The Last Blue Sky
Dear reader,
I am very well aware that this year i don’t write much, nonetheless a good one. But for this one, taking into account that it’s the time of year for annual reflection of some sort, kindly forgive me. Ada Limon once wrote “I think poetry is a way of carrying grief, but it’s also a way of putting it somewhere so I don’t always have to heave it onto my back or in my body. The more I put grief in a poem, the more I am able to move freely through the world because I have named it, spoken it, and thrown it out into the sky.” And I think that applies to writings too. Naming my feelings, writing what I been through, liberates me. It feels better too, to acknowledge and not putting it in a corner to ignore. It was Namjoon who also said that if we don’t write, we’d forget how to. So here’s me and my attempt to organize my thoughts through typing it away.
This afternoon as my fingers danced away on the keyboard, I looked up ahead and in front of me was a bright blue sky bathed in a 4pm sun. Today was surprisingly a clear day. The blue sky was brushed with stratus cloud. “Pretty” I muttered to myself. It was odd because for the past few weeks, the weather has been nothing but merciless. News stations were busy, reporting earthquakes and flood that hit, not only my country, but almost across the whole continent. I hope for those disasters to be over soon, and I prayed for those who were hit to be safe and healed.
This year was a lot. And by a lot i mean, a lot lot. To sum it up in a writing that is less than a 5 min read, much less in a few “take aways” is difficult. But one thing is for sure, in this year, you never know what would happen the next day. I started off this year with a promise to myself to be happy, happier than last year. But now I’m not sure I can answer to that. This year I got the chance to learn again the true meaning of happiness, is it a state of being? is it a goal? Neither can help me answer my own question. Too many moments and events happened this year to be sum up into a question of whether or not im happy. Were there happy moments? Yes there were. Were there sad or even heartbreaking moments? A lot. I cried a lot too. There were days where I would go to sleep with tears pooling on my pillow sheets, wishing that the night and its darkness won’t come to an end so I won’t have to face the dread of what the day brings. Yet, like rays of sunlight that always find a way through your window blinds, good days will also finds it way to you in moments when you least expect it.
Ellen Bass once wrote a poem
The Thing Is
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
Instead of asking ourselves were we happy this year, rather we could ask ourselves what are the things that we’re grateful of this year? What are the things that make us happy, and what are the things that’s not? What did we learn this year?
There is so much in life that we know it’s pointless to dedicate one’s life to pursue happiness. Despair will always be there, alongside with joy. And there’s no way to avoid it either, because we wouldn’t know the delight of being content without having to undergo the sorrow of a heartbreak. In one of her most famous prose poem, Mary Oliver wrote
If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.
Instead of forcing ourselves to chase after a blurry figment, we can choose to let go and find pleasure in the midst of it. To fall in love in the process. There are so many things in life that are out of our control, and there are only so little things that we can handle. Give in, Mary Oliver said. Give in to life. After all, it was both joy and misery that give color to our lives, without it we wouldn’t have stories to tell. Without it there wouldn’t be anything to write about.
On second thought, maybe this writing was meant more for myself rather than for you, dear reader. But from this rambling train of thought, I hope, you can find bits and pieces that you can carry back to your life. Again, if there’s one thing that this year taught me; you wouldn’t know what would happen the next day, just like the last blue sky of 2021. Perhaps tomorrow, as we’re trying to grasp the morning after tonight’s haze, as the sun’s ray find its way to penetrate through your window blinds and greet your eyes, life can give something of a, not a promise, but a hope for a better day.
Love,
Chika
What I’m grateful for this year:
- Myself and how I’m able to grow and pull through
- BTS 💜
- My family & friends
- Epilogue Studio
What I learned this year:
- To love myself (and still learning)
- To let go
- That having boundaries and knowing what you’re worthy of is a part of loving yourself
- That if it makes you happy, it doesn’t have to make sense to anybody else
What makes me happy:
