we went to a concert a week ago or so. it was a group of us and we were all excited about going. the band we were going to see is creative, talented, sincere and full of energy. what’s not to like about that?!
we caravanned in three cars. well, we dan-a-vanned, actually, with dan leading the way. he is a GPS guru and, if you can keep up with him on the highway, a great person to follow going somewhere.
we got there, full of anticipation and excitement. sat in seats one row from the very top, able to look out at the whole audience. many of us have gone to concerts together before; we try to do fun stuff especially as the winter sets in. we laugh a lot and that is a very good thing.
the concert started with an infomercial….on video and a live push as well. i thought perhaps that was it….one infomercial is plenty when you have purchased tickets to an event that is not a fundraiser. but that wasn’t the case. with the exception of two warm-up artists who played maybe 3 songs each, the whole first half of the concert was full of infomercial preaching and over-done talk-talk.
by the time we got to intermission, it was easy to be annoyed. the first half of the concert was over. we hadn’t seen the band we had come to see yet and now we had sat through what seemed to be agenda….i have yet to figure out why this was so. what symbiotic relationship is there between these infomercials and the band we were there to see? do these organizations host the whole concert tour? do they underwrite the concerts in venues of their choosing? do they play the band’s music? no matter how dedicated the band is to these efforts, was it appropriate to take up most of the first half of this concert with this rhetoric? i was sitting in my concert-seat trying to figure out this stuff. is that where the band would want me to start?
so now, here we are, at the second half. and i have to say, i am not “feelin’ the love.” it took me a good portion of the second half to get back to open-hearted listening of this concert, to actually hear the music and embrace it.
because: the band concert i had come to see was colored by the first half of the concert.
and then – there’s life.
wow. i can’t think of a better metaphor than this concert.
WE are colored by the first half, the first part, the beginning and middle of life as we step into the Next of life. “of course we are,” you say aloud to me. cognitively we totally get it. we shouldn’t bring into Next what colored us from Before. we have to draw the line in the sand. lessons – yes. anger, frustrations, disappointments, prejudices – no. each Next is a fresh start. for that matter, yes, each new day is a fresh start.
d and i have been doing a meditation that was offered free with oprah and deepak. it has been about awareness and making every moment matter. now, i am all about moments (that whole thready thing and all.) but awareness is a much bigger responsibility than we realize. it’s so much easier to react than to stop for a few seconds (or however long it takes) and be aware. sometimes i find i should Stop longer than i stop. awareness can be slowww in arriving, particularly if i stubbornly hold onto all the negative stuff. we sometimes cling to that stuff as if it were a lifevest.
now…i am thinking: in those moments, when i can feel myself reacting (strongly or negatively or angrily or with preformed disposition) to something, i realize (metaphorically) that i am at the (in-real-life) concert and i am looking at the second half through first-half-eyes. it is becoming an amazing tool for me to stop and think – what about the first half of the concert is getting under my skin for this Next? am i aware that the second half can be even just moments after the first half? it’s not always years or decades that separates Before from Next. it can be minutes. it’s shocking how blind we can be to what we carry forward, one minute to the Next.
the Next is full of good and hope and moments and not-what’s-lost-but-what-is-still-there-ness (thank you, ptom). stepping over the limen, the threshold, is necessary. leaving behind the first half of the concert, the part that colors us and clouds our clear-eyed-hopeful-stepping-into the second half, is absolute.
i played for a funeral today. the family celebrated the life of a beautiful young woman who i didn’t know, but who, through the stories told, sounded lovely. the sanctuary was full and boxes of tissues were numerous throughout the pews. my heart hurt for them; i was upstairs in the balcony, separated from this family, but joined in the feeling of what grief can do.
the nurse-log’s new life in the lake up north this year, the strawberry patch, the new herb garden we built out of re-purposed schtuff (as wendy calls it), and, speaking of wendy, the tulips on her wall (sometimes the flowers aren’t real-live-in-the-dirt-flowers). there are photos from ocean-side marshland, the sweet gift of farmer’s market sunflowers, saved pictures of susan’s porch with hanging flowerpots…just to look at…as if i were there. flowers in linda’s abundant garden, 
huge basil at jen’s, gorgeous orange impatiens that stubbornly live in our backyard, even when we don’t notice them. black-eyed susans from our walks, white-flowering hostas on an iowa farm. soybeans in the field and bamboo alongside the lake, unidentified purple flowers 
and pink and yellow flowers along a neighbor’s front walk, purple sedum buzzing with bees a few houses away. the first tree to turn in the woods we were hiking in, a lone red leaf on a maple in the ‘hood. my photo shoot of the painting 
and breathe it back in. sometime, in the middle of winter, when the days are not as fluffy or romantically snowy, i will want to look at these pictures. to remember. you know, the whole thready thing. it’s a curse.
tent, which i am well-acquainted with, it called my name. “look at that happy bag,” i said to david. usually i don’t purchase much at these shows. i am often feeling that i-don’t-need-more-stuff feeling. but, as david told someone recently, pieces of art (really, despite what medium they are) reach out and find their true owner. and, i have to tell you, this happy bag found me. and you’ll never guess what the fabric was. for this dedicated wear-blue-jeans-and-black-tops girl (ok, that term “girl” may be outdated for me, but humor me, ok?”), this flowery backpack found its way into my hands. now i am using it each day. i know i will return to other purses i own (aka pocketbooks, aka handbags), but this happy bag will bring back -with just one glance- the hot day at the festival, the flowers in my summer, the color in my life. and we all need that, don’t we?
seeing the girl in the flannel shirt you passed to her from your dad, her pa. a combed beach. 
tears of joy. holding hands in prayer. waking up pretzeled together. rich bass notes on my piano. a bite of a really good pear or a honey crisp apple. the dog and cat laying together. holding your child, tiny or grown. telling old stories. turning your head while driving the car to see your husband gazing at you. a first cup of morning coffee in bed. seeing the birds lined up at the bird feeder. listening to 
This is a 
No matter the worries or sadnesses, challenges or problems that would befall us in the day or days to come, that moment was a picture of JOY. A view-master snapshot of what is in our very fibre if we notice. Our God-given right. Our God-given responsibility.
i could picture columbus sitting on that porch, with the surrounding land to which his soul was ever-connected. i booked it, despite my mother-in-law’s wishes to stay at a motel in the area. now, it is dangerous to not listen and, even with my certainty about that being the right place for this pilgrimage, i was a little nervous about how they (read: she) would feel about it. they are dear to me and i don’t want to – well, let’s just say – tick them off.
the first time we sat on the porch columbus had a lite beer and stared out at the corn and soybeans (at least we think they were soybeans.). he talked about his days working in fields, traveling the roads he wondered if he could now remember, his friends, his growing-up house.
i could watch my husband listening to his dad, absorbing the details, sometimes patiently listening to repeated stories. i could watch my mother-in-law help with some of the details, talking about the history columbus had and their shared decades of life, some of it spent in this panther-highschool-football-team-land. i spent a good bit of time staring at the corn and soybeans too. and a good bit of time silently taking pictures of a sojourn that my father-in-law had talked about for years.
he wanted to go see and touch the home that his grandpa built, proud to have been raised in a house where he saw the toil that made it possible. he wanted to visit with his aunt joanne, a feisty woman just a couple years older than him. his list wasn’t long. not much else. he just wanted to BE there. and so we were. we followed his heart around his home town.
it was a little chilly that evening. early the next morning we would be taking them back to the airport. we didn’t sit on the porch.
maybe this event in our day, this yin-and-yang-sun-and-moon-experience, was a reminder of two distinctly different halves that form wholeness. maybe that is why it was so striking – the day-sky and the night-sky together at the same time, impacting us. maybe it is a starting point for us. a starting point for change. the realization that if these magnificently opposite celestial energies can co-exist, we earthly beings can do the same. not seeking to be dominant but living in relationship. interconnected. balanced.
reverse threading 