regenerating more than just cells
and what I was up to 7 years ago
The topic of a 7 year cellular regeneration process of [certain] cells in our bodies has been coming up between a friend and me. She is currently experiencing some physical, possibly parasitic flair ups that mirror an experience she had about 7 years ago. Little does she know that I myself have been quietly observing the parallels between my current life and my life of about ~7 years prior since moving back to my home city of Atlanta at the start of 2021. Obviously some of the similarities were…. well, obvious. Being back in a city that was vaguely familiar but had somehow changed so quickly, I didn’t even recognize some of my old stomping grounds! Most of the places I loved were gone. It was somehow both emotional and anticlimactic. It’s an interesting feeling to feel as if everything and nothing has changed. One of the things I shout most from my soapbox is that change is the only constant. I also feel that people don’t really change that much. I am comfortable at this intersection for now, even if I don’t understand the paradox. I could also have it all wrong and that’s fine too.
What’s the real difference between Your Truth and writing your own narratives? Does the latter inform the former? Or does the former determine your capacity for the latter?
7 years ago
the year was 2016. It was the year of the monkey according to the Chinese calendar and I’ve heard that anything can happen during the year of the monkey. I was born on a year of the monkey. What most people remember about 2016 was that Donald Trump was elected US president and I remember that moment, too. I was asleep in my new-to-me room in a twin sized bed that felt more like a cot in an attic in Madrid and a new friend that was spending the night on my couch came to wake me up around 3 or 4AM. He said, “Lex, I think you were right. I think Donald Trump won.” I said something along the lines of, “No shit, go back to sleep.” I had to work in the morning, where I would have to answer to all of my jaw-dropped Spanish colleagues as if I was the damn US ambassador. As I tried to go back to sleep I probably had an afterthought of being glad I was no longer living in the states, but if I’m being honest Trump had little to do with that. I had my own hang-ups with the US before this guy took the stage.
I knew that opportunities didn’t magically appear without some sort of directed effort, but I was also understanding that the “hard-working boot strap” story our nation tells working people to keep them tired and poor was a fraud.
The last few months of 2015 I wasn’t allowed any days off from my job. Holiday season was our busiest time of the year. The company was making decisions based on prejudice for the future of my store and I was fed up. As soon as holiday was over, Jan. 6 to be exact, I set off to Australia for 3 weeks. I prepped my team and told everyone else to figure it out. This was the beginning of a mindset shift for me. Exhausted and jaded from university and work, I realized that no one was going to help make my dreams happen, even if they wanted to, or said they wanted to. I knew that opportunities didn’t magically appear without some sort of directed effort, but I was also understanding that the “hard-working boot strap” story our nation tells working people to keep them tired and poor was a fraud.
What I remember most about 2016 was taking complete control over my life, to then fully surrender it in order to live my next one. My hometown never felt like home to me, college felt like a complete scam, and now I was barely supporting myself working a full-time salaried job that I was pretty damn good at. I did what everyone around me said you are supposed to do in order to succeed. But the Magna Cum Laude printed in its pseudo-prestigious type on a university diploma reads more like a mockery when you can’t even afford rent. I thought, This CAN’T be it. This can’t be what life is like and if it is then I’m not cut out for it. But I knew there was more. I desperately wanted out, and I knew I was going to #break free for I had decided it would be so a couple years before when I didn’t have an extra $15,000 to study abroad in Spain… for a semester. I was tired of playing the game within the confines of our (classist!) institutions and I decided that I would move to Spain myself, on my own terms. Now it was all about savvy. And timing.
I did a lot of other things in 2016 that seemed to set the tone for what was to come. I took a month long trip to Colombia with my brother, hiking for days through indigenous villages of the Sierra with my clunky Merrell’s and 50L backpack not knowing that I, too, would be running through forests barefoot and empty handed one day. I visited NYC for my first time, where I would unknowingly go on to live years later (with my brother!) during a pandemic, no less. As I reflect I realize there is a plethora of significant things that happened that year, but those stories are for in-person telling. Or should at least be protected by the paywall lol. The overarching theme is that I figured out I could do things my own way. It seems simple, but no one ever tells you that! They only tell you about the ways they’ve been told before. The other thing I learned is that our modern day institutions prefer us caged— be it in a classroom, a cubicle, or a holding cell.
Today I opened a newsletter from Poetic Outlaws and discovered that Jim Harrison died on this day 7 years ago. “We are supposed to write poetry to keep the gods alive,” he once said. Today I write this essay, in a way, to keep the gods alive. In an interview, the late Harrison referenced how the 12th century Zen philosopher Dōgen spoke of ‘cooking down your life.’ Cook down your life, then the sauce is just right and you can let go, Harrison paraphrased.
Maybe all my friend needs to do to quell the possibly-parasitic flair ups she’s experiencing is consume less refined sugar, but is that ever really all it is? To me, this process of cellular regeneration is a physical manifestation of something the runs much deeper. We have the ability to heal ourselves but we have to be willing to look at all of our layers, not just the physical one. Mitosis (the division of cells that creates new cells) can be healing, but it can very dangerous as well. Which cells are multiplying? Are they cancerous?
I feel a profound regeneration coming on as I reflect on my last 7-year cycle. Seeds have already been planted, though I rarely know from where the seeds come from so I’m never sure what exactly will grow from them. To me, that is a large part of the fun. Letting go is, in fact, an integral step in regeneration. Letting go is something I’ve become very familiar with over the last decade. Someone who has gotten to know me while working on the farm together jokes that maybe leaving is part of my journey, and I think that for a while it was. But I’m experiencing a whole new round of cellular regeneration now, baby!! And if the last decade was about leaving then I’m going to guess that this one is about building or expanding, which may of course include some more leaving…
I have learned a lot about myself over the last 7-10 years.
and also, I don’t think we change that much.
;)
Speaking of leaving and not changing much…
I am heading out on our next ANTIEXPERIENCE tomorrow.
I will be in Argentina/Patagonia for a couple of weeks and, like usual, have no idea what to expect! Woo! Whatever it is, you’ll be along for the ride if you’re strapped in right here.
I received a digital point and shoot as an early birthday gift (!) and will bring it along to Argentina. It’s been a very long time since I’ve traveled with a camera. Let’s see how it goes.
1 more thing before you go!
Dearest ANTIREADER/LISTENER, allow me to leave you with a beautiful On Being podcast episode on Biomimicry. I highly ANTIRECOMMEND it.
🌲🌿🌳🐸
LOVE,
LEXI