Trying-- so hard-- to love the questions. Ugh. (by Lolly)

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

― Rainer Maria Rilke

The above excerpt is one of my favorite and has been since my senior year of college when I stumbled on it in a book about writing. Eventually I read Rilke's collection: Letters to a Young Poet in which a young writer, Mr. Kappas, writes to Rilke with a question and what ensues is a letter-writing-relationship from a young man to a poet. This work, along with Dillard's, inspired "living in the mess." To be honest, however, it should really be "living the mess." And, the only reason that I am writing right now is because it is just that. It is a mess. And, messes are hard. So, if you are under the impression that everything is rosy and easy, let me spend a few minutes capturing our (or at least my) current reality.

I've spent the past week dreaming about my past place of employment-- my kids' former school, my partner's place of work-- and with each morning, I wake up stressed wondering how I got here. I don't wonder how I got to Poland (I mean, who could ever forget that bus ride and this wonderful city), but I do wonder how, at the age of 44, I struggle with dreams of a place I dedicated ten years of my life to. In true Rom-Com fashion, I can only say "it's complicated." And, it is. Because, while I'm up at night reflecting and missing out on sleep, my kids are missing their old school, their friends, and their teachers. It's all a complicated mess of emotion.

The curriculum at ASW for both kids is brand new. One girl can no longer take Mandarin, and both are taking Polish. The math sequencing is different, and most classrooms are constructivist in their approach. So, students don't get a lot of answers. They are-- as Rilke says-- encouraged to live the questions. And, questions are difficult for grownups-- let alone a 12 and 14 year old. Homework is hard; making friends is hard; taking risks in a new place is hard-- and I'm old (or old enough).

So, while we, as a family, try to "live everything," please know that is is not always pretty. It includes so many tears and moments filled with anxious unknowns. I worry about my family and I try to appreciate how much my sister and brother are doing to support my parents. Paul and his brothers are planning a service for their ridiculously strong mother who passed away the first spring of Covid and who has not yet been celebrated. And, our neighbors in Poland are not happy about our dog (who apparently keeps barking). They've purchased ear-plugs, they tell me, as I retreat into our new home and cry.

"Living the questions" is stressful and scary. And, breaking up with an institution after a decade of work is painful. Rilke never claimed to be right. He never said that one would live into "the...answer." He only suggested it as a hypothetical, that one "might." Yet, if there is a "might," then there must be a "might not." So, one "might not" live into the answer. One may have dragged their dog across the Atlantic only to have it bark and bark and bark. It might only piss off the neighbors WITHOUT any sort of resolution. And yet I have to live as though we are living toward something. I have to believe that the dissolution of Buffalo will yield something here. I have to believe that our family's departure from a place we loved will teach us how to love a new place on a new continent.

I guess the good news is that we are learning to ask questions that we do not always think about. I asked-- the other day-- how many languages my advisory could come up with to communicate "Happy Friday." And, without any aide, they rattled off 12 languages.

We are ending the weekend and gearing up for a new week. Reed will start cross country and Phoebe soccer. Paul, too, will begin soccer-- but as a coach. Reed made it into the musical (Footloose), so she'll be busy with read throughs. I will rush home to the dog. Fortunately, we continue to have our loyal friends, Miranda, Nicolas, Micah and Ellie. As a valued friend always says: "onward and upward."

To all of our wonderful readers: wherever you are and whoever you are with, happy Sunday.

This is my view as I write...