Change

"change, like the wind, like the water, like skin"

Hi, friends. I’m on a plane performing one of the sacred duties of motherhood: holding a pile of random things for my kids on my lap (headphones, Highlights Hidden Pictures book, iPad, empty pretzel bag with crushed pretzel bits and salt). On top of this pile I folded out the little built-in desk, and on top of that, sits the laptop on which I write these words. I’m on a Breeze airways flight from Pittsburgh to LA for spring break. We’re flying out to see my mother-in-law and some friends and to soak in the sun which seems so different, so much brighter in California.

We also want to make some positive memories that will help the kids get excited about moving to LA for Nico’s sabbatical. We struggled mightily with where to go and whether to move at all. And now, we’re in this in-between space months before the move when we know what’s coming but we’re not quite there yet. It feels like this field of clouds: vast, delicate, surreal. Beautiful if you tip it to the light and look at it from a certain angle. From another angle, a bit lonely.

To make matters more strange, I’m coming out of what I’ve been calling “A Very Intense Time” into another “Very Intense Time.” For the last few weeks, concurrent with a long international trip that Nico took for work, I was down to one working eye because of a bad case of uveitis. I was balancing more than felt humanly possible and feeling like I was failing at everything. Add to this the fact that we recently told our kids about the move, and the most important thing I needed to do for my kids was to help them process their understandably very big emotions around it all.

Our Pittsburgh life is the only life they’ve ever known. They were born at Magee-Women’s Hospital and driven down Fifth Avenue in our little car to our street in Point Breeze, and there they have stayed and grown into the beautiful, complicated creatures they are now.

To help them process their emotions, I have to process mine at least a little bit. It has felt physically painful at times to not be able to just sit with my own emotions around all of this. The anxiety and the sadness around this massive change has been buzzing in the background of my mind near constantly, but I haven’t had time or space to process it. Haven’t had time to write or meditate most days, the things that help ground me most. But I can play the song “Change” by Big Thief.

I can play it from the back pocket of my jeans as I’m folding laundry or making breakfast or hounding the kids to get dressed. Playing this song quiets the buzzing.

OK?

Change, like the wind
Like the water, like skin
Change, like the sky
Like the leaves, like a butterfly

Would you live forever, never die
While everything around passes?
Would you smile forever, never cry
While everything you know passes?

The studio recording starts with Adrianne Lenker saying, “Ok.” Or, maybe it’s “Ok?” I can’t tell if it’s a statement or a question. I love that they left it in this recording. It feels like a little check-in with myself or with my kids: Are you ok? I’m ok. It’s ok. It’s gonna be ok.

Would you stare forever at the sun
Never watch the moon rising?
Would you walk forever in the light
To never learn the secret of the quiet night?

Of course you wouldn’t stare forever at the sun, wouldn’t want to miss the moon rising. I like that this song doesn’t lecture me or tell me its tale of woe. It just gently raises these deep, difficult questions that help me see that, of course, change is ever present.

Always something we need to try to get comfortable with.

Always something we’ll never quite be comfortable with.

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What do you turn to in times of change? Are there books or films or songs or practices that help to ground you or even help you lean into the change? I’d love to know in the chat.

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Be Where You Are is a newsletter about how to use writing and mindfulness to be where you are. If you have ideas to share for future newsletters, you can reply to this email or email me at emilymohnslate@gmail.com. You can support this newsletter by liking, commenting & sharing it with other people. You can also find me on Instagram or Facebook or find more info at my website. Thank you for reading!