It was supposed to be a week of productivity. Of completing all the lonely projects, the ones that linger like forelorn orphans around my table, staring at me from piles, begging for attention. Our life has become hurried in the last few years and like so many mothers I am collapsing into bed leaving many things half done, wishing to duplicate or triplicate myself.
Its been even crazier since I decided to in fact make acupuncture school a reality. There has been so much to do to get ready, to take the steps I need to free myself up. Nothing has come together easily. I say that not as a complaint but rather as a way to explain my absence from the places I normally haunt. I click down the to-do list mentally and it never seems like much but in the execution, in the moment it is everything. Like lifting a boulder over my head–every ounce of strength going into each task. And yet, I am aware that while I am busy being productive, our life is flying by and
I suppose that is why, I am here instead lingering at the pool, using my vacation to remember again that my life is more than the sum of completed to-do lists. It is feeling the hot blanket of summer on my skin, watching my son frolic for hours in the water, it is breathing and resting and taking a cat nap and then picking up my book. It is feeling how cool the water feels when I dive in. It is experiencing summer.
Earlier this week, I gathered my soulsisters up and we traveled to Baltimore to hear music. An old college friend was coming through town playing in a band, in a dive bar, in a gritty part of town. It was a week for for greasy chips and mussels in garlic butter and Belgian beer with orange slices, live music and finding a way to shrink 20 years into a blink of an eye. A week to touch the me that is fearless and sees life as a a wide expanse of possibility.
It will soon be time to click through my to-do lists. There are swim meets, and chores, and a room to show to potential tenants. There are playdates and bills to pay–all of them as real and rich as my time basking in the sun. But for now the scent of sunscreen and the energy sapping heat is the only thing before me and so I sink into it.
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live–Irish proverb
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter in full view and watch as they move undisturbed through the rain. Stroke after stroke, patient and steady. Take a deep breath and know that this is exactly how we move through life when it rains.
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter under the rough hewn beams and listen to the teenagers play cards, raising their voices as though this game and its outcome is the most important thing in the world. In this moment, this hand that they play, it is indeed the only thing that matters–not the childhood they left behind or the adulthood that they will soon launch into but this hour where they throw cards on the picnic table as the rain pounds on the roof and they laugh and scream.
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter under a pitched roof and watch the girl and her best friend on secret missions, giggling and hiding and stealing looks at boys. Watch the young ones with their breakfast, watch the babies put their googles on, watch the ten year olds play roofball their play undisturbed–watch as the whole world unfolds, in the rain, despite the rain, because of the rain, in the rain and with the rain. Watch what happens when the world shrinks as we all seek and find shelter.
many thanks to the strong and lovely Jena who drew my attention to this video
Over the South pole today we had a solar eclipse. I mention it because it explains a whole lot of crazy that seems to be going on around. Lots of shaking things up and separations and releasing of old to make way for the new. The energy of the sky has been one big clearing, a massive spring cleaning of our homes, our lives or souls. Have you felt it? I sure have!
I have been taking comfort in the energy of letting go. Even if it means sitting empty for awhile–especially if it means sitting empty for awhile. There is something about opening to the infinite possibilities of what this moment holds when we let go of what happened in the past without holding any expectations of the future.
Sometimes in order to stretch far, to grow into our next phase we need to untie some knots–the ones that are holding us tight, keeping us reigned in, giving us a short leash. Sometimes untying knots means we need to go over old ground–but then having covered that ground, we need to kiss it and let it go forever, turn our backs and march forward into the future. Tonight is a perfect time for letting go of all we don’t want and for saying YES with arms outstretched for all we want to welcome in. For the next several weeks the universe will continue to support us in clearing out whatever we are ready to let go of!
I am letting go of my sentimental attachment to my crappy falling apart car and opening up my heart for some energy efficient clean and neat little mode of transportation. (I hope she comes quickly!)
I am letting go of friendships that no longer serve, the ones where my openheartedness was never really appreciated and instead opening up to the ones who love me for my messy vulnerable self.
I am letting go of any remaining fear about walking the path in front of me and instead opening up to the wild and wooly adventure thats been calling to me for years.
I am letting go of stories I wrote about not having enough and instead and opening up to the abundance laid out before me.
I am letting go of rushing and feeling pressured and tortured by time. I am instead opening up to time as a friend and hoping that in the slowing down I will experience infinity and experience the sense that everything happens right on time.
I am letting go of being a martyred single mom and opening up to all the ways that my ex wants to support Max.
I am letting go of the words, “I have to…” and opening up to the words, “I get to…”
I am letting go of worry and opening up to total faith in the process of my life. I have always risen to the challenge of my life. It has taken me this far and as I type this, with the feet of the most beautiful boy in my lap, that this far is exactly where I need to be.
The other day, a colleague asked me how the walk was going on the path to going to school. I confided that half the time I am feeling like a strong warrior-woman, marking bold steps, striding forward and that the other half of the time I was feeling completely undone whether by fear and a sense of “What the hell I am doing?” or just sheer exhaustion from the effort.
“You mean thats not normal?” she commented with a laugh. “Sounds like a regular ol’ day for me!”
Truth is I have been feeling a bit tender lately as I navigate this swing. I have been feeling strange and freakishly fractured even as I felt strong and powerful, and I have been longing to feel whole and solid again. And so it was that her off handed comment caused a warm wave of comfort to envelope me. I had been feeling a bit crazy. But she reminded me that no–I am not a lunatic. This is the way, even if we are private about it. It is. It is. It is how we grow.
I am reminded of the thousands, no millions, of women — soul sisters all– who are right now navigating similar changes and transitions. Rearranging our lives in ways that provoke excitement and anxiety and honest-to-goodness wiped out “sleep for hours” kind of exhaustion. All of us in one way or another can feel splintered and pull apart. Whether we are transitioning into partnership or widowhood, motherhood or empty-nest, setting up a home in a strange land, or learning the curves of familiar terrain when the people we love no longer populate it, navigating career changes or discovering a new power deep inside us we all every day experience a mix of fear, strength, faith, exhileration and exhaustion in different combinations.
Taken together, while moving forward, its called courage. Extraordinary every day courage. And it, and the accompanying tenderness from the rollercoaster ride, well…its normal.
A friend recently send me a link to a post about Akhilandeshvari, the Hindi goddess of “brokenness”. Rather she is the goddess of “never not broken” as in “Broken as a normal every day state of being”. Not the kind of brokenness that leaves us helpless–but the kind of brokenness that happens when our life is shattered and as we pick up the pieces and rearrange them, we create something amazing and beautiful. Broken as in transforming. Broken as in making ourselves and our lives over and over again.
The state of being broken is not a condition of weakness but a condition of transformation and strength. I love that there is a goddess devoted to this state. It reminds me that what I am going through is so normal, so ordinary, so every day and therefor so holy that we need a goddess to help us hold the space, to inspire us and to carry us through. That is it not a negative state but one of profound and positive power. I am part of a chain of women that not only reaches across the globe but reaches back into ancient history. I am one of millions of us who are “never not broken”. It is a condition that is normal.
That knowledge helps dispel fear and helps me stand strong. I anchor myself in the knowledge that “All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Sometimes, before I sleep, I feel a long line of wise women touch me on the shoulder, each one of them whispering, “This is how we know strength, when we allow ourselves to be broken. Only then can we rearrange our lives in a powerful way. This, my dear child, this is normal”.
1. Breathe.
2. Assume success. Take a moment to imagine what success feels like. Close your eyes and let it wash over you. Know that you are successful right NOW and that is all that matters.
3. Clean your office. Throw away everything that doesn’t serve any more.
4. Refill prescriptions. File insurance claims. Make lunch. Take the car in for service. Pay attention to the details that help life run smoothly. Keep putting one foot in front of the other.
5. Take a walk.
6. Camp out at the school silent auction to ensure that the little boys who make your heart sing score the winning bid for a night at the movies with their Math Teacher.
7. Cry when you need to. Cry until you find yourself laughing.
8. Schedule dinner with an old dear friend and be prepared to laugh until you cry.
9. Embrace the fact that the brokenness is what saves you. Revel in the fact that you are never not broken.
10. Go to bed early. Sleep as late as you can.
11. Drink water. A lot of water.
12. Hold a warrior pose as long as your legs will allow you. Channel that warrior energy.
13. Play guitar. Even if its awful and you can’t really make it work because you are so distracted. Keep playing anyway. Come back to the notes. Stay with them. Over and over. Softly. Loudly.
14. Tell a friend everything you have done to make your dream come true. Report the facts without analysis about where its getting you. Know that every step you take is carrying you somewhere.
15. Take a shower and feel the cool water running down your back.
16. Make a list of everything you are ready to let go of. Prepare to let it go.
17. Breathe.
When I was a little girl, I was often afraid. I was afraid of missing the bus, afraid of upsetting my parents, afraid of not doing things right. I was afraid that the kids who said they were my friends didn’t really like me. I have no idea where it came from. My childhood was far from scary. I am not sure how much people knew how scared I felt. I can’t say whether I hid it well. I just remember fear being a constant companion, an imaginary friend who stuck to me like glue.
My fear protected me. I didn’t do a lot of dumb things kids do because of a healthy dose of fear. But at the same time my fear held me back. There were a lot of healthy and exciting things I wanted to do but never tried for fear of being bad, fear of looking dumb, fear of simply failing, fear that if I tried I might just drown.
In Chinese medicine they say that fear is the energy of water. Think of wild rapids that make your heart race, or dark murky depths that press on your lungs. Think of rivers that flood, or hurricanes that sweep us out to sea. We can’t control water, no matter how we try. It scares us. Because it is that strong.
The other energy of water is strength. Think of the power of water as it moves, carving canyons, changing coastlines. Water which turns deserts into blooming paradise. Water which sustains life.
Fear and strength are two sides of the same coin. To stand in the energy of water is to know both fear and deep unyielding strength. And we carry the potential for both when we face any great trauma, challenge or transition.
One of the ways to frame the story of my life (and maybe yours too) is a journey of understanding both sides of the energy of water. Sometimes it seems as though in the beginning I only knew fear. But in the last decade or so of my life, I am coming to embrace the quiet, fierce power of my strength, of knowing that no matter what comes I am going to be OK. And that strength is what has been allowing me to transform, to move beyond my fear and into my real potential.
*******
Sometimes I feel nothing short of wimpy. A career change should be no big deal to a woman of my age and experience. And yet as I am readying myself to go part-time at work, to enter school I am feeling wave after wave of fear. Its exhausting. The fear–it is making everything so hard.
You would think that at this point in my rather mature life that I would have the where with all to make this shift without much issue. But, the truth is, nothing can trigger these fears, like money issues.
From the beginning of my working life, I have never made enough to create a cushion, the kind of cushion that I tell myself would help me feel “safe” about making a leap. First a teacher, then a government staffer, then an activist, I have always worked for “just enough”–the desire to help and do something meaningful always trumping my desire for money or material things. There were moments when I felt more comfortable than others, but truth is every raise came just at the right moment as my expenses increased.
While I have never been motivated by the prospect of accumulating money, I am a creature of certain comforts. I like the convenience of having a car (even if it is a beat up 14 year old one). I cherish the protection of my house. I like being able to eat meat when I want to, and to be able to serve a variety of organic foods. I like being able to offer wine to my friends and I like being able to buy new sheets for my bed every few years. Most importantly, I like being able to give Max a chance to do the things he loves–like playing hockey and swimming and camping in the woods. I can’t imagine living without health insurance. And these things, alas, they do require money. And I am afraid, deeply afraid that if I make this switch all this is going to blow up, the fragile balance I created will turn upside down and we will end up homeless or hungry.
When I first became aware of my desire to do healing work, years and years ago, I told myself I needed to wait until I could get ahead, until I could save something–someday. When Juan left me, and my finances took a tumble I told myself I needed to wait until I found a partner to provide a safety net. All of this waiting was born of fear–and my attempts to hold her at bay.
But after years of waiting for circumstances to change, it is clear to me that they won’t. As much as I would like a plan that will allow me to put fear aside, I can’t run away from fear. I am going to need to stand in her. And the only way to do it is to embrace her other side–strength. But I don’t know how to be THAT strong. I don’t know how to be fearless. I never have been.
When I was reflecting on this to Bonnie, my very wise friend she said to me, “Its not about completely dispelling fear for strength…its about moving the line–and you my friend only need to move it a little.” I didn’t know what she meant.
“When you were small,” she told me, “you were like 80% scared and 20% strong and so most of the time that fear stopped you. As you grew up, went to college, as you became a mom, as you lived through your divorce you transformed your fear to strength because you had to. It was the gift of your journey. You moved the line from 80% scared to 60% scared to 52% scared. That’s where you are right now–you are 52% scared and 48% strong. Problem is that 4% differential might just stop you now. That would be the greatest tragedy. So instead you just need to move the line. Not much just a little bit.”
At that moment it hit me. I don’t need to be fearless to do this. I don’t need to be bold beyond measure. I just need to be 52% strong.
I think sometimes when we look from the outside we see women who have moved mountains and assumed that they were fearless. I think, I am beginning to see, that most of them may have been 52% strong when they got going. They had just enough strength to not let the fear paralyze them And that was all they needed.
I don’t have a picture of him.
It was a simple enough assignment. Gather old photos of him for a collage at the restaurant, ones of him laughing, cracking a joke, the fishing rod in hand heading out to the boat, calling out over his shoulder, sitting on the dock with a cigar and a neat glass of tequila, watching the sun coming down, coming in with the kids, standing at the grill, loading the truck, playing light sabers with the little one. I looked through all the hundreds of photos I took over years of vacations together and there wasn’t even one. Not one of us watching the TV show about haunted New England lighthouses together. Not one of him bringing in the boat. Not one of him untangling a rod.
The only photos I have of him are in my mind, my memory. The moments when we were together we not the ones we photograph–they were the simple everyday moments, like when you pour a drink or flip a burger, or break open a lobster. Now I wish I had marked all those moments as spectacular–worthy of capturing on film for posterity. They were ordinary in the most extraordinary of ways. I wish I had photographed every one so that I could make a thousand collages, line the halls with them, one after another. See how he lived! He lived.
I think that even though I know that saving his image, freezing it on paper, would not have saved him from cancer.
My cousin Larry died a week ago after a short, intense and courageous fight. He was 43. He taught Max to fish and use a pocket knife. He fixed things that got broken and loved his daughter fiercely. He made me feel like a rock star whenever I made my guacamole. The way he gobbled up my guacamole healed thousands of tiny holes in my heart.
I don’t have a picture of him, but if I did, I can’t imagine that it would capture the brightness of his spirit, his gentle ferocity, his wry and quiet sense of humor. And knowing this, I know, I have everything I need.
In gratitude for having known him, I bow my head and lift one small glass of high end tequila poured neat and settle in to the crook of the couch and smile wryly. This is how he will live. This is how we all keep living.
I sometimes feel as though I am whipsawed between two polar opposites who war in my body, and my mind. The “responsible me” who makes choices based on what is “safe” or “smart” and “dreamer me” that is trying to push past my fear, take risks, be brave and who (if I listen to my gremlins) risks sending us to certain doom.
Truth is I am neither of those people. I am fiercely resilient and a problem solver and someone who can look at any situation and give you best and worst case scenarios in the time it takes to say my name. I am a planner and an implementer and a person who can see all sides of a situation with a clarity that is alarming. I can see into hearts with tenderness and know what frightens and gladdens you without needing to hear your whispers. But, when you do whisper, I cherish what you shared as though it were the secret to everything. I am not religious but I am deeply spiritual, even when (especially when) I seem to lose my faith. I have known deep pain, and real loss, and given myself over to the Universe time and time again, only to find a new way emerge out of what at times felt like an impossible tangle. Several times over I lost sleep desperately afraid that I would lose everything. Indeed, I have lost lots of things (more than I would like) but never myself. No, even though its been very dark at times, and I have stumbled and tripped and turned about in circles, I never lost hold of myself.
Let me tell you a little secret. I am both extraordinarily happy and flat out scared these days. Often both at the exact same time. The happiness and fear–well they stem from the same piece of news in my life. I am, as a single mom, with no other means of support and barely any savings, planning to head back to school to open up a new life that has been calling me.
It is a choice that will mean student debt and a reduced salary and a choice to stop climbing the career ladder that has for so long defined me. It means financial gymnastics and the end to luxuries like bookstores and movie theaters and take out food and new clothes and air conditioning (and who knows what else). It means the end of my own house as I take in a housemate and the end of saying “of course” to Max without thinking about what we give up. Its means thinking about the price of gas before dashing across town. Its a choice that may mean giving up on providing Max a solid chunk of change for college in exchange for teaching him about following his heart and doing what others might say is impossible.
It is also a choice that means embracing something that feels as natural to me as breathing–finally choosing a path that may at times be challenging but never is hard.
The fear shows up sometimes as that exhilarating kind of scared you get right before jumping out of an airplane or riding the latest roller coaster. Sometimes its a dark kind of scared, like you feel when all the lights have gone out and the snow is piled up and you think you might just never get out again. But then, when my mind stops and I can listen to the song of my life, there is a happiness, a contentment, a feeling of relief and peace that comes when I no longer thinking– just doing–taking steps, shuffling one foot in front of the others, knowing that slowly, slowly I am making my own life– not simply making do and dreaming of a way out–but making my own way.
I am making my way as I make my bed and I sit in meditation and take my vitamins and drink my water and eat my breakfast because I know that self-care is fundamental especially when going through transitions.
I am making my way as I make Max’s lunch and discuss what we learn from TV (good and bad), as I drive him to school and help him with homework and put medicine on his feet and read him to sleep because even though he and I are both changing and growing with dizzying speed, my love for him is the North Star, the one true constant in my life.
I am making my way as I make my train, make appointments, make my meetings, make conversation, make eye contact because I know the most important way (perhaps the only way) that I make a difference is simply by showing up.
And yes, I am making (and remaking) budgets, making choices, making phone calls, making proposals, because this forward moving action, however slow or small, is the only way I will welcome in the change I seek.
I write here on this blog to a small circle of friends. Some I know in “real life”, others only by your sweet comments or lovely emails. I never mind the silence here but on the scarier days I need to know that I am not alone. If you come here, tell me so and hold my hand as I keep making way.
The daffodils that Max and I planted with John are now in full bloom
Six months ago, by the light of the bright moon, my friend John and I dug in earth and planted a daffodil with a wish wrapped around it. He had come to the house, after hours of writing his law school essays. He was frustrated and blocked, momentarily out touch in with his own amazing potential–the big dream of his life loomed huge, a mountain insurmountable. So he came to take a break and I dragged him out to plant daffodils.
Max and I wrote our wishes for John on pieces of paper and he too played along. We went outside and planted them, and then having declared what we hoped for him we all gave them over to the earth and recognized that like the daffodils–they too would bloom in time. I told him that now that the Earth was holding those big dreams he could let go of the “biggness” and focus on what was immediately in front of him. I think he thought me a bit crazy (as he often does when I drag him out to do these things) but he listens to me because I cook him dinner and tell him I am old enough to be his mother.
We watched the Caps game and cleaned the house. We stayed up late talking and even spent some time trying to break open the stickiness he was feeling around his essays. Somehow the weight of that essay–the need for it to be amazing as though it was a magic key that would unlock his dreams (or forever keep them hidden away)– made it so big. But I told him if he could just let go of all the meaning he was putting on the essay and write he would have no trouble. He is a gifted writer.
The next morning after Max’s hockey game John went home to write one of the best essays in the history of law school applications. I am sure it would have happened anyway but some how letting go of the big huge massive vision of the change we wanted, trusting it to the Earth or to God or to whoever makes sense to trust, made it easier to take the immediate steps. Its a lesson I keep forgetting but remember frequently with joy.
This weekend I have a heart both heavy and full. Yesterday, 6 months to the day when John planted his daffodil, he left the city where we became friends and headed out to begin his new life at his first choice law school, a top ranked school which not only accepted him with open arms but offered him cash as well. I am so incredibly proud of him for all the tiny steps and big leaps he took to walk the path toward his dream and I miss him because he was in every way a daily inspiration.
For so long now I have been overwhelmed by a very big dream myself, a dream of becoming a healer. On a good day it feels still just out of reach and on a bad day I can think that I am bat-shit crazy. To even get to the place where I thought I might be able to do this has required so much transformation and change and release of fear. All fall, I planted hundreds of daffodils myself, each one of them a prayer that I asked Mother Earth to hold. The flowers are blooming now and for me well its time to get cracking.
All spring, I have been consumed by hundreds of small steps that may just open up the path for me. Truth is I have been walking it already but now after months of slow wandering, it feels as though I am sprinting down it at lightning speed. There are thousands of tiny (but huge!) things that need to be done to pull me a long and I run the risk of getting paralyzed by each of them. We are renting our basement and I need to find the right tenant, line up the contractors to do work on the house (so said tenant can come in). Line up my financing, apply for scholarships, restructure my current paid work, figure out new ways to plug the gap between what I will be making part-time and our current expenses. And yes, I am doing all this while trying to keep our life humming along. To quote a dear friend of mine, I feel like I am balancing a refrigerator on my head. I could at any moment just give up and let the whole thing come crashing down, declaring that it is too damn hard.
But instead I keep remembering what I told John that chilly October night. Give the big dream over to the Earth and let her hold it and just do what is in front of you–right now. Don’t give it too much importance. Just walk, tiny step by tiny step and trust that if you do that, one day, that dream will blossom.
Seven years ago this weekend, Juan and I stayed up all night and he told me he was leaving. It took him another year to leave and several more for the divorce to become final. Its taken 3 years for other details to be laid to rest, property to transfer, documents to be signed. Years later we are still navigating and negotiating–consulting about rides to karate and child care back ups and sick days. Nothing is ever gained or lost–it is just transformed and so too it is with the kind of commitments one makes to our children. But something feels big about crossing over the threshhold of seven.
Even as I write I am crossing a big milestone. I am putting stamps on the final document I need to send in–at least what I think is the final document to lay to rest another detail, the final big one.
One last big step away from an us that ceased to exist that night 7 years ago and one more step deeper into the magical and marvelous life that I am building–step by step, breath by breath, glorious morning by morning.
Seven years is a very long time. When things take that long to fully dissolve it can create a kind of inertia. The documents that needed to be mailed sat on my desk all week. In a timeline that has unfolded this slowly, a week is but a blink of an eye.
Sometimes I can get so frustrated with myself and the slow pace with which my life has seemed to unfold lately. Even the simplest of tasks seem to take longer some days. And yet, the landscape of my life has not changed by earthquakes but has instead been shaped by a slow steady rain, years and years of patient life giving rain that has worn new paths, shaped stones, grown trees and moss. Looking out at my garden I am in awe of the beauty that has resulted. Yes it is transformed, quietly, slowly. When I look at the results, who am I to curse the pace?
Some things take longer. Lifetimes or centuries. Millennia even. In the scheme of things, what is seven years? Seven years to finally put to rest something I thought would last a lifetime doesn’t seem that long, even as it feels like an eternity.
And yet there is something about the passing of seven years that makes me stand and take notice. Springing out of bed, as though an alarm has sounded. Enough already. Lets get moving.
Seven feels like a complete number, magical and round. Time now to dust off my hands and whatever inertia is left and move up and out and all around. Shake the earth and move the boulders. Its time. Its time.
