On Standing in the Eye of the Storm
(or trying to embrace negative capability)
It’s Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. I’m baking pies and feeling cozy, happy to be settling back into the warmth of home after so many weeks of movement. Over the kitchen bar, I watch my youngest son laying on the couch, listening to a podcast. Sweet giant teddy bear of a man. It's the deepest love I’ve known, this love for my children. Gratitude wells up, and melancholy, too. More than melancholy, I recognize the physical symptoms of loss–pressure behind my eyes and a sharp twist in my gut.
It's comfortable spending time with my youngest: cribbage games and silly jokes, beers and conversation at Skep and Skein about his life in Portland, our Camino walk, the recent election and what the hell it even means. And underneath it all, I’m longing for a time before the fractures of family traumas and mental illnesses started eating their way into our relationships. A longing for the days when all three of my children were tucked nicely together on the couch watching Scooby Doo and bickering about whose foot was touching whose back. Before they all moved away. Before the tensions with my eldest erupted into something I don’t fully comprehend, but must learn to accept as a new part of our intimacy.
Nostalgia is a dangerous companion. There never was a time before–fractures have always been present in all families, in all nations. There is no pinpointing the generation where the suffering started. There is no beginning, only the stories of violence and grief held by our DNA. So many histories pressing in on our families, our countries, our planet.
In grad school, I was introduced to the concept of negative capability. It's a kind of intellectual and creative curiosity, having the capacity to sit with uncertainty, with doubt, without trying to find absolute answers. Understanding truth as something that is not finite but flexible.
I’ve heard negative capability described as both/both. Holding opposing perspectives, observations, values, interpretations, emotions. Holding complexity without trying to simplify or give into the temptation of nice clean endings, simple answers, clarity.
Both/both. Is it possible that negative capability can act as an antidote to rigidity, to the inadequate stories we hold tightly, so we can survive?
So often, grief and heartache are cozied up next to happiness and contentment, and the razored edge of anger wraps itself around the soft body of longing. Right now, I’m practicing not giving myself over entirely to any one of these emotions, nor do I want to ignore or avoid them. I want to practice standing still in the center and noticing my opposing instincts: lash out in anger/melt in despair; dive aggressively into the hard conversation/pretend the hard conversation isn’t necessary; hide from the world in the bubble of my home/embrace the world and choose wandering, that narcotic vehicle for avoidance.
I want to hold both, whatever those boths may be. I want to stand still long enough to notice all of the potentials bubbling up, and I want to learn to trust that, from this place of stillness, this place of holding both/both, I will know when it is time to act, and I will trust whatever action I take, not because it is the best choice or the only choice, but because it is the choice that feels right for the moment.
Reading what I just wrote, I’m not convinced negative capability is about figuring out when to act or what choices to make. I’m also not convinced it isn’t. Dammit, both/both. For now, I’ll try experimenting with stillness, with observation, and do my best to stay curious about my evolving relationship with doubt and uncertainty.
You just took me back to grad school. I registered for 19th Century Romantics one semester and fell in love with the poets. And it was John Keats who first coined this term. I hadn't heard about it till I read his essay on this concept. Something I'd already been practicing though I didn't know it had a name. And how apropos for the current moment we're all in, Sarah. Holding both grief and joy in our hearts all at once. It can be done, and I'd almost forgotten that it could be done. I have sometimes made the wrong assertion that grief outweighs joy, or you can't have both simultaneously. I've been wrong in those moments. In reflecting on your beautiful essay, in watching you move back and forth between poles of awareness, poles of feelings, I remember that yes, it can be done. Nothing is simply one thing. We don't have to be committed to one idea that requires us to negate other ideas. We can hold both in our palms at one time, even blend them together when it feels right. And maybe in that moment, we are also creating something entirely new. I think we need to let go of fear in the coming year, and embrace this sense of curiosity, or of belief in our shared humanity. Sending out peace to you and yours this weekend, my friend.
Ah, I know this both/both space you describe and the uncertainty that holds me when I’m in it. I appreciate your piece about this condition and send out love and peace to you.