08.08.08
The boys were running around on the soccer field and Marcy and I were wrapped in a blanket, trying to stave off the
At the top of the mountain, a lake had sprung—rainwater filling a hole created by a glacier or perhaps from years and years of falling water. While the children, skipped rocks on the shores of their own private pool, Marcy and I were on a mission of our own, finding a quiet place for our ritual to mark the day. We found a tiny crevice—somewhat protected from the breeze that was blowing the clouds around. And we gathered all the children around.
I pulled our precious cargo out of my backpack. The wishes we had made. Each of us had written or drawn our most precious wishes (no telling!) and folded them up tight. We placed each of them into the tiny space between the rocks and all leaned in tight. Marcy and I instructed the kids to think about their wishes with all of their might. And then she and I pulled out a book of matches.
Since that night I have dreamt of nothing but magic. Wild, Technicolor dreams of flying and knitting needles turned into magic wands. I have dreamed of great love of my child and of bright yellow gingerbread homes and the dear friends who live in them. I have dreamt of healers, and teachers and loved ones all doing amazing things in my little dream world. I have woken to find myself sure, as I have ever been, that Max and I are living a magical life—a life full of wonder and joy and surprises. Whether or not our wishes come true I am sure that I have been blessed by the magical day of 8.
Originally posted Sept 27, 2007
Tonight it rained. I sat in wonder and listened to the sound of the rain against my windows. I stood out on the front steps and let me feet get damp. It has been such a dry summer. The rain smelled miraculous and hopeful, the harbinger of good things. Life giving and cleansing. Just what we needed.
Nighttime in Rio, just after the storm passed
I have thought alot about my trip to Rio –the one I took two Octobers ago. We took this photo our first night there. Eddie’s friend, an ex-pat who had settled in this magical city, had taken us for a walking tour and showed us his favorite spot, a park across a lake from the hustle and bustle of this city. A rainstorm rolled in suddenly, unexpectedly, catching us on the wrong side of the park. It fell in sheets soaking us all as we ran for cover under some trees, laughing. I laughed harder than I had in months. At that moment, laughter bubbled up unexpectedly, as unstoppable as the rain. It was so absurd and silly and joyful. We were dressed to the nines for a night out on the town, with water running down our noses, with my chic outfit dripping and misshapen, my “oh-so-Rio” sandals squishing and making ridiculous noises. It was the funniest thing ever to be in Rio in the warm rain. I jumped in a puddle and lost my shoe. Pretty soon we were all laughing because I couldn’t stop laughing
I had felt so heavy and stressed when I got to Brazil. I was at the height of my financial panic and I had just started to wrap my heart around the idea that Juan was not coming back. I arrived at the airport after flying all night with only $20 American and a three day training to run in Spanish. I went to the cash machine at the airport to take out money for taxi fare and found my account was overdrawn. My cell phone was out of batteries. I had forgotten my credit card at home. I had no idea what I would do next. I went up to the money exchange counter and cashed in my $20. I hoped it would be enough to get me to the hotel where I could regroup and figure out my next move. I thought I had hit rock bottom. I felt so alone, like such a failure. To keep myself from breaking down in this strange city, I repeated a mantra “It is going to work out all right” and then I added a fervent “please” and threw in a prayer for good measure.
The taxi fare was exactly what I had in my wallet.
I got to the hotel and they told me my room was already paid for. I slept a heavy deep dreamless sleep. I woke up to find lunch. A a friend of a friend living in Sao Paolo who had come to meet me. A fully charged cell phone and a Dad on the other end able to wire some cash to get me through the week. And best of all when Eddie arrived that evening he had two airplane tickets to Rio.
Four days later I was standing in the rain in Rio, laughing as the water poured over my toes and ran down my fingers. I remember thinking that the rain washed some of my grief away that night, just let it slip right away and run into this lake, leaving me feeling a tiny bit lighter and ready to start healing.
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”
originally posted August 2007
Its rained a little everyday now. Not all day, just a bit. Enough to drive us all indoors for awhile to pop popcorn, or eat lunch inside before the sun comes out from behind the clouds again. And I have too admit, I have been a bit draggy and gray myself. Not all day. But I’ve been a bit more tired and grouchy than last year. A bit more foggy and tired.
Last year, my first year at the lake it didn’t rain at all. It was a picture perfect week—for both of us “the lake” and me.
Last year, the lake and I, we were like new lovers putting on our very best for each other. Every day I woke full of energy to witness her brilliant sunrise, the glassy stillness of the water at daybreak. Every day she sparkled, all blue skies and sunshine while I dwelled fully present in the marvel of every hour—“Look how lovely the trees look in the 2 pm light—how different from the way they looked this morning.” “Oh! The air smells so beautiful right now? Does it always smell so clean here on a Tuesday?” And every night we stayed up late together the lake and I, a chorus of thousands of grasshoppers playing along with the soundtrack of the restless waves rocking the boat knocking it against the dock, as I lay on my back on the green green grass and counted stars with my son.
But this year we are sure of our love for each other and so we are no longer pulling out the stops. I am too tired this year for sunrises. I wake well past dawn when the lake is already busy with swimming and kayaks. The nights are not always clear and bright. The grasshoppers are not always singing. And sometimes this lake she is even gray and choppy. And sometimes we both rain a bit.
Now don’t get me wrong…The lake is no less lovely to me. She is every bit as beautiful and peaceful as I remember. I am seeing a new side of her and finding new beauty in the rain rolling of the pines or the reflection of the dark clouds on the water. Furthermore, I am enjoying my time with my cousins twice as much as last year. There is a rhythm and a comfort this year—a routine that feels like it has always been this way—us here on the lake. We feed each others children and pick up our conversations exactly where we left off last year. There is not so much to catch up on. We can just look at each other and smile—holding hands while we watch our children play at the waters edge, helping gather each others books and towels when the storm clouds come.
And this comfort I think is translating to my relationship with these magic surroundings. The beautiful spot I call the lake–she knows I will come back each year a faithful pilgrim. And I too know that she will be here for me next year, a resting spot for my tired bones. This lake and I, we no longer need to impress one another. We are in that phase of a new relationship when you can relax and let a little of your imperfections show. I am really not that much of a morning person. She is not always sunny and bright. But we will love each other nevertheless. In sunshine and in rain. And that love is in the end better than a vacation full of sunshine.
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.
On Sunday I woke up in a headachey fog. This feeling was one I only remembered from long ago. It had been so long since I had felt so terrible I thought I must have been mistaken, that this sensation was just a trick someone was playing on me, that it would pass as soon as I got the joke, as soon as I laughed.
I did my regular headache self-care ritual, the things I do that keep these monsters at bay. The advil, the hot towels, the extra bit of sleep. But the beast inside my head would not quiet. I got up and went about my day, convinced that this was all still just an illusion, a memory, a glimpse at a picture postcard of me from another time.
I went to Jackie’s to pick up Max. He had spent the night with Jake. I sat and drank water and tried to hold conversation. I looked pale and puffy and not quite right to anyone. And then it started.
It has been years since I felt this way, the vomiting, the fury that runs through my body causing convulsions, the intense pain that feels like knives in my head. Its been years since physical pain has put me in the space of living breath to breath. Even in the worst of it, I whispered to my sweet self…Breathe, you will come through this…You have so many times before. Breathe….Now again.
A thunderstorm raged outside, thunder and lightening crashing down on one another. I thought to myself, how nice of mother nature to move along in empathy of me. As the rain fell heavy I fell asleep. And when I woke there was a brief reprieve. The rain had stopped. I walked home and collapsed into bed.
Hours later the knives came back. This time no warm towels, no calming tea, no amount of self care or breathing could contain the pain. I was laying on the bathroom floor shivering but needing to feel the cool tile underneath my body. I needed some relief from the fire I felt burning through my head. I kept trying to think of cooling thoughts.
Odette came in and declared that she was not OK with this. She was calling help. I was too weak to argue (much). I lay and whimpered while she called first one friend and then another.
In the hospital I lay, my dear friend stroking my back and soothing my forehead and whispering to me that my help was coming. I wanted to believe her and lived one breath at a time. The nurse came in an injected me with a pain killer. There was one last violent fight–my body versus me and then slowly relief started to set in. Tests, hydration, and then release…home to sleep a deep sleep. Home to slip away into the quiet.
I woke better than I had been in months. Years even. The pain was a distant ache, I looked like I had been through hell and back, and felt tired and battle weary but lighter. Something inside me had burned away in the fire, a distraction, a yearning, a seeking that had finally found rest.
Max and I are cleaning out our car. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, the car has become a moving dumpster. The back seat is full of cereal crums and broken toys and half empty water bottles. Papers that were once too important to throw away are now so faded that we cannot read them, shoved in corners, tucked under the mats. Pollen and dust and old salt from winter. No matter how frequently we tackle the car there are some things that are just stuck–like gum on the bottom of the shoe, hard to scrape off.
We take the cleaning of the car seriously. It is metaphorical for me, fresh starts, clean space. A clean car means we don’t need to apologize when carpooling. A clean car means we don’t need to ponder how out of control our lives seem to be spinning every time we get into the car. And so we empty and vacumm and spray and wipe, this time more thoroughly than normal, but still there are so many layers of dirt and grime. At 10 am we need to call it a day. We have other things to do, this level of cleanliness–this absence of junk and crumbs, this state of significantly less dirt is going to have to be good enough.
Good enough. It is a phrase that can send me spinning in so many directions.
For one relief. As a child, there was no such thing as good enough. Things were either clean or they weren’t. The were right or they were wrong. I spent much of my youth desperately trying to get it perfect with the understanding that only 100% complete would do. When I first tried to wrap my brain around “good enough” it felt like a cop-out. But the truth was I was slowly killing myself with my perfectionism, dying an early death each time I failed over and over again to make the mark. One day, I found myself meditating on the phrase, “I am enough”. As I did, a seismic shift registered right there in my heart and suddenly love for my tender self, love for the part of me that would never be perfect, love that had been locked away and withheld began seeping out of the fault lines, like magma. When I could finally embrace good enough, at work, at home, even in my friendships and relationships I could relax and just be. Good enough are words that give me permission to just exist and know that it is OK, that all will be well. All manner of things will be well. Good enough saved my life.
But there is a shadow side to “good enough”. Now I see that it is its own prison. I see so much suffering in my life…suffering that comes from when people settle for “good enough”. I see it in the far away look in the eyes of the woman who has settled for a good enough marriage, and as a result feels a piece of her soul is lost, unexpressed, dying. I see it in the hollowed out gaze of the friend who is stuck in a career that is going nowhere and has nothing to do with his creative self. I see it in myself sometimes. when I cheat myself, not finishing something that I have labored long at, when I walk away from something before it is complete, when I avoid the hard work of seeing the truth in my heart, when I tell myself that the life that I am yearning for is so unattainable and the life that I have now is just fine. Good enough gives me permission to throw up my hands and tune out. In those moments “good enough” is not a relief, it is an excuse for giving up, stopping and just going to sleep.
What then is the balance point –how can we be in the place where we le to accept what is, to let go of yearning all the while avoiding being stuck in the place where we give up, give in, and stop moving, stop growing, stop trying. Where is the balance point where our souls are free to seek, grow, blossom into what they are without being held back by the belief that where we have landed is “good enough” and therefor we can safely slumber, turn off, tune out and Stop. Moving. Forward.
Whatever that place is, it has nothing to do with my car, and I think sometimes that maybe that is the point. Good enough applies to the things that are unimportant, small, silly. Good enough doesn’t apply to things like hearts and soul work? Or can it? Or is it a matter of degree? That somedays, it all just needs to be good enough, but in our next breath there is a potential for expansion? Or it it just a matter of staying awake? Being able to be content with whatever life throws at us, all the while staying awake to whatever potential and possibility may unfold. I don’t know that I will know the answers. I don’t know that I will ever figure out it out.
And maybe the fact that I am asking the question and seeking the answer is really in the end…Good enough.
I haven’t been writing much.It seems that there is a shift going on in my life and I am not quite sure what to make of it.
It feels rather big and quite small at the same time.
After all, nothing has changed and yet everything seems to be changing.
My life feels so very much the same, but I feel new. And yet I feel as though I am really who I always was. And recognizing myself from long ago and realizing I had been there all along.
I don’t know how to write about it. And yet I don’t know how to write about anything else.
So I do my laundry. And I make dinner. And I play Uno with Max and read books. And I go through stacks of paper and finally take care of a thousand things that just last month seemed not worth doing.
Many of the events that are precipitating all these shifts are not the stuff of publication. Some are quite small, like streams that gently shape a mountain side over time. They are so mundane. Others have been earthquakes, shaking my very sense of security. They leave me feeling vulnerable and exposed.
Sometimes I feel like I am on the edge of some big deep breakthrough, but really, truth be told, most minutes I feel like I am wandering around in the spiritual desert, arriving at the same lesson over and over again. I feel like the last month or so has been a kind of spiritual boot camp.
Over and over, in big and small ways, I keep being called on to trust. To shed fear. To open up to love at whatever the cost. To operate not from a place of hurt but from compassion. To hold it all lightly, even when it feels so heavy. To claim my power and then to be unimpressed with it and let it go. To establish boundaries but let love flow freely across them.
To stop asking “what next?” To stop asking “why?” To stop seeking and spinning and hoping and wondering.
And just be.
Empty.
Speechless.
As a storyteller I don’t know what to do with the silence. The long stretches of quiet. Except to honor the stillness and to know that some stories are meant only to be whispered to God. And that soon, other stories will come to me. To let the fields go fallow for awhile and trust that I will write when I am ready.
This past Sunday, Odette threw a dinner party at our house. She called together some of the dearest members of our tribe to thank them for planning a fundraiser to support her girls. We pulled out dresses and dusted off the china, put a white damask cloth on the table and filled the house with flowers. As everyone started to arrive it started to pour…a heavy summer rain, the kind that washes funks and bad moods away. We drank beer and wine and gathered in the kitchen, all of us crowded in that tiny space leaving the rest of the house empty. As the lights flickered and the power threatened to go off, I pulled out candles and placed them next to the good dishes and half- hoped for the intimacy that an outage would bring.
And then Odette called us around the table. We stood there all of us, adults and children. We held hands as Odette bowed her head and began to say a blessing in her mysterious and beautiful language, a blessing over the food we would eat, a blessing over strangers who had become family. I opened my eyes and looked around the circle. And I took a mental picture and burned it into my heart. A circle of community. A table loaded with food. An endless cycle of giving and receiving.
And I knew that for all the shifts and changes and silences and spiritual deserts and breakthroughs, I have all that I will ever need. And no matter where I explore, I will arrive back here. Home.
Recently I was found.
An old dear friend reached out to me from across the wide expanse of years. We were young and dumb together, he and I. We had had many adventures–real, crazy adventures and wild emotional ones too. But that was long ago and we haven’t talked in years. We had grown up, found love, formed homes, started families. Life got busy and we drifted apart.
During the years when we were close, our relationship had been an anchor. We passed long letters back and forth over sea and land. He was in the Navy, I was teaching in Texas. Those letters kept me afloat during two very difficult years when I was far away from home, far away from love, far away from even myself. He kept me grounded, kept me reading, kept me thinking, kept me breathing. We talked about everything. We often disagreed. But no matter how spirited the debate, he saw me, really saw me for who I was, and adored me for all my imperfections. He was the first person who loved me who didn’t minimize my flaws. That is powerful love.
One New Years Eve, over 15 years ago, in a city hundreds of miles from where either of us lived he found me, sought me out to slip his arms through mine. As I lay my head on his shoulder and told him secretes, I knew that I would love him forever, that he would always be dear to me. Always.
At one point in the height of being young and dumb we had a bitter falling out. I can’t remember now any of the details or the circumstances. But I do remember the sadness, the loneliness of realizing that something profound had shifted in my life, of feeling a veil had been lifted and that I was left with life, stripped bare. Without him. I ached intensely. I was angry for I was sure that I would love him always but this did not feel like love. We stopped talking for what felt like a lifetime. The silence was so loud.
After a while though, no matter how intensely I felt the loss of him, I found that I could sit with the memories of our friendship, sit with them without anger at his betrayal. I remembered all the ways he saw me, all the ways he knew me, cherished me, even if he couldn’t understand me, even if he no longer could appreciate me. And it became clear to me that no matter how big or intense the hurt, the love I had for him was big enough–big enough to hold it. Big enough to overshadow it. Big enough to balance it. Big enough to bless it. Big enough to let it be. Because I had been seen. He saw me.
By the time his letter of apology came in the mail, by the time he found me again there was nothing but love left in my heart.
Our relationship changed after that. It would change many times. Not for the worse or even for the better. It just was, as we were, growing up. There were hurts. There was laughter. One day I sat on a park bench with him in New Orleans. I was teasing him about some girl he was dating, some girl he would later marry but the edge in my voice betrayed me. I looked down at my shoes, maybe a little embarrassed. “I just want you to be happy” I said to him. “Do you?” he challenged me in the way that only he could. “Do you really? Or do you just want me to be yours?” I was, like I often was around him,dumb struck. I just kept looking at my shoes.
But later that night I sat in a rocking chair on my friends porch in the Garden District rocking myself and looking up at the big old moon. “Happy” I whispered to the warm Louisiana wind. “Happy”. I sent my wish out for him. And for the first time I took into my heart the reality that love does not mean attachment and love often means walking away, setting boundaries, saying goodbye.
Of course it wasn’t really goodbye. Because love kept bringing us back in different ways. There were a few Sunday mornings when as I lay in bed with Juan, watching the political talks shows the phone would ring. He was watching too. Or he had news. About a clerkship. About a girl. About a death. He came to my wedding, driving through the rain from Manhattan. As he stood there with the woman who would be his wife he looked at me, and I looked at him and we both smiled–for he saw me, he saw me exactly for what I was. Happy. Messy, imperfect but happy. And it brought him joy.
But life is a busy thing. Careers, children, houses that are too big, budgets that are too small. We no longer had time for penning long letters. Sunday mornings were full of chores, and work. There is a Christmas card, maybe two and then silence. But this time the silence came so gradually I didn’t even hear it. Its been at least 5 years since our last communication–It was around the birth of his son. I sent a congratulations. He sent a thank you note. And then it was quiet.
But he found me.
Truth is he always does.
And he found me at the perfect time.
At a time when I needed to remember that love, true fearless love, is big enough to hold any hurt, any betrayal. That in the end love is always bigger. That forgiveness is but an affirmation that love is more important, mightier, stronger. He walked back into my life exactly at a time when I needed to remember that fearless love changes, morphs and may appear to retreat but never really dies. That love is not equal to attachment but that love always finds you when you need it most.
He is coming this way, my dear old friend. Passing through town this month. And he says he wants to see me. He always did see me. And when he does I will slip my arms round his waist and lay my head on his shoulder for a moment and see him too.
I am sitting in a place of radical trust right now. I am walking down a dark street and knowing I am safe. I am following a path that is lit only one or two steps ahead of me but of knowing that where it takes me is where I need to be. I am tumbling down a rabbit hole, no choice but to trust that I will land in a soft place.
The world has turned upside down and I am falling. Or am I flying? Is there any difference?
I am here in a field, this poem by TS Eliot the bed on which I lay my head. Each word a blade of soft grassy green:
A condition of complete simplicity/ (Costing not less than everything)/And all shall be well and/All manner of things shall be well…
It is what holds me. This meadow.
Is it a meadow or is it a magic carpet lifting me up, holding me above all the possibilities that could be right now. But aren’t.
I close my eyes and feel the power of this radical trust run through my veins. I feel all the places in my heart where I have been closed up and where the trust is bumping up against blockages. I know the only way to survive will be to finally allow them to break. To open, to do nothing but open.
To succumb to radical trust and know that my life will never be the same again.
This is a journey of not knowing and choosing to trust, to love any way. This is the way home to myself.
