I Seem To Be a Verb

I change, therefore I am.

Last week, I got a long overdue haircut. I’d procrastinated making the appointment for months, until finally the ends came to resemble stalks of dried wheat, like the makings of a harvest wreath.

“Do you have any exciting plans?” the stylist asked, scrutinizing my parched strands. “Vacation? Travel? Parties?”

“No,” I told her. I did not.

It feels harder to plan things — macro, micro, spur-of-the-moment. Will the flight get cancelled? Will half the guests test positive? How many new breeds of offense may blossom from requests to test or mask…or not?

The world marches on, albeit in different directions. We reference the “before times” and the “new normal,” but it goes deeper than that. Sometimes it feels almost like reconciling two existences — the one I thought I’d have, and the one I’m actually living.

While such feelings have been exacerbated by the pandemic, in a larger sense, they were unavoidable. No matter how much we plan, prepare, and anticipate, the plot has a way of writing itself.

With age comes Change. Like its less popular friends Death and Taxes, it’s one of the few things we can count on.

I believe they call this the “before” photo.

This August marks twenty years I’ve lived in New York City. Twenty years is older than I was when I moved here. Twenty years is more time than I’ve spent anywhere else.

I never really thought I’d leave. Even in a place as hard-to-make-it as to inspire a song, exiting always seemed the more complicated option. Requiring of a plan. A direction. A place to land. It seemed simpler to stay put, scrape by, not fix what wasn’t broken. But reality is catching up to me.

Reality has never been my favorite.

I’ve been thinking a lot about identity, especially as it relates to the inevitable presence of change. When faced with the question, “Who are you?” we might say things like, “I am an accountant,” or “I am single,” or “I am Buddhist.” But so many parts of life are subject to shifts.

I am a writer, a runner, a dog mom, a daughter, a partner, a New Yorker.

…Until I’m not. And then who will I be?

We say goodbye to homes, to jobs, to people. Our bodies change, as do our preferences. We uncover new interests and new information. And all along, we weave it into our understanding of who we are. Identity may be a construct, but it is also the framework of our existence.

“I seem to be a verb,” Buckminster Fuller once wrote in his journal. That may be the best phrasing I’ve found.

A verb is never static, allowing for motion and possibility on all sides. If it wanders into a scenario it doesn’t agree with, if it encounters a world in need of change, a verb can do something about it.

If I am a verb, I am also every kind of punctuation. Today a question, tomorrow a dash. Often an ellipses, trailing off into the unknown.

For now, I’m scaling the slash between decisions.

Before/after. If/then. Either/or.

“Maybe don’t take too much off,” I said, as the stylist wielded a pair of golden scissors. “Just clean it up a little. Whatever you think it needs.”

What I meant: I’m grasping for consistency. Something stable, solid, familiar, fixed. There isn’t much of that these days, so let’s keep this one thing static.

In the end, I paid a not-insignificant amount of money only to return home, have my partner squint at my head and declare, “Huh. It looks exactly the same.”

I was glad to hear it.

I think back on those years when I cut bangs, tried wild colors, sported a brassy balayage — each modification the visual evidence of some manufactured crisis. I thought it was the path to reinvention, that change needed to be invited. Back then, I feared stagnation, the gentle hum of day into day into day. Like so many things, luxury often reveals itself in hindsight.

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring The Journey to Enlightenment Tarot, by Selena Joy Lovett and Daniela Manutius-Forster

There are times when life as we know it seems like a big scheme. We’re sold a narrative that the point is to amass “enough” — wealth, stuff, praise, experiences — as though we’ll be given a prize for it at the end.

These days, the messaging also suggests there is some kind of bonus for broadcasting it as we go.

And yet, the quest for fulfillment rarely mirrors this.

The top regrets of people on their deathbeds are, “I wish I’d had the courage to let myself express my feelings,” followed by “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard,” and — more than any other — “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.” Nary a word about money or possessions. But more than one mention of courage.

Might living be enhanced with the likes of Oprah’s fabled bathtub, carved from one piece of onyx to cradle the shape of her body? Sure. But it won’t give it meaning.

Traditionally, the Ten of Pentacles shows a family in a stately garden, like something straight out of Succession. And while the surface message is one of security and satisfaction, its deeper call is to appreciate the abundance that is already around you, right at this very moment. Maybe that includes a yacht. But it’s more likely about a nourishing meal, good company, the sounds of nature, an activity that brings fulfillment.

This card carries a PSA about the valuable skill that is recognizing prosperity in plain sight. Often, we live with more than enough, yet focus on whatever we think is lacking. With the help of societal messaging, we can easily trick ourselves into thinking we “need” more. Perhaps if we just do more, earn more, buy more, we’ll feel better. Perhaps if we can just change ourselves, we’ll outsmart our anxiety and finally find satisfaction.

The Ten of Pentacles has a message: You are enough.

Right now. Already.

It’s that simple, and that profound.

While we’re at it, a warm shower is also enough. Soft bedding. A cold glass of drinking water. The dappled sunlight dancing on the wall. Warm chocolate chip cookies. The company of an animal. The end of a good book.

Prosperity comes in all forms, and is all around us. The trick has less to do with hustling or hoarding than it does with simply seeing. This card promises us that we create more of whatever it is we focus on. Not in a hungry The Secret sort of way, but in the fact that we ingest whatever we train our eyes to recognize. It’s sort of like when you learn a new word or fact, and suddenly it’s seemingly everywhere. The more you come to savor such moments of everyday abundance, the more of them you will seem to have.

There is an anecdote I often think of, from a commencement speech once given by Anna Quindlen, which became the basis for the little book A Short Guide to a Happy Life:

“I found one of my best teachers on the boardwalk at Coney Island...He and I sat on the edge of the wooden supports, dangling our feet over the side, and he told me about his schedule, panhandling the boulevard when the summer crowds were gone, sleeping in a church when the temperature went below freezing, hiding from the police amid the Tilt-A-Whirl and the other seasonal rides.

But he told me that most of the time he stayed on the boardwalk, facing the water, just the way we were sitting now, even when it got cold and he had to wear his newspapers after he read them. And I asked him why. Why didn’t he go to one of the shelters? Why didn’t he check himself into the hospital for detox?

And he stared out at the ocean and said, ‘Look at the view, young lady. Look at the view.’”

If you were to ask one hundred people to close their eyes and make a wish, it would result in a hundred different wishes. Even within a common language, words carry different meanings, shaded by our experiences. Terms like value, abundance, and success will change from place to place, from person to person. But the Ten of Pentacles teaches us that what matters is the mindset.

Abundance as a noun is relative. Abundance as a feeling is not.

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