go through the motions

pretend it's true, and maybe it will be

A couple weeks ago, I finally finished East of Eden by John Steinbeck. It had been my birthday book, and despite my ambitious plans to finish it in the month of March, I didn’t end up finishing it until mid April. But I think that is also apt with the theme of the book — “now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good” — and gestures toward something larger that runs through the novel: that a single failure, even a devastating one, does not conclude a life, and that there remains, however faint it feels, the choice to begin again, to go on living.

One of the bits I loved the most was this interaction between Sam Hamilton and Adam Trask;

“Go through the motions, Adam.”
"What motions?”
“Act out being alive like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.”

Which was then echoed later on in the book by Lee:

“You’re growing up, maybe that’s it,” he said softly. “Sometimes I think the world tests us the most then, and we turn inward and watch ourselves with horror. But that’s not the worst. We think everybody is seeing into us. Then dirt is very dirty and purity is shining white. Aron, it will be over. Wait only a little while and it will be over. That’s not much relief to you because you don’t believe it, but it’s the best I can do for you. Try to believe that things are neither so good or so bad as they seem to you now […] Go through the motions. Sam Hamilton said that. Pretend it’s true and maybe it will be. Go through the motions. Do that. And go to bed.”

Recently I’ve been feeling a little hollow. Tired, maybe, in a way that lingers rather than announces itself. Living a slightly disrupted life, not quite having anywhere stable to land, no real sense of a support system that exists in one place at one time. I move through a city that I love feeling empty, trying to understand why there always seems to be a gap I can’t quite close. Sometimes it feels like I’m watching myself go through life. I cry, quiet sobs on the bus and try to not ruin all my makeup first thing in the morning, wipe everything away, arrive at work, and put on a smile. Ask, can I help? Laugh at the jokes, offer some of mine too. And sometimes it feels like I’m watching someone else do it. I’m laughing, but I’m not. Later, when I’m alone, I fold into myself and hold onto the feeling of being in pain, because at least it means I’m alive — and that’s when I would start feeling like me again. One wants in the end just once to befriend one’s own loneliness / to make the ache of inwardness—/ something, / music maybe (Christian Wiman)

I think about where I am now, and to be honest, I don’t know the answer. I think I’m happy. I’m happy to be in this city, happy to be doing the job that I’m doing, even if every single day I get an urge to turn off my phone and disappear because I feel like I’m falling behind. It feels like I’m moving from one thing to another, contract after contract, good enough to keep going, never enough to be kept permanently. It feels like watching from the sidelines as my friends are moving through the world, working jobs I can only ever dream about, settling into serious relationships, making plans. Having plans.

So here I was, no plan beyond the next 4 months or so, a non-existent social life, friends I can count on one hand, and feeling the humbling feeling of being the youngest and most junior person at work, not really knowing anything, burning through my chest every single day. I’m exhausted, tired of feeling like my life is constantly in motion without ever arriving anywhere. And once you start tracing all the ways things feel uncertain, all the ways your life looks like it’s coming apart at the edges, it becomes difficult to stop. The thoughts loop in on themselves, gathering weight, until there is no real relief from them. And there I am, day after day, jobhunting (again), worrying (again), and putting on a persona (again).

Saturday found me in this state, I guess. After talking with my houseparent about what comes beyond May, and then beyond August (to which the answer is: I have NO idea), I went into a little spiral. But it was also this evening when I was talking to Rasya about East of Eden. After a couple weeks of finishing it and letting it marinate in my head, I’m slowly processing everything, including the two quotes above, and what they actually mean, to me.

Don’t be afraid to suffer—take your heaviness /
and give it back to the earth’s own weight;
/ the mountains are heavy, the oceans are heavy.

—Rainer Maria Rilke, from The Poetry of Rilke; “Sonnets to Orpheus”.

This is it, isn’t it. Growing up, turning inward and watching yourself with horror. Seeing everything too clearly, too sharply, until there is no softness left in the way you understand your own life. All you see is all the ways it is not enough, all the dirt is very dirty. And I let the rest of the quote wash over me like a blanket I love. Try to believe that things are neither so good or so bad as they seem to you now. And despite my own horror, I try. And I try to believe: wait only a little while and it will be over.

I loved that East of Eden gave this advice in its full form. If I ask: what do I do while I wait a while until it is over? But Sam Hamilton answered that, simply: go through the motions. And I guess at first I thought; as if living can sometimes be reduced to that, something almost mechanical, something you perform before you fully believe in it. Act out being alive like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true. But then I realised this is what I’m doing, after all, right? It must be, if I’m crying every single day, but I also show up every single day. It must be, if every day the pain feels like it’s swallowing me whole, but still I wake up every day, brush my teeth, get on the train, read before bed …

Go through the motions, go through the motions, go through the motions. I’m acting out being alive, the way I think it’s supposed to be, because I don’t know any other way. On the bus and on the train, smile ear to ear and cry heaving sobs. And I hope that one day, it will be true — without it feeling like a performance, without feeling like I’m watching someone else from the sidelines. One day, it will be true — I will wake up in the morning and go through my days and it will just be my life. That’s all it will be, and it will be enough.

I think about how many times this has happened — when the right piece of literature is right there, at the right time. For me. In the past few months, I have to admit that more than once I have wondered if I had made the right choice to pursue what I did in university. But then this type of things would happen, and I know I did. Literature has always been there to catch me, time and time again.

I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me.

So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy.

A tough life needs a tough language — and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.

It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.

— Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

A handful of weeks left in the city I love the most, and that loves me back. A handful of days to look up at its skyline that I dream about all the time, to do a long bus ride, to have tea in the only house in the world where I am loved in the most genuine and uncomplicated way possible. Despite all the growing pains, and the crying, and the random work-related crashouts, the past few months have been unexpected, and beautiful, and my life has bloomed around me like wildflowers. It has been the most beautiful spring, and summer is approaching fast. I can feel it. Now that will be a whole different thing.

I’m growing up, and maybe this is all nothing but borrowed time. Borrowed time until I have to eventually face unemployment again, or not having anywhere to live again. Borrowed time until another visa runs out, or until another contract ends. But I guess it’s okay, right? It’s all just going through the motions. As Rilke says once — “let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

After a while, a long while, it will be true.

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Playlist:

• Blackbird — The Beatles

• Landslide — Fleetwood Mac

• Nothing New — Taylor Swift, ft Phoebe Bridgers

• Cool About It — boygenius

• 500 Miles — Peter, Paul and Mary

• Cowpoke — Colter Wall

• Helplessness Blues — Fleet Foxes

• my angel — adrianne lenker