08.08.08

The boys were running around on the soccer field and Marcy and I were wrapped in a blanket, trying to stave off the New Hampshire chill that had settled over the area even though it was the beginning of August.  The boys were participating in a camp.  Marcy had been nice enough to sign Max up so he could participate with her son, get a real feel for small town New Hampshire life, and so Marcy and I could have a couple of hours each day to visit really visit.  “Tomorrow” Marcy remarked “the Olympics start”.  We were talking about TV and how much or little to let the kids watch.  We both agreed that the opening ceremonies were a must see and that we would relax whatever rules we had established so we could all gather around the TV and watch the spectacle.  And then, it dawned on us.  Yes it made so much sense.  The Olympics started on August 8.  08.08.08.  The most auspicious of dates for the Chinese.  Triple 8. For reasons I can’t explain, 8 is a magical number in Chinese culture.  The #8 star brings with it the best of energy.  Eight is lucky and good and holds all sorts of beneficial qualities.  Marcy and I agreed right then and there.  Tomorrow we needed to mark the day with magic and drama—celebrate its luckiness and hold it as special. And so the morning bloomed and found us scampering through a moss-covered elfin forest, Max and Marcy’s son running up ahead of us, stopping only to munch on wild blueberries and to point out trees that had been marked by bears.  The forest on Mt. Cardigan seemed like something out of a dream, or a fairy tale, wildflowers and wild waterfalls, gigantic mushrooms and old fashioned bridges that sprang out of nowhere, taking us over fairy filled streams.  Birch trees were filled with song birds.  We stopped often to re-fill the kids pockets with trail mix and take long drinks of water.  To take in long drinks of the view, busting as it was with magic.As we approached the top, the landscape changed looking more and more mysterious.  We had entered a cloud and the mist filled everything.  The soft moss covered forest floor became more and more gray and hard and slippery beneath our fear and then suddenly we were climbing up a slope of granite. So many different shades of gray–the rocks, the clouds, the sky.  Silver streaked, dull and grainy, dark and light and gray.  By the time we reached the top, we needed to put on our raincoats and huddle together to protect ourselves not from rain but from the wet of being inside a cloud.

At the top of the mountain, a lake had sprung—rainwater filling a hole created by a glacier or perhaps from years and years of falling water.  While the children, skipped rocks on the shores of their own private pool, Marcy and I were on a mission of our own, finding a quiet place for our ritual to mark the day.   We found a tiny crevice—somewhat protected from the breeze that was blowing the clouds around.  And we gathered all the children around.

I pulled our precious cargo out of my backpack.  The wishes we had made.  Each of us had written or drawn our most precious wishes (no telling!) and folded them up tight.  We placed each of them into the tiny space between the rocks and all leaned in tight.  Marcy and I instructed the kids to think about their wishes with all of their might.  And then she and I pulled out a book of matches.

  It took almost the entire book before we got the wishes to catch fire.  It was as though the wind and rain were testing our seriousness of purpose.   Max was particularly concerned about the burning ritual.  He was afraid that if we lit the papers on fire that it would destroy his cherished dream.  Marcy and I had to explain that the Chinese regularly constructed elaborate things out of paper—only to burn them—sending the good wishes and blessings and prayers off to God, to their ancestors, to the Universe.  That was what we were doing.  By lighting our wishes on fire we were sending the smoke up to God so that He or She could hear our prayers.   And then, as he finally was willing to let his wish go, as though his assent gave the mountain permission to allow it, the wind cooperated and the clouds lifted enough and we were able to get a tiny contained fire going.  Marcy and I held hands, the children wrapped their arms around us, our heads all touching over our tiny mini bonfire to the Gods.  And our wishes carried off Mt Cardigan to someplace magical—to be part of the air around us, to join the clouds. On our way down the mountain, Marcy and I realized that without intending to, our little ceremony was performed with all the elements present.  The earthen granite floor where we built our fire, was just inches away from the metal fire tower.  The cedar and pine trees were not far below and indeed it was the green pine needles from our pockets that ultimately helped us light the pieces of paper, made themselves from trees.  And finally the clouds which sat on our shoulders brought the water to our ceremony.As we hiked down, twice as fast as our assent, there was much chatter about the wishes.  But we all agreed not to whisper our wishes out loud.  While we had shared the ceremony, our wishes were our own, between us and our God.On the way home their would be a stop for ice cream and a visit to the playground.  A brief stop home, a trip to an old orchard that made hard cider and then the last day of soccer camp.  That night we all sat watching the Olympics as we had planned, cuddled together against the chill of night with blankets spread out over us.   “Do you think” Max asked me “that our wishes will come true?”  I held that precious child on my lap.  “I don’t know honey if they will come true exactly as we want them to.”  I replied.  “But I know our prayers –they will be answered.  That the magic of the day will not be lost”

Since that night I have dreamt of nothing but magic.  Wild, Technicolor dreams of flying and knitting needles turned into magic wands.  I have dreamed of great love of my child and of bright yellow gingerbread homes and the dear friends who live in them.  I have dreamt of healers, and teachers and loved ones all doing amazing things in my little dream world.  I have woken to find myself sure, as I have ever been, that Max and I are living a magical life—a life full of wonder and joy and surprises.  Whether or not our wishes come true I am sure that I have been blessed by the magical day of 8. 

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.

Woods Pond before sunrise

Originally posted August 16, 2007

At last, on Thursday, I rise before the sun.  Lisa stumbles down with coffee in hand and drags me out of bed.  Together we pull the kayaks into the water, though first we inspect them thoroughly with flashlights, making sure there are no sleeping spiders to tickle our feet.  And then with few words we push off onto an ocean of glass and mist.

The lake is still.  Only one lone bird is awake and singing.  Fog hangs down silent and heavy over the pines—the distant shore but a watercolor—an idea of a forest—a memory of one long ago. 

As I move silently I half expect the Arthurian lady of the lake to appear and whisper something wise, perhaps ancient mother secrets of creation.  My paddle dips into the water.  But the ripples disappear almost instantly as we glide glide glide along the lake, paddling to the middle.  The eastern sky is becoming blue now and then from behind the Monet pines fingers of orange reach up, like a hand offering hope.  Then the great globe rises brilliant and true—a drop of primary color oil paint on a watercolor masterpiece:  brilliant, garish, warm.

We sigh, Lisa and I.  We break our silence to talk of metaphors of God and sun.  I point out that every ancient culture worships the sun in one way or another because of moments just like these when a dark night instantly becomes day.  More birds are in the sky and trees now waking their children and their neighbors with hymns to this hope—this promise that we have one more chance to live.  The mist is fading fast, giving way to a brilliant day of blue skies.

I breathe in the smell of pine and cedar and whisper thank you.  It is late before we beach the boats.  Activity has broken out now on shore.  I enter the cabin to see my child raise his head and smile—“Good morning, mama!”  I pick him up and wrap him in his blankets, snuggling him in my lap.  “Yes,” I breathe into his little ear.  “it is”

Woods Pond, Bridgton ME

originally posted August 2007

Its rained a little everyday now. Not all day, just a bit. Enough to drive us all indoors for awhile to pop popcorn, or eat lunch inside before the sun comes out from behind the clouds again. And I have too admit, I have been a bit draggy and gray myself. Not all day. But I’ve been a bit more tired and grouchy than last year. A bit more foggy and tired.

Last year, my first year at the lake it didn’t rain at all. It was a picture perfect week—for both of us “the lake” and me.

Last year, the lake and I, we were like new lovers putting on our very best for each other. Every day I woke full of energy to witness her brilliant sunrise, the glassy stillness of the water at daybreak. Every day she sparkled, all blue skies and sunshine while I dwelled fully present in the marvel of every hour—“Look how lovely the trees look in the 2 pm light—how different from the way they looked this morning.” “Oh! The air smells so beautiful right now? Does it always smell so clean here on a Tuesday?” And every night we stayed up late together the lake and I, a chorus of thousands of grasshoppers playing along with the soundtrack of the restless waves rocking the boat knocking it against the dock, as I lay on my back on the green green grass and counted stars with my son.

But this year we are sure of our love for each other and so we are no longer pulling out the stops. I am too tired this year for sunrises. I wake well past dawn when the lake is already busy with swimming and kayaks. The nights are not always clear and bright. The grasshoppers are not always singing. And sometimes this lake she is even gray and choppy. And sometimes we both rain a bit.

Now don’t get me wrong…The lake is no less lovely to me. She is every bit as beautiful and peaceful as I remember. I am seeing a new side of her and finding new beauty in the rain rolling of the pines or the reflection of the dark clouds on the water. Furthermore, I am enjoying my time with my cousins twice as much as last year. There is a rhythm and a comfort this year—a routine that feels like it has always been this way—us here on the lake. We feed each others children and pick up our conversations exactly where we left off last year. There is not so much to catch up on. We can just look at each other and smile—holding hands while we watch our children play at the waters edge, helping gather each others books and towels when the storm clouds come.

And this comfort I think is translating to my relationship with these magic surroundings. The beautiful spot I call the lake–she knows I will come back each year a faithful pilgrim. And I too know that she will be here for me next year, a resting spot for my tired bones. This lake and I, we no longer need to impress one another. We are in that phase of a new relationship when you can relax and let a little of your imperfections show. I am really not that much of a morning person. She is not always sunny and bright. But we will love each other nevertheless. In sunshine and in rain. And that love is in the end better than a vacation full of sunshine.

This is our third year making this trip. We spend seven days with a group of my cousins and their children, all of us lined up in little homes so close to the water you could trip coming out your door and get wet. Its the perfect balance of solitude and community and each of the last two years I come home feeling as though I have been away for a year. My batteries are recharged and I am ready to tackle whatever life has in store.

Two years ago, I needed the trip to rest. I was so weary from single parenting, I was so beaten down emotionally from the trip Juan and I had been down. I spent long hours reading…in the early morning on my screened in porch, in the afternoon in the sunshine in an Adirondack chair by the lake, in the nighttime in my bed. I was a battery that just got plugged in the the earth, to the quiet and go filled up.

Last year I was in a different turning place. I went and spent time sleeping, rejuvenating, painting. I was cranky when I needed to be and hid in my cottage some.  I ran with the kids, kayaked on the lake and slept some more. I drank in the space to emerge, new social and ready to take on a new life…ready to build community…ready to blossom.

This time, I am yet again in a new space. So much has been happening in my right brain. I have felt infantlike–taking it all in but not at all able to articulate in language what I am experiencing. I don’t know what Maine will offer me as a way to process this all but I am sure that it will deliver what I need.

I am going to re-run some of my favorite traveling posts this week–just for fun. Rest assured I will be writing and when I come home I will have new material and hopefully will be back to my writing self. I know things have been mighty slow on this blog front–perhaps the quiet will give me what I need to get moving.

Who can tell what miracles Love has in store for us if only we have the courage to become one with it?
Everything we think we know is only the beginning of another knowing that itself has no end

–Iqbal, Sufi Mystic

Happy Love Thursday. May miracles be yours.

Hearts are funny things.

They carry in their memory, the echo, the footprint of every kiss, every caress, every sorrow, every hurt. Hearts remember like elephants–they remember blissful freefalls and hard impacts. Each of these memories lives in the tissue, wordlessly. There is no language but the muscle memory is clear and rises up through our hopes and our fears. I have come to believe that hope and fear is nothing but those old memories living on and through in our hearts.

For hope is nothing more than a search for something we may have lost somewhere between the time we left the great blissful stage of oneness and now. And fear is nothing more than the scar tissue left from a loss–The acknowledgment that maybe just maybe our beloved will disappear, that our hearts will stop feeling this love, that it will all fall apart, forever.

This past year for me has been a year of yearning. I couldn’t name it at the time, but now standing apart from it somewhat I can see. My heart beat stretching between hope and a sort of fear.

I had always associated fear with anxiety–that somehow fear meant that I was in a deep scary place. But looking back now I just see that fear is the other side of the coin called hope. Even in my happiest yang-i-est, sunniest days that hope fear combo was ever present.

As I fell head over heels in love with my tribe this year, the people in my life who make my life so rich and full, I found my heart so full of a cocktail of hope and fear that at times the bursting feeling felt so distracting. With every perfect moment that passed I felt my heart holding on to, hoping that that perfect moment would be followed by many many more just like it . As each perfect moment passed, I found my heart fearing that if I let go of this moment I may never see another just as lovely. The clinging and the hoping and the attaching that this is how it would be forever…always like this…That was the beat of my heart. Expand into hope, contract into fear, expand into hope and not even realize it is happening. Bumbum…bumbum…Silently unnoticed like my own heart beat.

Looking back though I can feel how much energy this hope and fear sapped from me. Looking back I can see what it cost me, this yearning. I can see with 20/20 hindsight.

A series of things have brought me to a place where I can observe how hope and fear play out in my heart, in my soul, in my hardest moments and my best days. A series of things have happened that showed me that hope, fear and attachment do not change anything. The universe spins. The world evolves. Moments come and dissipate and change and we cannot hold onto any of them no matter how lovely or how frightening. The moments dissolve seemlessly into another and no amount of hope or fear is going to change the next one from coming.

Letting go of hope and fear seems to be my soul’s work these days. Seeing how omnipresent it is, recognizing that every time I think I have let it go, I uncover a new layer, more subtle, less stark, but there nonetheless. Letting go of hope and fear means truly letting go of my attachment to the outcomes. I wonder if I ever really can let go of all my attachments. I seem to think that if I can just let that last layer burn away that my heart might be finally be free to expand outside the confines of all that hope/fear scar tissue.

I did my regular headache self-care ritual, the things I do that keep these monsters at bay.  The advil, the hot towels, the extra bit of sleep.  But the beast inside my head would not quiet.  I got up and went about my day, convinced that this was all still just an illusion, a memory, a glimpse at a picture postcard of me from another time.

I went to Jackie’s to pick up Max.  He had spent the night with Jake.  I sat and drank water and tried to hold conversation.  I looked pale and puffy and not quite right to anyone.  And then it started.

It has been years since I felt this way, the vomiting, the fury that runs through my body causing convulsions, the intense pain that feels like knives in my head.  Its been years since physical pain has put me in the space of living breath to breath.  Even in the worst of it, I whispered to my sweet self…Breathe, you will come through this…You have so many times before.  Breathe….Now again.

A thunderstorm raged outside, thunder and lightening crashing down on one another.  I thought to myself, how nice of mother nature to move along in empathy of me.  As the rain fell heavy I fell asleep.  And when I woke there was a brief reprieve.  The rain had stopped.  I walked home and collapsed into bed.

Hours later the knives came back.  This time no warm towels, no calming tea, no amount of self care or breathing could contain the pain.  I was laying on the bathroom floor shivering but needing to feel the cool tile underneath my body.  I needed some relief from the fire I felt burning through my head.  I kept trying to think of cooling thoughts.

Odette came in and declared that she was not OK with this.  She was calling help.  I was too weak to argue (much).  I lay and whimpered while she called first one friend and then another.

In the hospital I lay, my dear friend stroking my back and soothing my forehead and whispering to me that my help was coming.  I wanted to believe her and lived one breath at a time.    The nurse came in an injected me with a pain killer.  There was one last violent fight–my body versus me and then slowly relief started to set in.  Tests, hydration, and then release…home to sleep a deep sleep.  Home to slip away into the quiet.

I woke better than I had been in months.  Years even.  The pain was a distant ache, I looked like I had been through hell and back, and felt tired and battle weary but lighter.  Something inside me had burned away in the fire, a distraction, a yearning, a seeking that had finally found rest.

We take the cleaning of the car seriously.  It is metaphorical for me, fresh starts, clean space.  A clean car means we don’t need to apologize when carpooling.  A clean car means we don’t need to ponder how out of control our lives seem to be spinning every time we get into the car.  And so we empty and  vacumm and spray and wipe, this time more thoroughly than normal, but still there are so many layers of dirt and grime.  At 10 am we need to call it a day.  We have other things to do, this level of cleanliness–this absence of junk and crumbs, this state of significantly less dirt is going to have to be good enough. 

Good enough.  It is a phrase that can send me spinning in so many directions.

For one relief.  As a child, there was no such thing as good enough.  Things were either clean or they weren’t.  The were right or they were wrong.  I spent much of my youth desperately trying to get it perfect with the understanding that only 100% complete would do.  When I first tried to wrap my brain around “good enough” it felt like a cop-out.  But the truth was I was slowly killing myself with my perfectionism, dying an early death each time I failed over and over again to make the mark.   One day, I found myself meditating on the phrase, “I am enough”.  As I did, a seismic shift registered right there in my heart and suddenly love for my tender self, love for the part of me that would never be perfect, love that had been locked away and withheld began seeping out of the fault lines, like magma.  When I could finally embrace good enough, at work, at home, even in my friendships and relationships I could relax and just be.  Good enough are words that give me permission to just exist and know that it is OK, that all will be well.  All manner of things will be well.  Good enough saved my life. 

But there is a shadow side to “good enough”.  Now I see that it is its own prison.    I see so much suffering in my life…suffering that comes from when people settle for “good enough”.  I see it in the far away look in the eyes of the woman who has settled for a good enough marriage, and as a result feels a piece of her soul is lost, unexpressed, dying.  I see it in the hollowed out gaze of the friend who is stuck in a career that is going nowhere and has nothing to do with his creative self.  I see it in myself sometimes. when I cheat myself, not finishing something that I have labored long at, when I walk away from something before it is complete, when I avoid the hard work of seeing the truth in my heart, when I tell myself that the life that I am yearning for is so unattainable and the life that I have now is just fine.  Good enough gives me permission to throw up my hands and tune out.   In those moments “good enough” is not a relief, it is an excuse for giving up, stopping and just going to sleep.   

What then is the balance point –how can we be in the place where we le to accept what is, to let go of yearning all the while avoiding being stuck in the place where  we give up, give in, and stop moving, stop growing, stop trying.  Where is the balance point where our souls are free to seek, grow, blossom into what they are without being held back by the belief that where we have landed is “good enough” and therefor we can safely slumber, turn off, tune out and Stop.  Moving.  Forward.

Whatever that place is, it has nothing to do with my car, and I think sometimes that maybe that is the point.  Good enough applies to the things that are unimportant, small, silly.  Good enough doesn’t apply to things like hearts and soul work?  Or can it?  Or is it a matter of degree?  That somedays, it all just needs to be good enough, but in our next breath there is a potential for expansion?  Or it it just a matter of staying awake?  Being able to be content with whatever life throws at us, all the while staying awake to whatever potential and possibility may unfold.    I don’t know that I will know the answers.  I don’t know that I will ever figure out it out.

And maybe the fact that I am asking the question and seeking the answer is really in the end…Good enough.

We talked about hurricanes on the short ride home.  Max had heard about the ones hitting Texas and Mexico and was worried.  Did we ever get hurricanes here?  What happens in hurricanes?  Why are they dangerous?  What is the difference between a hurricane and a thunder storm?  I told him the story of the hurricane that hit our area when he was just a toddler.  It was not a fierce hurricane and we were far enough inland that we faced a weakened beast but it was still scary nevertheless.  I told him how we lost power for a week and how trees were uprooted and how the park looked completely different and we had to find new ways to get into town while everything was rearranged. 

The sound of rain can always give me pause, hold me still.  Rain, when it comes like this, strong and steady, with wind and thunder, feels magical to me.  I listen for the subtle differences in how the rain sounds, on my roof, on the trees,  against the window.  The thunder  and lightening that announced this storm have passed but the rain continues, filling rain barrels, restoring gardens, washing away soot, dust, pollen, dislodging leaves and broken tree limbs and making it all clean and light.

Max huddled under the covers at bedtime tonight.  “I am scared mama” he whispered over and over.  I wrapped my arms around him and snuggled him tonight and promised him that while he was frightened, no harm would come to him.  Storms can be terrifying but they are ultimately good.  Storms can clean us out.  Storms can make us new again.  Storms can make messes and can radically change the landscape of our hearts but storms fill up the wells and give new hope to crops that looked long gone.   

I recently had the chance to see an amazing documentary film that will be making its theatrical debut this September.  Trouble the Water is a stunning piece of art that not only captured the horror of Hurricane Katrina, the raw injustice that exists in our country and the tragedy caused by the incompetence of the US government but also documented the miraculous transformation of two individuals.  It was simultaneously a story of great despair and great hope, of death and rebirth, of facing horrible horrible pain and finding that not only survival but that life blossoms in surprising and amazing ways in the aftermath and that we keep coming back.

This is a theme I keep coming back to, over and over again.  Whenever I go through a period like this I have trouble naming my experience, putting it into words.  I always have trouble until the rains come and then I know, “aha…yes of course.”  The drama of the thunder and lightening have passed, the rain is still falling, softer but steady.  I can feel my the landscape of my life transformed.  Still the same town, still the same space.  But the dead limbs and old trees have been removed.  I can feel more light streaming in.  I can feel the dust swept away. 

I am washed clean of the clutter and am left only with myself.  New as I have always been.  Transformed into myself again. 

May the rains falls soft upon your fields tonight.