Friday, September 26, 2014

Afterlife

My life is divided into before and after.

Before I went to college. (after)

Before I got married. (after)

Before I turned 30. (after).

We live in this culture steeped in a heavy time addiction, surrounded by watches and calendars, and Apps for That. Thanks to the wonder of data and (my) time obsession, I can definitively tell you where I had dinner on July 1st, 2007, exactly how many miles I've flown on United, and when my last 78 menstrual cycles started.

Just in case anyone is keeping score at home.

I was raised by scientists. Mathematicians. People who respect when someone attempts the same thing over and over again and gets the same results. This is my latest bridge, I'm afraid, and it's probably going to piss you right off.

Before I fell out of love with science (after).

Before I lost hope in ever getting pregnant (after).

It's a sticky situation, forced by this artificial concept that time is real and that somehow I should kneel before the altar of the great and mighty timepiece. The thing I didn't realize (or that maybe I forgot) is that spirit doesn't stick to a schedule, and she doesn't know the rules of science.

Spirit does her own thing, each time, sans prediction. Sans time.

So this is my afterlife. After I turned 30, got divorced, gave up on Western Medicine. I'm settling into a wild new way of thinking that doesn't necessarily operate by the rules and has no penalty box. My calendar makes me want to scream, and so I'm chucking it into the wind.

In two months, I set sail (in the Biblical sense) for the Bahamas. I'm literally escaping from the drudgery that is December. The constant (wonderful, I swear) news that someone else is pregnant again, or for the first time, or after trying xyz/giving up/adopting a slew of Latvian orphans. I put this off every year in the hopes that I'll be pregnant, and I never am. So I'm going.

I'm going to a place where everything is provided (including the white pants). Classes, lodging, two meals a day, and two outfits. One of my yoga students said to me yesterday, "My, that sure sounds like prison!"

Perhaps it does. Maybe I'm committing myself to a two-month-long prison stay and I've lost my ever loving mind.

But I'll be on a beach, wearing (formerly) white pants, in a space that ignores shorter days and shoveling. A place that skips the "first Christmas (and birthday) AFTER my divorce." A place that celebrates Tuesday the same way it observes Friday: sunrises, two meals, and a distinct lack of social media.

A place between Before and After.




2 comments:

  1. Kari Kwinn,

    I'm not on Facebook anymore, but I need you to know I've never stopped admiring you from afar--your open heart, your careful wisdom, the significance of your writing.

    I hope your strength is contagious.

    --Sam Tucker Iacovetto

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    Replies
    1. Oh, Sam! I love and miss you dearly. I hope my strength is contagious, too. I'll give you all I have!

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