[014] "The Circle You Managed To Keep"
CAREGIVERS, v1: On the connections gained and lost in 2020, and appreciating our own capacity to “[hold] ourselves until we are ready to come into the light."
Hello, Tired Ones,
Another week, another sign of life, another reason that showing up’s still worth it.
In my work as a writer and designer for culture change, I come across important stories about progress that’s actually working for people.
They help us to remember: before there was bureaucratic care, or self-care, there was simply, well, care.
So come on in, sit down. For the next few minutes at least, there’s no rush. It’s a new week (and year!), after all.
January’s care workers: Community caregivers
“HIDING/ is an act of staying alive.”
Sourcing notes: photo via David Whyte, whose poetry is featured this week.
—
I started writing this morning (already behind my normal deadline) with the intention of a quick entry this week. I wanted only to share a favourite process for closing and opening the years, called Year Compass. (More on that below.)
Instead, one link led to another, and here I find a completed newsletter. One of those rare occasions where the work flows out, seemingly of its own accord. I hadn’t written that way in months and months.
When you next find yourself on the receiving end of such a transmission (and you will), I hope you’ll find a moment to savour something else beyond your work.
A song, for pairing
"Inspirit" by Julianna Barwick, from the album Healing Is A Miracle (2020).
An ambient musician draws from the choirs of her upbringing in Louisiana, laying lush vocal samples one on top of the other. When the textured bass enters midway through the album opener, the effect was physical. I felt as if I’d stepped from an under-cover pillow-fort, and into the warm embrace of sunlight through a dome high above me. I began to grasp her sense of what this impossible task called healing might be. Listen to the full album.
A healthy idea, to chew on
The Year Compass (2020 | 2021), an annual reflection and planning tool created by an informal core team of friends from Hungary.*
On the loss of connection in 2020, and questions to help take stock of our relationships for 2021:
2020 had something unexpected for all of us and was hard for most of us. […] We focused on three specific areas: confronting the loss of control, taking stock of the profoundly changed daily life, and assessing the health of your social circle. We aim to give you the tools with which you can find peace and resilience in this turmoil.
SOCIAL CIRCLE
Social distance
Even worse than the lost activities and routines are the lost social connections we all experienced this year. Take a moment to think about the people with whom you lost touch. Write, doodle, and draw about them freely. How does the distance from them make you feel? Again, it’s okay to feel some anger at the virus. Feel free to express your emotions on paper.
A smaller circle
Most of us experienced the shrinking of our social circles. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Fewer people can mean deeper connections and more quality time with each other. Who are close to you these days? Who did you manage to keep regular contact with, and how?
Is everyone present?
Take a look at the circle you managed to keep. Are you satisfied with it? Is there someone you miss from your core group of people?
Your best people
Who are the three people you were closest with this year? What was it that kept you together during these trying times? Are you grateful to them for something?
It’s always a good idea to tell people you care about them. Consider texting your three closest people or giving them a call about why you’re grateful for them.
Looking forward
List three things you’ll do to keep your existing circle close.
List three things you’ll do to reconnect with people you miss from your circle.
* Sourcing notes: Core team includes Békéssy László, Csúth Zsófia, Döbrössy Katalin, Fejes Anikó, Freisinger Ádám, P. Tóth András, Szabó Dávid, Szőnyi Noémi, Vad László, Vigh István.
A good practice, to freeze for later
The Circle You Managed To Keep—Is Everyone Present?, and who are Your Best People?.
By setting aside 4 hours, you can create some space to say goodbye to 2020, to mourn what (or who) you’ve lost, and to treasure what (or who) who you’ve gained. Having gone through this process for a few years now, I really do recommend it. While I’ve never come close to fitting it in the four-hour window, I’ve tended to appreciate stretching it out through the first week or two of the year, and comparing notes with a few friends.
To take on the task, it’s likely you’re going to need some extra help, in one form or another. Besides gathering friends, there are resources to support you—like this weekly workshop, which begins this Saturday at 11am, and continues throughout January. It’s hosted by some of my favourite healers and community workers in Toronto, with a recommended registration fee of $100 (with PWYC options available on request). Here’s what one of the hosts had to say, the poet, singer and entrepreneur lighthaüs:
phew, chile it has beeen a year! I'm so grateful for everything 2020 taught me and brought into my life truly. And I am looking forward to the greatness that lies ahead in 2021, for ALL of us! You deserve it!
I've been quiet this year and really appreciate the space to be still and not have to promote and push products, produce. The production I've manifested has been more internal this year, and it's likely you've not seen much or anything of me on social media. In the New Year I intend to be more visible, and I'm honoured to start that off with this offering.
I know you've been through some things this year. […] I celebrate you for the resilience it took to undergo that process, not unlike a death and rebirth experience.
As someone said on Twitter:
2020 - The Year of the Cocoon
2021 - The Year of the Butterfly[Editors note: this quote appears to have popped up in multiple places, starting on the 1st.]
However last year was for you, I trust that the Most High Source was able to guide your steps and illuminate your way home. I truly Give Thanks for all the warm, tender, kind, soft, loving, driven, purposed, seeking, mindful and compassionate parts of you; for all your light.
Sourcing notes: Posted by @assayaheals. Workshop to be hosted by @emihoso2gi, @honestlydevynne and Caralyn Quan.
And if all these reflective doodads aren’t your bag, there’s always wholesome content from the internet to help you process. Two of my favourites:
(i) A moving outdoor performance by a Canadian figure skater, below, called “The evolution of my relationship with the ice” (preview below, with part 2 on Instagram).
(ii) Or, for news geeks, this sing-songy year-end revue covers the events of 2020 from an unusually subjective perspective (also on Spotify). (Sidebar: This is a bold example of journalism that’s cheeky-and-personal-but-also-factual, a shift which I completely applaud.)
Sourcing notes: Performed by @elladjbalde. Produced by @juliemarcotte23, @carlottaedwards and @jackson.ultima. Shared by one lovely friend of the newsletter, and fiancee, @amandawiji.
Even if you don’t go through a specific process, consider reaching out to three of the people who got you through this year. We’re going to need each other even more in 2021. I’d like to think that will be a good thing.
“The circle you managed to keep.”
A poem, to cleanse the palate
HIDING by David Whyte, from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words (2016).
It begins:
HIDING
is a way of staying alive.
On the natural strategies of caretaking, and appreciating our own capacity “hold ourselves until we are ready to come into the light”:
Hiding is a way of holding ourselves until we are ready to come into the light. Even hiding the truth from ourselves can be a way to come to what we need in our own necessary time. Hiding is one of the brilliant and virtuoso practices of almost every part of the natural world: the protective quiet of an icy northern landscape, the held bud of a future summer rose, the snow bound internal pulse of the hibernating bear. Hiding is underestimated. We are hidden by life in our mother’s womb until we grow and ready ourselves for our first appearance in the lighted world; to appear too early in that world is to find ourselves with the immediate necessity for outside intensive care. […]
Hiding is an act of freedom from the misunderstanding of others, especially in the enclosing world of oppressive secret government and private entities, attempting to name us, to anticipate us, to leave us with no place to hide and grow in ways unmanaged by a creeping necessity for absolute naming, absolute tracking and absolute control. Hiding is a bid for independence, from others, from mistaken ideas we have about our selves, from an oppressive and mistaken wish to keep us completely safe, completely ministered to, and therefore completely managed.
Hiding is creative, necessary and beautifully subversive of outside interference and control. Hiding leaves life to itself, to become more of itself. Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future.
Sourcing notes: shared by the facilitator Vanessa Reid many years ago.
Something sweet, for the road
And now, two very happy babies—trying their dang hardest, identically.
Sourcing notes: posted by @comeonbrit, shared by @kalesalad.
That's all for this week.
Remember: Drink when you're thirsty, nap when you can.
Kind regards,
Chris Connolly
Manager, Personalized Care
(Acting Director, Standardized Care)
Humane Resources Division
The Dept. of Emotional Labour