There Is No Other Life Than This

posted in: Musings 14

“Come closer now and listen. There is no other life than this … [By changing what came before] you would not have stumbled into the vastly imperfect, beautiful, impossible present.”  from Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro

How are you at accepting the “what is?” I don’t mean giving up. I never would mean giving up. But surrendering, accepting. How are you with that?

I will admit that moving out of resisting into accepting has been a life-long learning for me … although as I write that, I am pleased to realize that now in my eighth decade of life, I do have less resistance and find that accepting comes much sooner when I’m faced with something I know I didn’t choose and think I wouldn’t choose. My first conscious awareness of letting go and accepting was when I was 40 and going through a divorce. I hated it. But even then I do remember telling friends that I felt as though I was walking in the middle of the remains of a train wreck, sometimes picking up lost treasures and sometimes finding that the earth opened up and swallowed me.

It was during this time that somewhere I found the concept of letting go. As I considered embracing that idea, I used to write it endlessly: I have let go and I am free. I have let go and I am free. As I have told the story many times, frequently as I wrote those sentences over and over again, and spoke the words out loud, my jaw was clenched and my knuckles were white from gripping so hard on the pen. Clearly I was letting go of nothing in those moments, but I was willing to fight the fight for the idea of it. Dr. Jean Raffa, author, speaker and workshop leader, speaks of the first decades of her life being a time of “gathering information that I didn’t know what to do with.” At 40, I was struggling with the transformation of learning what to do with the information about letting go.

I can’t count the number of times or situations since then that I’ve said “What??? This, too???” But I already knew the answer, which was “yes, this too,” clear and simple. And I have learned. I learned that letting go wasn’t such a bad thing. That the hardest part has often been the struggle that I chose during the process. Struggle is not a necessary part of change and letting go. We do have a choice. But frequently struggle seems so normal that we don’t question it. I’m still learning that lesson.

This past month I’ve been given a new and painful challenge that does not really involve my choices, but does affect my life. After the sense of shock, I knew immediately that the situation could actually come to a resolution that would be better than I could even imagine. I did not know what that would look like, but I could trust the possibility of “better than I could imagine” and focus my thinking there. And I did. For about ten days. After that I had a couple of days of gradual crashing, feeling somewhat lost in old feelings of hurt and isolation, past times of loss, and fear of more loss to come.

While at the same time I could see the sun shining and know that it would shine on me, I couldn’t actually feel it during those two days. I cried; I talked to friends who understood. I allowed myself to feel what I felt. And then the morning of the third day, after another night of sacred sleep, I awakened feeling lighter again, aware again of what I know about life and how things work out. As the ancient Chinese story says “Good news, bad news, who knows?” about all that happens.*

This life we have is messy and sometimes seemingly unbearably hard. Harder for some than others of us could believe, I’m thinking. And still, a lot of how we feel about it, this life is about our own perceptions and belief. (Oh, that again? Yes, that again.) We all know people who have been through horrors that defy our understanding or life challenges that we hope don’t come to us, and we know many of those people who have grown from their challenges, their tragedies. And on the other side of those times, they have deepened their sense of grace and humility and compassion—and even love and joy for life. These people are living testaments for what is possible as human beings. Maybe some of you reading here have also faced those kinds of situations in your lives. If so, I hope for you that through the darkness you also have found the light in a way that is more than you could have imagined.

And for those of us living the ordinary, although sometimes painful and difficult messiness of life, it would serve us well to remind ourselves that there is no other life than this. This day is this day, to live as we see fit. Maybe we don’t have a choice in what is happening around us, but we always have a choice in what we do with it. Cry or rage, even sink into despair, or whatever feelings come. And then as soon as possible, be glad for the breath going through your body, for the sky and the bird on the wire nearby, for flowers and smiles and someone’s laughter, for sunlight through the trees, or a simple moment of funny connection in a rare text with a grandchild. All of that is this life, and there is no other life than this one. Beautiful, shocking, sad, messy, imperfect and totally amazing. As Dani Shapiro said “Come closer now and listen”…this is it, your life.

As always, I close with love to you as you have read here. Thank you again for joining me on this journey.

*If you want to read the good news, bad news story, this is one of many places you can find it: https://www.thebrightpath.com/blog/good-newsbad-news%E2%80%94who-knows

 

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14 Responses

  1. Kathy
    |

    This has been a struggle for me throughout my life, but thanks to a wonderful therapist, it’s easier that it was. Trying to live my life in this way is probably why the lyrics to No Day But Today from Rent resonate so deeply with me:

    There’s only us, there’s only this
    Forget regret, or life is your’s to miss
    No other path, no other way
    No day but today

    There’s only us, only tonight
    We must let go to know what’s right
    No other road, No other way
    No day but today

    I can’t control my destiny
    I trust my soul, my only goal
    Is just to be

    There’s only now, there’s only here
    Give in to love or live in fear
    No other path, No other way
    No day but today

    There’s only us, There’s only this
    Forget regret, or life is your’s to miss
    No other road, no other way
    No day but today

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      Kathy, since reading your comment, I have listened to various versions of Idina Menzel singing No Day But Today over and over again. What a beautiful song, and a beautiful accompaniment to exactly what I was saying in this musing. Thank you so much for connecting the two and sharing the gift of the song. This is indeed a lesson that is everywhere and how wonderful for your life that you are noticing the reminders when they appear. Amen and love…

  2. Heidi
    |

    Dale, I am sorry that you are bearing a challenge. I am also grateful that it inspired words that are meaningful to me today. Your writing reaches my heart.

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      Thank you for your loving comment, Heidi. It is this kind of affirmation that allows me to feel more clearly the gift in any challenge. Blessings to you…

  3. Diane
    |

    Your words bless this world and the lives it touches … thank you Dale xo

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      Diane, as always, thank you for your comment, which blesses me…xox

  4. Julene
    |

    As always, you bring us profound truth and exquisite sharing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      My dear Juju, what can I reply to you, my fellow traveler on this journey…except thank you, thank you, thank YOU.

  5. Karen
    |

    Ah, yes. The letting go. I am getting better at it, I think.
    Sending love to you, Dale. I hope we can talk soon.
    Xxxxxx

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      Thank you for your comment, Karen. I do think that if we weren’t getting better at letting go, we wouldn’t be able to be in this present “here”. So hallelujah for that, I say! xoxox

  6. Julia Rowe
    |

    I stumbled across a picture on a website of a cemetery which I wasn’t even looking for last night. It sent me back to a time 55 years ago that I thought I had let go. Actually I know I have met this challenge of letting go of this situation more than once, but each time I have gone through the process I have gotten new insights. Here I am 75 and just now was exposed to this old picture in which I learned more details of something that had hurt me. It was one of those tailspin moments. Then today I stumbled across your musings about letting go, What a blessing your writing , the rice farmer story and the song from “Rent” all have been for me today. And how strange they came to me today to enrich my perspective of something so specific to me. Actually heal my perspective.. It makes me know I am experiencing the flowing of life, and I find it holy and amazing. Julia R.

  7. Dale Midgette Smith
    |

    Julia, what a beautiful comment you have shared here. Yes, yes to the process of new insights that lead to the next round of letting go when one is open to that. And when you mentioned knowing that you are experiencing the “holy and amazing” “flowing of life”, I wanted to shout yes, yes, YES!!
    I write because I have to write; it is in me to do. I can only hope that my words will also have an impact somewhere else. Thank you for your comment that said this particular writing, plus the words from Rent did have meaning for you, which then made me experience the “holy and amazing” flow of life that I know keeps going around and around and around. Amen.

  8. David
    |

    My perceptions and my beliefs ( ! ! ), along with my abiding affection for you, bring me to inquire of you: In ” I have let go and I am free” and “Come close now and listen . . .,’ is there a space for another? More to the point, an Other ? Am I to be turned in on myself, to search there for freedom, for an answering voice ? Or is there an Other ? Against what standard shall I measure my freedom and its value ?

    Even though the Universe may speak and I fail to understand, I shall always be alert for the voice of one formerly known as Dorothy Dix.

    • Dale Midgette Smith
      |

      David, I truly just found this comment from you, unearthed in some WordPress computer files that never did get to me. I apologize, especially since I appreciate your astute comment/questions. My thought and belief says that the it is exactly within ourselves that we must find the space in order to hear the Other. Too much internal clutter makes hearing Other, Spirit, Universe, God much more difficult is how I see it. Being free from my need to control, not that I am (!), is what gives me space to both allow and receive from an Other. So glad to hear that you will always be alert to the former DD. Love to you as always…