I am so Angry

I'm so rarely angry, but this week my bones are rattling with rage and it's like being constantly over-caffeinated. I'm angry with a person, but it's never really just that person, is it? Because they are a product of their people and the system and society they find themself thrust into and when you start thinking about it there is just so very much to be angry about. And then I'm angry at my own reactions, or lack of action, or lack. I don't really even know how to be angry, but my hands shake around my morning coffee all the same.

Dear Angry,

Who was it who said, if you aren’t angry then you just aren’t paying enough attention to the world? There is anger aplenty. It is sort of the heft and thrust of the world and how all things come to be. Fire is angry and it destroys and yet it also creates and it restores and it can be what scorches the forest and also what prepares the forest for what new growth is to come.

Maybe anger is not ours personally, but rather a great energy that exists and pulses and sits there waiting for us to step in and be struck like a match to go out and scorch what needs to be scorched in order for the forest to begin growing again and again and again.

Maybe anger is like a shared world of fire—meaning, you don’t have to take it home with you. You are so right, there is so much to be angry about. Anger can be just a cleanse and often is a potent spark for what is right and good and true. So don’t lose the anger. But maybe think about it like a well, a world, a place you can clock in and out of. You can step in to it in order to keep the embers burning. But you can leave it too when you need to, in order to rest, in order to have the morning coffee without the hands shaking in rage. It’s a longevity game. How do we get through the long days? Anger is an ancient warrior who comes along side to help. So let it be a companion, but let it be not you. See her for who she is and what she wants to show you.

You’ve been right all along, its never about the other person, we haven’t even talked about them. It’s about us. Everything and everyone is a mirror. Which can be a nightmare too in its own way. Most of the time we just have to get out of our own heads and prisons we make of what we feel. It’s always more simple. We have to pull weeds or help the neighbor or clean the fridge. Movement. Movement. Movement.

It’s often grief.

And it all arrives to rattle us clean.

It all shows up in order to shake our bones like a maraca.

It’s movement.

It’s grace come bursting through the heart’s door her hair lit on fire.

That space of lack you speak of, light it on fire.

Let the forest burn and while it does keep the roots of your goodness safe.

And then find the movement the body needs.

Come spring, the landscape will be both exactly the same, and completely different.

—with love for your anger,

The Complaint Department