Type in the GPS: Map to home.
It’s a trip made daily. Not always tangibly but always intangibly. The GPS provides directions. Turn right here, left up there. Whoops, you missed the exit. Turn around.
Today’s route takes on a distinct landscape. It’s called Availability. Out the window is the Earth from above. The beautiful blue and green globe gleams before black. We move towards it and out the window the Earth expands across our line of sight. We pass through white, wispy clouds. The blue and green take on distinct texture. We can almost smell the salty ocean. And then we touch ground, and are home again.
The cooling air of October is functioning as a winnowing agent. Coming out of the sticky and stagnant summer, I am prepared for the crisp air to remove debris. It is strange and beautiful the way life ebbs and flows. The way rest turns to action. Grief begets the eventual shedding of tired layers no longer attached to any structure. Prayer across time slowly heals unknown parts of my mind and emotions until I find myself one day waking up different.
I came upon the image of a spacesuit and have been fascinated by the bulk required for humans to survive outside Earth’s troposphere. In the images, humans emerge from heavy, bulky and complicated containers. These suits allow them to be available in foreign atmospheres, but on Earth’s surface are quite unnecessary.
This September, I embrace the crisp air. I open my window at night, put on the fan and lavish in cool air as I fall asleep. And I take inventory of the layers I carry that either allow or hinder my availability.
What environments and people have I found myself needing to wear a metaphorical space suit around? Which of these layers are necessary, and which are not? In which instances have I effortlessly dropped layers that I don’t need anymore? How beautiful! And I’m wondering, what does it mean to be available to myself?
The Directions.
Today’s map to home is about taking inventory on availability to understand how to be more available to fellow humans and ourselves daily.
Communicating availability
Oxygen inventory
Foreign atmosphere ready
Replenishing provisions
Communicating availability: Put away phones publicly
Have I become a cyborg? Cell phones may not be embedded into bodies, but they are existentially embedded: They have become so intertwined with our daily lives, we depend on them by the minute or hour to communicate, connect, travel, manage time, answer questions, and much more.
However, studies show that when people use their phones in public, it creates a sense of social exclusion and isolation for those nearby. By looking at our phones, locking into some distant and personal world, we communicate that we are unavailable, ‘absently present’ and feed into the unfortunate and pervading sense of loneliness.
I’ve recently been trying to not use my cell phone at all in public. When I’m sitting in the park, waiting in the doctor’s office, or waiting for a coffee, I keep the phone in the purse. Though I don’t necessarily end up talking with people (though often I do), I’d certainly say it creates an experience that is more connected to the places and people around me. And based on scientific study, I may be helping others feel the same, subconsciously communicating that they are not alone.
When I come to think of it, the park, the grocery store, the gas station, the coffee shop… These places are my places. The people there are my people. My neighborhood is my community. Let me treat it so.
Oxygen inventory: Observe new freedoms
Ah, I see I’ve removed the suit! There’s more oxygen here!
I recently arrived home from the Adirondack mountains where I attended the St. Basil writing retreat. In retrospect and meditation upon that time, I see how providential it was. I found new freedom in a community of like-minded introverts (mostly) who write fiction, and felt more seen in a group setting than I have in a very long time. Being a recipient of childhood teasing, groups of strangers scare me, but my self-preservation tactic of receding into the background dissolved on this retreat in a miraculous and beautiful way. I’m not sure if it was caused by improved self-confidence or by the generosity of the cohort - likely it was a bit of both.
As the fall winds bring in new air, it’s time to take inventory on areas where it’s easier to breathe than it was before, where you’ve found yourself leaving the mask or oxygen tank at home, and how that came to be. And consider what things have changed in you or others that allowed this breakthrough in vulnerability.
Foreign atmosphere ready: Prepare for harsh atmospheres
In recent conversations, I learned I am not alone in my intolerance for florescent lights and loud driving music and rooms with no windows, and the visceral pain these things cause me. I am not the only one who carries earplugs in my car, or mentally prepares before going into a windowless, florescent room, or prays before certain social encounters. I am selfishly relieved my neurosis is common.
Space suits are a modern miracle. They allow one to survive without oxygen, against existential impact, and in extreme temperatures. Without these suits, we would be utterly unavailable to outerspace. It’s time to take inventory on harsh atmospheres, the protections we put in place that allow us to show up, and whether the layers are helping increase availability or causing unneeded distance.
In what scenarios are you like an astronaut, putting on the spacesuit for preparation for foreign terrains? Think of one place where self-protections are absolutely necessary, and the healthy preparations you take to maintain safety, sanity and well-being. Consider if the need for self-protection is indicating the need for something more, like less time spent in the harsh atmosphere.
And think of one place where you’ve created boundaries, but those boundaries are too dense and make you unnecessarily unavailable. Sometimes all that’s really needed is a conversation or forgiveness instead of an entire space suit.
Replenishing provisions: Cultivate self-availability
I find there are often many layers between myself and my self. I can go days, weeks, and, at my worst, months before realizing I am avoiding feelings, or that something isn’t quite right, or that I need to make a change. It’s not until I am depleted, tired and stressed that I realize I’ve neglected myself.
What are your self-availability highlights from this summer? Recall the moments when you felt most available to yourself, validated your feelings or needs, nourished yourself like a baby, and came home to your self again.
Emily! You are such a beautiful writer! Your writing brings me back to reading books as a teenager, and to authors who were so good at painting a picture, just like you are now. When I was doing my social media fast, it was honestly the best thing for me. I remember sitting in a restaurant, listening to music while waiting for Liam to finish speech, and I started noticing things I had never noticed before, like people having a hard day and how just sitting next to them could give them space to vent.
Even though I’m back on social media now, I can tell when I’ve been on it too much and start scrolling endlessly. But one thing that really stuck with me is that when I’m at the grocery store (or places like that), I don’t use my phone at all!
And oh my gosh, that analogy about the oxygen tank is absolutely amazing!