The transition from winter to spring was interesting for me. I really let myself turn inward this last winter, doing less, prioritizing rest, feeling everything that moved through my body. Listening. As spring arose it became clear that more and more was going to happen, and with a rapid escalation. More social activity. More work. More interrupted sleep. More travel and everyday transit.
Life started to bloom in February, and I begrudgingly accepted it, because I saw the tree outside my window flowering. This is how spring works in California. Though in many ways my spirit was not yet done with winter. I redoubled efforts into growing and shaping my business. I started powerlifting again after three years. I reached out to old friends and colleagues to check in and see where the road had taken us. I came out into the world in a way that had become uncomfortable for me.
Something bizarre started to happen — for the first time in over a year I started finding it hard to sleep at the end of the day. Usually, for me, I’m able to knock out between 9 and 10pm, simply because I’m so worn out from the day and I need it. It’s a struggle to keep me up, in large part because my system simply cannot sleep in (I’m currently writing this at 630am, that part remains true). But these last few months I noticed myself avoiding sleep, avoiding my body’s call to sleep. I caught myself eating later than usual, playing extra rounds of Balatro, socializing or making phone calls when I could be shutting my eyes.
What was I avoiding?
On the day of the spring equinox I attended an InterPlay gathering with some friends. Most of the other play practitioners were older white-bodied folk. I remember being surprised by how welcome I felt in the space. Men with huge heart-smiles would walk up to me and offer big bear hugs, introducing themselves. They would affirm my presence in the space. Something about InterPlay makes everyone a human, and much more, all at once.
I was paired with an older French gentleman to babble on the idea of the “end of the day”. Pierre was invited to speak for 2 minutes on the topic without any discrimination or thought. He told me that the nighttime is his favorite part of the day because he can finally let go and go to sleep. It struck me that for months I had been feeling my own practice of letting go fall through my fingers. I had found, instead, a tighter grip on my life, on outcomes, on daily tasks and ideations.
I started playing with a new bedtime routine. I would say goodnight to the various things I was holding with a tight grip during the day.
Good night coaching practice
Good night difficult conversation
Good night longing for touch
Good night uncertainty
Good night rage against the machine
It became a sort of prayer to my future self: will you pick this up again for me so I can put it down now?
But the real prayer has been deeper than that: can I genuinely let this go and feel okay?
Of course, my bigger insight is that it’s not just me holding the grip. Some of these are collective forces that I feel are gripping me, gripping many of us right back. After returning from a week in the redwoods at the Asian Diaspora Jam, I felt like I was walking through a curtain of intensity. Almost everyone in my vicinity is carrying some degree of heaviness, fatigue, stress, and grief. I don’t need to rehash the news here, but you likely know what I’m talking about.
There really is no avoiding global climate conditions. The forecast indicates many more days of tight grip.
In moments I’ve been able to find some deeper sense of release and cry out some of the emotion that’s welling up inside of me. But there are entire weeks where it feels like I’m digging this small hole in the earth, waiting for a small puddle of groundwater to seep into in. For almost a full year crying would come easy to me — I’d put on a favorite Sufi song and the tears would flow abundantly. But this season? Congestion, and a second arrow of sorrow.
I don’t know what all of this means, or why I’m sharing with you. I expect I will put this out there and my parents will read it and both of them will call me concerned, as though something is wrong. Nothing is wrong!!! Despite the season of fatigue I’ve had many experiences of pure radiance: singing with the trees, hearty meals with loved ones, full-belly laughter, profoundly being of service to leaders and teams and people who inspire me. But something needs to be said for this moment, not just on at the level of “current events.”
The moment is eating me.
Some people look at me with relief and recognition when I mention that we’re all currently surviving through a Great Depression. Others are more skeptical. I don’t know… I hope to be wrong about this one. But when we look back on World War Three, when will they say it started? When Russia invaded Ukraine? On October 7th, 2023? Or January 6th, 2021?
We’re living in history, and history has its grip on us.
Inspired by my friend and role-model Kazu and Robin Wall Kimmerer, I’ve started playing with gift economics for all of my work. I’m tired of my work being accessible to some people and not others. Instead, I want to collaborate exclusively in relationships where we can establish a sense of reciprocity prior to any money exchange. I don’t have much to say on this — it’s too nascent — but I do feel like our times are demanding us to continue finding new ways to relate to one other, our purpose, our work, our systems, and our resources.
It’s a time for renewal. In Tamil culture (and in accordance with the rhythms of the land of Tamil Nadu), the new year isn’t in January. It was just this week, on Monday. For the last few years I’ve been using Puthandu as my new year, no matter where I’m living. It just makes more sense. January I’m still letting my body decompose and find new fertility. February and March I’m coming back together and finding the shape of myself. And now, here we are. The new year.
I still don’t know who I’m going to be this year. But I do know this: I want to continue practice loosening my grip and letting go. Another moment to practice arises:
Good night to my text editor
Good night to rumination about self
Good night to concerns about how others will receive my writing
Good night to all the things I wanted to say that I never got to
I think I will try to go back to sleep. Sweet dreams.