Quintessentially

Dear Ryan,



Rarely do I feel the word 'quintessential' applies - especially in regards to myself.

But you have transposed me into the notes of a song, quintessentially.



Thank you.



When I was first diagnosed (ha.) as a nine, I didn't think I could be sure of my own results.

"Who am I to say, what any of this means..." indeed.



I tested a few more times over the past few years, ever and always a nine. But, for some reason I kept my results close, replying to the few people I allowed to know "I tested as a nine" in case maybe later my actual number came to light.  I never shared the visual caricature that captures the key 9 attributes publicly, because... what if there was something I wasn't remembering, something I wasn't letting myself be honest about? What if eventually I would admit that I have always been a five?

As I type this now, being a nine stands out to me from every line.



You helped me "see myself through someone else's eyes."

You have helped me to recognize me.



You've given the gift of translation to all us bleary-eyed nines by standing in the open, naming our parts as you point to your own.



I thank you for allowing the vulnerability it took to make nine ring true.

I am still learning to allow the free pour of myself.

I appreciate your leading by example.



~*~



A few weeks ago, before Nine released,  I started an unpublished draft for and about a friend who recently encouraged me to get back to writing.



Someone else wanted to hurt me and told me point-blank  "You are not a good writer."

My friend, noticing my absence, asked me why I was sleeping.

He let me describe the hurtful encounter then took me around the back of those cruel words and pointed out their shoddy construction.

The healing of that wound simply couldn't come from me.

I needed to see it- and myself - from outside of myself.



And so, I write again. I free-pour me onto the page, sometimes cringing at my own voice, but not allowing 'bad' to be the only valid perspective.



An excerpt from that as of yet unpublished draft:

Rolling cloud brings no doom
Quenching rain floods my room  

Unfiltered truth, bold and wise
Mirrored glass
Me, through his eyes

'Write your moments, trade them in
To speak the truth is not a sin.' 

Writing, for me, is an attempt to see, and to sound-out-loud my search for the unifying thread.



I feel if I can just lift my perspective to that of Narrator, not only can I tell which domino is going to fall, I can tell you the back story of all the dominoes and help us make sense together why that particular domino needed to fall for everything to work together for good.



Though it is futile, as echoed in the writings of my soul-author Thornton Wilder,  I want to both intertwine a silver lining and untangle the question "Why?"

(see: 'The Bridge of San Luis Rey')



~*~

This is a good place to say I love the way you make music; you are certainly one of my soul-musicians. The structures you build lyrics on are thoughtful, zooming out and back in again, the words and music echo the way we walk both through this big world and on top of little tiny ones.



With planets floating above and the complexity of anthills beneath, your music is trimmed in meaning. It echoes a larger story, still being told.



I first realized this when I heard you talk with Mike Foster. You described the project you were about to adventure forth on and shared One with us. You described realizing that you couldn't schedule times of creativity... it was more like the wringing of a sponge.



With an internal "YES! Exactly." I began to listen to your voice.

I am glad there is a you, and that someone handed you a microphone.



I do not feel I have listened completely to your songs until I have heard their blueprints, and fingerprints, too. I like music with meaning. I like music I am invited to understand.



When I thought of writing this, I thought I'd offer back to you what you give to us each song, a line by line dissection of my gratitude. Alas, I have broken my own rules and quoted some lines out of order  already.



And as I proceeded to go line-by-line, I was completely and utterly a nine.

I had to tend other people's things before I was mentally free to do this thing so close to me.

I got up from this draft a half a dozen times.

I fed the dog.

I fed the cat.

I decided I had better finish my laundry.

I stalled.

I went to bed because I was too tired to think

I made coffee.

I went looking for a quote and re-read old blog archives

I fought the urge to doze

I typed a line

I deleted three

I listened to the podcast again and again



And by the time I was ready to finalize this reaching out to you, I no longer felt so much needed to be said.

I believe that's why -one of the reasons why-  we can be slow to pull a trigger . . . to let the chaff blow away before we bind the wheat.



I find this annoyingly true even as I stand in the market trying to pick an ice cream flavor.

So many of them are good.

Which one do I want - and why?

Let's start with the ones I don't want.



Process of elimination, I fancy myself a detective.



But you said as much using dominoes.



See, it felt redundant to speak it back to you.



And yet, you like me, often desire to see yourself spoken back.

Even from a stranger.

Maybe especially a stranger and a nine.

And you deserve every glimpse that assures you are valued and your craft is truly good.



The term 'Hopeful yeses' resonated with me.

As did the concept of misunderstood empathy.



When I took the EQ, I was surprised that my score wasn't higher. I had believed myself to be empathetic, when often times I was merely observant, perceiving or sympathetic.



And you led my thoughts to this: We avoid conflict but we also cannot take a compliment.

Are they not two sides of the same coin?



Saying aloud "I do like it" or "I don't agree" is to imprint ourselves upon another person.

It is to ask them to carry us along the next mile.

We are wearied from striking a balance of energies other people may not mind expending.



One of the worst truths I've had to face is that sometimes, people will just not like me for no apparent reason and there's nothing to I can do to change it.

Sometimes, also, for the same reasons they will lie.



And because I hate that, I try to like everybody -  even the people I don't really all that much like.

See?

And it causes me to greater treasure authenticity, to be that which I want to see in this world- even if it is uncomfortable to be.



"I check my vital signs" ~ literally, I do. My blood is sluggishly slow , my blood pressure sometimes alarmingly low. And my blood type is O- , the type that  becomes all the other blood types and thus saves other people's lives.



Yet O- can only receive life saving support from another O- soul.



"Choked up" ~ I viscerally hate to cry. It is not unlike nausea to me. I may know it is surfacing, I may know it is inevitable but I will try to stifle it, to keep my tears at bay. And when I spring a leak, please let it be dark or let me be alone. Tears weigh a ton and since they are mine, I must bear them alone.



Sometimes, it is embarrassing to be human.



"I've been less than half myself, for more than half my life"  & "Show me what to do to restart this heart of mine" & "How do I forgive myself for losing so much time?" ~ This year, I am going through a divorce.

We were married twenty years.

I was 18 when I said 'I do"

This line resonated because, unwittingly,  I committed to making up half of another person's being before my whole self had ever truly developed.



Now I am finding out who she would have been; who she wants to be.



I've wrestled all year with this notion that I wasted twenty years.

I couldn't hold myself accountable for waste for I believed I needed every moment of those two decades to be certain of the shot I must fire.



And yet I also thought I was probably just being stubborn about mourning so much lost time.



I've learned the answer isn't always either/or.

More often it is yes and also.



The domino was always going to fall, either way, indeed.



Now here I am further down the road, almost out of gas.

There was a rest station ten miles back, why do I have to press onward til my tire is completely flat?



Being in the body- what an informative line of thought... maybe that's why I don't realize I am cold or hungry or thirsty until I've long since been. Last month, I was covered in poison ivy and had a worse than typical outbreak because it took me so long to realize I had come in contact with it in the first place.



I could bore you all day with tales where it took me too long to realize that all the rules of gravity (and life and my third grade classroom) apply to me as well. Not that I felt above the rules, but so humbled beneath learning them all.



Ending on an inhale ~ beautiful and significant. I relate to that too.

I've got a blank page in front of me now,  and a lot of work to do.



That this was your longest podcast to date was also so fitting. We want to be clear, don't we?  Express ourselves carefully and clearly- so that others may see, might understand and not take any unnecessary chaff from our humble attempts at being. We can be plodding in that thorough endeavor.



I, too share a deep fondness for certain aspects of Disney/Pixar, also animation and childlike wonder. It's really indescribable so instead of trying, I leave you with the DMV run by a bunch of nines (though I would likely argue my spirit animal is more likely a Koala)



The laughter at the end is worth the wait.

And that's pretty fitting, I think.

Thank you for all that you are and sing and do.

I am glad we are humans together in this big, beautiful story.



You add meaning to my chapters.

I hope your own hold stories of fulfillment and redemption all the way through.



Quintessentially Yours,

Another Nine