Our Integrity is the Very Last Inch of Us
“Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.”
I can't recall any actual details from our conversation. I had just turned 25, maybe 26. We were sitting in a small, white shack behind the main cabin and the two of us, nearly 90 others, and that rickety shelter had all withstood an earlier 6.6 earthquake, followed by two major aftershocks. The floor of another small cabin nearby had completely dislodged from its walls in the upheaval, sliding down the hill it sat atop. In other words, we and the land had all experienced a lot together.
We were on the Big Island of Hawaii and we had found ourselves there because my new friend—a woman from Colorado but imbued with the charisma of a Southern preacher since childhood—had convinced me to join her on the trip. Our purpose in being there is a longer story, for another day, but there's one thing I do remember from our time that night, in that room. It was a deep, resounding sense that everything had fallen into place, exactly as it should—or, that everything in my story had meaning. Not that trip, in and of itself, but the entirety of my life, up to that point. All the mistakes, the heartbreak, the pain, and all the triumph.
This overwhelming truth had come to me in the form of a vivid flashback to a scene from V for Vendetta, a montage leading to the film's climax where—interwoven amongst the chaos—"V" lays out a series of dominoes he eventually flicks into a beautiful cascade while Finch, a policeman who's built a relationship with V, narrates the spectacle: "I suddenly had this feeling that everything was connected, and I could see the whole thing, one long chain of events, all leading up to [this]." No domino out of place.
And this notion, "nothing out of place," is why I'm telling you this story.
There's a portion in this analysis of Arrival (I know, I know), where he speaks to how well Denis Villeneuve, the director, has crafted the film. He notes how, "A theme, once introduced, isn't wasted." I think, too, of the second season of Fleabag. A story in great hands feels to us like there are no extraneous words, no unnecessary scenes. It has been stripped of all but its most essential parts, edited and ordered to perfection.
This, though, is where it seems like our own lives go wrong. I often want my life to feel as "clean" as a perfectly crafted article, a beautiful movie. I see all of the messy bits as "excess": the three-year stretch frantic for any kind of traction around a new career path, the crushes that never amounted to anything, the barrage of residency rejections, all of the health scares, and all that damn darkness. Maybe you feel this way, too—your "overdue" book, your "I'm too old to try," your "I cannot possibly juggle all of this alone."
But a few nights ago, on a midnight drive home, my Vendetta flashback came rushing in and I again saw all of my "disparate" pieces fall like dominoes in my mind, strung together brilliantly. Blinking to keep my eyes open, I thought that perhaps, then, my own life is in the hands of a gifted storyteller. Slightly obscured, never really tangible to my senses, but constantly present. I don't at all care about the source or name of this "storyteller," even if my limited vision keeps me from knowing that myself and this writer are one and the same. I also don't mind if your scientific worldview can only allow that this is a brain's way of spotting patterns or making meaning and nothing more.
This is also no "you-only-get-what-you-can-handle" refrain. I have no interest in minimizing pain in order to paint pretty pictures of real struggle. What I am saying, though, is that you are (and every good writer is), in fact, a master composter...an alchemist. No theme, once introduced, goes wasted. No trash unused.
So, remember it all. Integrate it. And turn that shit into whatever nourishes you.
