{"id":560,"date":"2020-12-22T16:37:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-22T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/?p=560"},"modified":"2020-12-22T22:13:26","modified_gmt":"2020-12-22T22:13:26","slug":"a-letter-from-the-floor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catherinedenial.org\/blog\/uncategorized\/a-letter-from-the-floor\/","title":{"rendered":"A letter from the floor"},"content":{"rendered":"

My friends and I have a shorthand for being completely overwhelmed: we say we\u2019re lying on the floor.\u00a0 I\u2019ve used this phrase dozens of times and have never actually being lying on the floor while sharing it, but it encapsulates something raw and essential about reaching my personal capacity for coping.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s all I can do or imagine. All I want is to lie on the floor.<\/p>\n

Kate Braestrup, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Maine, once observed that when she gave people bad news\u2014often the worst news, of a loved one dying\u2014people would sink to the floor. \u201cI go down to the floor with them and we stay on the floor and it’s a very safe place to be,\u201d she said in an interview with NPR in 2007<\/a>. \u201cYou can’t fall off, you know, and you can stay down there until you’re ready to kind of rise again.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking about sinking to the floor a lot these past few days, of the need to get to the lowest possible point and sit there a while, simply existing.<\/p>\n

\"Taken<\/a>
The view from the floor<\/center><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I see so many people I know and care about sinking to the floor right now. This has been a year, for many of us, like no other, and we have given beyond our capacity and lost so much. \u00a0We have been running on fumes for weeks, and we are exhausted, frustrated, and hollowed out.\u00a0 Some of us are feeling broken in body and\/or spirit.<\/p>\n

We have been urged all year to do more, to give more, to produce more than anyone reasonably could under the wave of circumstance that has crashed in and through our lives. It\u2019s tempting to continue to do that, especially when so much of what we\u2019ve lost professionally is the stuff that brought us to this path\u2014our individual curiosities and the satisfaction of questions asked and answered.\u00a0 But I see us\u2014myself included\u2014grasping at these fleeting moments between the classes we teach and winding ourselves like springs, fueled by anxiety and loss and rage, pinning our hopes on the cleansing magic of passing into a brand-new year.<\/p>\n

2021 will be better.<\/p>\n

Right?<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve sunk to the floor, I see you. And perhaps the harder thing is to stay there a while. Existing in that space requires that I, for example, forgive myself for the deadlines I\u2019m missing and the book reviews and curriculum pieces and essays that I owe.\u00a0 It requires me to trust that the world will not collapse if I\u2019m several books behind in knowing what\u2019s going on in my field.\u00a0 It requires me to accept that the competency that provides a large part of my sense of self is not lost because I cannot summon up willpower from emptiness.\u00a0 It requires that I grieve for lost companionship (and for others, that they grieve the loss of solitude). It requires that I do not numb myself to the realities of the people I know who are sick, or have died.<\/p>\n

That we will rise from this spot on the rug, on the carpet, on the wooden floor is a truth I\u2019ve witnessed so many times.\u00a0 And I do not mean to suggest that we should avoid things that bring us joy.\u00a0 If, for you, that means things related to work, I celebrate that right alongside you.<\/p>\n

But if you need the floor a while\u2014take up some space. Lie down with your arms out-stretched and breathe in and out deeply, without guilt.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m right there with you. Take this time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My friends and I have a shorthand for being completely overwhelmed: we say we\u2019re lying on the floor.\u00a0 I\u2019ve used this phrase dozens of times and have never actually being lying on the floor while sharing it, but it encapsulates something raw and essential about reaching my personal capacity for coping.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s all I can do or imagine. All I want is to lie on the floor. Kate Braestrup, a Unitarian Universalist minister from Maine, once observed that when…<\/p>\n

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