The books arrived this week, in a brown box that sat on the coffee table. I took a deep breath as I opened them and spread them out, fingered the crisp binding, the smooth unblemished pages, held them to my nose. So many tiny choices over so many days, months, year have led to this pile of books on my table, the books that tell me that no, I am not making this up. I am, in fact, going to school on Tuesday.
Netter’s Clinical Anatomy, the IChing, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine. These are classics–books that connect me with learning that is old, very old and rooted in intuition and science both. I am walking in a long line–following wise ones ahead of me.
I can exhale. And lean into this. I can do this.
I promised her that I would do this, before she died, I promised her I would live and wouldn’t be afraid. That I would keep moving forward, keep moving into the next adventure, keep walking onto the path before me. And even now I am not entirely sure what comes next. Don’t know where this next step will really take me. So instead I flip through textbooks and then pile them up, then spread them out on the table again.
This summer has been an up and down one, filled with thousands of tiny decisions and many big lifts and a hundred and one changes to our life, all in service of moving forward on this path. I had no idea how to get there, still don’t really know what I am going to do next, so I have been focused on putting one foot in front of the other–a to-do list that has unfurled like a scroll, each step revealing itself after the next. I have so many stories swirling round my head, so many half-written pieces that have had to wait–will still have to wait while I have moved urgently forward with my list of tiny tasks–ordinary simple engines.
Even now I am furiously packing, more tiny to-dos propelling me forward, always forward, preparing for a long weekend in the woods, to finally slow down and rest in the company of my tribe around a campfire and sing and let it all sink in before I step through the gate. One last mad dash to the quiet hollow that is my church deep in the Monongehala. But I stop schleping tarps and guitars to the car because that pile of books has begged me to stop and recognize its significance. Its weighty presence telling me that yes I am here, where I am supposed to be. I have taken my place in line, in a long line of healers. I don’t need to wait until I can sit in the moonlight to let it sink in. It is true now. It has always been true.
I am scared to feel the joy of this moment–so afraid that it will all come crashing down, or a rug will pull out or worse yet that it will really be awful and I will have realized that I have made a very big mistake and I can’t turn back. And yet that scary feeling reassures me–tells me in no uncertain terms that I am going exactly in the right direction. Not wishing and dreaming but moving forward. Moving forward. Moving forward. Step by step revealed as I take it. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Walking in a long line through the dark, through the light, through my life.
This week, I finally let her go. Turned her over the insurance company that had deemed her totaled even though it was only a fender bender. But she was old and belched smoke, and was scratched and dented and taped up in so many places she wasn’t worth saving. Thats what they said. I knew it was true, even though I resisted it. I had known it for over a year now but I was finally willing to admit it. She had been struggling through the last six months. She always came through but each time her effort made me realize just how unsure each trip was becoming.
In the weeks since she had been declared beyond hope I had shopped and searched for a new old car to replace her. At first overwhelmed I became excited and empowered as I searched for a car good enough to actually replace my lovely old car. I found one at last, a sleek wagon with lots of room for hockey equipment and carpools, fuel efficient and well cared for and so I called my adjuster and told him it was time. And as if to bring that message home, that night her front left tire went flat.
Many people aren’t attached to their cars–even their fancy, pretty, cars that can do all sorts of wonderous things. They trade them in after three years for something even better without a thought. That always struck me as more sane. But sane I am apparently not. For me, the older and more beat up my car became the more I loved her.
My car was simple and by no means anything to talk about but I loved her for what she did for me and what she witnessed. She brought me places safely. She carried me long distances and short distances and kept running, no matter how badly I treated her. I have to admit I kept coming up with excuses to go back out and run my hands along the back seat one more time. Even inanimate objects can love us and she loved us well.
Thanks you old girl for the 13 years you took care of us. Thank you for bringing my baby home safely from the hospital, for rocking him to sleep when he wouldn’t rest. Thank you for all the countless trips to preschool, for providing me shelter when I needed to sob in the driveway and get out my stress and sorrow before coming home to be “together and strong” mom. Thank you for seeming to expand almost magically to carry all our gear camping, for being a home to Max’s smelly hockey bag. Thank you for being a canvass for my bored toddler, for delivering me to work, to the doctor, to my loved ones. Thank you for being there when I needed to rush home, rush to school, rush to Max. You made it possible for me to rush. Thank you for carrying us without consequence through snow storms and ice storms and rain storms and for never dying in the heat–even when you had several non-working sparkplugs.
We will forever be grateful for the small and simple ways you made our lives easy, for the ways you allowed us to solve problems. I will not forget you. Nope. Not ever. I am grateful for the goodness your brought on all four wheels.
It is possible. If I have learned anything in the last 10 days, than I have learned that even though things may seem very stuck for very long, if you keep putting one foot in front of the other, if you keep taking small steps, things can start to happen. If you knock on the door long enough, it just may open. After months, years, of feeling stuck no matter what I did, I am finally starting to feel some movement in my life and I am still awash in wonder that yes–it can happen! It is happening! Its happening NOW!
Some of the biggest and most important shifts, the ones that really get things going, they are the small ones. The most unlikely of events can set a whole amazing chain of events in motion. The lucky break with the insurance adjuster, the paperwork that finally gets done, the deals that once sealed open up new pathways. Small shifts that create new spaces, new paths to walk down. It need not be an earthquake to move and shake. Sometimes big movements come from the smallest of shifts.
In the space of ten days I have learned how to be my own fairy godmother. I have learned how to save myself through my own divine magic–not through big dramatic changes but by tiny almost inconsequential actions. But I have also learned that I have lots of help and support in weaving my magic. Masters and assistants have presented themselves at every turn, the minute I declared myself the magic-maker all sorts of help showed up.
Here is what I learned:
Be fierce when it comes to protecting your heart.
Do a lot of very mundane things. Even if you don’t think you have the energy. Print, file, search, sign. These little movements create big waves that carry us far.
Listen to your intuition and start paying attention to how much you really do know in your heart of hearts if you only dared listen. All those times you said, “I knew it…” They weren’t coincidence.
Believe in your own ability to release and heal. It doesn’t need to be dramatic or big or torture. Its OK if it is, but understand that it can be easy too. Embrace it when its easy. Its no less valuable to simply just heal.
Hold someone’s hand. Even better, hold their head in your hands.
Marvel at the miracles of babies. Remember when they weren’t even a thing and recognize how the universe makes huge changes in no time at all.
Recognize yourself in strangers. Listen to what they say when they recognize themselves in you.
Say what comes into your heart, especially if its kind.
Lots of big but small changes over here. In the space of seven days I have welcomed a new housemate, signed my student loans, completed a level of Reiki certification, let go of my old car and am almost there on finding a new one. I feel as though i am being swept away on a tide of goodness and grateful for the ride.
Tell me something good, or maybe something sticky. Tell me anything at all. I will tell you more later.
Its been one of those summers. Transition and excitement and change and full catastrophe living. In some ways its the price to be paid for living the dream. Its exhausting dodging all the curve balls that get thrown this way. Like my car.
*****
Not that long ago, I declared on a summery eclipse night that I was ready to let go of my old crappy Mazda and make the space for a reliable energy efficient car. My sweet car wasn’t always old and crappy. She has served me well for 12 years. But the repair bills have been higher and more frequent than I’d like. I use packing tape to hold one headlight on and the body–well–the body has seen better days–to many urban parking garages. Twice this summer, the Universe has prompted me to let her go–first when someone backed into me in a pool parking lot. And then again on Tuesday on the way to Max’s swim practice when I got into another fender bender. The insurance company says her current worth is likely less than the cost of even the minor (but necessary) repairs and so more than likely when I meet with the lovely insurance adjuster, he will tell me that I am driving a drivable “total loss”, cut me a check and take her from me at last.
Unfortunately, the money I will get wont buy me a good car and I don’t really have much cash for a new used car. I knew a new car was on the horizon but I had been hoping and praying that this baby would last as long as I needed her to while I lazily flipped through Consumer Reports and diligently put the right amount aside. I didn’t want to face this problem urgently. Do we ever want to face any problem when its urgent?
******
This has been another blip in a long line of summertime happenings that have left me feeling panicked about my financial plan for the fall. Just when I had it all figured out, practically to the nickel, a new car throws everything into a tailspin. This despite pulling out every trick I know to figure out how to live on just 60% of my old income (or rather add to it) and create some cushion in case life gets nutty.
What’s almost comical is that I can’t quite seem to catch a break. There is a long tale of woe about a car my folks want to give me that ended in heartbreak and rust. And just a few weeks ago, not long after I declared myself ready to get rid of the car, I got a phone call. I had (hold onto your hats) won a car–a hybrid no less. Never a winner, I had won a sweepstakes I had entered at a hockey game some 8 months ago. I barely remembered doing it. I never thought much about the car. Really I just wanted to get Max a Red Caps towel to twirl at the game so I filled out some card, barely noticing the shiny Hydrid vehicle being hawked, trading the info I assumed would go to a marketing firm for a terry cloth freebie. Yet, here, as my old car was falling apart, a new one. The entire time I listened to the spiel I kept interrupting trying to find the catch. There always is a catch with these sweepstakes–a timeshare to buy or a vacation to take. And then, it came–the kicker. For some dumb reason, in order to win you had to be married. It was in the fine print on the damn card I didn’t care about filling out but did. I explaining to the kind man on the other end of the phone that I was no longer married. He then politely hung up.
*****
When I was trying to decide to go to school so many people told me “Leap and the Net Will Appear”. I am not sure exactly what I thought it meant. I suppose I thought it meant something like a Fairy Godmother would appear out of nowhere who would secretly behind the scenes pull a few strings to conspire along the way to smooth the way and make it easier for things to fall into place. Interestingly enough though, this summer has been an exercise in the exact opposite. Every little step along the way seems three times more difficult–like walking into a blizzard wind. Each problem has required me to stretch myself. Learn something new. Go to some new uncomfortable place.
I am beginning to believe that, “Leap and the Net will Appear” means
“When in a free fall-the Universe may toss you some rope and whisper that its a pretty good time to learn to weave.” The magic must come from within.
******
Living on the edge, pushing toward my dreams means full catastrophe living. Being willing to walk on the edge and embrace the worse case scenario with calm and confidence and the full belief that whatever disaster comes our way, I will discover a way to solve that problem. It may involve my brain, my intuition or maybe just hard brut work but I will magic my own way out of it. Bibbity, bobbity boo…
*****
And yet, at the same time, I know that the law of the Universe is that we are all interconnected. I am deeply powerful, but I am not alone. I will find allies and guides and and even net weavers who will support me, magicians assistants and wizened old mentors. I need to open to the resources that will appear. Friends and family who know how to buy cars, or rent bedrooms or market wares will show me the way. There may be partners who want to join me on my journey who won’t solve my problems but who will invest something (money, heart, ideas) into my quest. I have to keep believing that the resources I need to weave this net will appear and that I will know exactly what to do with them when they show up. Even when in freefall.
Bibbity.
Bobbity.
Boo.
It was supposed to be a week of productivity. Of completing all the lonely projects, the ones that linger like forelorn orphans around my table, staring at me from piles, begging for attention. Our life has become hurried in the last few years and like so many mothers I am collapsing into bed leaving many things half done, wishing to duplicate or triplicate myself.
Its been even crazier since I decided to in fact make acupuncture school a reality. There has been so much to do to get ready, to take the steps I need to free myself up. Nothing has come together easily. I say that not as a complaint but rather as a way to explain my absence from the places I normally haunt. I click down the to-do list mentally and it never seems like much but in the execution, in the moment it is everything. Like lifting a boulder over my head–every ounce of strength going into each task. And yet, I am aware that while I am busy being productive, our life is flying by and
I suppose that is why, I am here instead lingering at the pool, using my vacation to remember again that my life is more than the sum of completed to-do lists. It is feeling the hot blanket of summer on my skin, watching my son frolic for hours in the water, it is breathing and resting and taking a cat nap and then picking up my book. It is feeling how cool the water feels when I dive in. It is experiencing summer.
Earlier this week, I gathered my soulsisters up and we traveled to Baltimore to hear music. An old college friend was coming through town playing in a band, in a dive bar, in a gritty part of town. It was a week for for greasy chips and mussels in garlic butter and Belgian beer with orange slices, live music and finding a way to shrink 20 years into a blink of an eye. A week to touch the me that is fearless and sees life as a a wide expanse of possibility.
It will soon be time to click through my to-do lists. There are swim meets, and chores, and a room to show to potential tenants. There are playdates and bills to pay–all of them as real and rich as my time basking in the sun. But for now the scent of sunscreen and the energy sapping heat is the only thing before me and so I sink into it.
It is in the shelter of each other that the people live–Irish proverb
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter in full view and watch as they move undisturbed through the rain. Stroke after stroke, patient and steady. Take a deep breath and know that this is exactly how we move through life when it rains.
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter under the rough hewn beams and listen to the teenagers play cards, raising their voices as though this game and its outcome is the most important thing in the world. In this moment, this hand that they play, it is indeed the only thing that matters–not the childhood they left behind or the adulthood that they will soon launch into but this hour where they throw cards on the picnic table as the rain pounds on the roof and they laugh and scream.
When it rains during swim practice, take shelter under a pitched roof and watch the girl and her best friend on secret missions, giggling and hiding and stealing looks at boys. Watch the young ones with their breakfast, watch the babies put their googles on, watch the ten year olds play roofball their play undisturbed–watch as the whole world unfolds, in the rain, despite the rain, because of the rain, in the rain and with the rain. Watch what happens when the world shrinks as we all seek and find shelter.
many thanks to the strong and lovely Jena who drew my attention to this video
Over the South pole today we had a solar eclipse. I mention it because it explains a whole lot of crazy that seems to be going on around. Lots of shaking things up and separations and releasing of old to make way for the new. The energy of the sky has been one big clearing, a massive spring cleaning of our homes, our lives or souls. Have you felt it? I sure have!
I have been taking comfort in the energy of letting go. Even if it means sitting empty for awhile–especially if it means sitting empty for awhile. There is something about opening to the infinite possibilities of what this moment holds when we let go of what happened in the past without holding any expectations of the future.
Sometimes in order to stretch far, to grow into our next phase we need to untie some knots–the ones that are holding us tight, keeping us reigned in, giving us a short leash. Sometimes untying knots means we need to go over old ground–but then having covered that ground, we need to kiss it and let it go forever, turn our backs and march forward into the future. Tonight is a perfect time for letting go of all we don’t want and for saying YES with arms outstretched for all we want to welcome in. For the next several weeks the universe will continue to support us in clearing out whatever we are ready to let go of!
I am letting go of my sentimental attachment to my crappy falling apart car and opening up my heart for some energy efficient clean and neat little mode of transportation. (I hope she comes quickly!)
I am letting go of friendships that no longer serve, the ones where my openheartedness was never really appreciated and instead opening up to the ones who love me for my messy vulnerable self.
I am letting go of any remaining fear about walking the path in front of me and instead opening up to the wild and wooly adventure thats been calling to me for years.
I am letting go of stories I wrote about not having enough and instead and opening up to the abundance laid out before me.
I am letting go of rushing and feeling pressured and tortured by time. I am instead opening up to time as a friend and hoping that in the slowing down I will experience infinity and experience the sense that everything happens right on time.
I am letting go of being a martyred single mom and opening up to all the ways that my ex wants to support Max.
I am letting go of the words, “I have to…” and opening up to the words, “I get to…”
I am letting go of worry and opening up to total faith in the process of my life. I have always risen to the challenge of my life. It has taken me this far and as I type this, with the feet of the most beautiful boy in my lap, that this far is exactly where I need to be.
Max (who played left wing) with the center and right wing on the infamous “G force line” of the Ice Warriors.
On Saturday night we went camping with the hockey team. The hockey team that made our winter feel like a Disney movie–full of warm heartfelt lessons and goodness and hard work paying off. For just under 20 hours we were together again. We parents, working side by side to chop, move, carry, sit, talk, rest, build and the boys to run wild and be free together again. With the whole campgrounds at our disposal I thought for sure they would be running wild all night, visible only as a blur of flashlights and glowsticks. They did some of that–but they also huddled in a tent with a hand cranked radio and told stories and ate stolen marshmallows and chocolate bars and giggled.
On Sunday as we drove home, Max sat in the front seat and sang along with the radio–sang at the top of his lungs with the window open. Until recently, such behavior was reserved for embarrassing mothers. But there was something about being among a whole group of people who understood him that cracked open his heart and let the music flow, gave him the confidence to express his joy. Being among people who see him as he is–who don’t expect him to be anything other –opened a door.
Magic happens when we are valued for simply showing up exactly as we are.
There are so many places where we are expected to show up as someone else–or we are given subtle or not so so subtle messages that it would be so much better if we showed up just a little bit differently. Whether we are teased gently or sternly corrected childhood– adulthood–is full of moments where the people who love us the most are telling us to be someone else: stronger, smarter, cleaner, kinder, faster, more popular, more cool, less whiny, more thoughtful. The list goes on and on. There are no shortage of those who would like to improve us, challenge us to grow into our potential. Its important to be pushed. But its also so important to simply just be–and be loved.
One particularly tough night this spring, Max broke down telling me that at school he feels he needs to change to be liked, that he is valued because of who people think he is–not who he is. Or worse still they like parts of him (his athleticism for instance) but other parts (his sensitivity) need to be checked at the door. We all remember that feeling I am sure–that sinking feeling that we are not OK just how we are. Its exhausting and at times debilitating to wonder what will happen, “when they find out”. Worse still is to hold a private shame around the part of us that doesn’t fit their expectations: Our sensitivity, our sexuality, our vulnerability, our desire to sing off key, our struggles.
And that is why moments like our 20 hours in the woods are so important–when we go among our tribe, when we just show up–messy and imperfect and completely brilliantly beautiful and are just loved in a no-nonsense, no big deal kind of way. No one asks you to change as a price of admission. It can unlock something profound and gives us what we need to grow on our own, exactly in the direction we were meant to go. To become someone who sings at the top of our lungs with the windows rolled down with no worries what the world thinks.
There are seasons in our life where we are gifted with these moments–like our hockey season–the moments from which we are given space to blossom into our best selves. Their appearance feels random and lucky.
But I am learning that if I want to keep growing I need to create these moments myself. Sink deeply into the friendships that allow me to show up as I am. Because its only in their company that I will have the confidence, space and courage to transform and grow as I am meant to. With those friends and cousins, magic never fails to happen in my heart.
The night Max felt so sad, we made a list of the friends with whom he feels completely safe and pledged to make the summer about those kids. He is a lucky boy. Despite his struggles at his school, he has a long list in our neighborhood and among his team. With the summer upon us he can sink into the company of his tribe and grow strong.
The fireflies are just showing up, the summer just being born. The summer of tribe has just begun.
I woke up about an hour ago to a thunderstorm. The rain was heavy in the yard and sounded like it would not stop–not now, not ever. With a swim meet and a camping trip on the horizon this week I tossed and turned trying to go back to sleep, wondering how everything would turn out. But now, just 8 minutes past the official sunset and the sky is blue and puffy insubstantial clouds drift like the remnants of torn up cotton balls across the sky.
Everything passes. Everything passes.
As I looked out the window and say the rainy stormy night turn to bright day, as I listened to the birds, this song filled my heart.
The other day, a colleague asked me how the walk was going on the path to going to school. I confided that half the time I am feeling like a strong warrior-woman, marking bold steps, striding forward and that the other half of the time I was feeling completely undone whether by fear and a sense of “What the hell I am doing?” or just sheer exhaustion from the effort.
“You mean thats not normal?” she commented with a laugh. “Sounds like a regular ol’ day for me!”
Truth is I have been feeling a bit tender lately as I navigate this swing. I have been feeling strange and freakishly fractured even as I felt strong and powerful, and I have been longing to feel whole and solid again. And so it was that her off handed comment caused a warm wave of comfort to envelope me. I had been feeling a bit crazy. But she reminded me that no–I am not a lunatic. This is the way, even if we are private about it. It is. It is. It is how we grow.
I am reminded of the thousands, no millions, of women — soul sisters all– who are right now navigating similar changes and transitions. Rearranging our lives in ways that provoke excitement and anxiety and honest-to-goodness wiped out “sleep for hours” kind of exhaustion. All of us in one way or another can feel splintered and pull apart. Whether we are transitioning into partnership or widowhood, motherhood or empty-nest, setting up a home in a strange land, or learning the curves of familiar terrain when the people we love no longer populate it, navigating career changes or discovering a new power deep inside us we all every day experience a mix of fear, strength, faith, exhileration and exhaustion in different combinations.
Taken together, while moving forward, its called courage. Extraordinary every day courage. And it, and the accompanying tenderness from the rollercoaster ride, well…its normal.
A friend recently send me a link to a post about Akhilandeshvari, the Hindi goddess of “brokenness”. Rather she is the goddess of “never not broken” as in “Broken as a normal every day state of being”. Not the kind of brokenness that leaves us helpless–but the kind of brokenness that happens when our life is shattered and as we pick up the pieces and rearrange them, we create something amazing and beautiful. Broken as in transforming. Broken as in making ourselves and our lives over and over again.
The state of being broken is not a condition of weakness but a condition of transformation and strength. I love that there is a goddess devoted to this state. It reminds me that what I am going through is so normal, so ordinary, so every day and therefor so holy that we need a goddess to help us hold the space, to inspire us and to carry us through. That is it not a negative state but one of profound and positive power. I am part of a chain of women that not only reaches across the globe but reaches back into ancient history. I am one of millions of us who are “never not broken”. It is a condition that is normal.
That knowledge helps dispel fear and helps me stand strong. I anchor myself in the knowledge that “All shall be well and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” Sometimes, before I sleep, I feel a long line of wise women touch me on the shoulder, each one of them whispering, “This is how we know strength, when we allow ourselves to be broken. Only then can we rearrange our lives in a powerful way. This, my dear child, this is normal”.
