At the Water's Edge

The Transformative Power of Awe

Those of you who have been with me for awhile probably know that I finished writing my first novel not too long ago. The process was challenging and humbling and joyful and elevating, and I smile just thinking about it. Now I’m trying to find a literary agent, and that process is challenging and humbling . . . and well, challenging and humbling. It has not yielded much for me to smile about, though there is a deep satisfaction in knowing that I’m putting myself out there in pursuit of my dreams. That peaceful sense of alignment between my deepest desires and the way I’m choosing to live my day-to-day is what keeps me going. I can brave more rejection.

And some days, I feel pretty low about it. Some days, I worry that I’m just not enough—not a good enough writer, perhaps, or not mainstream enough in my views and voice to attract a publisher. These aren’t comfortable feelings, and so sometimes, I attempt to chase them away, but really there’s no need because when I allow them a bit of time and space, they transform on their own.

A few days ago, I was feeling particularly small. Particularly insufficient. I took my smallness with me into a nearby forest, walking with it to the water’s edge. I hoped, I suppose, to lay my lack in a basket and send it downstream. Goodbye, I would wave to that clingy thing, and then I would find myself round, full, overflowing.   

But in the water, there was no basket, only a tree, her base bowed in the current, then tilting skyward, like ship and mast in one. I shaped myself to this sycamore. I leaned my spine into the curve of her and stretched my legs like splaying roots. The other trees along the bank were thin things—matchsticks beside majesty.

I felt tiny, too. I am tiny, too. A speck on a ship on a pale blue dot, sailing through infinite space. And what I hope you can understand, though I lack the words to explain it, is that my sad-sack smallness suddenly broke open, and I was held within a vast and benevolent basket. This small, star-dusted self that I call me was woven into the fibers of this basket, and so were you, and so was the sycamore and the water and the tiniest of insects and the mightiest of publishers, and there was no separation between anything.  

There are two ways of feeling small: one that isolates you, walls you off, and another that rips you open and weaves you into the fabric of everything. Sometimes, we have to spend moments or days or even years in that first sort of smallness before we are ready to be ripped apart. And then, we find ourselves and the world around us transformed, and we are breathless with delight, thrilled to be such an itty bitty thing amidst infinity.

Do you know this feeling? When and where do you find it? These aren’t rhetorical questions. I’d really love to hear your answers, either in the comments or in an email (you can just hit reply).

If this post has felt like a foreign language to you—but one that you want to understand—then check out these resources on awe from the Greater Good Science Center. There is a wealth of information about what awe is, how it benefits us, and how to cultivate it. If you’re a bit dorky like me and reminisce fondly about filling out Teen magazine quizzes with your childhood friends, you’ll be pleased to know that you can even take an awe quiz to help you quantify the current level of awe in your life.

One more thing before I wrap up and you sail off in pursuit of your own awe: If you have thoughts on the best day to receive this newsletter, please share them with me! I’m leaning toward either Thursdays or Sundays at this point, but I could be persuaded to think differently.

Thank you so much for being here.