Living in A Blur

The Blur As A Way Of Loving Life.

^{“Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say "Look!" and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.” From Devotions by Mary Oliver.}

I have had bad eyesight for as long as I can remember. Yet, as bad as it made me feel, I try not to feel too terrible. There are days when I deliberately leave my glasses at home, especially when attending familiar events, because I don't want to start a conversation with anyone. You can't initiate a conversation with someone you can see. Then, I will be by myself until someone walks up to me and comes closer than usual before I can actually see them. More often, I actually say hello before knowing who it is. I will be all smiles, acting all familiar with the whole of my heart. Very few times, I stay quiet. This makes me choose the kind of hard conversations I engage in public. I could choose to talk to you or not. This is a risk, I don't advise anyone to take.

This is the same with living. We try to have all the answers before we actually attempt to live. There is a sacred devotion to uncertainty that's worth exploring. Adulthood tested my patience in the worst ways. I think I wrote in previous essays how I wanted to grow up so fast. While living through my innocent years, I envied the grown-ups who were already living life's template. I didn't know then, being the first, that I was already conditioned to grow up fast. Staying a child was the most difficult thing. So I thought. The truth is, adulthood is the most difficult. Being an adult with wonder, even more difficult because life wants to pull you in every direction. Living has also proven to be difficult. Seeing beyond the template, I realized we grew up believing we would eventually arrive at answers. One day, we would know who we are, what we are meant to do, where we belong, and whom we are meant to love.

But adulthood does not hand us a finished map. It gives us a page and asks us to keep writing. The scariest part, when we exist on the next page, we don't even know what the next line is going to be. That's what adulthood has become: being in constant conversation with someone you can't see. We are seeing now that everything that appeared to be sharp, polished, certain, colourful is actually not. It is boring. One of life's full pleasures is being able to live in the blur, not through it. When we go through the blur, we are eager to reach the destination quickly. We begin to wait for a lot of things to happen. Waiting to die, waiting for better opportunities, waiting for peace, for comfort, for love, for friendship, even waiting for a new life to make us whole. We have to know that this life's only destination is death, until you finally meet God, so why the hurry? My devotion to living reduces waiting and creates what I'm waiting for. The life I thought would come into focus arrived with more questions than answers. We need some kind of clarity when making certain decisions, really big ones, because they don't appear in confusion. In spite of living through the blur, you need to tell yourself who you are before life changes it for you. But how do we know who we are if we don't embrace the blur that has come in growth itself?

^{“God, rest in my heart and fortify me, take away my hunger for answers, let the hours play upon my body, like the hands of my beloved.” From Devotions By Mary Oliver.}

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Lately, I have been watching myself opening up to changes. Right now, I am where I didn't think it was possible. I am doing things I truly desire, and when I opened a sliver of my soul, in all of that fear, I felt safe, cherished, valued, and loved. By the people around me and me. Even though the heaviness of living interrupts my senses, I still found ways to enjoy things as they are, experience and know people as they are. The blur had been teaching me that change doesn’t always have the answers. Staying in that uncertainty threatens you to stay open to whatever might come. Whatever you see is what it is. There will be more, but you are happy with what's there right now. Being an adult pins you into survival. Everything is never enough; we will always chase the next big thing. But what is survival when life remains obscured? Why can't we learn to love things before understanding what they are? The obscurity of the life we face is how we truly see with all sincerity. When my art began to form, I hated the city I currently live in. The drama, the chaos, the sense of urgency, the people. I am someone who thrives in quiet times, ordinary moments, the ones where I sit and take everything in, aimless walks, or even on lonely streets. Sitting by with a book in hand, choosing to be a bystander in every conversation, being either fascinated or disgusted. Or in rare cases, sitting in deep thoughts and arriving at a conclusion, or embracing the uncertainty. Now you see, the city became the clearest example of everything I was afraid of: a place where nothing announced itself before arriving. There's too much noise. Too much going on. It serves joy and tragedy on the same plate; pick your poison. If you choose joy, you ignore the tragedy. Sometimes, you don't choose it. It just comes.

You could step out and find a tragedy you were not prepared to witness. A body by the roadside. A person caught in violence. A stranger’s cruelty. A moment that reminds you how fragile being alive is… You could be beaten, stolen from, worse, kidnapped, or killed. You become a witness to these things or a victim. The only home I trust is the confines of my own room, yet the uncertainty of everything becomes interesting. Knowing that I can live and choose not to be quiet about these things sends a rush to my veins. It keeps the little hope in me burning. ‘Maybe there's something here, after all.’ I live knowing I can't stay in the fear of meeting my end in a city that's always pulsing in chaos. Still, I see the unsayable, listen to what it tells me, and act accordingly. Because I cannot engage with everything that beats. I enjoy the moments of passing before it feels like home. My eyes collect these experiences, keep them, think about them, translate them even before I understand them. Either as they are or as I perceive. There are things we never fully know; I don't know why my mom chooses urgency over slowness, perhaps time and seasons mean something different to her. I wonder if she loves wholeheartedly with expectations. Or why my father stares at nothing, draws a story from it, and passes it down. I never truly understood how he carried family history deep inside him until we become stories that are passed down. I never truly know why I love the people I love. I haven't yet understood how we choose one person, wanting the person all the same, despite the flaws. I still don't know how—being a work in progress—I have become whole in the eyes of the one who chose me as his. How we stare at ourselves and love every part of us wholly and tell ourselves, ‘nothing is broken here’ These are the devotions of living in a blur. This intimacy is accepting the mysteries instead of eliminating them. To know is to love, but learning to love things as they are, incomplete, raw, untamed, difficult. That's where understanding grows, complexities become reachable. That's how we hold each other, spaces, and our little sacredness.

I am allowing myself to experience new ways of love, before I know what it means, loving the blur all the same. I am allowing myself to listen before trying to understand, smell the coffee before feeling the taste. Embracing silent nights before working. Enjoying little routine conversations before thinking if I like audio calls or video calls. Allowing the book to change me before thinking of finishing it. Reliving past seasons and making sense of them months or years later. Attending church while carrying unanswered questions, praying even when I struggle with the medium, sending photos to your favorite person while holding out hope. Dancing alone in my room, strengthening my forms through writing, growing from always ‘NO’ to 'I will try’. These small acts of everyday devotion are forms of faith towards life. The deeper task for me is learning how to love a life that remains partly obscured, to find beauty in what cannot yet be named, and devotion in what cannot yet be seen clearly.

Until Next Time

Izogié