I will start with my arm, the right one, right above the crook. You wouldn’t think to hide things there, or anywhere on your arm for that matter, unless it’s the pit, but a few years ago, when I was going through a lot of Big Change, I pointed at the fleshy bit of my arm with my left hand to a tattoo artist, and now I have a seagull with a party hat on that I forget is there most days.
You wouldn’t believe it, but I did think about it for a long time, longer than other Big Decisions I’ve made in my life if I’m being honest. And it’s true, that even if I did, when I actually went to the studio and lay on the plastic covered bed, it felt like a decision I had made that very morning on a whim. This is a feeling I know well. Many other Big Decisions have felt exactly this way. Moving countries on my own, with no job lined up, no one that I knew, and only one month’s rent in my bank account is one example I can think of. It’s no wonder that every night I would go to bed with the overwhelming sensation that I had made a wrong decision, very, very wrong, which made me think of the previous wrong decision I had made that had led me there, and the other wrong decision until at some point I inevitably check my phone and it is most certainly not 2:24 am, and I most certainly can’t have made wrong decisions all my life. That just can’t be right.
During this time, let me assure you, nothing is right. I went from living in a little home by the water with a loving partner, to a dark, tiny room with only a mattress on the floor. For a full year I had no bed frame and used a stool as a bedside table. Change by nature is disruptive, sometimes turbulent, often destabilising. This time it was also extremely lonely. Incessantly questioning myself and my ability to make sane and sensible decisions every step of the way was and continues to be a very appropriate response, especially when I wake up in the middle of the night with two cockroaches on my face. I couldn’t have possibly chosen this for myself.
Like everyone I know who has tattoos, I pay as much attention to it as I would a freckle on my skin, which makes me so very delighted when someone reminds me of its presence. It’s silly and sweet, and I get to briefly talk about my love for seagulls, pigeons and magpies. I even have friends who have known me for a long time, who only realise years after that yes, it is a seagull! And yes, it has a hat on!
Well, recently an old Greek man at the library asked me if I could keep an eye on his things. He was sitting at the table next to mine, which he always did, and had introduced himself earlier that morning. He saw me around often enough, always sitting in the same spot he said, so he thought it was time we knew each other by name. I agreed, and by doing so I had also agreed to look after his things from here on out. These are the library rules.
I presumed he was going to the bathroom, maybe he would order another coffee, who knows, I likely didn’t think about it at all until I looked up from my laptop and saw he was crossing the road. Okay, he was now standing under one of the big palm trees that line the sidewalk across the library. He was looking up, circling this tree, and I was looking at him looking up which is to say I was no longer keeping an eye on any of his things. I saw him kneel down, and then I noticed something in his hands, something rather large but I couldn’t quite tell what it was. I looked around me to see if anyone was seeing what I was seeing, but everyone was looking down. There he remained, on his knees, on the dirt, under the palm tree. What was he doing?
An ibis he said.
An ibis?
Yeah, I love birds he said. I love birds and all animals. I have a whole zoo at my house! You should see. There’s no sleeping there. Not at all. Have you ever heard of a greek vegetarian before? He laughed. Well now you have!
Through the large library windows he had seen an ibis lying dead in the middle of the footpath. People were walking past it as if it was not there at all. I couldn’t bare it he said, so he carried the large, white bird from the footpath toward the dirt ground, under the palm tree and covered it as best he could. I could see the dirt under his fingernails. All animals deserve to die with dignity he said. I agreed, ready to tell him how much I loved city birds too but he turned and walked to his table before I could do so.
To love anything is to grieve. That is the pact. No matter what I do, no matter where I am, I know that there will be a time in which life will hit me on the head, puncture my heart, and demand I get up again. It’s about the only thing I know for certain. I will live, I will love, I will kneel and cry. But getting back up and off my knees for the cycle to continue is not always straightforward — in fact it somewhat sounds insane. Staying down sometimes is the most caring, most sensible, most reasonable thing to do. Sometimes it’s the only thing I have energy for anyway.
Moving to Sydney was a decision I made after careful consideration, yes, but also, admittedly, I had this overwhelming desire to change my life so completely, that in that precise moment, when I was buying my plane ticket which left me with only one months rent in my bank account, I felt pretty invincible. Poor thing. No one is! I wasn’t! Everything went incredibly badly, and stayed incredibly bad for longer than I thought possible. This might have been the time that I acquired a healthy dose of skepticism when it came to the Universe and its communication tactics. If I had taken anything as a sign, I probably would have left the very next month. The truth is that the change I desired was difficult, and I desired this change regardless of the difficulty. I would stick it through. What I required then was resilience, and for a long time I believed that resilience also required a hefty amount of trust in myself.
Last week I cried for an hour, likely two, really I was in bed all day, cursing my past self for making such a stupid, stupid decision two years ago. So what do I know about trust?
When I first saw my tattoo, the tattoo I had been thinking about for over a year, my heart sunk a little. Something about how the body of the seagull turns up rather than down makes it look a little more chicken-like, I don’t know. Something about it has never looked quite right. So what do I know about trust?
For over a decade I had an eating disorder and ignored each and every body signal, suppressed my appetite, and did things that I knew, in the moment, were not things I should be doing, because they are not things anyone should ever be doing. I did them anyway. So what do I know about trust?
Okay.
Sometimes when I’m down, like really, really down, I get kicked in the shin, and that is enough to shock me into action. To get me right up. I am always surprised that things can somehow get worse. And when they do, I am always surprised, more surprised even, that things can somehow get better. It seems to me, that what I can trust, each and every time, is that for as long as I live, I will always have the capacity to take myself by surprise because that is precisely what life is. That is precisely what being alive entails. It’s a pact. A constant flurry of unpredictable change, creating a constant flurry of change.
Because I am alive, I can still take myself by surprise.
I can take myself by surprise and love.
Take myself by surprise and love again.
Take myself by surprise and laugh.
Take myself by surprise and succeed.
Take myself by surprise and get back up again.
What I find makes the world so very difficult and so very wonderful, is likely what makes people so very difficult and so very wonderful. They posses depths that haven’t been explored, futures that have not been determined, and there are versions of both life and people that I am yet to meet. It’s all the Uncertainty! Spontaneity! Mystery! Absurdity! All that I can’t control nor predict that gives what I do and what I choose some sort of meaning, some sort of point.
When I don’t have the ability to look back at my life, when I don’t possess the clarity to see in a moment of total darkness that I’ve been able to figure things out in the past, time and time again, it’s okay. Tell me, after ten years of denying myself the pleasure of a hot meal, of a slice of cake, a bag of popcorn at the cinema, what proof did I have that I could get better? What energy did I have to sift through the years prior to find that I could choose with care? That I could want to live so fully? Sometimes trust in myself is out of reach because I’ve been on the ground for so long. That is okay. I just need to trust that I don’t know everything, and that seems easy for me to do. The immensity of the world, the vastness of myself, the generosity of others who are already standing that cross the road and kneel. That seems easy for me to do.
When someone points and asks why it’s wearing a party hat, I often like to say,
Well, you’d be surprised by what seagulls get up to these days.
Because it’s true, you’d be surprised.
Time and time again, you’ll be surprised.
I've never listened to a Substack before, but my eyes are tired so I listened to this while eating my post-gym tofu and rice, hehe. It was like taking a little journey inside my head that actually had a destination, for once--a daydream with a tour guide.
So often we see/hear stories of people being like "I spent all my savings to move countries and never looked back!" but what about the times things didn't work out? When you make a huge, "wrong" decision and end up alone, full of regrets? I think it's important to live in a world that makes space for everything--mistakes, lessons, shadows, loneliness, HUMANness--and not just rose-tinted high-vibrational quantum-leaping manifestation perfectionism.
There's such a human honesty and comfort in your writing, and not just because of similar life experiences. You're one of the few people I get genuinely excited about when they post on YouTube! Thanks for this little pick-me-up, and I can't wait to be one of those oddball no-fucks-given old people that do things like kneel on the ground outside a public library. I'm too young and embarrassed to get there just yet, but I will. I already do silly things in public that teenage me would probably cry over, and one day I'll get to the part where I kneel on the floor and bury a bird under a palm tree.
We’ve been down before and we’ll be down again and sometime, when, for once, we aren’t fixated on our proximity to the loamy earth, we’ll gaze in surprise at the way the clouds stack and billow brilliantly against a cerulean sky, and realize maybe we’re okay, and likely, we’ll always be okay because the heaviness doesn’t stay forever. The surprising part is always the good part.