Rattling the bones of life
On the preciousness of disappointment
Cracking through stiff winter-hardened bark, a tender slip of green sparks with aliveness, bursting forth from the spindly tip of a weary-looking branch. That little leaf stretches its hungry tongue into the light, lapping up warm, honeyed sunshine. That little leaf is a fresh emergence of an ancient life. Its brave push toward brightening conditions of courageous interactivity with the wider world might be a shock or a triumph or both.
Once, darkness, solitude, dormancy, void.
Now, exposure, relationship, vulnerability, chaos.
That was a hard winter. I’m realizing it now, on the other side. It wasn’t acutely difficult, but constantly and subtly intense, like being dogged by something ravenous and persistent that’s caught my scent and won’t let go.
That was a winter of confusion for me. A winter of confrontation. A winter of being chipped and chiseled and worn down to the bone.
And I emerge from it with such a profound and distilled quality in my being of radical accountability, a fresh willingness in myself to meet reality as it is, stripped of projection, expectation, illusion, delusion, fantasy, victimization, saviorism; to meet the truth of my life as it has been and is now, the truth of my relationships, the truth of everything that my life contains. I am shedding everything that keeps me from the truth of my life. As I come into relationship with truth, I am increasingly emancipated from the shackles of ideas and beliefs I once held that were narrowing the field of creation unconsciously.
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
Anaïs Nin
My mentor says: every new cycle of awakening begins with disappointment.
Only when we come into reality *as it is* with the courage required to take it at face value – not what it promises, not what we yearn for, not what we regret, not what we expect, but exactly as it is, only then can the next phase of our evolution open up.
Disappointment.
What a concept.
. . .
My grandmother was very disappointed all the time. She was wrecked with distress over a thousand petty disappointments every day.
The couch should be here, not there. You kids need to brush your hair. This is too salty. That’s too bland. It’s too hot. Now too cold. You’re not smiling enough. You’re driving too fast. Come on, pick up the pace, we’re going to be late! Why is the music so loud? She never calls me. He talks too much.
I resented disappointment. It felt like chronic ungratefulness and codependence merged into one. I refused to be disappointed. I committed to counteracting that particular form of suffering I witnessed plaguing my grandmother with its antidotes: compulsive gratitude and hyper-independence – no one could upset me, nothing could be wrong, everything was always a lesson and my experience was always my responsibility — these are all powerful concepts in theory, but not when you’re implementing them like strategies to push away a valid and valuable human experience, leaning on them to stay unconscious in some way. I stuffed up all my personal disappointments, felt agitated by almost all complaints… and blanketed all of that strife with quite a lot of self-righteousness as though I had it figured out.
Until now.
Disappointment has been my teacher this winter, and for the first time in my life I am realizing its exquisite, prismatic dimensionality, its texture and depth, its brilliant capacity to point us in the direction of desire, which is critical to an animated life-force.
When I gave myself permission to sit down with disappointment and meet the limitations in myself and in my relationships, the failures and setbacks, the brutally harsh truths of everything in and around me with compassion, curiosity, and a softening of my ego, I saw that disappointment was the generous and resilience-building buffer to a quivering and tender, oceanic and immense grief.
The particularities of my journey are so fresh, they need to be cocooned in the privacy of my own care for now. But one day, when the nascent blossoming of this instruction reveals itself to me, I will return to share with you what this was all about. Right now, I know where it is guiding me. And that is enough.
I wonder, what if my grandmother had been given different opportunities to cultivate resource, receive support, and settle her nervous system’s jittery nitpickiness – would she have been capable of surrendering her disappointments? Would all the ghosts haunting the halls of her inner world have gathered with tea and cookies, first to laugh together at the brew’s unpalatable temperature and the rugelach’s inappropriate density and laughed and laughed, then to meet the disappointed ghosts one by one: her impoverished childhood and its mountain of shame, her overworked husband and the drought of attentiveness, her maternal struggles and the river of strain distancing her from her children. Ultimately, the disappointment of a life she could not interrogate toward change for a thousand different reasons.
Then, together with the ghosts, they would meet The Grief. That ruthless tornado kickin-up the dust and battering the windows and howling into the heavens and rattling the bones of an entire life. And then…
they would laugh again, all of them, the whole band – the disappointments, The Grief, resting in the wreckage of everything she didn’t need.
And then…
… she could have been the grandmother (and mother) (and wife) she probably most deeply desired.
What a life I’ve built on top of everything I didn’t need.
What a life I can live in the truth of what’s left.
I didn’t know how hard a winter that was until I found myself looking out an endless horizon of interminably bleak branches, ready like I’ve never felt before for a spring that is just barely beginning to emerge. Ready like I’ve never felt before in myself to meet life more honestly, and through that honesty, to feel more emancipated than ever. Ready, for that little slip of green to lap up that honeyed sunlight and let it work its magic. Ready to be surrounded by the bright green continuation of an ancient story working through me, through you, through this Earth.
The soul seeks evolution through the unique choreography of a given life.
It is the supreme design.
More and more, as I let go and surrender into that dance, I receive the trustworthiness of life.
Today, I spent the afternoon cross-country skiing with two of my dearest friends. Frank passed along some knowledge as we sailed on spring slush through the still-leafless aspen trees.
“You know why aspens have eyes?” he asked. “That’s where their branches fall off as they climb toward the skies. You have to let go to see.”
You have to let go to see.
I let go and surrender into the dance, and I see the trustworthiness of life. Life itself is the most reliable partner to my soul’s evolution. Life itself is my greatest companion, my most profound and primary and unconditional love.
There is no blame, no shame, no guilt. No wrong, no right. No failure, no achievement. There is only an unfolding life.
And now I wonder, what does it mean as a collective to meet the disappointments of this moment. The limitations of our leaders. The desperate clinging to too many nuclear bombs. The plastic everywhere, everywhere, in the clouds, in our bellies. Meet this real reality. Maybe that’s what’s needed most. Not to dream new worlds, not yet, not to project and delude and blame and save and victimize. To grow ourselves through disappointment. And then see what’s left for us to do. Because that will be true.
And now, an update from hi•ne•ni:
Hi y’all! Wow, I’ve missed writing here. I dove right into the writing without introduction and I’ll likely proceed that way and meet you at the ed. Let the writing breathe on its own.
Thank you for sticking with me through quiet stretches. I’ve been busy pumping every last reserve of writing juice into finishing the first draft of my novel, and last week, I did it! I am already in the revisioning process for draft two and feeling exhilarated by the process of infusing this book with everything the first draft could not be. I may still be inconsistent as I continue to devote myself to my book, but I love this Substack with my whole heart. It really does feel different to write here. Another side of me emerges. So I’m going to practice shorter posts more frequently.
This place has always been an experiment, so it’s nothing new for me to reach you differently with each post – sociopolitical, spiritual, ecological, philosophical, historical, ontological.
If you’re new here, please click around through the archive.
Consider following this piece with:
The Smallest Decisions - on moral urgency, choicefulness, and Tolstoy
Supreme Regard - on wild asparagus and unconditional love
Turn the Key - on brain injuries, trauma, and the long walk of healing
Peaceful Coexistence - on Gaza/Israel and an inseparable kinship on shared soils
Lastly, I’m not sure what to do about the URL of this substack. I changed the name to hi•ne•ni, as y’all know, but that URL has already been claimed. I’m sitting with this question while acknowledging the confusion. Many writers simply claim their name as the URL. That may be my next step. TBD.
As always, thank you for bringing your heart here. If you liked reading this, please click the ❤️ or 🔄 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack. Or help widen the circle, by sharing hi•ne•ni with someone in your life.
As always, thank you for subscribing! If you’re not a subscriber yet, I would love to have you officially on the list, free or paid. Your paid monthly or annual membership sustains this place like sunlight. 10% of all contributions will go to two organizations:
Changing Woman Initiative – empowers diverse Indigenous communities to protect cultural birth resiliency and the fundamental Indigenous human right to reproductive health, dignity, and justice.
Many Mothers – provides in-home services and wraparound care to achieve health equity and wellbeing for babies and their caregivers in Northern New Mexico.
This substack will always remain free, but your subscriptions and financial support make that even more possible to pour into this devotion. You can pay what you can to honor any benefit you gain from this place through venmo.
My heart is fluttering with delight at the beautiful way you create art through word, and the wisdom you cultivate and live into. ❤️
The potency and resonance of your words hits me in a way that honestly renders me word-less. I’m so grateful that writing this Substack is part of your truest living. Thank you so much, Rachel 🌱