Agency

Lovelies,

I was ten when I used a blender for the first time. I was with my friend Danielle and we'd decided to make what I can only imagine were meant to be smoothies. We loaded fruit, closed it up, and pressed start. And I held the top down for dear life. A minute later we were done, and as I released my arm Danielle exclaimed, "Oh, did you think you had to hold it down? Your arm must be so tired!"

I'm telling you this random story about a blender because this month I noticed: I hold the top on blenders a lot.

In some ways I don't. I'm flexible. I'm receptive. I delight in the unplanned twists of a creative project. 

And in some ways I hold the top on blenders that NEED it! As I've mentioned at length, these days I'm finding myself in leadership roles. Production, in particular, is nothing if not holding: verses, choruses, arrangements, soundscapes, song needs, artist needs, schedules (!), and also, somewhere, my own instincts.

But yes, on my walk home from a long yoga class (I do indeed practice flexibility) I suddenly felt it: how SO VERY LITTLE is actually mine to do. How I have been so wrong for so long assuming a wild degree of responsibility. How my job in creativity, and more notably elsewhere, is RARELY to hold and is so much more often to participate.

I'm reminded of a passage at the end of Jeanette Winterson's, Weight. (Spoiler Alert!) "Atlas raised his head, turned over, stood up, stepped back. The dog's nose lifted. Atlas looked back at his burden. There was no burden. There was only the diamond-blue earth gardened in a wilderness of space."

I should probably be more embarrassed by these Newsletters. I so frequently write to you of epiphanies developmentally appropriate for a six year old. But here we go. This month I discovered my agency. It is SO MUCH SMALLER than I thought. It is SO MUCH QUIETER than I thought.

It's the tiniest light in my heart.

It's a bell's chime lost to the wind. 

And I'm not exaggerating when I say it's also the most BEAUTIFUL experience I've had.

All my love,

Rachel