Dear ,
Did you know I’m a survivor? I am.
It’s a long story. No need to go into that here. It’s been written about elsewhere, and so maybe you already know.
To survive, you need to know how to fight. There is a place for resistance. The salmon know this! Oh, how they fight their way upstream, for the sake of survival. They would rather die fighting than die floating in a frictionless place.
You could say I am a very good salmon. I would rather die fighting than floating. (You make the T-shirt, I’ll wear it. Deal?)
What has come less naturally to me is learning to move with the currents. To discern what calls for resistance and persistence, and what calls for letting go.
Yesterday, I saw a body at the side of the road.
In all my years (and at this point, they haven’t been few), I have never seen a body at the side of the road. In fact, besides at the occasional funeral, I have not seen a body anywhere at all. Not on a beach. Not on a woodland trail. Not in my back yard. Nowhere.
Remember the thundersnow? Just a few days after the windstorm, the thundersnow took down even more trees. Many of the roads around here are unpassable. Visibility is less than it could be. Pavements are slippery. People feel out of sorts.
Is that what happened? Did a driver, lost and confused and out of sorts due to one more detour, come whipping around that curve and, in the low visibility, hit a person, who became a body on the side of the road?
I don’t know.
There were a few cars ahead of mine, approaching that bend where the body lay. Likewise, there were a few cars sitting at the rise of the hill, coming from the opposite direction. People were out of their vehicles. The sun was setting, the shadows were long, the world of pines and snow and winding roads was hushed.
I saw someone reach down to touch the body. Maybe to see if life still pulsed. I saw several people gently placing coats, one coat after another, over the motionless form. One person seemed to be on his phone. The look on his face was “911.”
Part of me, the curious part, the horrified part, the I-must-know-if-he-(she? they?)-survive part wanted to stay and continue to watch the story unfold. Part of me wanted to console. But there were many people already on the scene.
I turned the car around. In my rear-view mirror, I saw red lights. Sirens called: life is at stake, life is at stake, life is at stake!
Then my daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat in a deep silence, and I made our way home, with many detours along the way. We went three towns over, being lost on the winding back roads. We followed the setting sun. We moved with the currents, feeling our way. We were each, I know, hoping the body would be more than a body as darkness came. We were hoping for a survivor.
Though our talk was muted, I noted that it was so remarkable that the people at the side of the road had not tried to move the person. (You can hurt a person irreversibly if you move him when he’s badly injured. Well-meaning people trying to help someone who is physically broken have caused more harm than good by the force of movement at the wrong moment. I’m sure you know this. But I’m not sure my daughter did. I wanted to find the smallest way to console her: smart people had been discerning.)
When to fight? When to float? When to resist? When to move with the currents, and when to move against them?
This is the work of wisdom.
Sitting here, looking out the windows towards a sky filled with quiet sun, after a week of detours and traveling unknown roads, I know what I want more than ever: I want you to survive. And thrive.
So, if you are floating, and that is not going to help you survive, I wish you the option of a necessary fight. Or, if you are fighting, and that is causing you or others more harm than good, I wish you the will to move with the currents. Whatever physics you need today, I want it to be yours.
As Always,
L.L.