Watching From the Sidelines

Finding purpose in the in-between

FYI — there will be no newsletter next week (April 24) as my BA Dissertation is due on Monday. Woo!

A new Phoebe Bridgers song came out this week. It’s quite hopeful — a subtle love song lined with small realizations of purpose. "Watch the world from the sidelines / Had nothing to prove," she sings. "Now I know what it feels like / To wanna go outside / Like the shape of my outline…" It touches on a feeling I’ve been thinking about since I saw The Worst Person in the World a few weeks ago, where at one point the main character claimed that she felt like a “spectator in her own life” as she approached 30. There's a helplessness to transitioning: growing older, watching the world pass you by as you try and re-grasp a sense of control.

The park by my grandma’s house had a metal merry-go-round that I loved playing on growing up. There aren’t many of them around anymore, but the idea was that someone would spin the wheel from the outside, and another person would either be already sitting on the wheel or have to jump on it as it spins. I have memories — not sad, just prominent — of me playing on it by myself. I would spin it as fast as my small arms could make it go, and then I would try to jump on. I kind of feel like that now, that moment of tension, of watching the wheel spin and finding the courage — or the right angle — to make it. I was usually afraid to, without the encouragement of a rambunctious friend. I’d stare until it slowed down enough for me to comfortably step on, but I knew it wasn’t going to be fun that way. I think I did it a few times, feeling the euphoric pride of enjoying a situation that I made enjoyable with my own hands. But most of the time I was hesitant, waiting until someone was able to help. Or, I’d give up and go to the swings, where I could kick my legs from the bottom to get higher. I had control, a place to start. I didn’t have to watch as the opportunity passed, and feel shame with every opening that I could have hopped on through.

That’s kind of where I’m at right now, metaphorically. I’m waiting for the opening, for the courage to jump when it’s fast, and watch the clouds spin above me until I get dizzy. I felt it when I moved to London in September, with the confidence of the world at my fingertips, like getting to the top of the Ferris wheel and opening my eyes. After a pandemic of waiting, I was thrilled to live my own life again: to make decisions that would lead me to a certain place instead of leaving it up to a force out of my control. I finally felt like the main character of my own story, like I could reach out and pick a cloud out of the blurry, spinning sky above me. It slowed down eventually, as I approached graduation and the job search. Now I feel a bit detached from life again, watching that merry-go-round spin without me on it. I find it hard to feel like I have a purpose in the wideness of the world without being a part of something concrete and growing, like a relationship or a university or a career. Or even my family, sometimes, while I’m so far away. But in our loneliest, most in-between moments, we remain a part of something. Like Ocean Vuong wrote: & remember, loneliness is still time spent / with the world.

by Charlotte Ager

“The World Has Need Of You” by Ellen Bass:

…everything here seems to need us…
—Rilke

I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple as well.

She’s right. It is a hard time to be human. Maybe now more than ever. We are so full of questions and waiting. It helps me to tone down the introspection and look outward, at the ways I can slot myself into the world: volunteering at a charity bookshop, planning a get-together with my friends, or just getting myself outside without someone (or something) to arrive to. For a while, I wanted to step back and let the waves carry me through, but I’ve made my way back to shore. I’m trying to make choices that will move me towards something, so I can claim responsibility for the things that happen to me. If not forward, at least I can find a way to push my feet closer to the ground. The earth will embrace me, in all my greyish moments.

Mark Strand writes in “Keeping Things Whole”:

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in   
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

Can I play a role without a script? I think so. There’s an innate connection we all have — to the earth, to each other. Even in the least spiritual of ways: it’s been proven that we are really made of stardust. I let that comfort me, knowing that atoms bounce off me every day and that I love and am loved by people who are made of the same stuff. Even when I feel like I’m watching my life pass by, there is something that is constantly pulling me to the ground. And the swings are still fun, after all.

Further Reading

• “The Copper Beech” by Marie Howe I heard it hitting the high leaves, and I was happy / watching it happen without it happening to me.

• “song at midnight” by Lucile Clifton come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.

• “The Poet Dreams of the Mountain” by Mary Oliver All that urgency! Not what the earth is about!

• by Joanna Klink, from “The Nightfields” You are the whole shape of sound, Whether or not you sing.

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What I Enjoyed This Week

Unfortunately, all the reading I have been doing lately has been on JSTOR. But here are some Other Wonderful Things:

• I went to see Kae Tempest perform at an intimate Rough Trade gig with a new friend on Tuesday. I am not very well versed in spoken word, but it was my first real exposure to contemporary poetry in high school — I was a part of a club that watched Button Poetry videos during our Office Hours. I really enjoyed it. Their album was an experiment for me, but it’s brimming with strength and resilience. I think my favorite is the closer, “Grace”, in which they say: “There are things I must record, must praise / There are things I have to say about the fullness and the blaze / Of this beautiful life”.

• I am going to count the weather as a Wonderful Thing because warmth and sunshine in London are too rare and too lovely not to acknowledge. (Reminds me of this quote from Donna Tartt!) I have returned to taking walks again, trying to soak up the sun like a sponge. I went to Primrose Hill with a good friend and chased the moon as it rose. I took a walk to a new part of my neighborhood. I bought myself tulips. These have been nice breaks from all the university work.

• This song, this song, this song. Playlist

Thanks for reading. See you in two weeks!

<3

Tara