Spring has come to Portland, (despite yesterday’s weird spring snow). As the blooming flowers and warm weather returns, I can’t help but feel a twinge of fear at the coming summer. What used to be anticipation of sprinklers, popsicles, and backyard barbecues is now bracing for wildfire smoke, heat domes, and gunshots ringing through the city nights.
Some days, it seems absurd to continue to turn toward my 2022 theme of gratitude. How dare I feel good when everything is so horrible, when cherry blossoms have become an ominous sign of suffering? When it seems the world is becoming a more dangerous place for my child? When I realize that it has been dangerous for Black, Brown, and poor children around the world in way that I’ve not been forced to see until now, as my own money and privilege have begun to find the limit of what they can provide.
But as I continue to try to turn towards gratitude when I feel overwhelmed by the state of the world, I realize that what I’m really avoiding is grief. A deep, aching, existential grief at the enormous loss. Every beautiful thing will go away—whether through climate catastrophe, or death, or simply the passing of time.
As I try to connect with what is good and lovely right here and right now, I come face to face with my human longing, a desire for a permanent place in a permanent world.
Buddhism tells us this desire for permanence is the source of all human suffering, for to be in a world of change, loss, is to be alive. It is simply the way of things.
This is the strange paradox: The more I try to be grateful, the more I grieve. And the more I grieve, the more grateful I am able to be.
Perhaps this is what Rumi meant when he said “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”
What is breaking your heart open this spring? Share your answer in the Mother Den community.
Danielle LaSusa Ph.D. is a Philosophical Coach, helping new moms grapple with what it means to make a person. She is the creator of The Meaning of Motherhood course, and co-creator and co-host of Think Hard podcast, which brings fun, accessible, philosophical thinking to the real world. To join her mailing list, subscribe here.
© Copyright Danielle LaSusa PhD, LCC, 2021. All rights reserved.
