The other day I was standing in my friend Maureen’s kitchen. I can’t remember exactly how it came up but I remember distinctly saying this, “You know, these days I find myself mostly doing things that I am not very good at.”
Gone are the days when I filled my spare time with things I had done for years, things I felt naturally talented at, things that made me feel accomplished. Dance, knitting, baking, my work. All these activities left me feeling like an expert, good about myself. Smart. Strong.
Instead I find that I am spending my time exploring things that are new. Things that make me feel wobbly. Things that make me feel a little scared. Things that are hard and that I can’t seem to master no matter how long I work at it, but things I need to do, or things I love to do, or things I simply just want to do.
I may be attempting to make some headway on the disaster that is my house, trying to demystify being organized with a tornado for a son who inherits his habits from me. I could be slogging away at guitar, working my way through muffled notes and sloppy rhythm, trying to loosen up my stiff right hand, while strengthening my weak left one. I find myself wobbling around a skating rink, going round and round, trying to avoid an embarrassing spill. Or singing really rough harmonies that sound slightly flat. I may be trying to bake without wheat flour, or garden in the shade. Or I may be sitting on my cushion desperately trying to quiet my mind or on my mat working my way into a pose.
These days I feel so unpracticed at everything I do, I am such a beginner. And make no mistake, its a role I embrace. For so long I was so scared to try anything that I didn’t think I would be good at. I let a lot of opportunities to try new things pass me by for fear of looking dumb. I thought I wouldn’t be able to enjoy something if I didn’t master it and if I thought there was little chance of mastery…well…I just let it go. But now, I am beginning to love doing things just to try them out without any pressure to succeed. Just to experience them. Its hard and it requires a whole new story of myself to protect my little eager heart, but I am bit by bit embracing it and feeling my life deepen.
I never would have embraced this “beginner’s lifestyle” if motherhood hadn’t forced me.
I plunged into the sea of beginning, when I became a parent. I went from being an accomplished, confident and completely masterful woman to a beginner in every way shape and form. It was all so new. I was so unpracticed, even the simplest things seemed impossible: breastfeeding, changing diapers, getting those little shirts over those big heads, getting out the door on time, taking a shower. In the 36 hours of my labor I transitioned from being an expert to being an outright, brand spankin’ new beginner.
What I came to believe was that even if I didn’t know how do to something, I would and could learn if it really was important enough. After weeks of showing my breasts to complete strangers I finally figured out how to feed my child discreetly even while waiting in line at the grocery. I could dress Max with one hand and sip an iced latte held in the other and could change a diaper in under 10 seconds flat.
But truth be told, the minute I mastered anything in this parenting gig, the minute I thought I had motherhood down and had begun to feel “good” at this new job, I was sunk again, thrown once more into the land of change, and mystery, and exploration without a map. If the last 7 and a half years have taught me anything, it is the inevitability of trading in mastery for mystery.
This has been accentuated by the fact that I am a girly girl mom raising a boy’s boy son. In addition to all the mysteries of child development, I have had to immerse myself into the secret life of boys. Without a partner to turn to to say, “You handle this,” I find I need to delve into topics I never would have imagined that I would need to explore, let alone master
Which leads me to “safety yellow” colored jock straps. Or rather, the choices between yellow mesh gym shorts with built in cups or yellow cycling pants with built in cups.
Max is starting a hockey program on Saturday. He has been counting down the minutes until I finally let him play. While I made him really work to earn the chance to play, truth be told, I was so excited that he was embracing a sport I knew. I thought that maybe, my own wobbly skating aside, I would get a pass on the beginner thing this time. That finally, he would enter a phase where I could skate along on information I had mastered long ago. That I was getting a long deserved mom’s rest in the stands where I could comfortably discuss the icing calls with the veteran hockey moms from game 1 on. Better yet, I could feel an expert again-if not at playing hockey, then well…at watching hockey…and being a proper hockey mom. In fact, I might be able to tell a few of those other moms a thing or two about off-sides and slashing and holding and all that.
I was beginning to get used to the idea that I could finally rest my weary little ego in the land of mastery. That is, I was resting until I got the email. From my darling and helpful good guy friend. The one who keeps me informed about guys stuff I need to know. The email from the friend that knocked me off my high horse and informed just how little I really knew. It was the email where he started to fill me in on jock straps.
Apparently there are all different kinds and I as a parent will have to help Max choose. He needs a special hockey jock strap which is different from the one his karate teacher had ordered him for that sport. Apparently the standard issue hockey jock shorts are safety yellow. Talk about a mystery… Yellow? Safety yellow? Its been hours since I learned this and I am still baffled. Why on earth, do they make them yellow? I mean, they are hidden, beneath black or blue or red hockey pants. Yellow bike helmets, I get it…but yellow underwear? Is it to make sure they don’t get thrown in the wrong pile of the wash? I have no idea and am not sure that I will ever know. But it simply a sign, a little laughable sign from the universe that even in the area I thought I would have down, I just don’t know how much I don’t know. And that there is no way to escape swimming in the land of beginning. There will always be a mystery.
So I am setting off, yet again, on another uncharted adventure. Me, my son, his yellow penis protecting underwear and I. I get to practice all over again, the art of being a beginner, of starting from ground zero, of knowing nothing and plunging in anyway, of just giving it a go and seeing where it leads. We always start right where we are completely new.
As for the whole mastery thing, well, I still would like to believe that one day I will get it all down. But truth be told, the richness of my life these days is coming from embracing the mystery. Parenting has taught me that in ways that are humbling and funny, sweet and torturous. And it will teach me over and over again.
Thirteen miles in three and a half hours. By some ancient standards that might be making good time.
This is what I think as I sit in traffic, inching along on a very small stretch of a 300 mile quest to Connecticut. These thirteen miles are neither here nor there. They are somewhere in between, but they are exactly where I am and I am simply there.
There is a lot to see that maybe I would have missed at 60 plus miles an hour. Even on the Delaware Turnpike…at night…in the dark of the new moon. There is a lot to see even though its not remarkably different. But it needs to be seen I suppose. We all need to be seen.
There is some reason I am here, I tell myself. And I mean it. And I feel not impatient, even as I am a little achey. Somehow knowing that I am exactly where I need to be makes it peaceful if not perfect.
So, I play my ipod, a silly Russian roulette, spin the wheel and let the Universe decide what songs we will hear. I discover that the Universe prefers Ry Cooter and the Reverend Gary Davis and Pavement which I think is kinda funny given that I am stuck on a long black stretch of Pavement and this is apparently what I am meant to see.
I giggle to myself when I see a sign warning us to slow down for the construction. I wonder if we really could go any slower, me and my fellow travelers. Then I learn we can, and we do. Thats when it occurs to me that once upon a time someone might have thought that having gone 13 miles in 3 and a half hours was making good time. Its all relative.
There is no exit. The metaphor is not lost on me. We are all of us trapped here–on this stretch of a journey that some might say is painfully slow but maybe is the right speed afterall.
I am thankful there is no Pollyana ending. I have not found any greater meaning in the traffic. I didn’t find a long lost friend in the car next to mine. There was no missed accident, at least I don’t think there is. I don’t have any aha moments that explain the traffic, the slow car, the endless stretch of wet dark pavement. Whatever I needed to learn is subtler, simpler and I am not sure I can even articulate it.
I am here. Nowhere else.
I am somewhere in the dark. Stuck like so many. Creeping along and moving but always exactly where I am. I am moving, always moving. I feel my chest rise with every breath. I feel my leg tap out the rythym of the song. I feel my arms stretch up as I try and relieve my tired back.
Thirteen miles in 3 and a half hours. By ancient standards I was making good time.
If I had more than 5 minutes to write I would write a story about emptiness. About how hard it is to clear out all the junk and just sit. How the minute I feel that empty feeling I feel the need to fill it–with what…with chatter, with stuff, with something distracting, with color and music and flashing lights.
If I had more than 5 minutes to write I tell a fable about a girl who is trying to stop doing and create wide open spaces in her heart. A fable about what happens when you don’t rush to fill it with something comforting but let the universe instead decide how to fill the open spaces. But maybe it wouldn’t be about a girl. Maybe it would be about a bowl. Or a ditch or a cow.
If had more than 5 mintues to write I would spin a tale about how the universe abhors a vacuum and will fill it up with love if we just are patient enough. I would reflect though that we often are even quicker to fill up the hollowed out places in our heart with junk substitutions for the love the universe is cooking up for us because the emptiness just feels so…empty.
If I had more than 5 mintues to write I would confess that I feel chained to the constant practice of emptying my life–that I am so unpracticed and I am so quick to clutter, clog, fill. That I am realizing that I am being given practices every day, that so much of what I see are challenges are just opportunities to practice letting go, being empty, sitting still. That every day I do it for a little longer. That it makes me uncomfortable and weezy and a little dizzy but I am doing it anyway.
My life is full of magic. Just ask St Anthony. When I was a little girl, I lost everything. My father still talks about how I lost my blazer in 4th grade. I lost my homework, I lost my money, I lost my way. I spent a good portion of my early life looking for things. In college, my roommate Cindy would tell me it was time to go to dinner a full 10 minutes early because she had to build in time for me to locate my id and dining card. Somewhere along the way, in desperation of some sort, someone taught me the St Anthony prayer.
St Anthony, St Anthony…please look around, Something is lost and Can’t be found…We are looking for (insert name of thing we have lost here)
This frantic looking for something lost, sometimes it feels as though it is my destiny, or maybe my curse. I am a seeker. Always looking for something that has slipped through my fingers. Always thinking that the thing I need is somewhere else, somewhere hidden, somewhere far away. Over the last few years I have found the St Anthony prayer to work remarkably. I don’t know whether it is a little trick which triggers my brain to remember exactly where I put the lost thing, or whether it is truly a magic calling spell or whether a lovely saint with a bald head and the baby Jesus in his arms intervenes…but does it matter? For now, no matter what I have lost, it turns up no sooner than the words to the prayer slip out of my mouth. I have come to believe that the magic is that I am starting to trust that it never was really lost to begin with. It was always exactly where it needed to be and I just needed to open my eyes to see it. The St Anthony prayer is the key that unlocks that faith in my heart and opens my eyes.Lately I have been spending lots of time looking for other things I thought I had lost: the meaning of it all, love, my sanity, balance. I feel like that woman who is frantically looking around for her glasses which are right on top of her head. Seems like a little trust is in order…Trust that these things are right where they are meant to be and that all I need to do is open my eyes and I might just see them. The lesson is stop seeking and simply look. Its always there. Right in front of you.
I have been dreaming lately–really dreaming. Wild, Jungian, image-rich dreams that glisten as though they are painted with glossy paint. I wake up each morning and lay in bed, mentally kissing and blessing each of the strange and wonderful characters who have floated through my night world, who are the map-makers, the ones who are teaching me about the silent, unexplored places of my crazy healer’s heart.
There is a baby girl, a toddler, who I walk with, hand in hand along the banks of rivers and streets. While I am tentative, she will skip on the slippery rocks. When she falls I pull her out of the water , but she protests telling me just how beautiful the river really is.
There is the healer man, who looks a lot like a friend’s husband now long moved away. It is so hard to get to him, I always struggle, facing obstacle after obstacle to meet him. I will spend what feels like hours trying to connect, the path is always crooked and jumbled and exhausting, and I am so frequently derailed and stuck. When I reach him finally, he always walks me back to where I started, talking to me about the five elements, and deep knowing and the people that he and I love.
There is the crazy political consultant who is so frantic and stressed that she does not realize that I have snuck into her house and am an imposter, there is the shop keeper of the book store, a magical man who knows the secret incantations but will not tell me, assuring me that they will not work unless I discover them myself. But my favorite, my favorite of all these wild and wonderful fairytale friends, is the headless grandmother.
She has appeared in my earth dreams, the ones with golden lighting, the ones when I feel grounded. She sits at the edge on an armchair throne and holds court. She is adored by everyone but I know that I am her most beloved. She watches me work the party, the smiles, the kisses, the stolen glances. She knows what is in my heart, even before I tell her. She knows, and even though she has no head she smiles.
In my last dream she took my face between her hands and smushed it the way only a grandma can. She pulled me in close and whispered to me, “My precious beautiful girl, sweetness is coming to you…It is coming soon…in the span of one year . I see it” And then she blesses me by squeezing my hand. I don’t question her one bit. She is the wisest person I know. Without a head to muddle her, with only her heart to guide her, I know she alone knows the truth and I find deep deep comfort in her presence.
I have been told that according to Jung we are all the people in our dreams. If that is true, my headless grandmother must be my wise old woman self: the one who knows just because she has been through it all before, the one who knows becauses she has no use for a head with all the mess that logic brings. The one who knows because she holds all the wisdom of this wide open heart of mine.
This week I have kept her close, mentally closing my eyes and holding my hand in her wrinkled bent fingers. Her “oh-so grandmother” string of pearls resting on her royal blue sweater on the place around the place where her neck would be. I have kept her close and felt her smile, her caress on my hand while the rain has fallen and the wind has blown.
To you and to all the people that you are: the wise, the frantic, the healers and the children, may you sleep tight tonight in the embrace of a grandmothers’ love.
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.
The other night I had a dream. I was running with a friend, one of my dearest friends, down a creek bed to waterfall. We were running with the exuberance and complete wild abandon of a couple of 10 year olds. The whole world seemed open, a bright and full of possibility. We got to the wild rapids and I jumped, sliding down the rocks into the river and let it tumble and carry me on a wild ride. My friend jumped with me and we hooted and hollered and tumbled head over feet, tossing and turning and being swept along. The river was wild, almost dangerous but we knew no fear. Then the water dumped us into a deep still clear pool where I swam like a porpoise, like an Olympian, like the strong swimmer I never was but always wanted to be. I woke up knowing my dream was about trust.
*******
About two weeks ago a friend was over. After a long chat, she presented me with a deck of cards and invited me to shuffle the cards, close my eyes and pick one. This was the card that I picked. TRUST.The experience gave me goosebumps, or rather chills as I had already decided that TRUST would be my word for the year. Every year I pick a word to settle into. A word to set the tone of the year. A word to serve as a guiding light. The word for 2007 was “renewal”. For 2008 it was “blossom”. But this year it is trust.
Even looking back at the posts I chose as my favorites, this past year on theme seems to rise up and scream at me: Trust. Trust myself. Trust my heart. Trust my loved ones. Trust my life. Trust is my big promethean struggle–it is the boulder I push up the hill. Settling into it seems like a fitting new years resolution. The card I picked said this. It seems to be to be the truest thing I ever read:
The more we follow our intuition, the more we’ll find that the right doors open to assist us in fufilling our life’s purpose.
********
At a holiday party, one of my friends talked about being laid off. She told me how when she got the news, she called an old friend and mentor. This wise woman told her, “This is either the worst thing that has ever happened to you…or it is the best thing that has ever happened to you. You get to decide what it is. And however you decide will determine what happens next. What you choose to make it is up to you.” I have often thought this way about Juan leaving me. In some ways it was the worst thing that has ever happened to me. But in many ways it has also been the best. I have grown in new ways, ways I never would have explored had we stayed safe and secure in our less than perfect union.
******
I used to think that trust was impossible for me to wrap my heart around. I was a master at second guessing. A master at double checking. A master at making plans and then doing everything I could to push against the river to keep it from flowing. But I have come to realize that trusting is just as simple as relaxing into what is–that it is, that it can be the easiest of all possible ways. All around me, the universe is whispering “Trust, girlfriend…just let go and trust.” So this year, I chose TRUST. Not just as a word, but as an anthem…a way of life, a mantra, a prayer, a guide.
I will remember what it was to run along a creek bed. I will summon joy and jump into this messy, tumbling river called my life and let it carry me along through rapids, across rocks and ultimately to deep still water.
What is your word for the year? Whisper it here…or in your heart where it is most important?
This past week I have been walking dogs. In the face of illness and tragedy, it seems like the only thing I could possibly do was show up, and walk the dog. When the humans were grieving, vomiting, sleeping, pacing, someone needed to walk the pooch. This week that human was often me.
Walking the dog is just something that needs to be done, like laundry or taking out the trash. No matter how worlds spin out of control, a dog needs to be walked. For me, walking the dog has become a metaphor for picking up and getting on with it. For continuing acknowledging pain and then just doing what needs to be done, without fanfare or drama. Quite literally it is about cleaning up the poop, stretching ones legs, breathing in the air and going around the block only to arrive exactly at where I started.
Max and I have been walking dogs together this week. He keeps track of each of them and asks me each night in the car, “Allie or Louie, mom?” We walk for a half hour at a time, giving the dogs time to explore. We walk and find ourselves talking about things that never would have occured to us otherwise. About the smell of leaves or the mean kid at school or about why dogs talk to each other by peeing.
Its been cold this week. Brutally cold for Maryland in November and I wonder about dragging my son out in the evening for these walks. But Max rarely complains. He doesn’t even ask me anymore about why, why do we need to go. My answer is simple. We need to walk the dog because it needs to be done. Someone is ill, sick, in the hospital, tired. So we will go. That is how we are as a community. When one of us is out the other walks the dog. No big deal.
And it is no big deal. It is no fancy thing–no gourmet meal prepared, no major Herculean task. It is a walk, around the block reminding me that life goes on, and on and on. And when the bottom falls out, we can simply do more than keep it moving.
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.
