In My Bones
There’s something true and almost constant embedded in change, something that’s found over and over again a little differently, maybe a bit deeper too each time. A form that’s perpetually taking shape and already is at the same time.
A section of a Whispers Among the Trees tapestry in progress
Dearest Doodle Soupsters,
Huddled under the covers last night with my reading light, I finished The City and Its Uncertain Walls, a novel by one of my favorite authors Haruki Murakami.
In the afterword, Murakami explained how this book began with a novella he published in a literary magazine back in 1980. He wrote that from the beginning, he felt the work contained “something vital” for himself. Yet, at the time, he said he wasn’t able to “adequately convey what that something was.”
Four decades later, he returned to the project of reworking this story he had written as a young man (he’d gone from age 31 to 71) at the beginning of 2020 and throughout the pandemic, he worked on this novel daily (like the the Dream Reader reading old dreams in the library, from the story).
In this afterword, Murakami writes, “Those circumstance might be significant. Or maybe not. But I think they must mean something. I feel it in my bones.”
I had never read Murakami writing about his own work before. (In fact, he starts the afterword by saying he generally doesn’t like writing afterwords but this book was an exception.)
Ever since I read The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle about 10 years ago, I’ve felt a kinship with his stories — rereading that novel along with 1Q84 many times, exploring the other worlds he’s created in Norwegian Wood and Kafka on the Shore that blur the line between dream and reality.
Anyway, it’s funny but despite loving his books for so long, I’d never heard Murakami speak in his own voice, only through his characters. And in the way he described his process, I felt that kinship again in a new way.
Those circumstance might be significant. Or maybe not. But I think they must mean something. I feel it in my bones.
That’s how I feel about so many things. It might be significant. Maybe not. But it feels meaningful somehow. This is something I feel in my bones. A kind of knowing that can’t be totally pinned down.
Later in the afterword, he talks about letting the manuscript “ferment” for half a year. This felt so validating to me because I often doubt myself about letting projects incubate (that’s the word I tend to use) even know I know in my bones that the incubation is an important part of my process, and that’s a hard thing to pin down or prove but it doesn’t make it less real.
Murakami ends the afterword with this:
Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change and movement. Isn’t this the quintessential core of what stories are all about? At least that’s how I see it.
A new piece I made recently, titled “The Only Way is Through” … made with colored pencil and watercolors on paper.
Barreling through the sky, I realized I was strapped into a pod on a rollercoaster. Then, something about this scene told me the world was about to end. And though I was surrounded by people, I didn’t feel truly connected to anyone there. More than that maybe, the person I needed to spend my last moment with was on the other side of the world and I couldn’t get to him before there was no time left at all.
It was a version of a dream I’d had before. Separated from the person who understands me, who makes me feel truly loved and known, at the end of everything. The circumstances shift. I’m not always on a rollercoaster. The places vary. But the essential situation is about the same.
Except this time, I realized within the dream that this was similar to dreams I had before and that I was in fact dreaming. So instead of experiencing the end of the world alone in dreamland again, I decided to take a few deep breaths. Everything went black. Maybe my mindfulness broke the illusion — I don’t know. And I woke up, found myself in bed with that person I love most in this world, our precious kitty at my feet.
What does it mean? That this time, on a night a few days ago, I didn’t get sucked into the story?
It’s an old story, isn’t it? A story topped with a stereotypical villain’s cackle, yes, yes, everything must end terribly! Because if I realize I’m just scared and catastrophizing, then the next logical step is to confront why …
Why this fear? And, isn’t it just grief flipped on its head?
I was alone in traumatic situations that felt like the end of the world to me, the end of my world anyway. I’m not anymore. Which is a beautiful thing and I’m grateful for it. This truth co-exists with the fact that after the threat passes, that’s when we can actually process it, feel all the things about what it meant (and didn’t mean).
Whether it’s in this Chicken Doodle Soup newsletter, my fiction stories, my visual art, or my music, I’m telling the same stories in new ways, finding a new perspective, a new angle from which to see. And as I do this, the open spaces fill in.
Answers aren’t forced through my art. I simply start to see them in what was once empty. This happens through the incubation (setting works aside and/or hanging them up on the wall to let them be in the background of my awareness for a while) and through a degree of randomness (creating spontaneously, making marks, writing or singing what comes, experiencing life, noticing, observing, reflecting on all of the above).
Truth is not found in fixed stillness, but in ceaseless change and movement.
For me, the words “fixed” and “ceaseless” in this sentence are particularly important. Ocean waves caressing the shore, rolling in and out, can feel so serene. Yet, they’re constantly moving.
Truth is found in rolling in and out. Something real unearthed through repetition that’s never neatly the same. No wave has precisely the same shape or rhythm as another.
And this is one of the lessons of nature, right?
There’s something true and almost constant embedded in change, something that’s found over and over again a little differently, maybe a bit deeper too each time. A form that’s perpetually taking shape and already is at the same time.
I think this is simply how things are meant to be, not that I always think “meant to be” is a thing. I mean, how could all the tragedy and horror in the world be meant to be? That doesn’t make sense. In other words, it feels wrong to think of trauma and loss as “meant to be.”
So I rephrase … maybe meaning is something found but it’s also something we give. That doesn’t make abuse or pain or war or cruelty or suffering right. It doesn’t.
And sometimes, it’s time for meaning-making and sometimes, it is time to simply get through. I kind of hate this fact because I often want the world to be more kind, beautiful, and sweet than it is. And I can just let myself be angry and hate things too. It’s just a feeling. Just a thought. I don’t have to get rid of this. It can be there. That’s alright.
A work in progress that’s still incubating
When I try to force meaning-making, it’s often to skip over that part. The sadness. The anger. The confusion. Grief. And I circle on back to another truth: grief can’t be skipped over.
I’ve tried to construct narratives in my brain to get around you, Grief.
I guess evading is natural. You’ve told me this. No shame in it.
Why do I avoid you, Grief? Once you’re here, it’s actually a relief. You show me the way. X marks the spot and the only way is through. I know this in my bones.
I guess it can be overwhelming. The Real can feel so big that my heart can’t possibly hold it.
Even so, my soul is boundless and helps out. And still, I am quite afraid of you, Grief.
And Grief replies —
I’m not scary, baby. But I don’t blame you for being afraid of me.
I’ll lead you to all the spaces you that seem empty yet they contain something vital.
I’ll help you see. And your eyes will ache. Everyone’s eyes ache when they let themselves see what’s here.
Yet, baby, I promise you, your eyes will adjust. Your eyes will heal. Ache isn’t the only thing you’ll feel.
I’ll open you up in all the places inside you that feel suffocated, blocked, cut off from the rest.
I’ll help you find the way and the only way is through and x marks the spot and this path is both something you follow and something you find
Both are true at the same time
You know this with every ounce of flesh and blood and bone that you are
A speck of stardust woken up too
Both are true
Both are true
Finding and following my way,
Nicole Sylvia Javorsky