1. Listen to the wisdom of 4 year olds.
2. Dance freely without worry about what you look like.
3. Curl up on the couch and let someone sing you to sleep.
4. Say yes when you want to and no when you don’t.
5. Go on secret missions with young friends (like my dear John) to leave message of hope around the city with sidewalk chalk.
6. Welcome someone who needs you into your home.
7. Then, let the kitten sleep on your bed (as if you have a choice).
8. Call your cousin (or whoever it is in your life who you know loves you to your toes).
9. Take pictures of everyone you love and the things that fill your heart with gratitude.
10. Drink chai tea.
11. Laugh completely and entirely–don’t hold back, even if you need to lay down on the floor and tears are pouring down your cheeks.
12. Take a long bath followed up with a warm shower.
13. Skinny dip every chance you get.
14. Read out loud. Snuggle long after the little one has fallen asleep.
15. Make guacamole and eat the entire bowl–or save some for lunch. Or eat the entire bowl and then make some more for lunch.
16. Get lost in a book.
17. Take the metro. Take walks.
18. Tell the people you love that you love them–even when, especially when, it might seem like it is coming out of the blue.
19. Get new glasses so that you can see clearly.
20. Clean out the closets. Clean the floors. Clean the bathtub.
21. Head out into the woods and stay there for a few days.
22. Cry when you need to.
23. Play your guitar–loudly (even if its badly). Play only for yourself if you want.
24. Wade in the water’s edge. Let your feet sink into the mud and get all sticky.
25. Move into action even as you sit in stillness.
26. Cook dinner with your dear ones and eat it outside.
27. Go out for icecream and let it drip down your face and get on your nose.
28. Drive to a farm and pick fresh berries, peaches, plums or whatever is in season.
29. Light candles and say prayers just sit silently and hold hard moments for what they are. Trust that “All will be well and all manner of things shall be well.” Whisper it until you believe it.
30. Throw your arms around the people who delight you.
Inspired by the gorgeous Jen Lemen and my dear cousin Leenie both who have reminded me that the only time I am ever unhappy is when I find myself wanting the joy I don’t have and ignoring the crazy joy exploding around me.
Photo by Max
I am at a place in my journey that requires a tremendous amount a patience.
For two years I have been dealing with a an absurd and scary financial problem. This was not a problem that I created (I have plenty of those too) but one which arose from my ex-husband and his inability to deal with things that were his responsibility when he left. One which arose from his deciding he didn’t need me. One that arose when he stopped doing what I had faithfully done for him, year after year. Its a problem that would push my buttons in the best of circumstances. But that fact that it has become mine costs me. It costs me dearly.
Most days it just floats about, an annoying ghost that hangs over my left shoulder, but on some days it knocks me to the floor and leaves me feeling powerless. This is not an insurmountable problem but solving it has not been simple. In fact, solving it myself requires energy (and resources) I simply don’t have and every baby step I have had to take has left me drained and completely laid out flat. I have been at his mercy and each time he doesn’t do what he needs to do, I find myself abandoned yet again, reliving the sorrow and the loss that happened when we split. It has required me to dig deep on the side of faith. It has required me to threaten things I never imagined having the threaten. It has left me shaken in the part of my heart that is about being held, nurtured and care for–about my personal sense of safety. It has left me wrung out.
The specifics are not important. The problem will resolve itself one way or another I am sure. The fact though is that at the end of the day, when its all taken care of, I will have paid dearly, at the very least with a piece of my soul. The waiting for the someday when it will no longer be a problem is killing me.
Some days I feel like a total whiner. On the scale of all the problems faced by mothers in the world, this problem seems small. I can afford to feed my child and keep him warm. I am able to keep him safe from war and criminal elements. We have our health, our intelligence and each other.
Other days though I feel so completely alone and overwhelmed. On the scale of all the problems faced by mothers in my community, a mecca of mini-vans and juice boxes and college savings plans, this one seems unbelievably huge. And so out of my control. It can leave me feeling like I don’t belong. And stuck. And left behind.
Sometimes I feel as though for the last 2 years I have been parked at a crossroads on my path, waiting for a parade of milling sheep to go by. They just keep coming, those sheep, with my ex-husband’s financial issues tied onto them like saddle bags. And I am waiting.
I ask myself what is there to be learned from this situation. It can’t be that I need to learn to work harder. I have worked myself practically to death. It can’t be that I need to learn to be smarter. I have stretched my brain as far as it will go. And the only thing I can possibly belive is this: patience.
Patience is a hard one for me. Not the kind of patience that requires loving attention, like the patience we have for our children.
I am talking about the kind that simply is willing to wait, to take baby steps, to do things in such tiny doses that they feel like they carry you nowhere. I am a big change kind of girl–I like to see results. When I make a decision I move, boldly, no waiting around. I measure the actions I take against what I have earned and make corrections along the way. To be so way-laid and trapped by the actions of another is excrutiating. And really, more than anything, that is what brings me grief in all this. That while this problem remains unsolved, my life seems stuck and despite my best efforts I can’t unstick it.
If I am honest, I will admit that my inability to be patient is sucking the happiness out of me. There I said it. I don’t know what realization is scarier: that it is my own inability to be patient that is causing me despair, or that it really is sucking the joy out of my life. Either way its a no-win situation.
And so I think it is time for me to learn to just sit. If you asked me even one day ago what I was hoping for my birthday I would tell you that what I most wanted was movement. But the truth is, movement will only get me a little farther up the road. What I really need is to learn to be happy in stillness, no matter what life brings. I do a lot of talk about meditation and pull it out when crises hit but as a daily practice it is nowhere to be seen. Thats why for my birthday I will be going here, to sit for the day, to take a plunge into patience, to learn again (and again) how to just sit.
These links are not the kind that come back telling you there was a typo in your link but rather links to material that has sustained and nourished me as a I have been contemplated the brokenness of me, the brokenness of humanity and the glory and gift of being broken wide open like one of those geode rocks that looks all plain and regular rock on the outside but inside are brilliant sparkling gorgeous gem-like unique miracles. The breaking is what makes it possible for us to see the insides.
Awhile ago, the lovely Jena Strong (who herself, often writes about being broken open) made a book recommendation. I immediately picked this book up and gobbled it in a matter of a week. Broken: A Love Story is a story of a Native American shaman who found his talents to train horses and to heal people after an accident leaves him paralyzed. More than that however, it is the story of what happens to the author, Lisa Jones, when she allows this man and his community to touch her life. It is a story about the beauty that comes from mess and the peace in living life exactly as it shows up, the joy of surrender.
And then there is Maggie, of Okay.Fine.Dammit. Maggie writes about a lot of things, but she writes with raw exquisite breathtaking beauty about being broken open. Or rather, Maggie–so deeply immersed in this life she lives, breaks open her heart, confronts pain and ugliness and shows us spectacular beauty in the procss. One of the things I love about Maggie’s posts is that she doesn’t feel the need to tie it all up in a neat little bow. She is content with the messiness to be, well, messy. If you don’t read Maggie, you should. She will knock you to your knees. Try this one about the impending loss of a cherished friend or this one about her battle to be true to herself and commitments she made or this one which made her one of my heros for ever.
Or how about this video of Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat Pray Love and Committed fame. A marvelous look at how we never really arrive anywhere, just muddle through the best we can and do brilliantly. If you have 20 minutes or are feeling like you can’t quite get it together and IT.IS.ALL.FALLING.APART watch this. You will be so glad you did.
And lastly, via Jen Lemen, this song which speaks for itself:
I don’t mind telling the 6 or so of you who still pass this way that I have a lovely family therapist. I started seeing her when Juan told me he was leaving me and she eased our family through our various transitions along the way. She is a resource for me on parenting, a partner who has helped me reframe my thinking about our experiences, a guide to understanding how hearts and lives break and heal, a problemsolver who helps me tease out solutions that work and a teacher who has helped me learn to build fences where they are needed and knock down stone walls where they block out the light.
She recommends books for me and sends me to go see movies. And she buys me nail polish with wonderful names like Abundance and Brand New Skates so that I may always look down at my feet and know where in what space I am planted. At the end of each session we hug tightly, giggling as the rest of the office looks on in shock. I am not sure that we are behaving properly for a therapist and her client. We don’t care. Its much more fun this way.
Today I walked to therapy feeling glorious and full. The air was warm and humid–the kind of air in which smells are intensified as though put through an olfactory microscope–blown up bigger than life. The light breeze that blew brought in all sorts of wonderful intense smells–the mulch from the garden beds, sweet spun sugar from newly baked cupcakes at the bakery, jasmine and peonies and hamburgers and Thai food. Car exhaust. Sugary soda spilled on the sidewalk. More mulch more heavenly mulch. As I walked, I honestly considered whether my visits to her office were needed anymore. I am doing so well, everything in check. Its expensive to keep coming, even when the intervals are so spaced out, even though its covered. And I am so deeply happy, even as I am frustrated, angry, sad, lonely and broken sometimes. I am healthy now. I feel whole.
It has been a long time since we last met. She asks me how I have been and all I can say is fine. How do you capture 6 weeks of heart work in a few minutes. So I tell her fine (honestly)–even as I know I am lying (honestly). I feel a storm, swirling like a thunderstorm developing suddeny on a hot summer day. I feel it rising up from my gut–a breaking open in the safety of my big comfy chair.
Actually…there are moments when I feel so unsupported, I tell her. Moments when I feel so terribly alone–when I am doing this all, keeping it together, being healthy and good and strong and it costs me so much to not fall apart. I am a levee constantly in danger of being breached, straining but still strong. It is exhausting and hard to focus when I am working so hard just to maintain–to get lunches made, and beds made, and homework done and baths drawn, and dinner cooked, and cupboard stacked and boo-boos kissed and litter boxes emptied and trash cans left at the corner. The laundry never stops piling up, no matter how much I do. The dust builds up causing me to sneeze before I am there to do it again. The fridge is never cleaned because while I start I never have time to finish. I never have time to finish anything because I only have time to start. Everything is started and rarely finished (I rage). The to-do list is too long and everything is twice as complicated as it seems and stuck–it gets stuck. I have so many dreams…so many things I should be doing to move those dreams forward…I know what I need to be doing but I can’t do them. No one can help me with these things–they are my path and my journey and I am alone right now–I am supposed to do it alone. I can’t do it on my own but I somehow keep managing to do it part way–to almost do it on my own. Because its so much and while I have long given up on beating myself up for not being able to do it all–the fact remains that when you don’t do it all–a lot doesn’t get done. And it costs so much for it all not to be done. So much is sacrificed. And I am so so tired. And how are you?
I pause for a minute, surprised.
I am surprised (I say) because I am really really grateful. I am grateful for the help that I have–for my dear friend who covered for my babysitter who needed to go to the doctors today and for the people who drive Max here and there while I work. I am grateful that Juan shows up two nights a week so I have time to work late, and write, and do errands without a fight. I am grateful for my job, a place where I feel so exquisitely loved and appreciated, even though I no longer feel passionate about it. I am grateful for my home, my community, my old cat who wakes me up every morning at 6 with kisses unless I ask her to wake me at 7. (She really does). I am grateful for my friends who cook for me and pour me wine and invite me to the most delicious conversation. And Oh how I am grateful for my son who is healthy and kind and growing up into such a lovely young man with opinions and interests and an awareness that is inspiring. I am grateful for all the beauty in the world for the smells and the flowers and the snow and the yummy yummy food so WHY do I feel so f**king ungrateful and resentful?
There is nothing left for me to do. (I am almost yelling now through my tears). I have grown so freakin’ much–I am so strong now. Most of the time I get by just fine. I breathe. I check the evidence. I don’t globalize. I see each situation through three or four different lenses. I reframe. I see the positive. I count to 10. I lower my standards. I prioritize. I count my blessings. I accept. I love unconditionally. I let everything go except for that which is right in front of me.
But it doesn’t change my circumstances.
THIS IS MY LIFE. (I am almost out of breath). I am a single mom with a busy job and not a lot of resources.
THIS IS MY LIFE. I am in the middle of a transition which is unfolding painfully slowly and my not unfold at all because momentum is something that just doesn’t seem to exist in my life.
THIS IS MY LIFE. It is not changing and I don’t know how to change it anymore. I don’t know how to fix it because I don’t think it can be fixed and honestly (I say accusingly–to whom I wonder?) I don’t think its needs to be fixed but this life, my life, my sweet gorgeous, messed up, totally rotten, joyous life–its exhausting and hard and too too too much sometimes. It comes too fast. I don’t seem to have time to enjoy it even though I savor it so sweetly–it is gone before I can truly process and metabolize its taste.
When I sleep–it costs me dearly. When I play, it costs me twice as much. When I try and move in a new direction I feel blocked, stuck, lulled. (Where is the girl with the bowl I wonder?)
You’re right she says. And we sit for a few minutes.
And as we start to talk I am at peace again. At peace because I rode out the storm in a safe harbor. At peace because I let it just wash over me and didn’t fight it. At peace because at the end of the day I AM right–on all counts. At peace because I know I have just spoke the universal rant of mothers who are trying to hold it all together and who are tested, challenged, called to learn through our own unique sets of circumstances. At peace because at the end of the day, I know deep in my heart that this is my path and there is no other place that would be better for me right now.
I wish I could tell you that she had magic words of wisdom that knit me back together. If she I would share them with you, I promise. But she offered me a space where I could break myself open and simply be imperfect and broken and resentful and full of rage, angry and tired and lonely despite the blessings in my life. Where I could be without worries that I have hurt her or alienated her or annoyed her or simply brought her down. That is a gift. It is exactly what I needed: to come unglued and then the gingerly rearrange myself again.
Tonight I am working late, sitting at my computer as the sun starts to fade, sitting here in the knowlege that life is hard, exhausting, and challenging even as it is fascinating, beautiful and holy. There is no way around it. Life is something we must bear–its beauty and its pain. And we bear it breath by breath
In this quiet space with no ringing phones I can hear my heart whisper to me that this grind, this exhaustion, this holding it all together, it is part of my curriculum, my perfectly planned journey to learn what must be learned. And what must be learned (for me at least) is this.
Step 1. Go to the mountain. (Make the world my mountain)
Step 2. Pick up your bowl.
Step 3. Breathe. Trust. Surrender.
Step 4. Repeat
Memorial day weekend found me on the nature path with Norah, my friend’s 5 year old daughter. We had read a pamphlet about how to tell the difference between the vegetation eaten by rabbits and deer. By looking at the angle of how the leaves and branches are broken, we could tell whether bunnies or Bambis had wandered through. It was fun to stoop down and walk that path with that new perspective.
Every few feet we would proclaim: Rabbit! Rabbit! More Rabbits! Deer!
I never realized how broken the forest is. She looks so lush and full but close down, she is trampled and snapped and broken.
She is a mama, giving it all to feed her babes. Stripped of her sweetest leaves, her most tender branches. She willingly offers them up to keep life living. But she looks so whole, so put together, so complete. if it wasn’t for the looking so closely, we would have thought she was bursting forth with green, overflowing with abundance. We wouldn’t have known about the broken parts. Yet, there, in the shadows, if we look closely we see it, stripped branch after stripped branch. Little bare and frazzled parts. All because she cared. She offered herself up.
We too are mothers broken out of that same love. To the outside we may appear completely complete, all together. But we are frayed and frazzled and stripped of our most tender leaves. We give everything to nurture those we love. We give because we can. We open ourselves up to be chewed up: By our children, by our spouses, by our friends. We bear it because because we exist for them.
But all that giving, well it leaves us a bit broken. Most of us would never trade it for any price. We love to love, even though it leaves us a bit frayed. And selfishly we do it because we know.
We know what I saw is also true. That those bushes that were broken last week, are growing stronger. Where one branch was sheared, two strong supple green stems have appeared.
We allow ourselves to be broken, because it feeds our loved ones. We allow ourselves to be broken because it can push us to grow in new directions. We allow it because it is part of being human, of being a woman, of being love personified.
Sometimes I think it is as much hard work to be divorced as it is to be married. Both require that you come in close intimate contact with your worst and your best selves.
I have my stories that I tell about why my marriage ended. They are all true. But they are not entirely complete. Until recently I found it convenient to leave out many of the bits about all I did to stress that relationship. I leave them out because its uncomfortable to admit these things. I leave them out because that means I can pretend that my divorce is something that happened to me, instead of something I actively created. Its easier and neater to be the victim, the good wife who got left. I suppose its an easier and simpler story to tell it.
Secretly though I have owned those ugly stories. I had to. I knew my divorce would be a whole heap of pain for nothing if I didn’t at least explore them, didn’t at least explore all the ways we got to this place and ask myself, what I could possibly learn.
For years at night I would wake up unable to sleep, the litany of all the things I had done to destroy what I loved so dearly running through my mind. There were nights I blamed myself. I fixated on my temper, my impatience, my resentment. There were other nights I railed against the injustice. Sure I was difficult, but it was no reason to leave me. Sure I could be a pain in the ass, but lets talk about what he did to provoke it! Some nights I wallowed in how wrong I was, others in how right I was.
And then one day I gave up with all this need to be right (and wrong). I simply was. It dawned on me that there is no right or wrong in something as complicated as marriage. There are just two wounded people, doing the very best they can. We bump up against each others sharp bits. We cause pain. We hurt. We soothe each other, delight each other, bore each other, infuriate each other. We push buttons–either by accident or on purpose. Sometimes we come through it. Sometimes we simply cannot stay. At very best we can hope to learn something from each other from all these interactions. We can gain some wisdom about ourselves. We might chose to stay the same,or chose to grow and change. There is no right or wrong, no fault or blame to be doled out. It just is. And in that recognition is a world of freedom and forgiveness.
The minute I stopped with the blame, I began to forgive–not just Juan, but myself for all that had transpired. Knowing that we were two people just trying to do our best, failing miserably every day, getting up and trying again, suddenly made it all redeemable.
Six months after my husband left, it had become clear that he would not be contributing the money he promised to help pay for childcare and “Max-related” household expenses. He was not going to contribute to the mortgage to pay for the house we held in both our names, even though we had taken out equity in the thousands that had largely gone to Latin America to help his various family members. He was not going to be contributing at all because he couldn’t.
For six months I had been spending as though I had all that he promised. We had no savings. All our cash had flowed out to buy my husband a new van for his business, to address a huge family emergency he had. Once upon a time, when two incomes flowed into our house, we were able to get by even in times like these. The problem was, I was still stuck in that now irrelevant and practically ancient time and I was drowning in anachronisms.
I was living in a beautiful, relative well-off community and week by week, we were getting closer and closer to hungry. The checks to the babysitter bounced. The pre-school called me about the tuition payment checks that had been returned. Going to the ATM became an exercise in faith, and deep breathing to manage the stress. Colleagues left $20 bills on my chair because they noticed I hadn’t eaten lunch in days.
One night, in desperation I went up into the attic. I sorted through Max’s baby clothes, the ones I had been saving in case we had another baby, and put them in a pile for consignment. In one fell swoop, to take care of the child I had, I let go of the dream of a child to come. “Let’s be honest,” I told myself. “He’s not coming back. No partner. No new kid.” The light bill needed to be paid.
One Saturday night when I had truly hit bottom, I dragged out the change jar that was tucked in the kitchen closet. The jar where for 10 years Juan and I thrown our spare pennies and nickles, tossed them in as an investment in dreams down the line. When Juan and I were younger and poorer we would dig through the spare change jar for quarters we would use to order a pizza or buy ice cream in a romantic sort of “young and struggling” gesture. Yet no matter how struggling we were, even during those lean times, we never had to empty it. Not once.
I dragged the jar into the car and took it to the CoinStar machine at the grocery store where I turned it upside down, watching every last penny spiral into the well. When I got the receipt, I turned around and went in and used it to buy groceries. And I tried not to think about the empty coin jar in the cupboard.
What is surreal about this experience is that I had a job. A good job. Sure it was a non-profit job, but I was working for a decent salary. But still, no matter how I eventually cut my expenses to the bare bone, it was not enough. No matter how much I made, no matter how much I trimmed from our budget, it just wasn’t enough.
*****
Its taken me years to climb out of that place where I felt so on the edge of financial ruin. It is still tighter than I would like and I am not nearly saving but bit by bit I have found a way to get by with what we have now. Yet, money continues to be one of the biggest stressors in my life. I know I am in good company here.
And I continue to bury that panicked feeling, the feeling that I was standing with one foot off a cliff, that I was dangling by some imaginary tiny thread over a slippery slope that would lead to my destruction. I have kept it stuffed down and far below. I do whatever I can to keep it at bay. I don’t ever want to touch that fear again.
*****
A number of things are happening in life right now that are leading me to consider what would happen if I had to make due with even less and it has brought that fear screaming to the surface. I am toying with dreams that would require investment in tuition or an eventual shift to part-time work. “What would it mean,” I wonder “if I were to try some sort of grad school, part time, at night?” I do the tuition calculations, think about what it might mean to my income and work and suddenly I am back in that place, remembering the feeling of failure, of fear. The memories come flooding back. I can’t imagine ever going back to that place willingly. I slam the door shut.
*****
The other day I sat to talk to a stranger at the part-time graduate program I have explored. I was sitting with her because I wanted to make a financial plan to get to school one day in the future and I needed information and ideas. She had so very few concrete solutions for someone as broke as me, we were both a bit frustrated with the course of the conversation.
What she did offer was a lecture on faith. She told me that I would have to take a leap and trust that the net would appear. She told me that as much as I wanted to see it all planned out there was no way to do that and I just had to see what would happen. Just jump she said.
Suddenly I remembered the baby clothes and the CoinStar in the grocery store and the fear and loneliness I felt as panic swelled and I thought about dashing out the door while she spoke to me of attracting abundance. I had no choice then, but would I ever take Max and myself through that again. I stared at her blankly with tears brimming. “Don’t you understand how much faith it has taken me to even get to this place?” She was so kind I chose to keep my next utterance to myself, “I may lack alot, but don’t you dare insuinate that I have a lack of faith.”
*****
If I am being honest, really brutally honest, a lot of my story about the last five years does have to do with that word: LACK. Lack of money. Lack of time. Lack of patience. Lack of clean clothes. Lack of sleep. Lack of physical affection. Lack of a partner to support me. Lack of Vitamin D. Lack of energy. On many days I have taken all this lack for granted and I have stopped thinking about it in a conscious way. I shrug off the voices that come up complaining of want. I convince myself that I am a “glass half full girl” , that I concentrate with cheeriness on what I DO have. I share what time, money, energy and hope I have with joy.
But even though I can silence the whining voice, and tell myself I am grateful grateful grateful, I see that “the lack” is looming. I am trying to constantly make up for not having enough, for not being enough. I am apologizing always for what is not there. To myself, my son, my office, my friends, my family. It is insidious how “Lack” can sneak into our worldview when we are trying to live a life of gratitude.
*****
Of course, when I take a step back, when I am at my wisest, most peaceful place, I know that I dwell in a land of
abundance. I am most very grateful for all we have. We have an abundance of community and love that surrounds us. We have an abundance of cats looking for warm laps. We have an abundance of interesting and free places to explore in an amazing city. And we have an abundance of kindnesses shown to us on a daily basis, so many that I can weep sometimes to think of them all. We have an abundance of silliness and laughter and joy, an abundance of friends willing to break bread together, and abundance of hugs, of inside jokes, of campfires and music and wonder. There are countless miracles unfolding in my life–big and small–most of them arising from a random act of kindness. We have so much. I am truly blessed. Really.
I know that Max and I won’t starve as long as we dwell here.
But, as disappointing as this may be, to me and anyone else who imagines me a better person, this is not the default position of my brain. I wish it was. Of course, there are moments, like when I am listening to a friend play music or when Max is laughing or when I am sitting at a table with friends, I sink into the fullness of my life, feel its softness and ease and joy and abundance. But, most moments,well, I have to walk myself through the paces to get here, to remind myself how rich we are.
Truth is, it is why I write about my community with such relish. It is why I want to recount the miracles I experience. It is why I tell my stories of joy and sweetness and laughter over and over and over again. Writing helps me remember. Telling the stories convinces me that we are not drowning, that we are in fact, afloat in a wealth of good things. Writing calms the fear.
*****
And the thing that undoes me more than anything, is that I know that perhaps the graduate school lady is right. Perhaps the most important thing I am lacking right now really is faith. I can’t stand that that might be true.
*****
I need to make a major shift here in my soul and is a shift I don’t know how to make. If I am ever going to put that fear, that mind-numbing, sob-inducing saber toothed monster to bed, I am going to need to shift something. It is more than endlessly counting my blessings. It is more than saying the litany of all that I love about my life, like a rosary. It is more than waking up grateful and going to sleep grateful. I know because I do all these things, and still, at the end of the day when it comes to making big jumps I cannot believe that if I let go one bit of my sweet little spot on the cliff here, that it will be OK, that I won’t be dashed to smithereens on the rocks of circumstance, dragging my sweet son with me. I know this goes against everything I want to believe. I’m just sayin’.
*****
Can it be true that I lack the skills to let go of the story of lack?
*****
There are people in my life who don’t have this world view. They expect good things to flow their way. They ask for what they need and they always seem to get it, one way or another, with work, always with work, but also with ease. When insurmountable troubles or unbelievable opportunity comes their way, they always seem to have someone rush in with a check or an scheme or a helping hand. Yes, they work their butts off but the stars seem to line up too. They tell me that the stars always line up when you dwell in a place of abundance. To be honest, I am not sure even what it MEANS to dwell in abundance. I feel so silly to be so ignorant, like the one pre-teen girl who doesn’t know about the mysteries of sex, who is trying to follow the teenagers giggling gossip about the weekend before. WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT I want to scream…but instead I hang my head shyly in shame for not knowing about what they speak.
Every circumstance is our teacher. And I know that this is the lesson that is being placed before me now. I am, bit by bit, taking steps that might open up new ways of being, even though it scares me, frustrates me, leaves me completely undone and bewildered.
Let me whisper this. I think that as scary as it was to be on the edge of financial collapse, it is even more terrifying for me to leave behind the story of lack. It is an uncomfortable story but I knew it well and it explained so very much, and gave me so many excuses. A mentor and dear friend looked into my eyes once and told me that making this shift in my worldview honestly, would be the most challenging thing I have ever had to do. At the time I thought she was crazy, how could shifting to a life of abundance be terrifying? I am beginning to see what she means.
This week I was cruising through my chores. My trip to Madrid had put me behind. I had so much to do. Several weeks worth of laundry had piled up and I had no work clothes. Max was running out of socks. In a burst of efficiency, I threw a load in and went up to make dinner. After homework and bath and bedtime I went down to move the clean clothes to the dryer. I put them in, turned the dial, hit the button…and then nothing. The dryer coughed a little. Strained a bit. But it would not spin. Incedulous, I tried again. And again. I checked plugs and connections and then, exhausted I gave up. A good nights sleep would do me well. I thought the same would be true for my dryer.
The next morning I was peppy. By the dryer still made the same cough. Still whined before growing silent.
We are on a very tight budget. I have practically no cushion for moments such as these. And sure enough, when I checked, other emergencies which had come earlier had eaten what little was left. I could not pay to have someone come and fix my dryer. Not now. It would have to wait.
This was not such a crisis. I delight in line dried clothes. They can be stiff perhaps but there is nothing like the smell of the outdoors, of the crisp air, on my shirts, my pajamas, my pillowcases. When Juan and I went to Mexico, I handwashed and line dried everything I brought with me on my last day and then rationed those clothes for months–breathing in the scent of a place I loved so much, a scent that did not come from mechanical dryers but from clothes hanging, swaying and drying in the Oaxacan breeze. I returned home from every trip with the intention of hanging a clothes line but each time convenience and lack of time got in my way.
This morning, as my anxious mind worried over bills, and dirty clothes and the impossibility of having time to wait for a repairman even if I could scrape together the cash, the simplest of solutions jumped to my brain. $10 for clothesline and clothes pins, sunshine and winter breezes, a reduced gas and electric bill, and sunshine infused clothes.
I recently read that Universe is always doing its best with what it has at its disposal. Always trying to arrange the moments, no matter how chaotic and sad and tragic for the best possible outcome. I could stomp my feet at our bad luck or I could hang a clothes line and delight in sundried clothes.
I chose the later.
What crazy, horrible, inconveniences have lead you to a place you always wanted to go? This wide eyed dreamer is searching and would love to hear your stories.
2009, oh its hard to believe you are coming to a close. Feels like just yesterday that you were dawning. You have been a year of quiet shifts and changes. Nothing big happened this year, and yet, so much happened. And its all been big.
This was the year that I learned, really learned that no one knew what I should do better than my own sweet self. This was the year that I learned that no one will love me quite the way that I could love myself. This was the year, that I learned to embrace stillness and to sit, however uncomfortably in the quiet. This was the year that I learned to retreat. And to trust that it would all be OK in the end.
This is the year that I lost so many of my illusions about fairy tale endings. This is the year I learned to let go. I grieved so many friendships this year. Friends who died, friends who moved, friends who simply left or stopped showing up. This is the year that I stopped resisting Grief and finally accepted that nothing I would do would ever hold her permanently at bay. No amount of tap dancing, no amount of good girl work ethic would keep her away. She would exist always, along with her twin sister Joy. One could not be without the other. Welcome teacher, come have tea.
This is the year that I finally decided to accept my big old heart. I stopped telling myself the story that she was too much and decided to go ahead and let her feel, spill out and be overflow. I let her love. Even when that love was messy. Even when, especially when, that love went unreturned.
This is the year I learned again that life doesn’t have to be perfect or smooth or unblemished to be beautiful.
This is the year I returned again to the dance studio. And I realized that nothing makes me happier, and I wondered why I ever dare stay away.
This is the year I started to ask for what I needed and found that miraculously, mysteriously it always arrives, in completely unexpected packages. I relearned the delight of a childhood Christmas morning again and again and again. This is the year I became awake to all the signs in my life, the signs that point me home, the signs that remind me I am loved, the signs that I really know what to do.
This is the year that I jumped into an abyss, not knowing where it would all lead. This is the year that I never found out, but learned to ride the not knowing. Learned to accept I might not ever know. This is the year that I learned to accept the out of control feeling that comes with mystery and adventure. This is the year I sank into my insecurity, financial and otherwise. This is the year that the reality of all I had experienced the last 40 years hit.
I forgive myself for all those days this year that I lost faith. I forgive myself for all those days I curled up into a ball and gave up, too exhausted to give a hoot. I forgive myself for letting myself be held back by fear, for making excuses, for going back to sleep. I forgive myself for not writing, not playing my guitar, not creating, not trying. I forgive myself for not being inspired, for being blase, for disconnecting. It happens.
Yes, 2009, you were quite a year. You held many gifts. You brought many lessons. You were difficult and wintery. You were small and quiet but powerful and transformative and one day I will be like you.
And now, dear 2009, with all the love and gratitude in my heart, I declare you complete.
Welcome 2010, you round, yummy year you–here I come!
Inspired by this superhero, my soul sister Kaiya, the icey glaze on my lawn this morning and one really good plate of pancakes.
Two weeks ago, in the very moments that one dear friend lay dying, the most extraordinary thing occurred.
My phone rang. And I said hello.
On the end, from an airport city very far away, was an old friend, an old love, the one who had held my hand as I passed from innocence to knowing. It had been over 20 years since I last heard his voice which now sounded both familiar and strange. We talked light heartedly as I drove toward home, catching up on the basics of life, until his flight was called, until I pulled up at a neighbors to pick up Max. We would talk again we promised. I felt a circle drawn complete in the sweetest of ways.
I picked up Max. I talked to Jackie. I went to the grocery store. I came home and checked email. And then, only then, I learned that my friend Jenni had died, ending at long last her long painful struggle with cancer. As I wrote down time she had passed away for my journal, I did the math and realized that as I was saying a hello to one I thought I would never talk to again, another I held dear was saying goodbye forever.
And I held that simple fact in my heart. For days, I held it.
*******
This fall I have been learning about letting go. I have been mourning my friend Jen for so long, but I have been working through other changes as well. I have been letting go of old habits, letting go of my favorite defenses, letting go of my most cherished stories. Our foundation has been wobbly as the cornerstones of our life have been, one by one, shifting, transitioning, creating space. Its been hard, scary, at times heartbreaking to see things I loved so much dismantled. As we have managed the bumps and the inevitable fear, I have carried around a mustard seed, convincing myself that I only needed a tiny bit of faith. Stumble forward onward onward–a path would appear that would make it all make sense.
One day, I asked my soulsister Kaiya, “What ever happened to the burning bush? It would be very convenient to see one, you know, with a booming voice and everything. It would be lovely for that voice to let us in on the plan. I am all about the small and subtle, don’t get me wrong, but these days I am feeling so dense and tired and lacking in faith that I would like someone to please let me know what this is all about through something as concrete as a burning bush. It would be a great comfort.”
*******
I don’t think that phone call was a burning bush. But I do think it was a bell. A bell telling me that there is no such thing as goodbye. No such thing as forever.
Nothing is ever really lost. No matter how far away, no matter how long past, no matter how faded-it is there, tranformed perhaps, but accessible in some way, at the end of a ring, a simple as saying hello.
