Moving Away For The First Time (Again)

A quiet and tender unfolding

It’s finally September. The breeze is cool, the sun is warm, and tomorrow I will be on a flight to London.

I’ve done this before. I was 19 when I first left home. Before that, I stayed in my hometown for a year after graduation, taking tests and applying to schools abroad. Watching all my friends move away made me feel trapped, like a butterfly sealed in a chrysalis. I refused to settle, I didn’t make friends at my local university, and I kept telling my academic advisor that I’ll be gone soon, anyway. I repeatedly wrote this quote by Anaïs Nin in my journal at the time: “I'm restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” My adolescence was, as Louise Glück put it: “a long wish to be elsewhere”.

I spent three months in London and returned after Christmas. My mental health plummeted after that. My mom threatened to withdraw me from school and bring me home. I had gotten too ahead of myself, thinking I was ready for it all and not doing the hard work to make sure of it. It caught up with me. I was so focused on breaking free, and I failed to realize that I never entered metamorphosis in the first place. I was still a caterpillar. It wasn’t that my wings didn’t work, I just didn’t have them yet. Then COVID-19 hit, and I was on the first flight back.

It took some time for me to give in and settle back at home. I left my bedroom walls blank for a while, with that same I’ll be gone soon, anyway mindset. Like many others, I fell apart pretty quickly. To put myself back together, I had to just be for a while, grounding myself in what I had. I indulged in friendships that seemed temporary, put up posters, and collected things I now don’t have room to take back with me. But all of that led to a much more permanent transformation. You can’t undergo metamorphosis until you find a place to build your chrysalis, anyway. And leaving it is scary — it kind of feels like chopping all your hair off. You feel exposed and like a new person all at once. But at the same time, I’m excited to show the world this regenerated body, to take it to many wonderful places.

By Anna Raff

Despite these realizations, I’m still trying to figure out why I am so nervous and scared this time around. I turn to this poem by Pat Schneider, which I have printed out to carry with me:

Instructions for the Journey

The self you leave behind
is only a skin you have outgrown.
Don’t grieve for it.
Look to the wet, raw, unfinished
self, the one you are becoming.
The world, too, sheds its skin:
politicians, cataclysms, ordinary days.
It’s easy to lose this tenderly
unfolding moment. Look for it
as if it were the first green blade
after a long winter. Listen for it
as if it were the first clear tone
in a place where dawn is heralded by bells.

And if all that fails,

wash your own dishes.
Rinse them.
Stand in your kitchen at your sink.
Let cold water run between your fingers.
Feel it.

The air feels colder when you strip your outer layers. I am in my “tenderly unfolding moment”, waiting to stretch out my wings. There is a rawness to it. I don’t know how to navigate the world as the self I am now. And I have to live for this growing, in understanding that I am not quite there yet.

Everything is uncertain. But the potential burns in me like a spark at the tip of a blackened wick. Everything is uncertain, but it will be certain. I will make it certain.

Susan Rich wrote in her (incredible) poem “Still Life with Ladder”:

I’ve improvised my life ~ let the sky pull the strings.

Tonight, I will borrow the golden ladder from the orchard,
travel from this sphere into the next and expunge
the leftover sadness of the hemispheres, to move beyond

the beyond which is here, present, alive in this hyacinth room;

time leaps over itself, after and out of the tangled past
over shadows of weather falling across a back window—
to forgive one another; to try once more to live it right.

In our return to a changed world, jitters are not only normal but a sign of something much bigger. Thicker skins can be good, but we outgrow them in time. Shedding is a sign of courage and transformation. I hope that once we reach the tops of our ladders, we can hold hands and enter this new, weird dimension of life together. In all our raw glory. We’ll be fine.

Further Reading

“The Journey” by Mary Oliver: and there was a new voice / which you slowly / recognized as your own, / that kept you company / as you strode deeper and deeper / into the world, / determined to do / the only thing you could do -- / determined to save / the only life that you could save.

“Words for Departure” by Louise Bogan: Wear the bloom from silence. / And go away without fire or lantern. / Let there be some uncertainty about your departure.

“Innocence” by Linda Hogan: This same growing must be myself / not aware yet of what I will become / in my own fullness / inside this simple flesh.

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What I’ve Been Enjoying Lately

Recent Reads

• Spill, Simmer, Falter, Wither by Sara Baume. A friend lent this to me. It took me a while to get through, but I did enjoy it. The prose is delicate yet full of depth, and it’s from a point of view that’s unlike anything I’ve ever read before. It tells the story of an older man, Ray, who lives alone in a seaside village with a one-eyed dog. I love work that makes you notice, and Baume does just that with sensory imagery and a keen eye for detail. The novel is in the second person, addressed to Ray’s dog (aptly named One-Eye), which turns the novel into a compassionate and lyrical character study. It is very slow and very sad. But it’s quite beautiful. I don’t know if this was the right time for me to read this book, so I will definitely revisit it in the future and read it more carefully. 3.5/5

• “Do You Speak Persian?” by Kaveh Akbar. I was so excited to find such a sharp reflection of myself in a poem. I do speak Persian. It was my first language. I’d consider myself fluent, meaning I can express myself well without thinking much, but I find my vocab to be limited and I can’t read or write. There are ideas I wish I could express further than the literal meaning. But I take it day by day — it wasn’t until last year that I learned to incorporate khoshal shodam (I have become happy) into my goodbyes. Sometimes just saying goodbye or goodnight or even I have become happy repeatedly sounds insincere when it comes out of my own mouth.

Other Wonderful Things

• I’ve been listening to Ologies with Alie Ward as I pack this week. Alie Ward is funny and curious and almost child-like in her appreciation for random small sciences. I like learning about things like postcards and the moon, things I encounter in my everyday life but don’t take time to properly learn about.

• My timely Astro Poets horoscope: “Week of 8/29 in Aries: There are books waiting for you. Still you leave for the open window. Both can be together. Both have a home in the heart.”

• This isn’t a thing but I just want to give a shoutout to my friends and family who have been so loving, empathetic, and encouraging in their goodbyes (and just generally, in this past year and a half). I love you all!!!!!!!!!

• This song, this song, and this song.

Thanks for reading.

<3

Tara