It never fails to surprise me. It creeps up on me and shocks the hell out of me. Just when I think that I have become fearless, just when I think I have overcome my deepest darkest fears, just when I think that I have done my soul work and gotten an A+ on the lesson, then I realize how terribly scared I still am.
Does it ever end as we peel away, layer by layer the protective walls we put around our hearts? It seems that no matter, how much work I do, its still there, more and more subtle but there. This fearfulness.
Shortly after my marriage failed, I found feng shui. After suffering such a devestating loss, after feeling so adrift, after realizing there was no security in this thing called marriage, I found a sense of control and order. If I could just eliminate the clutter, if I could place the bamboo just so, if I could figure out the flow of energy in this house I could be safe. I spent long hours, arranging, planning, sorting…and desperately holding on to a vision that my life would be OK.
At other times, it would be my job, my money, my community, my life as a mother, my writing and creativity, my spiritual journey, even this blog… a long line of things that made me feel anchored and safe. One by one I transform each into a security blanket the thing that would keep that fear at bay. The fear of being here. All. Alone.
And over and over again I would learn, the more that I grasp at these things, the more they slip through my fingers like water, proving to me again and again that while each one of these things delights, my security comes from none of them.
They are false idols, lined up in the temple of my heart–I deify them and doom them to failure. They will not save me. Over and over again I learn that really, its just me. And my faith.
Yup… in the ends its just me. As rich as my life is, there is nothing to grasp onto but what is here in my heart and my faith. No matter how hard I try, I cannot be anchored for life is a river and it is sweeping me along and carrying me, pulling me moving me. And that scares the hell out of me.
But make no mistake. This is not a sad or desperate post.
Because I am breathing sweet free air of liberation. I can stop looking for the thing that is going to save me. I can stop waiting for it to delivered and come along. I can stop fearing that it will all disappear if I say or do the wrong thing. I have it, have always had it, will always have it, right here in my heart.
I am the thing that saves me.
I am so unpracticed at this way of being.
So I will stumble along and when I trip, I will reach for something to steady myself but when it disappears into thin air I will not feel the bruising crash of my body slamming down, but the steadiness of my hand against the ground. Catching myself.
Driving home from Tai Sophia the world looked completely different. Snow had fallen on Tuesday and yesterday a freezing mist had settled in. The whole world looked white and shrouded in mystery. The landmarks on my trip home were completely obscured, changed, transformed. A journey I had taken so many times had become new again.
This winter I have been sitting in silence alot. Sometimes I look up and find that I have sat on the edge of the tub for 10 minutes completely lost in the quiet. I light the candles on my altar and just pause. I have dove into the unknowing this winter, into the mystery of my life and I feel a little like I am swimming in frozen white mist. It is so beautiful and even though I am traveling on a well-tread path, my life, once so familiar feels completely transformed and different.
This winter, I feel as though I am coming home to myself. Is it the old friends who are finding me, reminding me that the me I am becoming, is the same me I have always been? Is it the comfort with which I am trusting the voice that rises up in me and helps me know that I knew the answer all along? Is it the dreams I have had of water and rapids and wise old women who speak through their hearts. Last night I dreamed of darkness, a warmth, I dreamed of arms cradling me and of music, sweet music hushing me to sleep. “Rest, little one,” my soul whispered. All will be well and all manner of things shall be well.
I know that soon, the seasons will turn. Usually at this time of year I am itching for spring. I am dreaming of long lit days and camping and evenings by the pool. I am climbing out of my skin with the waiting. But not this time. I am overtaken by the moment.
Two nights ago Max and I went out to buy a pair of gloves. He had misplaced his last pair. For the last several weeks we have paired together mismatches and made due but when he no longer had a right handed glove that fit I knew it was time to break down. Shocked, that even as the snow was falling all our local stores had no gloves. There were plenty of bathing suits and sun hats and baseball gloves for purchase. When I asked the nice man about where to find the boys winter gloves he looked at me like I had 3 heads–as though he wanted to say, “Hey lady–the whole world is waiting for spring. No time to think about winter anymore.” I shook my head and we went out in the snow empty handed. Apparently sitting in winter, embracing it to its bitter end is a revolutionary act.
I was a bit agitated as we drove off, as we searched at store after store. “Why?” I kept asking my seven year old as though he had all the answers. “Why can’t we just sit with winter? Why is everyone in such a rush to let it go?” Something has shifted in me. I have come to love winter.
We finally found the last two pairs of gloves left on a clearance rack in a store in Silver Spring. The last two pair of gloves. I was tempted to buy both, because of the way Max loses his gloves. But we only needed one and I wondered if someone else would be thwarted by the fact that the whole world seems to want to operate on fast forward. I took my chances and we picked up just one pair.
I am embracing the hush of the last few weeks of winter, the evenings when we have permission to sleep early and wrap ourselves in covers and dreams and music. I am embracing the mystery of winter, swimming in winter white.
Sometimes, being authentic means acknowledging when things aren’t going so well.
I hate that.
I like to think that I am a lemons into lemonade kind of girl. I am a survivor, blessed, luckier than if I had been kissed by a leprechaun myself. But today, walking around in a state of bliss just didn’t feel right. It felt forced and not accurate. And the thing about bliss, I think it cheapens it to pretend even if pretending is sometimes so much more pleasant.
Its fine. Really. Its all fine. I promise. No really. This problem, this pain, this heartache…its all good. Really.
Bullshit.
It is easy to count my blessings. When I am feeling kicked in the butt, I have taken to looking at all the wonder in my life and trying to hold it as precious. Its raining, but I am here to watch the rain. And as a strategy its not a bad idea. But sometimes, I think, all that counting is just an excuse for me not to face the uglier parts of life–its an excuse not to look them in the eyes, to face them head on. As I am finding that when I ignore those grimy, unclean, unhappy parts, when I don’t deal with them they get bigger and bigger and more and more difficult to tame, and my bliss begins to feel tarnished and I begin to feel that I am just fooling myself.
But try as I might to deny it, life is not always pretty. There are ugly things that happen here, that happen to me, to us. There are financial problems. There is bad news. There are mistakes to contend with and consequences to be sorted out. There are colds, and broken hearts, and problems that seeem unsolvable. They are what they are–not bigger than me–but there nevertheless, sometimes lurking in the corner, sometimes breathing down my neck. Today I am learning (again) that I can’t wish them away with positive thinking and unconditional love. I am learning that sometimes I need to look them in the face, acknowledge the havoc that they have caused, the pain, the panic, the sadness and then figure out where to go next.
So thats why I have been listening to the blues, painting the room with the gritty, raw sounds. Swaying, moving, singing and diving into the blues. Reminding myself that pain, sorrow, bad luck and bad times can sometimes give birth to beauty, but only if we first claim the ugliness.
Sometimes the only thing for a kindhearted woman to do is to sing the blues and then get back to work.
On Friday, I took Max and a friend to go see the Washington Capitals practice at Kettler Capitals Iceplex. I thought it would be an opportunity for him to see his heros up close and personal. I thought it would be a chance for me to see how fast those boys really can skate, something that never fails to amaze me.
The best moment of the morning came when Alex Ovechkin, (for you non-hockey fans he is the star player on the Caps and in many circles thought to be the best player currently in the NHL) fell down. He wasn’t doing anything all that hard (for him at least). He wasn’t even going all that fast. He was just skating, maybe thinking of something else, and he tumbled. He lay there on the ice for a few seconds and then started to giggle. Then he got up and dusted himself off and started to skate again.
The moments when we witness our heros doing something amazing are indeed breathtaking–the unbelievable goal, the leaping of a star center fielder, the slam dunk that hangs in mid air for what seems like minutes or for that matter the perfectly played song, the crowd rousing speech, the essay that makes you cry. But if you ask me, Alex’s little tumble there, was a mama’s wish come true, as magical a moment as ever there was. I was able to look Max in the eyes and say, “See that…We all fall down. Even Ove falls. And then he gets up and keeps skating.” That fall meant more to both of us, than all of the Great Eight’s goals put together.
Sometimes it is so easy, for Max, oh shoot, for me to believe that we are the only ones who stumble. And not just on the ice. It is so easy to believe that I am the only one who loses her patience or her train of thought or can’t keep the house organized. It is so easy to believe that I am the only one who has been playing guitar for over a year and still can’t play the F chord, or for that matter strum the easy chords cleanly.
Lately, the house and the guitar and the inability to form a coherent sentence are not the things that make me feels so alone. No–its other things. Its been the fact that my life feels every bit like it is on the verge of breaking open but some days just feels stuck and unmagical and impossible to move through. Its been the fact that while I am embracing the stillness and silence of winter with awe, I sometimes find myself unable to settle. Its been the fact that while I am mostly hooting and hollerin’ while I run the rapids of my life, I sometimes still break into a complete panic and even worse feel stuck, paralyzed and just so damn lonely. And at those moments it is so easy to just sit down, stop, give up and say, “Why bother”. To gracefully admit defeat. To compromise and tell myself its OK that we all fail. Do I really need to live this way? Can’t I just go to sleep, wrap a blanket around my tired body and throw in the proverbial towel.
But then, there are moments like Ove’s moment. The moment where the only thing left to do is giggle, roll over, dust off and get back on my feet.
Lately I have been thinking a lot about what it takes, what it costs, to live authentically. I think it costs a lot. Not in the way some might believe–the funny looks, the fewer resources, the people who think I am strange. Sometimes, it is so damn exhausting to put my heart out there all the time, to keep chosing to stay awake, to stay with my fear, my loneliness and my joy.
And yet I don’t know what other choice there is to make, what other place there is to go but here, this wide open place. With every breath, even when I am tired, even when it seems impossible I need to choose to get up again, keep skating.
As the holidays fade and we get back into the rhythm of every day life, my wish for you is the strength to choose to live however authentic looks to you. And whether you giggle or cry when you fall may you choose to get back up.
Today this parable, a teacher once told, keeps running through my head…I looked for her book so that I could quote it verbatim as she tells it but I can’t find it and so I will parphrase it here. Truth is its an old old tale. Told thousands and millions of times before.
A farmer has one horse to help him do the work on his farm. One day his horse runs away. All the neighbors come by to commiserate…They weep and say to him, “What horrible misfortune…”
The farmer says, “maybe…”
A few days later the man’s horse returns. But the horse does not return alone. His brings with him a whole pack of wild horses who settle on the man’s land and become his. All the neighbors come by to celebrate…They laugh and cheer and say “What great fortune you have…”
The farmer says, “maybe…”
A few days later, the farmer’s only son is thrown from the back of one of the horses he is trying to tame. He breaks his legs and is unable to walk, confined to bed and greatly ill. The neighbors come by to commiserate…They weep with the man and say, “What a terrible misfortune…”
The farmer says, “maybe…”
The next day the army comes through the village. The round up all the young men who are able to fight and conscript them as the country has just been invaded and all able men are needed to do battle. Because the farmer’s son has two broken legs, he is left behind in the care of his father. The neighbors come by to celebrate…They rejoice with the farmer and say, “What a marvelous fortune…”
The farmer says, “maybe…”
At our house we have been trying to make sense of an autumn where life has really not gone how we planned. Opportunities that we thought were blessings, turned complicated but have somehow righted themselves again.. Diagnoses that we thought were horrible led to successful surgeries and now a long descent into unknowing. Fairytale endings morphed into the beginnings of nightmares which give way to relief. Things changing, constantly changing and only being exactly what they are …right then…right there.
Tonight I sit stunned…hearing in the span of just several hours a rollercoaster of a tale. Last night, a dear friend’s child was shot in the chest. Last night he had a 1% chance of survival. And now…he is conscious, writing notes, squeezing his mother’s hand. But they do not know. We never know. It is what it is what is…
As my heart learns to ride this rollercoaster I have stopped trying to anticipate what comes next. My stomach will still drop when we hit those valleys. I will still laugh like a wildwoman at the top. The fear of what comes next does not tamper the grief. Experiencing the grief does not prevent the uplifting joy. Being numb changes none of it.
Over and over again it seems the universe is whispering this tale “Girl…you only have the need for two words…now…and this simple word which encompasses the whole of possibility: Maybe.
Maybe Sorrow.
Maybe Joy.
Maybe up and down.
Maybe Heartbreak with a side of Love. Maybe Love with a side of Heartbreak. Maybe both mixed up in a stew.
Maybe new. Maybe not.
Maybe.
Buck up, bear down, dig in and wait it out.
Find the silver lining.
Shift perspective-see the lesson–trust the reason.
Hold it all lightly. Claim its all interesting.
Say it is living
Know that it is dying.
Slam the door. Shout at the moon.
Kick and scream and don’t go easy.
Cry. Flail. Blame. Plead.
Dance. Sing. Weep. Laugh.
Build walls. Tear them down.
Sweep up dirt. Air out laundry.
Notice. See. Listen. Question.
None of this changes anything. Nothing changes anything but the passing of time.
And even time makes no promises.
I used to think that if I got it right, if I learned my lessons, if I bore my lot with dignity that I would be rewarded. Rewarded with rest.
I used to think that if I slayed the gremlins, if I journeyed bravely, if I kept up in the storms that I would find the Holy Grail and would be rewarded. Rewarded with some peace.
I used to think that if I somehow figured it out, that if I unlocked the mystery, that if I mastered the game there would be a magic transformation and all would be easier, simpler, picture perfect
Yet, it seems that the reward is really practice.
Practice in order to buck up, bear down, dig in and wait it out….
again and again and again.
It is raining now. A steady cold autumn rain. The kind that spoils camping trips and calls for hot tea and warm blankets and stacks of movies. Max is sick and has a sinus infection on top of an ear infection on top of something dreary and medieval sounding called Hand Food and Mouth disease. We are burrowing in.
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A few weeks ago I had a dream. I don’t remember much about it. It was fuzzy, almost impressionistic–blurry and not clear. The only thing I remember from this dream is staring out a window watching the rain, remarking “The women who have loved me are dying…” At the time I had the dream, I viewed it as a Jungian metaphor. I thought that at this time of great transition, I was letting go of all the various parts of me who had served me before, who had done their best to protect my tender heart but who now had seen their time end: The me who was afraid to love too deeply, the me who felt she had to do everything perfectly and be perfectly nice so that she would be adored, the me who felt she needed to plan out and control her life. Yes…I thought. These versions of me, they are dying and from their ashes a strong, secure, adventurous woman who is not afraid to love fearlessly is starting to rise.
**************
Our dear housemate Odette has been in the hospital for almost 3 weeks now. She is not dying but she is struggling to heal from a life changing surgery. She has been in and out of the hospital and holed up in her bed since labor day. I realize how much of our day-to-day life, functioning and running smoothly, has been made possible because of Odette’s quiet presence. In my efforts to keep our life together with her gone I am running at double speed, flailing around and unable to go and visit. I miss her and feel her slipping away. I feel a hole in my heart where her lilting African singing used to be.
************
My dear friend Jenni is so ill and in so much pain. She had pinned her hopes on a surgery that was not successful. I am angry and sad because I don’t know how to get halfway across the world to hold her hand. I want to sit on a beach with her and wrap my arms around her and I feel that if I could something just might shift for both of us. I am not sure what I can do anymore that will make a difference.
*************
This week I learned that my dear Jill, a friend who held me through the early days of my divorce with Juan, has cancer. We don’t know any details yet. There are tests, there are possibilities, there is lots of unknowing. I am sitting on the edge of her wide circle and wondering what if anything I can do to help. Thursday I learned that Antonieta, Max’s babysitter and third grandmother, my second mother, the woman who has been my steady day to day presence for four years through the worst of our separation, the one who wiped so many tears, the one who put cold cloths on my migraine ravaged head, the one who took my child when I needed to cry, I learned that she has an aggressive form of cancer. She has no health insurance. We don’t know what is next.
*************
“The women who have loved me are dying.” Suddenly this dream I had takes on a new scary meaning and as I stare out the window and watch the world turn impressionistic and blurry through the rain I wonder what it means.
*************
I am bowing to life exactly as it is. Its a minute by minute– no, more like breath to breath– exercise, this not wishing it was otherwise. Not wishing that it wasn’t raining…not wishing that we were camping…not wishing that Max felt well…not wishing we could be with other people…not wishing that Odette, Jenni, Jill, and Antonieta were well and sitting around my kitchen table sharing a bottle of wine and laughing with me right now…not wishing that I didn’t just eat an entire box of chocolates to dull the sting around my heart…not wishing that I was already an acupuncturist so that I could do something to help…why can’t I do anything to help?
It is raining, we aren’t camping, Max feels crummy and we can’t be around people lest we pass along the horrible virus that has left him with sores on his hands, feet and mouth. Most importantly many of the women who have loved me so well are sick and I don’t know what to do about it except eat a box of chocolate–so much so that now I can’t sleep. I don’t have needles to help them and I am years off from being able to and I feel so damn helpless in the face of this all. Wishing wouldn’t change any of this.
I frantically text my community and beg them to bring movies so I can distract myself this night. As though they are all in cahoots with the universe, they have set their phones aside so late, forcing me to sit here on the front steps, watching the rain and breathing through my grief.
**************
This is life, as it is.
This is the rain, cold and wet.
These are my tears warm and salty.
This is life.
Thanks to sweet Jen Lemen. Ain’t it the truth…
I rose this morning after hours of not sleeping. I lay in the dark in silent meditation. In peace.
Long hours of silence have a way of settling my heart now. They used to rattle me but I am no longer fearful of looking into the dark parts of my heart and seeing all the ways I am messy, and flawed and unkind and selfish. If I can stay long enough with these pieces of myself I learn something true. Something that lets me stop beating myself up and instead find the wounded part of my heart and kiss it and put a bandage on it.
I have been having a hard time with people who need me. I am unable to embrace their neediness, unable to reach out with compassion and dive in fearlessly. Instead I conserve my resources and hold it all close and give what I can, but not too much, and with a forced smile, sometimes. I leave as soon as I can and retreat back to my place not wanting to give too much away. I am tired.
Truth be told, I don’t like that smallish, tired, exasperated person much. Its not who I think I am, or rather who I think I want to be. I want to be selfless, and giving, and most excellent in my generosity. The smallish me who resents being asked to help who stomps her feet doesn’t feel like me at all.
In the hustle and bustle of the day I can punish that person when she shows up. I fuss at her and tell her to get over herself and resent her resentfulness because of what it does to my image of the me I want to be. But in the quiet of the night, in the meditative space between dreaming and wakefulness I can just sit with her and sometimes when I am listening with a quiet quiet heart she tells me things I know are true.
Those who are needy, who ask for help so fearlessly, who expect it to come so freely can make me uncomfortable sometimes because they highlight just how hard it is for me to ask for help myself. I so rarely let it all fall apart. I so rarely say I can’t do it alone. I so rarely cry uncle and just let my needs be taken care of like a newborn baby. I am scared to be that needy. But I know that when I break through and whisper the word help there are hands there to catch me, hold me, pull me up. To throw their arms around me and stroke my hair, to wipe away my tears and type me love notes.
What do you learn when you allow yourself to be sit silently with your least favorite version of yourself?
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.
