The Art of Letting Go in Life and Art

 "To live in this world

you must be able

 to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it 

against your bones 

knowing 

your life depends on it;

and, when the times comes to let it go,

to let it go." 

-- Mary Oliver, The Blackwater Woods

When this year began, I knew it would be a year of letting go. How much I’d need to let go of, I didn’t know, but I knew inevitable changes were coming that would force me to face losses of different kinds. That these losses would happen within the same week was a surprise—and an awakening to new beginnings I never could have imagined or planned.

At the end of June, we lost our beloved cat Charley Noble. He had been diagnosed with cancer four years ago and had been defying the vet’s prognosis year after year. Until this spring, when he just couldn’t keep fighting any longer. Charley died in my arms at home on a Monday morning. He’d waited for me to come home from a workshop the night before and then spent the night in my arms. Saying goodbye to our sweet boy was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it was his time. It was our time. To do what had to be done. To hold, comfort, and let our beloved cat go as he took his final breaths was a precious and rare gift. So I let him go.

That Tuesday morning, movers for an auction house packed and removed more than 300 pieces of furniture, crystal, silver, glass, china, collectibles, linens, and jewelry from our apartment. These were items that had been collected by my parents, then left to me after they died. These were items my parents had meant to deal with for years—many items even had brittle post-it notes on them, “To sell” in faded pencil, my mother’s distinctively messy handwriting. But the collections became too much for them and so these items came to me. Until this year I couldn’t find the strength to deal with them and thankfully, because my apartment has storage space, most of these items could stay stored out of sight, out of mind. But the knowledge that I would have to deal with them was always in the back of my mind—and that nagging feeling created in me a sense of anger—towards my parents,  towards the items, towards the work I knew was coming to sort, organize, and decide what to do with each and every item. 

It was only earlier this year that I was ready to allow the anger to dissipate, to allow myself to detach from the emotions and the memories. To do what had to be done. What had to be done was to let these items go. So I let them go.

On Thursday morning I met with my trainer Jay at the gym. I was feeling raw from the events of the past few days and couldn’t keep the tears at bay. “I just need you to push me today,” I said. And with a bear hug and a “Let’s do this,” Jay pushed me and I worked out. Before our hour was over, Jay asked me to weigh-in. I’ve been consistently losing weight, getting healthier and stronger since February 2015, but I didn’t know what the scale was going to show me that week. It showed me that I’d lost forty pounds. Pounds that had been slowing me down. Pounds that had been numbing me. Pounds that had been scaring me. I achieved a milestone that week. Did what had to be done. So I let them go.

That week finally over, I was at once exhausted and elated.  And one week later I was out of town teaching a writing workshop with lots of focus on revision. And what is revision? Isn’t revision of our work a method of allowing ourselves to recognize what needs to be changed and adjusted, to do what needs to be done, and to let go? Of course it is. Writers do this all the time. It's often the hardest part and the best part of the writing process. Letting go for the sake of finding the best possible whole. 

Letting go is sad and letting go is freeing.  Living over-weighted by weight for so long; living in worry and sadness for so long with Charley’s illness; living in anger and angst for so long with inherited items I didn’t want--I can’t shake the notion that letting go of all of it had to happen at the same time. It’s all interrelated and I know I wouldn’t have been able to do the letting go without somehow experiencing all of it at the same time. Coming out the other side my home is change and I am changed. I am freed. I am sad. I am happy. I am whole. 

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

The Art of Letting Go in Life and Art

When this year began, I knew it would be a year of letting go. How much I’d need to let go of, I didn’t know, but I knew inevitable changes were coming that would force me to face losses of different kinds. That these losses would happen within the same week was a surprise—and an awakening to new beginnings I never could have imagined or planned.

At the end of June, we lost our beloved cat Charley Noble. He had been diagnosed with cancer four years ago and had been defying the vet’s prognosis year after year. Until this spring, when he just couldn’t keep fighting any longer. Charley died in my arms at home on a Monday morning. He’d waited for me to come home from a workshop the night before and then spent the night in my arms. Saying goodbye to our sweet boy was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But it was his time. It was our time. To do what had to be done. To hold, comfort, and let our beloved cat go as he took his final breaths was a precious and rare gift. So I let him go.

That Tuesday morning, movers for an auction house packed and removed more than 300 pieces of furniture, crystal, silver, glass, china, collectibles, linens, and jewelry from our apartment. These were items that had been collected by my parents, then left to me after they died. These were items my parents had meant to deal with for years—many items even had brittle post-it notes on them, “To sell” in faded pencil, my mother’s distinctively messy handwriting. But the collections became too much for them and so these items came to me. Until this year I couldn’t find the strength to deal with them and thankfully, because my apartment has storage space, most of these items could stay stored out of sight, out of mind. But the knowledge that I would have to deal with them was always in the back of my mind—and that nagging feeling created in me a sense of anger—towards my parents,  towards the items, towards the work I knew was coming to sort, organize, and decide what to do with each and every item. 

It was only earlier this year that I was ready to allow the anger to dissipate, to allow myself to detach from the emotions and the memories. To do what had to be done. What had to be done was to let these items go. So I let them go.

On Thursday morning I met with my trainer Jay at the gym. I was feeling raw from the events of the past few days and couldn’t keep the tears at bay. “I just need you to push me today,” I said. And with a bear hug and a “Let’s do this,” Jay pushed me and I worked out. Before our hour was over, Jay asked me to weigh-in. I’ve been consistently losing weight, getting healthier and stronger since February 2015, but I didn’t know what the scale was going to show me that week. It showed me that I’d lost forty pounds. Pounds that had been slowing me down. Pounds that had been insulating me. Pounds that had been scaring me. I achieved a milestone that week. Did what had to be done. So I let them go.

That week finally over, I was at once exhausted and elated.  And one week later I was out of town teaching a writing workshop with lots of focus on revision. And what is revision? Isn’t revision of our work a method of allowing ourselves to recognize what needs to be changed and adjusted, to do what needs to be done, and to let go? Of course it is. Writers do this all the time. It's often the hardest part and the best part of the writing process. Letting go for the sake of finding the best possible whole. 

Letting go is sad and letting go is freeing.  Living over-weighted by weight for so long; living in worry and sadness for so long with Charley’s illness; living in anger and angst for so long with inherited items I didn’t want--I can’t shake the notion that letting go of all of it had to happen at the same time. It’s all interrelated and I know I wouldn’t have been able to do the letting go without somehow experiencing all of it at the same time. Coming out the other side my home is changed and I am changed. I am freed. I am sad. I am happy. I am whole. 

(c) emma d dryden, drydenbks llc

Times of Change, Times to Breathe

I've been interested in yoga for a long time. I've had opportunities over the years to join a class here and there and each time I do, I've gotten something wonderful out of the experience and I've promised myself to do more yoga. And then I break that promise to myself. . .until the next opportunity arises to join a class, get something wonderful out of the experience, and promise myself to do more yoga. How often do we make a promise to ourselves. . .and then break that promise? A promise to take better care is not the same thing as taking better care—of oneself, of a loved one, of one's creativity, of one's art, of one's soul, of anything. The only way to take better care is to take better care, and to do so requires some, if not a lot of, change.

Earlier this spring, after a long hiatus (aka procrastination), I got myself back into the gym, and to assist myself in changing my routine from no exercise to a routine of exercise, I work with a trainer (someone to whom I feel accountable and someone with infinite patience!). Every week, Jay encourages me to push myself a little deeper, a little farther, a little longer--and I have to admit, I seem to be getting stronger, I'm more confident, and I'm becoming more disciplined.

Change of any kind is profound. It can be great. It can be gratifying. And it can be hard. Really hard. The change from apathy to exercise--the change from promising myself to take better care to actually taking better care--has been profound both physically and mentally. It's been great. It's been gratifying. And it's been hard. Really hard. 

So, I'm going to the gym. And then a few weeks ago something unexpected happened. I woke up very early my first morning in Taos, New Mexico, where I was attending a creative retreat, took a walk in my gym clothes (the hotel had no fitness facility), and found myself in front of a yoga studio. The flyer said a class, suitable for beginners, would be starting in ten minutes, drop-ins welcome.

Open the door? Or keep walking? Open the door? Or get breakfast? Open the door? Or read the manuscript I had in my bag?  Open the door? Or. . .?

I opened the door.
 

During the class, held in a beautiful space that felt at once new and safe, I stretched, twisted, and balanced. I didn't go very deep, very high, or very low, but I did what I could do. There were things I could do well (realizing that being back to the gym was helping me enormously), and there were things I couldn't do at all (realizing that I am just not as in shape and flexible as I used to be). Then, as the instructor guided us from a stretch that was already making my muscles tremble into a new stretch that promised to do something even more dynamic (aka OMG!) to my muscles, she said,

"Keep breathing as you change your position. The one time most of us stop breathing is during change. And it's at times of change when we need to breathe most of all. Change can be hard. Change can be uncomfortable. But instead of quitting, keep breathing and see if your breathing can actually help you find comfort in the change."

Her words coursed through me. In the moments it took for me to slowly change positions, I was brought back to the March day five years ago I launched drydenbks; to the winter morning ten years ago I first got on downhill skis; to the May day six years ago I got laid off; to the late afternoon eleven years ago I held my dying father's hand; to the unseasonably warm February morning seventeen years ago my mother died; to the day in the wintery woods thirty years ago I first knew I was in love; to the August afternoon thirty-nine years ago I got my first period; to the October morning forty-three years ago I took the public bus to school all by myself. Times of exhilarating and excruciating change. Times of hold-my-breath change because breathing felt terrifying. Times of change I knew would change everything forever. Times of change I knew would change me forever.

In those moments in yoga class, those memories of times of change flooding back at once, I exhaled, then breathed deeply and purposefully through the discomfort of the dynamic (aka OMG!) stretch, confident I would be okay in that stretch (trembling muscles and all). As okay as I was during all those times of change in my life that I hadn't thought about in years. As okay as I was that freezing evening four months ago when I signed up to train with Jay. As okay as I was on the day a few weeks ago when I opened the door to the yoga studio. As okay as I will be through whatever times of change are coming—and they will come. I'll be okay as long as I keep taking better care and remember I have what I need to transform the uncomfortable into the comfortable by breathing through the change.

(c) drydenbks LLC, 2015