This is the Levity Field, which is the show Justin and I make for the lighter end of things, and this week it nearly became the Brevity Field because his six year old MacBook spent forty five minutes deciding whether to keep going. It held. We talked about donuts for longer than anyone needed, and then found the thing underneath, so here is the rundown.
The donut, again. Justin ordered one donut. Instacart does not sell one donut, so the shopper messaged him to ask whether he wanted six, and he said yes, which is roughly the same test the universe set him in Asheville a while back when one donut turned into twelve. This time there was a complication, because there were only three plain glazed and three with chocolate, which led to an actual conversation with a stranger about whether the chocolate sits on top of the glaze or replaces it. She did not know. He had to investigate. The chocolate ones turned out to be a speed bump rather than a treat, and he has three glazed sitting in wait, on a clock.
Toy Story 5, without the spoilers. Bonnie has grown up a bit and is finding it hard to make friends, because she still wants to play with toys while everyone around her is looking at a Lilypad, which is the film’s iPad. Then she gets one herself. What Pixar does so well, across five films now with the quality somehow holding, is use the medium to remind adults what make believe felt like before it became something you grew out of. It is also, for what it is worth, the only Pixar franchise where nobody dies.
If-then. This is where the conversation turned. Justin described the loop plainly: for years it was if I get the exit, then I’ll be happy, and now that the exit is no longer the point, it has quietly become if I get to the right place, then I’ll be ready. Six weeks until Miami ends, everything in storage, Costa Rica and Mexico and Hawaii and Chiang Mai all on the table, and underneath it the same sentence that never finishes. The advice he got from someone he played a sound bath for was better than most of what he had been telling himself. Just go places. Stop picking a spot on a map and go.
Demons and gremlins. The way Justin describes it is that there is a demon behind the scenes ringing a bell, and while the bell is ringing you are under the spell without hearing a thing. The work is noticing the bell, which shatters it, and then noticing that the demon has come back with a different one, which is the universe running the same test until you pass it. My addition is that you can draw it. Give it a face, ask it what it wants, sit with it long enough to understand it, because it is also you, and it would rather be met with some compassion than fought.
Write with your hand. We agreed we need to make a physical journal for Eleven Dunbar members, an analog donut to go with the digital one. Justin meditates, sits in the sun for ten minutes, and does not journal. I have been doing it every morning for years and it is the single practice I would keep over all the others. It does not matter what you write, one sentence is enough. What matters is that it is by hand, in the morning, every day, because something cascades from that over time and slowly untangles a great deal.
The thing underneath all of it. How deeply conditioned we are to wait for permission, from parents, siblings, partners, friends, institutions, and how strange it is when you say it out loud, that we believe we need approval from somewhere outside to simply be who we are and live how we want to live.
The invitation. Catch one if-then this week and take the if away. Not the whole life, just one. Then go and do the thing that was waiting on the other side of it.
