When I went to college, I made a decision.
I decided, actively decided, that I would live in joy. That I would find the positive in each situation and that I would discover something to celebrate in everyone, and every situation.
I had some simple practices to implement this decision. One, I remember so clearly, was a promise to myself that I would not to vent or complain without first considering the impact my words would have. What would the impact be on the subject of my rant (that annoying kid in class, the teacher who was boring, the rude drunk guy) but also on the people who had to hear me vent. How would this impact them? How would it change their mood to listen to my negativity?
I was tired of the high school scene with the judging and insecurities and well intentioned exhausted ramblings that were twisted into hurts by equally well intentioned, insecure and hurting people. Frankly, the whole thing had left me depleted. I realized that I had, for the first time since kindergarden, an opportunity to start over.
I have to admit, that at the time, my motivations were not 100 % pure. Like so many young women, I was deep down worried that people wouldn’t like me if I wasn’t “nice”. College, like all things, is messy. And I messed up plenty, especially when tired, or hurt, or after drinking too much beer. But I kept this decision before, like a compass that I used to find my way.
There were many unintended consequences of this decision. For instance, the light on Mt Saint James where I spent those four years was the most beautiful light I had ever seen in my entire young life, especially at sunset. Remembering it now I feel a wave of peace. I think now, that the light in this industrial town was no more special than the light everywhere else. It simply was that I was awake enough to notice its majesty–the subtle magic. With my brain more clear of rants, past and future, as well as regret, anxiety and fear about what mess my words might have wrought, I could see the world shimmer so much more easily.
What I learned through my experiment was that happiness may be a situation but joy is a decision.
A couple of years ago I went to a workshop on healing where the teacher challenged us to presence joy. If you walk into a room, that is dull or dark or full of angst, laugh, smile, giggle, tell a story. Dance. Find something beautiful and point it out. Play. See what happens.
It strikes me as funny how this powerful play in my playbook gets lost in the hubub that is my life. And it strikes me as glorious how easy it is to dust it off.
I am renewing my vows to a practice of joy. Not happiness. Not an absence of grief. But reckless, deep, unfettered, silly, magnificent, playful, unrelenting joy. To dance with abandon and to celebrate the simple pleasure of being able to feel.
It has come to my attention
that the only thing you may appreciate about me
Is how I appreciate you.
I suppose that should make me sad.
Annoyed.
Or even mad.
But it only makes me curious.
Fear not, my friend.
I love you.
Even from the depths of this knowing now,
Even in the clarity of morning
I do. I do.
You make me laugh.
You make me think.
You make me dance.
What’s more,
I see all the glory that is you and I
rejoice
in
it.
For you are as beautiful as you desperately hope you might be.
I promise.
Some may find me crazy or
Think this perspective foolish
But
I once arrived in a town where mirrors were obsolete.
In the shadows there,
behind an ancient tree,
love whispered a secret that changed my heart forever.
She is not a wish, desire, hope to be appreciated, known or even seen.
She is not a currency to be exchanged, deserved or meted out by merit.
She abides there
Whenever I find Me
With all my messy woundedness, or my joyous silly brilliance,
humanity and Divinity
in the very same space
As You.
I know spring is coming when the energy returns, the energy that has me scrubbing floors and singing at the top of my lungs, the energy that calls me to cook lamb and salmon and greens and asparagus and serve it on the best china for some of my favorite people.
I feel a rising. The sap is rising in the trees and something is rising in me too. I feel it in Quaker meeting when I sit and listen not only to the silence, but to the silence behind the silence and feel my whole heart swell from joy as I see the bird in the window and someone asks us to hold their pet dog in the light and Max lays his head in my lap and mouths these words, “Mama…I love you.”
This past year has been many things: It has been a learning experience. It has been quietly hard. It has been about being stuck, losing my way, losing my hope and losing people I love. It has been about a dismantling so subtle that I still don’t know how to talk about it.
But during Sunday dinners, when community is gathered around the table and wine is poured and the children are in a pile watching the hockey game down in the TV room and the roast potatoes are just about crisp enough to serve, all is right with the world. And I know nothing but love. This is what is has all come down to. This is all there is. And it is perfect.
Bring it on. After a long winter, I am ready.
It is starting to snow again. And while there is a part of me that is delighted, I am also a tiny bit afraid. There is nothing like big snow storms to remind us how fragile life really is.
The snow storm started on Friday afternoon. We were well stocked with food and milk and wood. We had plenty of movie and board games. We hoped that we would have Monday off from school. We planned fun things to do that were in walking distance of home, planned to leave the cars at home. We dreamed of being shut in.
When we woke on Saturday at 7am the outside had been transformed into a winter wonderland. I lit a fire, read, waited for Max to wake so I could make pancakes. We set out to do a shoveling pass of the driveway and front walkway when the noises began, the buzzy, echoey loud sounds of transformers popping. And then, by 9am the power was gone.
As I shoveled I felt the panic just under the surface percolate. The snow had just started. We had already a foot and it seemed to be falling even faster. There was suddenly nowhere to put the snow I kept clearing from the path. Suddenly, being inside felt like being trapped by the snow that fell faster and faster. We went in only to change wet clothes by the fire and we felt the temperature in the house drop. So I breathed. And I shoveled and I leaned into the wind. And then, when half our firewood was gone by 3pm we packed a backpack and set out to find friends with power.
We found them, half a mile away. Suddenly, together in the company of several families in front of a fire, the panic lifted. The growing darkness felt festive not frightening once more. For three days we huddled together, in shifting combinations, with several families in our tribe. We laughed and played games. We socialized and were still. We walked and carried firewood and cooked and read and sat in a line working on our laptops on the one remaining wireless connection. And as the lights came back on, we all drifted back home.
And now, as the snow starts to fall again, I feel it. That sense of dread that could mean that it might all fall apart again. I feel the fear that arises from the possibility that we could be stuck, trapped, walled in with snow. And I can’t imagine how it felt in the ancient days when winter snow and ice meant darkness, quiet, stillness for days, weeks, even months on end.
The gift of storms like these is the discovery of the meaning of yin. Quiet and internal and solitary…and sometimes paralyzingly fearful. Our society has no space for such a still way of being. We keep the lights burning, we connect in thousands of different ways. We watch the storms on radar as they pass above us. But how can we gain courage without moments such as these?
The gift of the storm is a chance, even in this modern go-go society to touch the deep unknowing that comes when you are alone, in the snow wondering where you should go. The gift of that deep unknowing is the chance to touch the trust that arises when we allow ourselves to be so still. The kind of trust that allows you to set off, on foot, through 20 inches knowing you will find home again.
Build a fire.
Shovel early and often. Create the clearings even if you need to do it over and over again.
Go outside. Marvel at how the world can change so quickly.
Clear more.
Trust that when the power goes out you will find a warm place to shelter.
Pack a back pack with the essentials.
Bring wine.
Surround yourself with the people you love.
Build a snow fort. Have a snow ball fight. Catch the last of the falling snow flakes on your tongue.
Shake the snow off the cyprus.
Eat chili. Cook chicken over a fire. Make hot chocolate.
Walk back and forth.
Play board games.
Say “yes please” when you are offered a warm bed.
Snuggle with the neighbor’s dog.
Call often to check in.
Take turns cooking.
Sit together and work quietly.
Take walks.
Trust. Even as the snow starts to fall again. Trust.
A week or so ago I scrawled this on the bike path at a park near our house.
You know the saying, you put out in the world, the messages you most need to hear. Yeah, well, this one had my name all over it.
For years, I have been a cheerleader for everyone else’s dreams. I have silently dreamed mine up, blew them like kisses out to the Universe but I never expected them to come true. Dreams becoming real, well, that was for “other people”, not for me.
For years I have had a persistent story about bounty and abundance being for “other people”. I relished and loved being a witness to other people’s greatest joys unfolding. I felt it was such a gift to be a dreaming midwife–to hold the space so others could birth their very magical dreams. I felt grateful for that place but I never once really imagined that the big dreams could be mine.
I could spend hours unproductively and painfully pulling apart where this story came from but my point is that I am ready for that story to go. it’s been a little bit hard to get there. See, this story protected me for so many years, kept me from taking risks I wasn’t yet ready to take. It kept me safe and secure in a world who’s logic I understood. Telling myself that dreams were for other people meant that I didn’t have to do too much trusting, that I didn’t have to take the big risks, the ones that leave you with egg dripping off your nose or sprawled out on the floor figuratively bleeding. That story let me be right about so many things, especially about the futility of trying something scary and so it kept me from being too vulnerable. I spent this week, often in tears, saying good bye to that story of mine and feeling terrified and naked and a little bit raw without her.
I have another story that I have been wishing farewell. A story that goes something like this: “Before you leap, have all your ducks in a row.” I am the queen of setting up those ducks. I am a queen of making sure that every “i” is dotted and every “t” crossed. I am the queen of taking calculated risks with very probable chances of success. I used to set up my ducks and then take those very carefully calibrated risks and call it courage. Up until this week, I had a whole long list of things I needed before I could lean into my dreams: financial security, a partner to support me, health, happiness, inner peace. Each of these things seem as far away as they have ever been, elusive preconditions. And I realized that setting up ducks is really just a gigantic stalling tactic.
That “ducks in a row” story is really the twin sister of the “other people” story. Its a story that lets me off the hook. Its the story that tells me its Ok to give up. Its the story that tells me that its safer to sit back and watch and blame circumstance. Its the story that keeps me from really feeling my fear and pushing through her.
Its time to let those stories go. For the last several years I have been practicing for this very moment. I have been saying yes to improbable and crazy things. I have been practicing being a beginner. I have been practicing failing and starting again.
I am ready to start dusting off some of those long cherished dreams and (baby step by tiny baby step) to manifest them without any promise that it will go swimmingly. In fact, it is quite likely that it will all be one gigantic mess, or maybe a huge miserable disappointment, or perhaps just a anticlimactic fizzle out. But truth be told, I am so very ready to stop wishing for these dreams. I am so ready to stop wondering what it feels like to be “other people”. Instead I want to take action, to simply lean into the action of my life and see where those steps take me. Maybe if I can take a step they will take me where I dream of going. Maybe they will simply take me somewhere else interesting. In any case they will teach me courage. Of that I am sure.
Don’t worry mom, I’m not doing anything unsafe here. But I am taking steps that scare me, that I never thought I would take, without any promise, shoot without any hope, of success. These steps might make a more courageous person laugh for but for me they are big.
Watch me now, friends, lets see what happens when I leap.
I am in the process of doing a lot of dreaming these days. Leaning into long cherished visions of how I always wanted to live, wondering if it is at all possible to let go and really leap. I don’t know if I am standing on the edge of breakthroughs or breakdowns but it can get a little hairy sometimes.
At these moments, when all seems like my life is both breaking open and welded impossibly shut, I have these primal practices that I do to settle myself. I do laundry. I light candles. I make chai tea and breathe in the sweet spicy goodness that is warmth and comfort. I clean closets or sweep the floors. And then, I dance.
I often dance alone to music turned up way loud. Lately, however, there is another way. I am blessed that I have stumbled into a community of musicians who find each other on the weekends. A good Saturday night is a circle of guitars, a bass, a mandolin, a harmonica, maybe a fiddle or viola, some drums and if we are lucky a keyboard or peddle steel. And me, in the corner, dancing.
And it is here, that I touch the edges of that dream life I have always wanted, a life filled with music and authenticity. A life built around a community doing what they love, creating something out of nothing. It is here that I know that all that I ever dreamed of is unfolding, however slowly.
I wonder if they know, these musician friends of mine, how I delight in them. I wonder if they know how their play breaks me wide open in the most unexpected of ways. I wonder if they know how the sweetness of their voices opens up cracks, unsticks, unanchors and feeds me. Can they feel it is my laughter and hugs, the way I make my requests? Or do they simply just think I am their friend who comes to dance, nothing more? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
Sometimes the music is transcendental. Sometimes it is just funny. Sometimes it is off, or no one can quite end the song. Sometimes it falls apart in laughter. Sometimes the harmonies don’t work out. Sometimes it just stops. These friends of mine are talented, each of them, but it is not their technical skill that matters. It is the joy, the silliness, the playfulness, the soul, the vulnerability and rawness that touches me. Do they know this? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
When they play, the totality of joy and grief and goodness and love seems to unfold. My dance is the only response I can offer. They only thing I can do in the face of such beauty. The only way I know to honor the gift. My dance is my gratitude not only for them, but for my whole world, the good, the bad and the ugly. I am not sure they notice. Not sure, as they eye each other for cues on where to take the song, as they sneak their smokes in the garage, as they pour their tequila, as they move to and from the mic. My dance a gift to them, but is it? Do they receive it, take it in? Does it matter? I don’t know. I don’t know.
These friends of mine
They have lives
They work hard to live them right
And when they laugh it makes me high
They take a trip ten thousand miles
Before they fly…
And when the show is over, how I hope that they discover
The joy that they bring
And I hope that they remember
This bond we have together
And how they love to sing
–Rosie Thomas
This week I was cruising through my chores. My trip to Madrid had put me behind. I had so much to do. Several weeks worth of laundry had piled up and I had no work clothes. Max was running out of socks. In a burst of efficiency, I threw a load in and went up to make dinner. After homework and bath and bedtime I went down to move the clean clothes to the dryer. I put them in, turned the dial, hit the button…and then nothing. The dryer coughed a little. Strained a bit. But it would not spin. Incedulous, I tried again. And again. I checked plugs and connections and then, exhausted I gave up. A good nights sleep would do me well. I thought the same would be true for my dryer.
The next morning I was peppy. By the dryer still made the same cough. Still whined before growing silent.
We are on a very tight budget. I have practically no cushion for moments such as these. And sure enough, when I checked, other emergencies which had come earlier had eaten what little was left. I could not pay to have someone come and fix my dryer. Not now. It would have to wait.
This was not such a crisis. I delight in line dried clothes. They can be stiff perhaps but there is nothing like the smell of the outdoors, of the crisp air, on my shirts, my pajamas, my pillowcases. When Juan and I went to Mexico, I handwashed and line dried everything I brought with me on my last day and then rationed those clothes for months–breathing in the scent of a place I loved so much, a scent that did not come from mechanical dryers but from clothes hanging, swaying and drying in the Oaxacan breeze. I returned home from every trip with the intention of hanging a clothes line but each time convenience and lack of time got in my way.
This morning, as my anxious mind worried over bills, and dirty clothes and the impossibility of having time to wait for a repairman even if I could scrape together the cash, the simplest of solutions jumped to my brain. $10 for clothesline and clothes pins, sunshine and winter breezes, a reduced gas and electric bill, and sunshine infused clothes.
I recently read that Universe is always doing its best with what it has at its disposal. Always trying to arrange the moments, no matter how chaotic and sad and tragic for the best possible outcome. I could stomp my feet at our bad luck or I could hang a clothes line and delight in sundried clothes.
I chose the later.
What crazy, horrible, inconveniences have lead you to a place you always wanted to go? This wide eyed dreamer is searching and would love to hear your stories.
Grilled cheese is Max’s favorite food. I make it a lot and for any meal. Sometimes, what he wants most in the morning is toasty buttery bread with cheese. Who can blame him?
Max is also the pickiest of eaters. Potatoe bread, not whole wheat. Yellow American cheese, not swiss or cheddar. And real butter. Not margarine or bacon grease or olive oil.
So I go about making his sandwiches with love. I butter the bread. Use my cast-iron frying pan. Set the heat on the gas stove to 6 so as to not scorch the butter or bread. I layer on the cheese. Two slices–carefully arranged. Watch. Wait. Flip.
But I have learned that all these steps mean nothing if I miss one crucial ingredient. Attention. I have learned all too often that the difference between a perfectly grilled, brownish delight of toasty deliciousness and a blackened, overly crunchy sandwich that needs to be scraped is just a short breath. All too often, I have attempted to multi-task my morning only to suddenly lift my head to the faint whifs of smoke, the sizzling sound that tells me the sandwich has gone too far.
The art of making a perfectly grilled grilled cheese comes down to this: Paying Attention.
I can’t imagine a better lesson to remind myself of every morning.
For the last several years, it has been my New Year’s ritual. Encouraged by the lovely Jen Lemen, I pick just one word to be my anthem for the coming year. Its a word that holds in it all the boundless possibility of 365 fresh clean days ahead. Its a word to whisper to myself as I wake up. A word to help me channel what my heart needs, a touchpoint to keep it front and center.
In 2007, as I was recovering from the break-up of my marriage, my word was RENEWAL. In 2008, as I moved forward beyond that crisis my word was BLOSSOM. Last year, as I began the process of a strangely beautiful, challenging inner journey I chose the word TRUST. In all these cases, I found that the year magically delivered the lessons, experiences and opportunities that allowed me to sink into that word. These experiences did not always present as I imagined they might, but they unfolded perfectly nonetheless. My word becomes a prayer, a mantra, a device that immediately allows me to access deep wisdom and cherished dreams.
My experience with my one word has been so powerful that choosing it this year felt both thrilling and terrifying. But a word, is just that, a word. It is not magical alone. It is my awareness, my love, my action in its name that makes it so.
Nevertheless, at the end of last year, I sat in a driveway with the same friend who gave me this exercise, fretting over an appropriate choice. I told her that this year I needed to learn about ease, not the kind of ease that is associated with lying around eating chocolate while someone else cleans, but the ease that comes from grace, lack of resistance and effortless motion. I wanted to glide through the next year, instead of the “stumble stumble trip” sort of hike that many of my adventures have resembled. This is the year I want to learn to get out of my own way and see what develops when I drop my fears and excuses. This is the year I want to learn to stop assuming everything will be an uphill battle and to enjoy what unfolds effortlessly when I let me be me.
She barely missed a beat. SKATE.
What?….SKATE
I am a bit wobbly on skates. Once upon a time I knew how to glide about, but now I can be tentative and restrained at the rink. Old bones, many years away from the ice, they have all made me a bit wary. Max skates circles around me while I take frequent breaks to rest my weary ankles. I wondered if this word would really do. Sure, SKATE speaks of speed and grace and forward motion–but for others, not for me!
But then I remembered something that happened last February when Max and I went to New Hampshire. My friend Marcy loaned me her hockey equipment and we took to a frozen pond for a pick up game with our boys. I skated on hockey skates for the first time in my life. I tripped and fell and then I started to try things I hadn’t ever tried before because with all that padding, the fear had gone away. It was silly and glorious and while it didn’t transform me as a skater I learned enough that it changed how I approached the rink next time. Looking back on it, that Sunday afternoon was one of the most joyful, light and spirited days of my year. It was a day of laughter, of learning and of –yes–ease. That feeling was exactly what I was searching for this year. That bright blue Sunday afternoon feeling, when the feeling of grace and possibilty came my way, when falling stopped phasing me but instead became a teacher and trying became doing.
Skate is a word that speaks to me of letting go. Skate speaks to me of childhood, and crystal blue skies and forward motion. Skate speaks of speed and abandon and laughter.
So SKATE, I choose you as my word. I welcome you in and hope you bring a sense of ease, grace, fluidity. I know you will bring falls, and bumps, but I will remember they are teachers and like my hockey suited self, I will bounced up from them unharmed. In fact, they will make me laugh. I look forward to gliding along and seeing where we go together, you and I.
Now, you, tell me…What is your word for 2010? What do you wish to welcome in to your year?
