The Little Prince and the Fox

Throughout most of my life one of my strongest desires has been to have “adventure buddies”, usually with male friends. And indeed, most of my deepest relationships — some of them still lasting now after decades, others lasting only for brief but nonetheless fun and intense moments — have been with “adventure buddies”: situations in which the male/female and friend/romantic partner binaries got blurred and I could be (& be fully accepted) as my “whole, fluid self”.

This morning, I woke up with the refrain (both the lyrics and the tune) “I walk alone” from Green Day’s song “Boulevard of broken dreams” ringing in my head. 

I’ve noticed this happening quite often: I wake up with a particular song or refrain playing in my head, even when maybe I haven’t heard that song in years. Then as I let my emotions come out over breakfast, usually the reason for that “musical connection” becomes very clear: the lyrics and music are pointing to how I actually feel deep down inside. 

Yes, this morning (and very often in general) I feel that “I walk alone”. And this morning particularly (and recently), I also feel in a “Green Day mood”, as that rebel, boyish self that is a huge part of me yearns to come out. 

I feel (and write) all this with no sadness, no regrets, no anger. It’s actually a peaceful state I feel: acknowledgement, awareness, consciousness, acceptance and affirmation of my life choices that have brought me to “walk alone”. “I walk alone” but I am not alone, i.e. I don’t feel lonely today, and that’s a huge difference for me. My “walking alone” does not contradict the fact that I feel “accompanied along my path”, sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes only for a brief wink of the eye, sometimes for years. I know I have made many lovely connections throughout the years, and for all of them I am grateful. 

Of course, I feel very lonely sometimes. But not today. Today “I walk alone” on this path I have chosen, serenely and joyfully.

And maybe this “aloneness” is something that actually brings many of us together, as profound “aloneness” is possibly part of the human condition — as the poet Salvatore Quasimodo beautifully put it: 

“Ognuno sta solo sul cuor della terra 

Trafitto da un raggio di sole: 

Ed e’ subito sera.” 

Where I grew up there’s a dialect word to indicate a crab when it’s molting: “moeca”. This could be translated into English as “softy”: indeed, crabs in this state are soft and vulnerable (and often illegally fished since they seem to be quite a delicacy). 

Well, I feel like a “moeca” in this moment: soft and vulnerable as I shed some old skin and slowly turn more wholly into what I am or what I want to be. Which is still partly unknown even to me — and the reason I feel this vulnerability. Shaky like a fawn on its long, lanky, uncoordinated, wobbly legs; shaky in this uncertainty but also somehow already feeling the knowledge (or hope?) of the antelope that will come out. 

This vulnerability is scary but it’s also wonderfully beautiful: and maybe it’s partly the uncertainty that gives this moment its beauty, that uncertainty that still leaves all paths open.

My sister just texted me to let me know that she got her first Pfizer shot today. I felt the same sense of joy and relief as a couple weeks ago when my mother told me that she & my father had just got their first Moderna vaccine. 

My nuclear family of origin lives in Europe and I haven’t seen them in five and a half years, since my move to California. 

We don’t communicate very often; I hardly ever feel the urge to see them or even talk to them much. We’re just so different, maybe too different. Or maybe there’s still too much residual scarring for me from the years of interacting with them without feeling accepted, recognized, seen, loved for who I really was. 

But I do love them. I love them dearly and care about their well-being. I just love them from afar. There’s no anger or resentment or even pain left on my part: but (for now) I need this distance to be able to love them serenely. 

Loving from afar.

Springtime in my heart again…

One of my best friends here has two daughters: one of them just turned 10 and the other is 8 and a half. The 10-year-old has recently started running on a girls’ team and the younger one has just started playing soccer. 

A few nights ago, I was having dinner with them and the older girl was telling me how a boy in her class during sports class at school was saying in an offensive, aggressive tone that girls shouldn’t play soccer or any sports, just with dolls and unicorns. My friend’s daughter was really upset by this, as were many of the other girls in her class and her younger sister, too. 

And I found myself spontaneously, wholeheartedly telling them, “Don’t ever listen to anyone who says you cannot do something because you’re a girl. Don’t let anyone stop you from doing something good or that you like because you’re a girl — girls can play soccer and run and do all the sports they like, and boys can play with dolls and unicorns, too, if they like to”. (My friend, their mother, of course chimed in with me.) 

These sincere words poured from my heart — and I (a runner & athlete myself) will be pacing the 10-year-old girl in her first 5K race on May 15th! The fact of being able to be there for these girls, for one of my “chosen families”, feels so lovely — and even more so as I can somehow make amends for what was said to me as a child and teenager and young adult, i.e. that I shouldn’t play soccer, or do many of the other fun things deemed “unsuited for girls”. I did them anyway, but it was a constant, painful struggle against my parents and many other people. Being able now to spread the opposite message, one that seems to me healthier and more inclusive, brings me profound joy. And hope.  

This morning, I’m not so sure how I am feeling. It’s a mixture of feelings, somehow intense yet sweet and soft, powerful and yet not overwhelming.

Usually, I feel one or two emotions or states of mind very clearly, often even very intensely, like an intense and colorful stroke of oil paint on a white canvas. Sometimes, my emotions are more like pastel colors or the delicate light at dawn, but still quite definite towards one particular shade or tonality. But not today, not this morning: this morning it’s more like a delicate, hazy grey (like the marine layer outside my windows); but not an apathetic grey: it’s charged and carrying something — I’m not sure exactly what it’s carrying, though. 

There is some sense of relief and relaxation that has been growing steadily within me since I and many people in my group of friends/acquaintances have got the COVID vaccine. My life style has changed, really improved and gone “back to normal” in many practical ways. Which in turn has led me to feel that I have come alive again. This is probably — hopefully — a shared experience for many persons now. 

On top of this, though, there is also another level of “coming out” for me which took a great leap a little over five years ago, when I finally left Europe and moved to California to pursue my dreams. And on top of that, due to some more recent specific circumstances and readings and conversations, this “coming out” is reaching a very important phase for me now — I can feel something ready to “leap out” of somewhere inside me mixed with the need to keep it safe while it’s still vulnerable. 

But then there are also thoughts and feelings with respect to the rest of the world. Concern and a sense of injustice as, once again, it seems to me that the privilege of power and money is striking within this pandemic. My relief and happiness are tinted with sadness and concern and even anger if I look outside my “fortunate bubble”: the tragedies in India or, even closer to me, the fact that my own mother living in Europe, although being a teacher and over 70 years old, was able to get her first Moderna shot only yesterday… 

So then that quote from Fannie Lou Hamer comes to my mind: “Nobody’s free until we’re all free”… 

“Nobody’s safe (from COVID, or anything else, really) until we’re all safe”.

This might be my “mid-life crisis” coming out in bursts as my 40th birthday slowly approaches on the horizon (November 2021), although I don’t really care about age… Or it might be the result of a year of more introspective reflections than usual or too much isolation… Or symptoms of a ”Peter Pan syndrome” that makes me feel at odds with society, once again… 

I’m almost 40, with a doctorate in a hard science, solid professional experience in several cutting-edge fields, knowledge and interests also beyond STEM, and yet I don’t own anything (apart from a motorcycle and an old car, each worth no more than a few thousand $), I don’t have a “standard family” of my own or even a “stable partner”, I’m still renting and have no intention or interest or even possibility of buying a house anytime soon, and I keep making professional choices based on what I like to do rather than what pays well so I end up in jobs that actually don’t pay well but that I love. Sometimes I feel that my incapacity or disinterest in owning anything or in “settling down” may reflect an inherent incapacity to commit or be responsible. And yet, I do truly and wholeheartedly commit to the activities and persons and communities I love, and my job does entail a lot of responsibility toward other people. So what’s wrong with me? Am I really “selfish and immature” as my (younger) sister once said to me? Or are my values just different from hers and those of many people? 

I don’t value making a lot of money: I’d much rather be happy and healthy now than rich. 

For me, success isn’t measured in my bank account or size of my house or job title: for me, success is measured in the good memories and/or growth or encouragement that I leave in the hearts and minds of the people whose paths cross mine.

I’m not “good at” owning things if they need too much care, too much time or attention, because I simply enjoy doing too many things and cannot manage to dedicate enough time or attention to one single thing: does that make me a bad person, “selfish and immature”? 

But it’s not just that I’m not “good at” owning things: I don’t “believe in” owning things. I believe in shared property and I truly find myself at odds with the mainstream mentality of “having to buy a house”, “having to own this, that, and the other”, “having to get a promotion”, “having to earn a six-figure salary”. Why? What makes all things things so important? 

Maybe I really am irresponsible. Maybe I’ll wake up someday and wish I had bought a house or saved more money for retirement, when I’m old. But what if I never live to be old? 

Now, at 39, I’m more similar to my “dreamer self” from my teens & college years than I was ten years ago: am I regressing, going insane? Or just coming into my own self more truly and authentically? 

One of my difficulties now is societal pressure or comparison: in my teens & college years, it was “OK” to be a dreamer, an idealist, “different”, and many people my age were just like me — we were all dreamers and idealist and rebels; but now, as an “adult”, I seem to be one of the very few who is still a rebel or dreamer or idealist or non-conformist.

So that leads me to ask myself: what is wrong with me?