Even when the world disappears, I remain.

In the softness of gloom, I find the brightness within.

photo by the author

On the day I write this, I wake to gloom. A white pall cloaking the buildings north of 42nd Street, blanketing Hell’s Kitchen with a thick fog. It’s a gloom that travels with me, continuing since yesterday. My daughter texted me the word last night, gloomy, and it still captures me, begging me to investigate.

Yesterday, we had gone walking together, with my granddaughter. A long brisk walk in her neighborhood on Long Island, a stop for breakfast, bagels for the kids. I didn’t know what to wear in the grayness—it was one of those dreary days. And when you move from one weather system to another (I had just come from a heated blue sky in Fla), there’s always a little shift in you as you adjust. But I’m beginning to suspect I brought this front with me.

If you’ve ever taken a class with me, we may have worked with internal weather. I would have guided you through a journeying prompt—placing you right in the middle of a storm, a desert, or a fog like this. I would have asked you to use all your senses. What do you feel outside of yourself? And then—what inside you needs clearing? What needs to be cooled, or heated, or stirred, or dried?

And so here I am, asking the fog: What don’t you want me to see?

And asking the gloom: what do you want of me?

When we got back from our walk, I went to my parents’ house, and took a long mid-morning nap. I had flown into New York from Florida to surprise my dad for Father’s Day. And it was lovely. The surprise landed just as I’d hoped. But yesterday, in its dreariness, I was tired. I thought the nap would shake my mood. But it didn’t and so I took a shower and got a train to the city, a little earlier than I had planned.

The word melancholy isn’t quite the same as depression. It has a song to it—low, slow, and familiar. For me, it moves in the body, while depression does what its word does, it sinks. As I stare into the fog, I feel more of a melancholy, and a curiosity about how the world outside has simply disappeared.

I can’t see the Hudson. That’s my go-to place when I come here. My zen. The river, in its crawl and presence, calling me back to myself. When I gaze down upon it, I feel something move. But now—I can’t see it at all. And it feels like I can’t see myself.

So I ask again: What do I need to see? Or maybe, more honestly: What can I leave masked? What wants to remain unseen?

And there it is. Unseen. The title of one of the poems in my forthcoming collection. My first. First Look. And with that thought, comes the dread—the ache of being seen. And the sadness, too. These are poems written from a long-ago place of pain. Now here I am fiddling with the proofs, trying to—what? Fix it? And fix what? The poems or the memories? But it’s too late. The editor said no—the deadline passed. Let the work stand on its own.

But how do you stand when you can’t see the ground beneath you?

I have to get close to the window to make out anything of the city street 52 floors below. Again, I ask the mist, the gloom within me: what is this?

Is it the unseen within me not wanting to be unmasked? The anxiety of being seen? Still?? But I’ve been working with that for so long. Clearly. Here. In these pages.

So I say to the fog, cloak yourself around me. Cuddle me. But still I’m sad. Sad for the lost years, for the years I spent feeling not enough. For the time that went by too fast. For the parts of me I thought I’d let go, but maybe just buried.

I stare out the window, knowing it only wants me to turn inward. To sit with the gloom and breathe into it. To feel the thickness that seeps into every cell, every touch point, everything I can’t see. And I let my breath chart it. Be in it. Dissolve it. Locate myself inside of it.

I find my center. I find my heart.

It’s time for my Reiki practice, but I’m reluctant to leave this place. I want to stay in the gloom, in the melancholy. But it’s time. So I pray. I put on my music. I begin the practice, not with the head in the usual Reiki way, but with my heart. I breathe into its chambers—imagining openings. Always an opening…

Then up to my head and its crown, and the forehead that always needs to be kissed. I cup my eyes, and instead of the white, I see darkness. I leave my palms there for a long while, and then move down—my face, my throat, my shoulders. My heart again. The breath with me. Moving into my back, the back of my heart, my lungs, my kidneys. All, opening.

The light gets brighter. I think the pall must have lifted. I resist checking. I keep my eyes closed.

My hands move, working the positions, through the chakra centers, down through my core, my pelvis, my hips. My legs. I hold the soles of my feet and start to feel the day again. The brightness. Its peace.

My palms buzz with it. A lifting as I move back to my head and my heart and seal my practice.

When I finally open my eyes, the white is still there. Still thick on the glass. But different.

If I opened the window, I actually believe I would feel the fog resting on my palms—its energy, thick with presence.

And here I am.

So let’s practice:

Practice Being Gloomy

Allow melancholy to fill the spaces of you like a thick fog.
Be the fog. Feel it seeping into each cell of your being.
Breathe into it. Notice the sensations. Notice how it moves… how it breathes.

Now, locate the strongest part of you. The place that powers and empowers you, a place of brightness and love. Maybe it is the tiniest spot. A dot.

Go inside of it. Feel its strength and goodness. Sit inside of it. Feel its immensity. Hear its song.

Imagine it as a bright blue sky within you. Allow it to expand. Allow it to dissolve all boundaries. All mist, all fog, all melancholy… allow it to all clear away.

And all around you is a gentle stillness and beauty, as you open yourself to the blue.

Write (Down the Page)

When I visit the gloom, I notice________.

When I hold the fog, I notice _________.

When I open spaces within me, ____________.

Thank

Thank you, Gloom. Thank you, Melancholy. Thank you, Weather outside that mirrors my Internal Weathering. Thank you, Body, for the ability to sit and notice. Thank you, Music. Thank you, Life Force. Thank you, Love.

Thank you all for visiting and for your feedback and support.

Love,

Jackie

PS: Join me in my next Embodied Writing series. It’s called Embodied:Memory and is an 8-week journey through the heart of memory. Live zoom classes are Wednesdays, beginning July 2nd, at noon EST. There are audio meditations and supplemental materials and writing prompts for those who wish to follow at their own pace. Here’s the link. I’d love to be your guide.