Guest Post by Elizabeth Cranford Garcia. Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s work has most recently appeared in Tar River Poetry, Tinderbox Poetry, Irreantum, Wayfare, and Anti-Heroin Chic, and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is the author of Stunt Double and serves as the current Poetry Editor for Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought. Read more of her work at elizabethcgarcia.wordpress.com.
Two weeks ago, we had a fifth Sunday lesson intended to motivate us all to magnify our callings, to find ways to amplify our efforts. Despite the best practices of our teacher—we were all engaged, attentive, participating— the discussion inevitably found its perpetrator: going through the motions.
My takeaway? I am tired of hearing the idea of going through the motions used as an accusation, a sign of character flaw. Anyone who has suffered loss, or who lives behind the blackout curtain of depression, is intimately familiar with the idea of going through the motions— that often, it is what saves you.
Filling the day with tasks allows the time to pass—the time, some say, that will eventually heal wounds. For others, it allows them to find a way to live with their anxieties, their neuro-differences, all the names we have for “thorns in the flesh.” As I sat there in the class, I could name in my mind a handful of people in that room who were on a first-name basis with “going through the motions,” and the fact they were there in that room was a testament to its grace, not its frailty. Thinking of one task after another that can be done without requiring any depth of thought or commitment to an ideal, is what carries one through to the next room of grief, where the room is slightly better lit, the grasp of the planet’s gravity has let up, your legs today are made of lead instead of iridium. (Of course, this may require medication). But arriving at point B after what feels like an eternity at point A can’t happen without some sort of automation.
Let us not talk of going through the motions in terms of lack, a desire-less body, a gelded horse grazing in a remote pasture, unnoticed, as if the only thing that mattered were progeny, the need to be eternal. If we could we revisit the going, the motion, the love left in a body before it’s abandoned like a car on the highway, we would find the bare minimum requirement of faith: to keep moving. That waiting on, waiting for whatever numinous force it takes to reach its hand down from the machine to return intention to us, requires daily repetition of breath in and out, the chew and swallow, the shower one takes if only to get from one moment to the next, the slow walk to the mailbox, anticipating something empty, ready for any thing that says your name.
8 Responses
I love this. I have definitely had times where I was “going through the motions” while internally struggling. Going through the motions meant my children got fed, my dogs got walked, and I made it through another day/week/month until the fog passed and I felt better. No shame in “going through the motions.”
“Going through the motions” kept my kids alive through 4 rounds of PPD. Often “going through the motions” was a win and I would count that as a success. Some days I still do. But I think on some level all of us do this some of the time – it is impossible to be completely engaged with everything all of the time.
When I was younger, I developed the habit of trying to “seize the day” and fill each day as full as possible. Now that I’m older, this has become a weakness, and I often take on too many things, and find myself putting too much pressure on myself to get things done. My new favorite motto (on a sweatshirt I just bought) is “She believed she could, but she needed a break, so she said NO.”
I read this post a few days ago, but it was going through my mind again this morning. I’m currently processing multiple traumatic events. (I’m okay, it’s just been a lot all at once.) School was cancelled today because of an ice storm (I’m so tired of having to be flexible!), so I didn’t get to go to my yoga class like I was planning on. It felt so good to stand in my living room and literally go through the yoga motions that I could remember. So good! Exercise has been a great tool for me to deal with depression.
The zing of accomplishment from surviving a trip to the grocery store without breaking down in tears: that’s something that should be celebrated. Yay for going through the motions!!! Yay for doing a little bit of adulting today!
Exercise has definitely helped me—and having routines (where we can make space for ourselves) is also comforting. Having to change plans constantly is quite the opposite!
This really spoke to me. I just had some eye surgery and my recovery is apparently going to be a very protracted process. I’m just getting through this day by day. Putting in the motions. Thanks!
I have been “lucky” enough that my peri-menopause symptoms include a shorter (still pretty consistent) cycle of about 21-24 days (instead of the gold standard 28 day cycle my body scheduled mechanically) and the PMS crankiness has been replaced and/or augmented with “mini-existential crises” (quasi-mitigated with medication – sometimes).
Recognizing that I will be (of necessity) “going through the motions” (including leaning out of the “the sky is falling/it’s the end of the world as we know it” and “being civil/respectful” of others instead of biting off their heads) on some level every every 18 to 21 days for about 5 days (the “crisis” stretch is about 3 days before my period starts and lasts for about 2 days) has been a game-changer for me. I no longer have the luxury of planning ambitious projects during the time when my body is in a mystical quasi-crisis mode (it is debatable that I actually had that luxury or whether it was just that I denied myself any rest). When life happens, and those ambitious projects get planned anyways, I don’t have the luxury of “bouncing back” sooner – those projects at that time are going to cost me other personal resources with a heftier interest rate and it is what it is.
To me, it is a form of “winter” (aside from the “winter” of being old). Those winters where we “go through the motions” to avoid starvation (or its equivalent) are times of rest and energy conversation. Those cold times are the times of steely-eyed clarity bought by austerity instead of abundance.
I feel that our youth/fertility-driven, consumption-focused society does not have a robust vocabulary to talk about that, so skirts from meaningful conversations about it. That is sort of changing with more women’s voices being heard (and more women’s stuff written down instead of passing conversation-from-conversation orally (with notes maybe), and more knowledge about the human body and biology in general.
I’m also in this category, and fearing the possibility of losing some of my writing/mental abilities from menopause, now that I’m finally in a phase to spend time on it! (My kids are now school age.) Just listened to a NYT podcast/Sunday read about treatments for menopause (and the history of doctor training for it) which was quite interesting, and hopeful!