📿 What's a Perspective That I'm Able To Rest In?

Looking towards sanity, beauty, and of course - the stars

Images from LeafPresser by Brett Foxwell

Hello you — Adreanna here with this week’s dispatch of The Laundry,

Whenever I feel at home in my life — which is not always, but more often than I would expect, given that I’m prone to restlessness — it’s just a result of having found some perspective that I feel like I’m able to rest in. A way of seeing what’s in front of me that allows my mind to relax into the reality of how things are right now. Often this perspective-finding happens in the most unlikely scenarios: when I’m in the middle of a personal transition, or when the world appears to be at it’s worst or at it’s most uncertain.

I might even say that this is when perspective is the most useful, at it’s most functional. It’s easy to find perspective when everything is hunky-dory and rolling along nicely. Difficulty makes perspective-finding feel somewhat essential. It can be a survival tactic, a homing device, and an act of care.

It’s possible to hold a number of perspectives at once, and right now I’m writing (partially) from the perspective of someone recovering from a stomach virus. I just ate my first substantial meal in five days and even though I still feel woozy, I can feel physical life returning. Somewhere in the fever dream of those first days of illness, I was trying to imagine all of the other people in the world who were also sick with a stomach bug, as a ramshackle “just like me” meditation. I imagined us as an invisible network of feverish husks, all curled up in our little fetal positions, bonded together in our joined experience. I found some strange beauty in this perspective. None of us were alone in our illness, even if we were on our own.

This, I’m finding more and more, is the type of perspective that I’m seeking: a point of view that allows me to find the beauty and connection of the situation, even when the situation is bleak. I want to look out and over, and past myself — I want to look beyond the ledge of my personal anxiety — to rest my perspective in what is soft, present and inherently whole. There is so much about life that is currently right when we challenge ourselves to look in it’s direction.

I’ve been envisioning my mind as a perspective-finding instrument; a telescope / microscope hybrid, that’s able to dial out wide towards the cosmos, and then dial in towards the tiniest details that life is composed of, like the cracks in the floorboards of my office. It’s a game of seeing my circumstances and seeing the world from a variety of different vantage points. There’s no sugar coating or excluding what I see, but there is a choice in where I land. What’s a perspective, a way of seeing things, that I feel I’m able to rest in? This is always a question for me when I’m looking for sanity in a storm.

Let’s play a game for a minute. Slide your view all the way out to the cosmos and rest your mind there for a while. What do you see when you look at your life from the stars? Are you reminded of how vast the expanse is? Does it make our little human infighting all the more tragic and sweet and funny? Do you feel tenderness for how little and mean we can be? Keep your perspective in the stars if it’s helpful in coloring your current lens and the way that you think about yourself, your problems, the state of the world. Bring this perspective home and into the kitchen, the cooking, the laundry, and the emails if you find it useful.

Now try dialing your perspective back in towards the immediacy of this moment. Notice the texture of the floor in front of you. The weight of your body. The air on your skin. The people and shapes and movement around you. Look at the picture of your life from the perspective of your direct experience. How do you see your life and your circumstances now? Is it helpful to look from this angle? How does it color your current lens?

Now look at your life from the perspective of different qualities, like generosity. What do you see when you look out with the most generous possible interpretation?

Now look at your life from the perspective of time. See yourself in the context of the past 50 years. 100 years. 200 years. Look at your life as a radiant spark that’s positioned on this continuum.

Images from LeafPresser by Brett Foxwell

There are so many ways of looking that are not through the lens of anxiety and fear. And I know that these are compelling ways to look at the world. I know that fear magnetizes our attention.

Folks are aligning themselves with what is not working and then offering us their opinions. And I’m trying so hard not to let this influence my own writing. Because the “it’s not working” perspective is a very compelling stance to take. And also, there is enough of that in the world right now. There is enough pointing at what is incomplete and scary and wrong.

This is the realm of the the news, and the hot takes, and the think pieces that are eager to point out what is wrong, and broken and flawed. And while it’s an important part of repair work to name the source of our problems, I’m exhausted by all of the fingers pointing at all of the problems.

Please give me more fingers pointing to the majesty, the connection. I want to attune myself to beauty in crisis— even if beauty isn’t as compelling. And, if we’re honest, it rarely is. The stars occupy the sky every night, but how often do we pay them witness? I want to align myself with what’s beautiful, because I need a tonic.

I need a mental balm from the continual pointing at what’s no longer working. I want to search for what’s whole and admire it. I want to praise it, allow it to influence me. I want to be reminded of how sweet and weird and rich life can be. I want to put what’s not working back into perspective as a just a piece of the puzzle. Difficulty appears more workable from this lens, rather than taking up the entirety of the view.

And so, I keep asking myself: What is the perspective I can take that reminds me of what is already whole, already intact, already shimmering with quiet brilliance? Like looking up at the stars at night. The stars don’t have an ounce of urgency. We see them twinkle when we offer our presence. If I can find that—if I can rest my mind there—then maybe I can meet the world with a little more tenderness and a little more trust.

🌺 Thank you for reading along with us here at The Laundry! We know how valuable your time and attention are (literally the most valuable resources that you have) and I hope you get something from these words that inform your own practice — whatever that practice might be — in a sweet and generative way.

🎧 LEAFPRESSER — BRETT FOXWELL

In lieu of audio music this week, I offer music for your eyeballs — and the source of this week’s images — LeafPresser by Brett Foxwell. It’s a stunning, two minute kaleidoscope of over 12,000 photos of leaves woven together in stop animation, and makes me feel a big WOAHHHH in my chest. Magic, really. ENJOY.