Originally posted August 16, 2007
At last, on Thursday, I rise before the sun. Lisa stumbles down with coffee in hand and drags me out of bed. Together we pull the kayaks into the water, though first we inspect them thoroughly with flashlights, making sure there are no sleeping spiders to tickle our feet. And then with few words we push off onto an ocean of glass and mist.
The lake is still. Only one lone bird is awake and singing. Fog hangs down silent and heavy over the pines—the distant shore but a watercolor—an idea of a forest—a memory of one long ago.
As I move silently I half expect the Arthurian lady of the lake to appear and whisper something wise, perhaps ancient mother secrets of creation. My paddle dips into the water. But the ripples disappear almost instantly as we glide glide glide along the lake, paddling to the middle. The eastern sky is becoming blue now and then from behind the Monet pines fingers of orange reach up, like a hand offering hope. Then the great globe rises brilliant and true—a drop of primary color oil paint on a watercolor masterpiece: brilliant, garish, warm.
We sigh, Lisa and I. We break our silence to talk of metaphors of God and sun. I point out that every ancient culture worships the sun in one way or another because of moments just like these when a dark night instantly becomes day. More birds are in the sky and trees now waking their children and their neighbors with hymns to this hope—this promise that we have one more chance to live. The mist is fading fast, giving way to a brilliant day of blue skies.
I breathe in the smell of pine and cedar and whisper thank you. It is late before we beach the boats. Activity has broken out now on shore. I enter the cabin to see my child raise his head and smile—“Good morning, mama!” I pick him up and wrap him in his blankets, snuggling him in my lap. “Yes,” I breathe into his little ear. “it is”
Hearts are funny things.
They carry in their memory, the echo, the footprint of every kiss, every caress, every sorrow, every hurt. Hearts remember like elephants–they remember blissful freefalls and hard impacts. Each of these memories lives in the tissue, wordlessly. There is no language but the muscle memory is clear and rises up through our hopes and our fears. I have come to believe that hope and fear is nothing but those old memories living on and through in our hearts.
For hope is nothing more than a search for something we may have lost somewhere between the time we left the great blissful stage of oneness and now. And fear is nothing more than the scar tissue left from a loss–The acknowledgment that maybe just maybe our beloved will disappear, that our hearts will stop feeling this love, that it will all fall apart, forever.
This past year for me has been a year of yearning. I couldn’t name it at the time, but now standing apart from it somewhat I can see. My heart beat stretching between hope and a sort of fear.
I had always associated fear with anxiety–that somehow fear meant that I was in a deep scary place. But looking back now I just see that fear is the other side of the coin called hope. Even in my happiest yang-i-est, sunniest days that hope fear combo was ever present.
As I fell head over heels in love with my tribe this year, the people in my life who make my life so rich and full, I found my heart so full of a cocktail of hope and fear that at times the bursting feeling felt so distracting. With every perfect moment that passed I felt my heart holding on to, hoping that that perfect moment would be followed by many many more just like it . As each perfect moment passed, I found my heart fearing that if I let go of this moment I may never see another just as lovely. The clinging and the hoping and the attaching that this is how it would be forever…always like this…That was the beat of my heart. Expand into hope, contract into fear, expand into hope and not even realize it is happening. Bumbum…bumbum…Silently unnoticed like my own heart beat.
Looking back though I can feel how much energy this hope and fear sapped from me. Looking back I can see what it cost me, this yearning. I can see with 20/20 hindsight.
A series of things have brought me to a place where I can observe how hope and fear play out in my heart, in my soul, in my hardest moments and my best days. A series of things have happened that showed me that hope, fear and attachment do not change anything. The universe spins. The world evolves. Moments come and dissipate and change and we cannot hold onto any of them no matter how lovely or how frightening. The moments dissolve seemlessly into another and no amount of hope or fear is going to change the next one from coming.
Letting go of hope and fear seems to be my soul’s work these days. Seeing how omnipresent it is, recognizing that every time I think I have let it go, I uncover a new layer, more subtle, less stark, but there nonetheless. Letting go of hope and fear means truly letting go of my attachment to the outcomes. I wonder if I ever really can let go of all my attachments. I seem to think that if I can just let that last layer burn away that my heart might be finally be free to expand outside the confines of all that hope/fear scar tissue.
When I was a little girl, I used to dream of flying. I dreamed I was running along the top of the hill behind my elementary school, the hill where we used to go sledding, and that I would throw my body into the wind and it would catch me and I would fly.
I loved that dream. Every now and again I have a similar one. I dream that I am running and that I throw myself into a void, off a cliff, into the wind and I am lifted and that I soar.
I thought about this dream all day today as I contemplated this big word of the day TRUST. Ever since I was a child trust has been my own person Mt Everest, my own Rubicon, my biggest worst.
It is amazing to me how trust is so multilayered. How we can trust someone with our bodies but not necessarily with our thoughts. How we can trust someone with the key to our home, but we are not sure we will ever give them the key to our heart. How we can trust someone with our safety, but not necessarily our souls.
How we can trust a little and convince ourselves that we are trusting completely.
What does it mean to love fearlessly? Truly fearlessly. To really trust completely. Do I trust anyone completely? Do I even trust myself completely?
I think if I did it must be like flying.
I think it must be jumping into the wind and knowing that I will be carried.
I think it is the trust that the wind is strong enough to lift me.
In my dreams I never test the wind. In my dreams the air does not need to assure me that it will catch me. In my dreams I leap unafraid and I soar free. In my dreams I fly and I am carried to places I had no intention of traveling to but I trust the currents and the air and I know where it is going is somehow right–always right. And I know that my landing will be soft.
I know I am being called to fly. I feel it, the currents beckoning to me. All that is left is for me to throw myself on the mercy of the wind. And it comes down to this–whether I can lift my arms and trust the unseen forces to lift me higher and higher into the life I am called to.
Whether I can trust.
I have been trying to write for days now about the experience of turning corners, of coming back home, or starting to grow a little lighter. I have been trying but words have been escaping me, so profound and deep and yes scary this experience is, this coming home to myself. I don’t know how to write about something so big.
I stayed for days in a dark quiet place, knowing that the reason I was there was that I was facing a great big fear–the fear that is my great foe, the monster that lives in my closet and hides under my bed. I felt that if I could stay there in the dark and not hide under the covers, if I could stare her down, sit with her and maybe get to know her that maybe I would just finally get rid of her. And so I did. I sat with the fear of being abandoned. I sat with the fear of being left vulnerable. I sat and I sat. And I felt the fear flood me and fill me and rise up into my throat. I had no energy for triumph or overcoming. So I just sat.
And then, the day after the full moon, as the moon started to wane, a tiny light started to grow in my heart. A light that allowed itself to spark when a friend invited me out to a swanky party and I allowed myself to say yes. Coming up for air and being with my dear ones, allowing them to express their love in the simplest of gestures–shared scotch, stolen conversation, a late night walk–it a gave me peace. It whispered to me that I knew the way home. I did. I really did.
The light grew stronger over the weekend as I sat at the pool, flanked by two of my favorite guys. One who brought me a latte, fresh from the coffee place down the street, another who loaned me his magazine, played with my child and brought me bottled water. I noticed that though I had not left my chair for hours, all my needs were met and I felt held, cradled in the simplest manner, like a child.
It grew the night I ate two dinners. One with my child, his friend and mine. To strangers we must have looked like we were a family on a Sunday night outing but we were pieces of three families merged into one. We were family–just not the nuclear kind. We were my family. We were out but I felt at home. Later that night I ate the best steamed mussels I have had in a long time and salad from a neighborhood garden, roasted asparagus and ripe yellow tomatoes–I was not hungry for food but I was for the love with which it was prepared, the pleasure with which it was plated just for me, there spontaneously. I ate it with a side of laughter and a bit of girl talk and felt a bit brighter all the while.
Two days ago I sat at an acupuncture appointment and told my partner in healing, my beloved teacher and guide about my descent into the fear of abandonment and my humble return home. She sat quiet for a moment, contemplating what I had told her and then she asked me to think about something while she left the room. She asked me to think hard and to answer from my deepest darkest place. She asked me if it was OK to be needy.
By the time she got back tears streaked my cheeks. I wanted to say yes, for when crisis has rocked my world, I have appreciated those who sheltered me and took care of my needs. I wanted to say yes because I loved to be there for those who needed me, their neediness was not a burden but a gift to me–a gift that allowed me to be my best self.
But I couldn’t say that it was OK for me to be needy. Because in the end, I want to believe that I, and I alone am all that I need. Needing others, allowing them to love me meant that maybe they wouldn’t and I would go without. Incomplete.
I wanted to believe, I needed to believe that I could do it all on my own–that I would never need to depend on anyone again–that I would never need fear abandonment. That I could pull the covers over my head and make the monster disappear.
She looked at me with great love in her eyes but her voice was stern and strong. She essentially said this: Meg, when you give and give and do not allow those who love you to give back to you, when you take care of the needy but do not allow yourself to be needy in return, you rob your community and you set yourself out of balance. And the universe is going to kick you in the ass to set it right again. You need to receive love and if the only time you are going to allow yourself to be loved is when you are recovering from a crisis then you will be hit with crisis after crisis. Its just that simple.
The thing you need to do to heal is simple but not easy: Allow yourself to be loved.
Allow yourself to be loved.
It is so easy for me to love others, it is so easy for me to see the beauty that they bring to the world and to appreciate it for the rough, cranky and imperfect gift it is but frankly if I am completely honest I have a lot of doubts about whether they will love me in return. Not because I don’t see myself as loveable but because, perhaps I doubt whether I can count on them to rise to the occasion of loving me completely.
I trust myself to love them, but I do not trust them to love me back. I dance around the doubts, while I make excuses for my dear ones–all the reasons why love, fearless true love is hard. I tell myself all the reasons why I shouldn’t expect it while I prepare myself for disappointment. I tell myself how hard it is for them to see me completely. I compensate in my mind and in my heart for all the ways I anticipate that they will let me down.
I really sell my dear ones short.
And yet, every time I need them so many of them rise, rise, rise to the occasion. Not all of them mind you, but the good ones. The ones I call tribe. They always do in the smallest and simplest of ways. A shared drink, a sweet song, a movie ticket, a tea, painting my toenails, making me a salad, making my bed, bringing me a latte, loaning me a book, telling me a joke, sending me an email, a phone call, a secret whispered message while lighting a candle for me. There are the big ways too–the ways so big, and wide and open. They rise, they always rise.
And if I am honest, they rise everyday whether I need them or not. And maybe the one who fails to see completely is me. Maybe it is I who fails to see them and how they would cradle me if only, if only I let them.
And it is this, this simply complex and impossibly easy thing, that is blocking me.
As we talked, as I struggled to wrap my head and heart around her words, as I struggled to understand how I failed my loved ones by not allowing them to love, the most amazing thing happened.
Over her shoulder a rainbow appeared. It stretched fully across the horizon and filled the picture window. I stopped her mid sentence and told her to turn around. We both walked to the window, with mouths agape and gazed at the rainbow. And then, we witnessed a second rainbow hover over the first. It was a miracle, nothing I had ever seen. It was brilliant. It was perfect.
That pair of rainbows stayed with us through the rest of my appointment. As she took my pulses and inserted needles. As I lay on the table, I gazed out the window at its brillance. It was a message, a punctuation mark, a song, a miracle. It said YES. It said WHAT SHE SAID. It said TRUST. It said OK, DAMN IT IF YOU NEED A SIGN HERE IT IS.
As I drove home I was sure that I was changed forever. And in some ways I suppose I am. But in other ways I see how this fear is sticking with me still, how stubborn I am. How hard it is to let go of fear. How this journey does not end at the rainbow, but how the rainbow is just the beginning.
Tonight, the one who loves my child so dearly got another lecture from me about how he needs to let me know if its getting to be too much, this adoration, this affection, this responsibility. He looked at me with patience but I could see he was tired of this conversation and I saw in his weary face how I was selling him short again. How I was doubting how much he could love. How I failed to see him with his big heart for what it was–big and wide open. How scared I was that his love for Max would change. How scared I was that if we asked too much of him, his love for us would change.
And I asked myself, can I trust my dear ones to love us completely? Can I trust them to see me and still stay? Can I leap unafraid into their arms? Can I really do that?
And I thought about the phrase, FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY. And I wondered if I could? Really. What would it cost? Everything and nothing and everything again.
I don’t know how to end this post. Because I don’t know how to write about coming home. It don’t know how to write about something that feels so big and scary and beautiful and bright. I don’t know how to end something that speaks only about beginnings.
So I will just begin again. And begin again. And again.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always —A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be wellWhen the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.-TS Eliot, The Four Quartets
Last night I sat with a powerful woman drinking coffee in an anonymous strip mall. It could have been anywhere in America but it was halfway between where she and I were. A place to meet. And I we sat and talked she told me stories and I remembered some of mine.
I remembered being pregnant with Max. I remembered how tired I was, how much work it was just to be. How the simple act of walking from one place to the other would require me to rest, put my feet up, retreat. I remembered how on one hand I was doing nothing to actually grow this child and yet how I was doing everything to grow him. How this very creative act left me with no energy for anything else and yet…how it felt so strangely not me.
I remembered the not knowing, the fear, the waiting. I remembered the feeling that the end would never come or that rather I had no idea what the end would actually be like. How would I be as a mother? What would this child be like? What would it be like to cradle, nurse, nurture this child? How would it impact me as a woman? How would it impact my marriage? The answers to these questions were imminent but nevertheless hidden, unknowable, unfathomable.
I was changing before my very eyes, but at the same time I couldn’t see how. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
I was changing before everyone else’s eyes and friends and strangers couldn’t help but comment on the changes. The shape of my belly, the look in my eyes, the thickness of my hair. They all saw the changes but we all acknowledged these changes to be temporary. I had no idea what would come next. How life would be forever changed by this journey I was on.
I remembered the day that I sat in the airport and thought my water had broken. I called the midwife from my cell phone trying to keep calm. I was only 5 and 1/2 months along. She was calm and cool even as she told me the news. It could have been my water…But it could also equally have been a simple, small, harmless infection. I asked her what I should do–Should I get to the emergency room? Rush somewhere to save my baby? She said, “No”. There was no use in rushing. If my water had broken there would have been no saving. There was nothing to do but get on the plane and go home and sleep, hope that labor would not come. In the morning they would check me. A good outcome was all in the hands of faith–out of my control.
Pregnancy–this metaphor has sat heavy on my mind as I think here I am, pregnant again. Not with a child, but with a new life. I am in the words of my dear friend drinking her latte, “pregnant with myself”, pregnant with this next phase of my journey. I am pregnant with a life I cannot see, I cannot touch though I feel it stir inside me now and again. I wonder about it but now its out of my hands, mostly. I try to picture what it will look like, what it will feel like to hold this life in my hands and I know that there is no way I can imagine it, no matter how hard I try. I might as well just rest with my feet up for the process of getting to here has exhausted me so. I am doing nothing and yet I am tired. I am so tired. I have no energy left for anything else. Not for writing or playing my guitar or even gardening today. I am just so tired from the act of creating myself anew.
I think tonight about how so many generations of women spent their whole lives in the cycle of pregnancy, birth and the celebration of new life. I realize that now I am not that different, that none of us are. And while birth control or choices about family size have changed the physical realities of pregnancy, if we are honest we are in a constant cycle if only metaphorically–pregnant with possibilities and dreams, birthing of one’s self, creativity, and celebrating a new life, new growth, new beginning. Of becoming new again.
Last summer, on one steamy August night I sat on the couch. I was having another late night talk with Jackie. She lives just down the way. I wanted to sit with her on her porch and drink a glass of wine and tell stories. But Max was sleeping and it was late and I am, after all a single mom. “What you need”, she said, “is a roommate.” It was a leap for me to agree with her since I had come to value my solitude in the years since Juan had left but I leapt and I had to agree with her.
****
My roommate Odette and I were sitting hunched over the kitchen counter, counting cash and making plans for what to do to deal with her daughter Grace’s diagnosis with TB, the fact that her younger child Lillian too had been exposed, that her entire family back home in Africa was at risk for developing the disease. “Do you think everyone in the family should be tested?” I asked her. “Yes,” she said, claiming her power as a matriarch. “Yes, I do.” Max looked at me with wide eyes, “Mom–will a TB test hurt?” I looked at him shocked. “We’re not getting tested baby,”. “But why not,” he said, his eyes still wide with fear, “We are her are family.”
Yes, we are. I think about the crazy path that took us from that moment in August to this moment now–this recognition that we are more than friends, more than housemates. That we are family. And I think, I never ever would have ended up here had it not been for a wild crazy leap.
****
Back in August, Jackie and I walked the dogs and plotted about how I would find a roommate. Someone who would accept our terms but who would be nevertheless a good fit for us. But I needed someone who would trade heavily reduced rent for the regular babysitting and for agreeing to stay home so I could run over to Jackie’s for a glass of wine after Max had gone to sleep. Where would I find someone like that? The thought of finding anyone who fit the bill seemed downright impossible.
****
Tonight, Odette and sat at the table eating ice cream. We looked at each other and exclaimed, “What would I do with out you?” “NO…what would I have done without YOU?” “No what WOULD I HAVE DONE WITHOUT YOU?” Neither of us can get over the miracle of how we stumbled into finding each other when we needed exactly what the other had to offer.
The story of how she came into our life was magical, a story which will need to be told another day. I never needed to post an ad, I never needed to interview candidates. I found her and she needed a place to stay. We made the decision in a half hour sitting in the living room of a mutual friend. Cheap rent in exchange for cheap babysitting seemed like a really good deal. But what I never really understood was that when she walked into our house and settled in that I had found a long lost sister. That when she moved in she would bring sisterhood with her in her suitcase.
When Odette walked into our house back in September we both took a leap of faith. We had no idea what this experiment would have in store for us, how much we would each gain from this arrangement. We were two strangers who would have to deal with each other in pretty extreme and unusual circumstances.
She came to our house searching for her freedom and in coming gave me mine too. She came searching for a safe spot but ended up providing a safe space for Max. She came looking for a place to rest her head, but she instead has offered a shoulder where I rest on the nights when I feel weary or sad.
I am rambling here, not quite sure what or how I want to say. I think it something about leaping–about listening to your heart when it tells you to jump. I think it is about recognizing doors that open intentionally, answering prayers–about realizing that life unfolds in patterns that may not make sense at the time but with hindsight open with perfectly timed synchronicity.
The blogosphere is full this week of stories of leaping into sacred, scary places. Of feeling the fear and doing it anyhow. Of trusting and relaxing into what seems absolutely the right place to go. Of saying, “I got the life that I needed.”
I am not always sure why I got this crazy life instead of the one I had always imagined I would have. But one thing is abundantly clear to me as I get myself ready for sleep this night.
I am grateful for the leaping.
Late last night, my stomach full of yummy, yeasty homemade pizza, I lay down my head to sleep. Sleep was not coming though and so I was able to indulge (thanks to the magic of cheap phone cards) in a three hour marathon conversation with my dear friend Jen down under.
It amazes me, even now, that she and I found each other. We live literally half a world away from each other but our hearts beat at the same frequency. I can’t quite figure out how the universe matched us up, but in some ways, it almost doesn’t matter how. The fact that we are connected now is all that really is important.
Getting off the phone with Jenni I was drunk on the notion of possibility.
But I had called her in an impossibly bad mood. My last several weeks have been about meeting obstacle after obstacle–many of them homemade by yours truly–but obstacles none the less. I feel bruised and battered from the onslaught of “no good news”. I am a little bird flying into windows I didn’t imagine were there. My nose is sore from pressing itself up against the glass in so many of my little life venues.
The message I have been getting from the universe is this: Wait. Sit. No. And I have been angry. I want to experience: Now. Go. Yes.
These last couple of weeks I have started to sullenly accept the wait, sit, no. I am adjusting to this season, to this reality, to this place I am. This quieter place. This space of not now. But perhaps too much. Because last night I realized that I had given up on Now. Go. Yes. I had moved into a grieving spot for it.
Letting go of the need to move forward feels healthy to me. Closing myself off to the possibility of moving forward does not. Its such a fine, practically invisible line, but once I cross it I know it. It is the the border between peace and despair.
My friend Jenni, she knows about this line too and together we talked about the challenge of staying grounded in reality while still staying open the possibility that reality is going to shift and change. Indeed, it always does. When reality is not so rosy, it is easy to only consider the negative possibilities. We whisper to ourselves instructions to come to terms with the possibility that we might not get well, might not accomplish our goal, might not have a fairy tale ending, might not reach the finish line. But we feel so committed to helping our brains consider the negative that we refuse to give equal due to the other possibilities–we might get healthy, we might accomplish it and more, we might have the ending we hoped for or something better, we might reach the finish line and keep on moving.
I asked Jenni why we do this to ourselves? Why do we only consider the negative? Is it that we don’t want to be disappointed when the negative possibility comes true? But really will we be any less disappointed when the time comes? And by only considering that negative possibility have we actually taken a step to make sure that it is the only one that will come true? In an effort to prepare our hearts for the worst, do we actually start to ensure that the worst is what we will face?
Somehow keeping open to all possibilities seems to be the lesson of my week. To recognize that every moment, in fact every breath provides an opportunity for a new possibility to unfold. To learn to stay in whatever this moment brings knowing that the next brings a brand new world.
My friend Maya needs our help. The other day when wandering through the office she told me a story that made me weep. I need to tell it here and ask you all to help us.
Last Wednesday, two of her family’s oldest and dearest friends, Waheed and Nusrat Hashmi, an elderly Pakistani couple, were ripped from their homeby Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Hashmis were placed in detention near Cleveland, where they remain, clothed in orange jumpsuits, unable to see each other. They are likely to be deported this week.
The Hashmi’s story is a story of the system failing. Plain and simple, it is a story of it all going wrong. Dr. Waheed Hashmi legally entered the United States in 1973 as a Fulbright Scholar. Since then, he has worked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and with immigration attorneys to ensure that he and his family have a chance to attain permanent residency in the United States. He followed the rules every step of the way.
Over a period of approximately 35 years Dr. Hashmi, a scientist, and Ms. Nusrat Hashmi, a floral designer, have lovingly raised their children, held jobs, paid taxes, contributed towards social security, and invested their time and talents to build a better Toledo community.Due to a series of circumstances and occurrences beyond their control, including oversights on the part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, some of which were revealed in documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, the Hashmis have faced several obstacles to attaining permanent residency but they never gave up hope of achieving what all immigrants want–a decent life for themselves and their children. However, as law abiding people, when they recently realized that their dream of staying here could not be realized, they voluntarily made plans to leave and return home to a country they had not been home for more than three decades. But those plans were interrupted last week when ICE showed up at their door and arrested them.
If the authorities had taken the time to explore the details of the Hashmis’ case, they would have learned that after Dr. Hashmi retired from the University of Toledo, the couple began the process of selling their home and leaving for Pakistan where a job was waiting for Dr. Hashmi. They were never given the chance to prove that they were in the process of returning to Pakistan. Instead, public resources were used to lock up this elderly couple who posed absolutely no threat or risk of flight.
At the Maple Heights City Jail, Dr. and Ms. Hashmi are being held in separate quarters, are unable to see each other, and their interaction with their children has been severely restricted–they have been allowed only 20-minute visitations during which they can only speak with their children via a telephone and across a glass screen. The trauma of the detention threatens the health of Dr. and Ms. Hashmi–both of whom have serious health problems.
As it stands now, they will never again see their home in Toledo. They won’t be able to say their goodbyes–to their home, their community of 35 years, not even to their children, who won’t even be allowed to hug their parents before they leave.
It is simply inhumane to hold two elderly people in custody for no good reason, especially when they were voluntarily planning to depart the U.S. The Hashmi detention is a colossal waste of precious tax dollars and does not make us any safer. ICE should lock up those who would do us harm, not senior citizens whose misfortune has brought them into the grip of a dysfunctional immigration system. ICE needs to do the right thing and release Dr. and Ms. Hashmi.
Please read more about the case and consider signing on to a letter to Julie Myers, the head of ICE. Maya and her family , are hoping that if enough of us speak up together the Hashmi’s can be released from detention and allowed to close up their house, say their goodbyes and start their new life with dignity. The unjust detention of the Hashmis is not at all an unusual case. The Hashmi family hopes that bringing attention to their case will help the push for immigration reform.
You can get to the online petition that Maya set up by clicking here. Please take a moment to go there and read their story. This should not be. It should not be. It should not be.
UPDATE:
The Hashmis have been released! Our joint efforts on many fronts—grassroots, legal, and political—sent a powerful message to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Today is the start of a magical weekend. It is a weekend that already is brimming with love and community and kindness.
It is the start of the Bloggers for Jeni Auction. Please click over here to view some of the amazing objects in the store. There are beautiful prints offered by some talented Shutter Sisters. There are adorable baby clothes, a necklace made by this superhero, beautiful hand carved wooden bowls, products to pamper oneself. There is one special offering for a comfy day with one of my favorite authors Karen Maezen Miller. The auction will be up and running through Thursday May 1.
All of the money raised will go to support our dear friend Jennifer Ballantyne, a courageous cancer warrior and her 6 year old son Jack. Money will be used to help Jen get access to care not covered by insurance as well as provide a trust for little Jack, a charming boy who sings love songs to his mother each night.
Here are some things you can do to help spread the word and help us create some miracles for Jen and Jack:
1) Go over to the auction, find something special and bid.
2) Let friends and family know about the auction.
3) If you blog, please post about the auction and include a link to it.
Wishing you a weekend full of miracles and magic.
Last autumn, in search of rituals that would help me kick off the next phase of my life, I stumbled upon a little Chinese one. Its called something like the 49 wishes. A friend of mine had told me about it once and I had kept it stored away in my brain for the right time, the right place. Essentially it goes like this. You write a wish or a prayer on a piece of paper 49 times. You burn that paper and scatter the ashes to the wind. You do this for 49 days straight. Its a special kind of magic, setting your heart and mind on something–like a mantra. Putting it out into the universe and having faith that it will be delivered. For me this ritual was like plowing a field, making my heart ready for something to take root.
For 49 days I wrote this little phrase down “FEARLESS TRUE LOVE”. I haven’t told anyone this before really (except maybe Jackie) partly because I didn’t know what it meant and didn’t know how to answer the inevitable questions. Was I asking for permission to love myself fearlessly? Was I opening my heart to a rockin’ love affair? Seeking the gift of soulsistership and friendship? Maybe…all of it? Maybe something else entirely? I didn’t quite know what it meant to me but something inside me said “Just ask…the rest will follow”.
In the act of all that writing I must have drawn a magical door. It is a door through which people now seem parade into our life, boldly changing it with the blink of an eyelash. Some are folks who have known us awhile and love us well. But others just a year ago were strangers. Total strangers. In some cases they dropped by for a short while and left us with gifts to last a lifetime. In other cases, they moved in and continue to help us grow and stretch and blossom in new ways. I long to tell the stories of these strangers who have become dear friends and of the certain kind of magic that happens when people lead with wide open hearts. This spring I might just start.
This week, one of my favorite recently former strangers, wrote a series about how to encourage creativity in children. In one particular post, she urges us to teach our children to welcome strangers. I loved this post and embraced the wisdom in it. I have done it from the minute Max was born, sometimes against my better judgment. But I did it because I want to teach him that the world is good. Now don’t get me wrong, I have taught him well how to keep safe (do not go anywhere with strangers and always follow your gut when someone strikes you as icky and weird, and always stay close to a grown up you know and trust). I want him to know the joy of welcoming people into our lives and seeing life just open up in amazing ways. I want him to wake up prepared to be surprised about the wonderful things life has delivered to our door. Strangers are a critical ingredient to a creative life–whether you are a child or a 38 year old mama. So we talk to new people as we walk downtown, do our grocery shopping or play in the park. We ask questions. We follow-up. Its been life-changing.
On particular version of this magical portal for me has been this blog. I am forever amazed at who I have discovered coming through this way. I have found myself encircled in a community of women, strong, beautiful, brilliant women–soul sisters really. Women who have brought out the best in my writing, who laugh at my stories and who help me shoulder grief. It is a gift.
I have lately been particularly interested in connecting in “real life” with you amazing women I have discovered typing away. I want to know your stories. I want to hear how you ended up where you ended up. I want to invite you in and pour you tea and listen as you tell me what you dream about. Whether you live just down the street, up the coast a bit, across the country in a windy place or sunny space, or in a far away magical land, I want to make tea possible. Something tells me in the coming months, these and so many more wonderful creative women will be leaping through my door, virtually and really truly and I want to celebrate that, honor it and invite you all in for tea.
So here is a challenge–Leave me a comment on this post and let me know you are here. On Friday, Max and I will put the names of all the beautiful you who comment here in a hat. We will pick one of you lucky friends and will send you this beautiful hand painted mug (pictured above) made by Kara a new found blogging friend whose art speaks to me of magic and sisterhood.
Howdy stranger…Come on in and have some tea. We have a lot of catching up to do.
A little postscript: A shout out to Laura and all you other Philadelphia Flyers fans. Your boys skated well tonight. While I cheered for my Caps I have to call ‘em like I see ‘em and that was some rockin’ hockey played by the orange and black today, especially by Martin Biron. It will be an interesting week as we move into game three all tied up…
