A Room Full of Desire and Uncertainty

There are a thousand doors and only one opens.

Hello Beautifuls,

I am humbled and thrilled by the community gathering here. Thank you for your kindness, your vulnerability and your presence.

What readers are experiencing:

• “You weave magic and love and wonder in every line you write.”

• “ I gasped so many times reading this, wanting to pull out the words and pin them somewhere to revisit later. Maybe I'll cover my mirror in lipstick.”

If you need a weekly balm for your tired soul, Hello Beautifuls is the perfect read as the world falls apart.

Me, Costa Rica, circa 2006.

I don't know if it's good enough or not.

This is what I say out loud to myself as I finish reading the piece I'm going to submit to River Teeth, a small literary journal publishing micro essays of 250 words or less. I've submitted to them before, once, and been rejected by them, once. The rejection more motivation than deflation. I know if I can get it right, they'll say yes. A room with a thousand doors and only one of them opens, so we turn the knobs, one by one, and pull.

I was so close to a literary career, a writing life, when I was young, and yet, I didn't know how to pursue something I really wanted, didn't know how to ask questions or seek out people who knew more than me. I knew how to be quiet, how to do things right the first time or stop trying, how to be helpful and never need help. We don't always see the ways we string ourselves along, tethered to our past, a balloon that thinks it's flying, when all along its string has been tangled in the high branches of a tree.

Yesterday, I saw my first Painted Bunting as it flicked off the path in front of me and back into hiding in the scrub brush of Central Texas. Its bright blue and red and green feathers reminded me so deeply of other birds in my other life in Costa Rica, for a breath, I was back there. The air became thicker and more fecund as it shimmered with moisture, the trees got taller, their leaves green and lush. I could see the Resplendent Quetzal and its swinging turquoise tail feathers twice as long as its body, the Motmot's bright teal, the pandemonium of parrots who lived in the tree outside our house, taking glossy green flight in the early morning.

The breath ended, and I stood on smoothed limestone rocks, stunted oaks and Texas sage to either side of me. I do not want to be back in Costa Rica. What I want is to not repeat the mistakes I made when I left.

***

I don't know if it's good enough or not.

This is what I think about my house as we leave it for strangers to walk through, deciding if it will be their house soon. We've put it on the market, and My Loves, this is not a seller's market.

I am anxious.

I am scared.

I am tired.

I am angry.

My biggest fear is the house will not sell, I will be stuck here, unable to leave, as the market drags further down and the house loses more and more value.

I know this is untrue. I know we can sell the house, if we are willing to let go of it at a low enough price.

Fear is like that. It takes over and gives chase, a large dog at the end of our leash, barreling after a flicker of tail, dragging us with it deep into the forest.

All the sages and masters and yogis and wise people say that fear is all in my thoughts; calm the mind and calm the spirit; what I think becomes my reality.

What if, though, the path to equanimity is paved with the burn pile of anger, the wilt of despair. What if there needs to be a cleansing of the heart, like that of the Sierra Nevada forest, with its giant Sequoias whose cones need fire to open, whose seeds need the forest floor cleared of brush in order to land in mineral-rich soil and grow.

***

I don't know if it's good enough or not.

This is how I feel about everything. But when has anything ever really been good enough? It's just been enough. Enough desire, enough time, enough money, enough love, enough of whatever it's taken to get me to where I am right now. The present is a room full of desire and uncertainty.

It is the same room I have always been in. The one with a door, leading wherever I chose. But which door, of the thousand before me, is the right one? Which door, when I turn the knob, will open and allow me to break my own heart and release my tether from the tree.

The answer eludes me, but I know this: I am done being quiet, I am ready to do things true instead of right, I will be brave enough to ask for help along the way.

If you need a weekly balm for your tired soul, Hello Beautifuls is the perfect read as the world falls apart.

Coming soon, paid subscribers will have access to:

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• More letters like this one that come through me rather than from me.

Notes:

I am not surprised that as I read and re-read, edit and tweak this post, I am plagued by doubt. The question that comes up is the same one I am asking throughout: Is this good enough to publish?

And then others follow: Am I doing enough with the structure? Where is the turn-is there one? What is this about? Why can’t I write an essay like Anne Lamott?

This may not be one of my best, but like I said above, I want to be true and this piece is true. It captures how I am feeling today, what is pressing on my heart, making it harder to breathe, harder to want to get out of bed and do all the things.

And with it, I am opening a door that says, here in this space, there is room for not good enough, but true.

May we all have permission to show up unfinished, unpolished, marred and tired, doing our best to suss out the truth and speak it out loud.

With so much love,

Jocelyn

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