023. What I don’t want is to wonder at the end of 2023, where did the year go? This is not about being intentional; I am very intentional. This is about creating space to reflect.

Well, I am here to write that being present and simultaneously reflecting is exhausting. I have lived a decade in the year that was 2023. I now believe forgetting is as important as remembering if one is to move forward. I don’t mean forgetting in the sense of pretending that something never happened; I mean flushing out the experiences so one can move forward and not feel trapped inside Time.

Here’s a quote from “Homing Tendencies” on Dr. Sharon Blackie’s Substack which resonated last year around this time and continues to echo right now:

I used to take a lot of comfort and pride in how much I had moved. The moving around when we were younger as a family, and as an adult on my own, gave me perspectives and connections I couldn’t have had any other way. And although that much remains true, I am beginning to conclude that a creative life requires stability, financial and in many other aspects. Life is unpredictable regardless if one moves by choice or without choice; and securing some predictability is an asset when one is clear about one’s creative goals. But now we are no longer in predictable times. Again, life has always been unpredictable, but since 2020 all systems and institutions we trusted require re-examining; journalism is no longer what it used to be, jobs aren’t jobs as we understood them, and there is more. Of course, every generation has gone through periods of darkness and upheaval, but this is on another level. The way we have continued in our world, despite knowing better, can no longer be sustained. Willful ignorance can no longer be sustained. Pretending that casting a vote makes a difference can no longer be sustained. Of course, those of us who have been paying attention all along to the train-wreck that is the state of our country and education (again, it’s not just in the U.S.) are worried about what it will take to make a difference.

The aforementioned makes finally arriving at hard-earned stability–outward stability–welcome and yet anticlimactic. Hey world! Here we are! Hey world! Everything’s upside down!

This time last year I was on my way to meet several different school districts at a job fair.

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Securing myself a formal interview at the school and district of my choice–everything happened in 24 hours–on the way back to New Mexico, I treated myself to a stay at The Little America Hotels & Resorts in Flagstaff. It took me back to a very different America and it was just what I needed. I can’t recommend them enough. I hope to check out their other locations; I plan on traveling by car more and more given the state of domestic air travel in U.S. It’s all collapsed even if you can afford first class–the next horizon is private chartered planes.

Before returning back to prepare for turning forward–selling house/buying house/packing/losing/fixing house/making home/new/old/new/new/old/new–I stopped by the Meteor Crater site, about 40 miles East of Flagstaff. Jamie and I have done this route many times but this time I wanted to stop. The sky was very blue, the air very cold, and the sun very bright on that February day in 2023.

In the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig writes, “You are two people, separated by an ocean of time. Part of you bursting to talk about what you saw. Part of you longing to tell you what it all means.” This he names DÈS VU: the awareness that this moment will become a memory.

These are probably my favorite and, in equal measure, terrifying moments: it’s like touching an exposed nerve. In such moments we are acutely aware of becoming our own memory; we realize how grand and short a moment, a life, is.

When I go back to this day in my mind, it’s not the crater I recall but I see these ravens that are known for circling the site on some days. I stayed for an hour, at least, mesmerized by them. There were only two of them and they were extraordinary.

I didn’t have to look up the symbolism or folklore. I was creating the symbolism in that moment.

Upon my return I read some very timely books last February.

Jamie and I could have stayed where we were and watched the school district and the beautiful city and one-of-a-kind state crumble into oblivion. But we didn’t. Yes, it requires some privilege to move; but, it also takes immense fortitude to go against the grain.

This is especially true when one finally comes up for air–like I am now–and witnesses that the view from the shore which one has reached provides a very clear picture of things falling apart. Of course, one finds–if she is so lucky–solace in friendships, home, food, proximity to family, love, art, sleep, being solvent etc. Of course. But every moment that you are grateful that you are no longer there, you are reminded that it may not be too long before there becomes here too, and how much longer before there is no ‘there’ because it’s all here. The unrest, chaos and distrust Americans are experiencing, has been part of many people’s lives Elsewhere for a very, very long time.

I read Iraqi-American poet Dunya Mikhail‘s poetry last February and I was reminded of how hard my parents worked and how much they sacrificed so we could have a life in America. The ravens showed me that things may have to get a lot worse before they will get better.

Today, I am thinking of last February when I took a very long drive over a weekend and Monday to change our trajectory so I can sit here this February and have the privilege of reflection.

Honestly, I don’t know how often I will manage blogging here given I am working on my novel and other stories again while teaching full time, but I now know blogging, writing, pondering, creating is a luxury and sometimes it’s nice to know that in the end, as in the beginning, one can write to witness Time.