Wandering through the unknown
Surviving with children's literature and each other
Do you know where you are going yet? This has been the question that everyone has been asking me for the past three months. Around the time that the election was confirmed in the United States of America, we ranked our options and submitted our final list to determine where we might move next. We have been waiting ever since.
Every time this question is asked, I have to answer the same way. I don’t know. I don’t know where we will go. I don’t know what will happen. We can only wait.
For military families like mine, this is what happens every few years. The process has changed a little bit over time but there has always been a lot of waiting. We know we will move this year but we don’t know where. It isn’t really our decision though we have made certain requests and tried to avoid other possibilities. It is not within our control. We can only wait for the United States Army to tell us what is next.
Members of our community groan that it takes so long. They know this awkward feeling. They’ve had to answer all of the same questions from those that don’t move every two to three years like we do. Like us, they haven’t really known what to say when asked how we survive it.
Two weeks ago, on the day that the new president of the United States of America was inaugurated, the New York Times sent me an email listing the immediate changes that would be made. After each item, there was a bolded the unknown. Repeated again and again in the same screen, that unknown felt more terrifying.
Do you know where you are going yet? That is the question we are all asking within and beyond the United States of America.
Every night, my husband comes home to check his email to see if maybe we will have an answer. Still, we don’t know. We don’t know where we are going or what will come next and the same could be said for the country which we will find a home in again.
Do you know where you are going yet? We are all asking this question and no one has the answer. We can hope and wonder. We can ask all of the questions but none of us knows what will come next. We are all waiting.
It might not be in our control but there are still things to do. There are steps to take. There have been a thousand lists shared about the tiny bits of self care to practice while we wait. There are calls to make and people to check in on. Life does not end while we wait for whatever will come next. The world keeps spinning and we move with it.
That question can be a haunting one. It can grate on your last nerve because you don't have an answer and there is no way of knowing when there will be an answer. I’m trying not to think about that so much while I wait. Instead, I’ve been thinking more and more what it means to survive the unknown.
Survival sounds so negative as if it is the lowest level of existence, as if we are barely clinging to the bottom rungs of life. The word struggles over and against an obstacle where it is uncertain if life will continue. And maybe the unknown is that. It certainly feels like that kind of obstacle and in those moments when it feels insurmountable, I am finding myself repeating a line from one of my children’s favorite books.
We can’t go over it.
We can’t go under it.
Oh no! We’ve got to go through it.
It’s a repeated line from Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt and it’s grounding me in this moment. To survive this moment just means to go through it.
There is a temptation to leap ahead and get to the other side where we are safe in bed. We might imagine making bold promises about never doing that again when we get there. Who ever thought this was a good idea to start? But first, we have to survive this. We have to go through the uncertainty to get to the other side of the unknown. Oh no! We have to go through it.
I don’t know where I am going yet but I am going through it.
Allow yourself to listen to the story read aloud and notice what part of the story illustrates your experience of the unknown right now.
Do you know where you are going yet? Sit with this question and craft your own response to what it feels like for you to wander in the unknown right now.
As you feel comfortable doing so, you’re welcome to share your response in the comments. We get through it together by naming all that is uncomfortable and terrifying. We remind each other how to get through.
“One person plus a typewriter constitutes a movement,” wrote the Rev. Pauli Murray. There are so many wise words moving us through this uncertain season and I hope that these words have reached beyond my keyboard to give you courage. If you found wisdom in these words, please forward this to a friend.
Holding you all in prayer in this uncertain season of waiting. It does seem that we are all going through it together these days.
Trying to use my typewriter to make a difference with 'protest' poetry, with a novel where suddenly the two transgender characters have become much more central. Grateful for your expressing this and wishing you geographical clarity soon.