All we are is dust in the house
“Why is this happening? We don’t have a dog. Or cats. We even take our shoes off before coming into the house! We don’t even have much company, and we’ve got Hepa filters all over the place! Where in blazes is all this dust coming from?”
It’s coming from us, it turns out.
Here’s a news flash from my invisible friend Androgynous Ipecac (AI):
“You shed about 30,000 to 40,000 skin cells every minute, which adds up to roughly 1 billion to 1.4 billion cells per day. However, many sources state a more conservative estimate of around 500 million skin cells per day. This daily shedding is part of the natural, continuous cycle where new skin cells are produced to replace the old ones.”
Snakes molt. Lobsters molt. Crabs. Insects. Birds. So do we.
You may have happened upon a discarded snake skin or seen a soft-shelled crab who’s left behind the old carapace and is waiting on the newly emerged one to harden. While it’s soft, it’s helpless. It’s also a delicacy.
We don’t much notice our continuous physical molting. And we do have major molts: cognitive molts, emotional molts and spiritual molts.
Major Molts
Sounds like a character in M*A*S*H.
I remember crying before bed when I was eight. My father took me in his arms and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“I’m not a little kid anymore,” was the best I could do.
Molting.
I was an ardent Boy Scout for years. Then, almost overnight, I found girls fascinating instead of a bother, and my scouting enthusiasm drained away like a leaky canteen.
Molting.
I have never been career-minded but rather have periodically felt a diminishing focus on my current course as a new interest called for me. Teacher – performer – charter captain – sales – puppeteer – mediator - - you get the picture. Maybe ADHD. Maybe transactional personality, who knows? What I have found out about myself is that I can recognize the itch of impending molt, and what I have learned is I ignore it at my peril. It’s usually a gap in my thinking that needs addressing, an emotional short-circuit that’s standing between me and those around me, even a spiritual unawareness that is blocking me from beauty and joy. I have embarked on ‘a new skin’ this past year. I was feeling disaffected, cynical, drained. So I made room for the new ‘skin’. That’s simple, but it’s not easy. As my friend Rob says, “Two things I hate are change and things staying the same.”
“Everything I’ve ever let go of has claw marks in it.” David Foster Wallace
The new skin and the old skin cannot occupy the same space. Not for long, anyway. I (and maybe we) have a habit of holding on to things—stuff, ideas, beliefs, habits, resentments, default settings—long after their pull date. I mean, it says it right there on the carton of milk! Or on the carton of my spirit.
If I’m swinging comfortably on my usual vine, and I realize it’s fraying while I see a much better vine just out of reach, I’ll need to let go of the old one to reach the new one, and for just a moment I’ll float between. What might happen then? I could fall, find out the new one isn’t so great after all, be unable to get back to the old one (a relationship, a place, a memory, an illusion) that, for all its flaws, was usual.
My body is my guide and lets me know. By that I mean I’ve learned that the necessary magnet of the new ‘skin’ generates a physical unease: Your issues are in your tissues. That’s my discarding necessity making way, right now, making space for new skin. And telling me. The sooner I accept this signaling, the better I manage.
Think about it. If we carried all those old, dead skin cells around, we’d be immobilized. Letting go frees me from the shackles of corrosive habits and makes way for understanding them. I need enough distance to see clearly, and that won’t happen until I release.
