And what can you do about it, deep blue night?

On happiness and holiness.

Jul 26, 2021

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Well, friends, it’s Monday again. I’m coming off a beautiful few weeks with people I love— old and new— mostly spent outdoors, in places that most feel like home. I think all the time about happiness lately, and how I never thought I would have this much of it. I know joy intimately lately. Here it is on the highway as I roll the window down to feel the warm wind on my bare skin. Here it is as I stare out at the wide full moon, yellow over all the steeples. Here it is as I hear the voices of those I miss, surrounding me again and reminding me that I am a part of something, I bring value to the world around me, I matter. That, after so long of thinking I wouldn’t have it, feels like redemption. It feels like holiness.

I know I speak often in this newsletter of the radical power of joy, but this summer I can’t seem to find myself thinking of anything else. I do not think I ever knew what it was like to feel joy like this. I’m not sure I fully believed it existed. Growing up southern, I thought that I would only ever feel this in other places, places where no one knew who I was or where I came from or what I had left behind. I did not think I could know myself the way I wanted to here, nor be known by others. To share truths about myself now so intimately and openly reminds me that, whether I was aware of it or not, I have been transformed. I have been changed. I am not religious, but if I were, I would imagine this is what it feels like to believe in something.

In my favorite poem of all time, Mary Oliver writes the following:

There isn’t a place
in this world that doesn’t
sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage
shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,
black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.
But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,
when it’s done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,
touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—
and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

Loss is, ultimately, the great lesson. Loss will never falter or dissipate; it will always be with us. We all know it intimately, in so many different forms. We learn to live with it. But I think of this poem, of how, when you turn your head slightly the other way, you can look towards light, towards happiness, so bright it feels, as Oliver quotes, palpable. Redemptive. Worth sticking through all the suffering for, worth wallowing in the muck to find. We seek out happiness not because we want to, necessarily, but because it feels like we must. Because when we have nothing else, we have our ability to choose and shift our focus. To find the single speck of light— no matter how small— and turn our eyes towards it with such focus it blinds. That is joy. The choice to continue. The choice to go on. The black curved blade far in the background, the deep blue night— they can do nothing about this kind of joy.

Often I have been thinking of what it means to be a young woman— the way I experience the world— focusing on joy. Of the stereotype of the tough girl and the independent woman. I think for so long I did not think I would have joy that I convinced myself I simply did not want it. That I was fine alone, and would be fine alone forever. I closed myself off to any possibility because I was so afraid to come across as weak, someone susceptible to the blade of night. That sadness lives on in the background, as it always will, but lately I find myself unafraid to admit that I am often lonely. That I, like everyone else, crave community. That I want love and partnership and a chance to build my life with someone. I have come to believe that admission does not incur weakness but instead, to quote Oliver once more, is an invitation to happiness. Nothing can move in flux without first admitting stability, or a lack thereof. Nothing can grow from an empty field.

All of this is to say that I think that telling your story is the most revolutionary power we have. It is the easiest way to invite that happiness in, to open ourselves up to the light. It is also one of the hardest things we will ever do. I have been telling the same story over and over for years and it never seems to get easier. I feel like a conglomeration of ants crawling up into the dirt only to be buried by it again and again. It never gets easier, but we do get better, and stronger, and more willing to fight for what it is we truly believe in. And if nothing else, I know that I do believe in this.

Your prompt this week is to think of your strongest memory of light, in any form. A lamp, sunlight, the moon through the window. What did it look like? Where were you? How did it feel? In poetry or prose, react to this memory.

Thank you all for listening to my long personal ramblings the past week fews. I’m back alone now, and this newsletter will get back on its regular track shortly. But I hope, if anything, hearing me say these things over and over again reminds at least one of you feeling the same that you are not alone.

See you Friday,

Spencer

GOOD FOLK

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