Some educated and credentialed man* told me today that life is just a series of course-corrections. By “told me” I mean that he said it on a randomly chosen podcast, and probably several others, as is usually the case with educated and credentialed men, and I heard it.

And by “heard it,” I mean heard it.

And so it felt like he said it to me.

And it might not seem so profound to you all but I have been trying to find the words for this wicked phenomenon for quite some time now. That every step I take is just a sum of the steps I have taken and an addend to the steps I will take is of immense importance to me at this moment, as a quarter-lifer*; that each road less-travelled I travel is informed by the roads I know and will inform the roads I do not yet know is a circumstance of which I am painfully aware, as it seems I have come to oh so many crossroads as of late.

As I am not a sailor, my version of “course-corrections” is “knots.”

Not that I am good at knots; I was never a girl scout, nor do I know much about sewing,

No,

but I am getting quite good at (k)nots.

(K)nots are the small hard things that hold the threads of us together. In pathfinding, they are what give us direction, as in,

I am (k)not going down that road.

To borrow the imagery of a yoga instructor whose Thursday midday class I found deeply moving, my knots are maybe my heavy parts that keep my waka on track in stormy seas.

(Again — I am moved by the idea of navigating the sea.)

I remember sitting in a guest lecture my junior year at university — maybe it was my senior year — and feeling refreshed to hear someone of note say that their post-grad internship functioned only to tell them what they did not want. And that that is precisely what catapulted her into a position to find this job that she did in fact want. I clung to the idea that figuring out what is not meant for me is just as important as figuring out what is.

In recent news, however, I have since then come to believe that it is in fact more important to know the (k)nots.

My case for knots: the knots, for one, are easier to spot. They are clunkier and there are far more of them, it seems. For if we believe that there is one perfect and correct path for each of us (which I do not but let us imagine for a moment that I did), would it not then be true that there are infinitely many more incorrect paths to stumble down and out of which to retreat than correct ones to glide into, all downhill and sunny? Why, then, even in this imaginary perfect linear world, wouldn’t we be empowered to fearlessly, recklessly examine all of the (k)nots?

Here I want to make abundantly clear that knots are not monsters to avoid and this world I am creating is not one where there are scary dangers at every corner. Quite the opposite: we do not know the knots until we get a little ways down the road and even then they may surprise us with their shapes. No two are ever exactly alike but having figured out the last few, having not been tied up and rendered paralyzed by those couple before, we have the confidence to face these new ones head-on.

Like any puzzle, knots take time. And sometimes, all it takes is a breath, a pause, a brain break, and some fresh eyes, a new perspective, a new curiosity, and the solutions come to you so quick you cannot believe you missed them before.

Also, honest writing — honest living, as they are the same to me — is a practice in trusting oneself, following the threads that hold the self together. And threads are slippery without knots.

Follow the threads, pull them tightly, sometimes too tightly, wind them up, cut them if you need to — just do not fear the knots.

Knots, like sharks, can smell fear. We do not fear knots.

This ramble, anyway, is about guiltless exploration of the knots, a guiltless journey to the center of the knots. All of them. It is about re-visiting the knots we never fully untangled last year month week, and handling them, and ourselves, with care and forgiveness.

And if we are going in circles (see 10. Trying to Water the Grass…), there are bound to be knots.

Choosing,

(oh, this precious privilege of choice)

after all, requires more noes than yeses; more (k)nots than…

(wait, what is the opposite of not, anyway?)

Here I am, back at the start of this circle: this blog project of mine is all about the knots —

about trying and failing.

And if failing is falling, it is the knots that catch us when we fall.

It is what is left to untangle, with help from friends, in the aftermath.

It is where the gold is buried.

Maybe.

xx

Until You Know Better

Journal prompt: How old were you when you realized that every person is a stranger to their future self? How can you find compassion here?

Call your grand-mum and tell her you love her!

Try do a headstand!

Great Artists Steal

*Listen to “How do I know what my future self wants? (w/ Shankar Vedantam)” a podcast episode of the How to Be a Better Human, TED Audio Collective

*Read Quarterlife by Satya Doyle Byock

In his song “Vienna,” Billy Joel sings, “Slow down, you’re doing fine / You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.” — words best served somewhere illuminated by a sunny-ish window, alongside a late morning breakfast and a hot Americano.

P.S. This whole (k)nots thing is an ongoing meditation, making this piece, like all my others but perhaps a little bit more-so than all the others, unfinished at publishing time. Thank you for your patience and understanding.