TO GAZE AT THE SKY expecting a reply may lead to disappointment. We reach and yearn and track the stars for clues but may not ever hear the voice coming from out there—beyond the reach of our imaginations.
My friend Francois told me once, when we were both living in Zanzibar, to get a grip on my expectations. I’d been reeling over the wayward direction of a failed romance with a local man who had morphed from lover to stalker and it was all becoming a bit too much. Francois warned me that expectations of any kind would only lead to further disappointment. I knew he was right and I eventually gave up and licked my wounds.
But then I met a new man with a lot of the same problems—a heavy drinking problem, a rebellious relationship with religion, a wild disdain toward foreigners who looked like me—and yet, the early days of this new romance filled my heart with new expectations of belonging and connection. Francois reminded me that expectations would lead me down the same dark path and to surrender them at the door to my future self.
I knew my friend was right but I kept falling deeper into the dream of a future with this man until that relationship crashed out in strange and unpredictable ways. One minute I’m holding him after a drunken night of threats and he feels like a baby in my arms, wearing a soft red t-shirt and sarong, the two of us resting like sardines on a sofa tucked away in the corner of the upstairs patio looking out at the Indian Ocean. The next minute, I’m shouting at him to give me the keys to the car to save our lives.
Then the pandemic punctured any expectations about my life in Zanzibar and I left a pile of long, light dresses in my lover’s tiny bedroom and asked him to keep an eye on my belongings but I think we both knew in some deep down way that I wasn’t coming back to collect them. A few years later he sent me a photograph of my pile of dresses in a simple Whatsapp message, inquiring about my overall well-being, and did I even want them anymore? Of course, I told him no, and to please gift them to anyone who needed a dress.
I’ve learned to loosen expectations but I do think it’s important to our survival to have them—however much they veer from their intended shape or sequence. Expectations are thorns but they’re also seeds, aren’t they? I don’t know. Are expectations forms of craving and clinging or are they prayers for what’s to come? I suppose it’s been useful to let people truly be who they are—the expectation that we could change anyone is absurd, I know that now. But living with no expectations is the kind of advice I shuddered to receive.
I expect with the time I have to keep writing if my mind allows it and my body agrees. I expect to find a way forward and squeeze whatever joy out of the days I have as long as I have the will and spark to try. I expect to deepen my connection to the invisible—within and out there—to gaze at the sky and listen for an answer—a voice—a question echoed back to me from the great void.
Nothing more, nothing more. Nothing less.
Note: The idea of gazing at the sky and expecting a reply comes from a particular passage in the book "I Who Have Never Known Men," a horror story about a group of wandering women—former prisoners—who have to learn to survive in a desolate, absurd world.
My friend Francois told me once, when we were both living in Zanzibar, to get a grip on my expectations. I’d been reeling over the wayward direction of a failed romance with a local man who had morphed from lover to stalker and it was all becoming a bit too much. Francois warned me that expectations of any kind would only lead to further disappointment. I knew he was right and I eventually gave up and licked my wounds.
But then I met a new man with a lot of the same problems—a heavy drinking problem, a rebellious relationship with religion, a wild disdain toward foreigners who looked like me—and yet, the early days of this new romance filled my heart with new expectations of belonging and connection. Francois reminded me that expectations would lead me down the same dark path and to surrender them at the door to my future self.
I knew my friend was right but I kept falling deeper into the dream of a future with this man until that relationship crashed out in strange and unpredictable ways. One minute I’m holding him after a drunken night of threats and he feels like a baby in my arms, wearing a soft red t-shirt and sarong, the two of us resting like sardines on a sofa tucked away in the corner of the upstairs patio looking out at the Indian Ocean. The next minute, I’m shouting at him to give me the keys to the car to save our lives.
Then the pandemic punctured any expectations about my life in Zanzibar and I left a pile of long, light dresses in my lover’s tiny bedroom and asked him to keep an eye on my belongings but I think we both knew in some deep down way that I wasn’t coming back to collect them. A few years later he sent me a photograph of my pile of dresses in a simple Whatsapp message, inquiring about my overall well-being, and did I even want them anymore? Of course, I told him no, and to please gift them to anyone who needed a dress.
I’ve learned to loosen expectations but I do think it’s important to our survival to have them—however much they veer from their intended shape or sequence. Expectations are thorns but they’re also seeds, aren’t they? I don’t know. Are expectations forms of craving and clinging or are they prayers for what’s to come? I suppose it’s been useful to let people truly be who they are—the expectation that we could change anyone is absurd, I know that now. But living with no expectations is the kind of advice I shuddered to receive.
I expect with the time I have to keep writing if my mind allows it and my body agrees. I expect to find a way forward and squeeze whatever joy out of the days I have as long as I have the will and spark to try. I expect to deepen my connection to the invisible—within and out there—to gaze at the sky and listen for an answer—a voice—a question echoed back to me from the great void.
Nothing more, nothing more. Nothing less.
Note: The idea of gazing at the sky and expecting a reply comes from a particular passage in the book "I Who Have Never Known Men," a horror story about a group of wandering women—former prisoners—who have to learn to survive in a desolate, absurd world.
