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a liturgy for letting go | AUTHOR Q&A | AUTHOR BIO
Shortly after our last collaboration, I reached out to Courtney Ariel again to see if she might be willing to share this poem of hers for Black History Month (but, reader, please do support her work year-round. She is spectacular!). It’s a poem she shared with me about a year ago, and it’s stuck with me since. I was eager to share it with y’all, and to chat with her more in depth about it.
When I first reread it, I told Courtney it is one of those poems I wish I wrote because of how beautiful and smart and integrated it is - and I also know (and love) that it would be impossible for this piece to have come from anyone but her. My favorite kind of art :)
It’s, perhaps, exactly the right time of year for such a reading. Enjoy!
a liturgy for letting go
Part way through the winter, in the coldest month where the days begin to get longer carrying the promise of spring, I became a paradox too. All frozen and balmy. I learned that I could write my own prayers and walk them down sidewalks under barren trees that are quite still now but wildly alive underground, like me. And maybe also you? I learned to make enchilada casseroles and vegetable chilis in a crock pot that I found at the yard sale of a friend who was moving away And it is OK to leave. However hard the letting go However terrifying and radiant the road ahead. I rarely make pancakes with cinnamon mixed into the batter on Saturday mornings anymore But I do think of lost love when the seasons change, because he taught me how to notice them at all. And there are ways to smile until tears flood your eyes with memory and feel the expanses of your heart growing wider still How? The trees may know something about this, about growing in a cold place. About protecting your roots Slowing down to heal, and then– Bloom.
Q&A with Courtney Ariel
Q: Courtney, in my first reread since you sent it to me months ago, the only thing that hit me was feeling. All the feeling between the words, tucked just out of sight—the feeling in the white space between stanzas, even between lines, sometimes words. In my second reread, I could see where it was hidden. In, as you mention right at the start, paradox.
There’s tension in every stanza—the trees, barren but wildly alive. The crock pot taken off a friend who was leaving. The seasons, which command your attention differently since meeting a love, later lost. These good things we hold onto for life, despite their context of blankness, distance, heartbreak.
I know how much I personally yearn for a simple, uncomplicated life, how much I resist (ironically) that tension. But it seems there is something profoundly human in that tension, and its embrace is fundamental to our contentment. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Where do you currently find yourself in tension or paradox? How is that forming you these days?
This piece offered me solace last year, during maybe one of the first winters of my life that I've ever paid close attention to; reverent attention, you might say. If the season were a conversation, I hung onto every word; the silences too. In the quiet stillness of bone-cold late nights and early mornings, without an audience, I experienced recognition. On those cold winter walks, I began to pay attention to the whistle of the wind through bare branches, the utter radiance of the moon. I learned that my broken heart could still be awestruck by beauty!
I also yearn for a simple, uncomplicated life. I sincerely wanted a love that would sustain through many moons, and many seasons. When that didn't shake out, the winter invited me to take notice of all the life sustaining as things were also dying…I'm still very much learning from last winter.
Q: Reading this poem with its title in mind brings a whole added layer of meaning. What do these paradoxes as you’ve experienced them have to do with letting go?
That’s a great question. Well, the truth is, I didn't know how to begin letting go... I have a better sense now, but I certainly have learned that those words don't mean what I thought they meant initially. I wrote the poem first, and the title was more aspirational (a hope, a prayer?). It was a realization that this person was not going to be surgically removed from my heart, or my spirit, or my sense-memory (that's the kind of pressure I was putting on "letting go" initially, and she was really letting me down). Maybe that's a paradox too? I don't know that we fully untether from the people, places, and experiences that touch us in meaningful ways. I think a thin line of connection can remain.
And in another sense (a more tangible one), something is severed. I couldn't get the words out at the time, I had to write them down, but I really wanted to say (to him and to me): it is OK to leave. However hard the letting go. However terrifying and radiant the road ahead...
Q: You write, "And there are ways to smile until tears flood your eyes with memory and feel the expanses of your heart growing wider still / How?” That is my question too. In your experience - how?
The best I can offer is to recall an ordinary night (a Tuesday night, if you will) when you are falling asleep next to someone that you love, and a warmth swells deep inside your heart. It's not the frenzy of a blazing fire, maybe it's not even the excitement of the early sparks, but it is burning strong, nevertheless. You know (you don't want to know, but you do know) that something could change this; something could come along and snuff the embers out, or make tending to them seem too challenging. Still, you lean in closer anyway.
The paradox in my experience has been holding this alongside the risk (and reality) of being burned. Remembering such abundance in the starkness of winter felt safe to me somehow, like cooling a wound to help it heal. I still smile through tears, even now. Because we can't know how it will all go. And letting go is hard. If we are lucky, we can get a crock pot off of a friend, learn some new recipes, and notice the seasons with a reverence that we never had before. It is complicated, indeed. And it is achingly beautiful!
About the Author
Courtney Ariel is a songwriter, writer, and storyteller. Her music can be found on most streaming platforms. She has written articles that appear on Sojourners, CNN, The Tennessean, and Harper's Bazaar. She is committed to working collectively toward the healing of Black people through the healing of relationships. She believes that this is vital for each of us.
She is from Southern California, and is currently enrolled in a doctoral program in Georgia; her research centers around Black women’s spirituality. She is a daughter, sister, friend; godmother to Auden and Vivian. She shows up trying, curious, loving, longing, learning & unlearning in community.
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“a liturgy for letting go” © Written by Courtney Ariel Bowden, February, 2022
Please do not duplicate without author’s permission.