frank made sure to bring us the dvd. our favorite of the hallmark christmas movies, a season for miracles was scheduled for tv viewing at a time we were not available. and he knows. frank knows how much we love this movie during this season. we, i have to admit, spend just a little bit of time watching hallmark christmas movies, despite their obvious indulgence to happy-endings-aficionados. a season for miracles is such a story, but there are these lovely lines spoken by patty duke toward the end, that inevitable-anticipated-yet-yearned-for end. she wisely advises one of the stars of the movie, giving him something to consider, “i forgive you. there’s a lot of power in those three words. they can change the world.”
yesterday i sang these lyrics, “all these pieces broken and scattered, in mercy gathered, mended and whole. empty handed but not forsaken. i’ve been set free, i’ve been set free.” (broken vessels – j. houston, j. myrin)
in true cliche, i would, indeed, say we are all broken by pieces we need to forgive, things for which we need forgiveness. we carry these burdens like heavy luggage, dragging them day by day, place to place. nary a moment goes by without our minds summoning up a reason to be dismayed or disgusted with someone, disappointed in ourselves. we are not free.
is it pollyanna-ish to believe that the world would be changed if forgiveness were paramount? is it an irrational, unreachable panacea for all the divisiveness and turmoil? is there just too much purity – too much hallmark – in those words, in that kind of peace-seeking?
if you could, who would share the third seat in a room with you and forgiveness? with whom would you seek forgiveness from? who would you forgive?
is it better to be mended and empty-handed than holding-on-tightly-burdened with sharp, broken pieces that pierce your heart? where is your free?
“i want women to see that you do not get pushed around.” (* attributed below)
this piece today is dedicated to all the women who have made it through, all the women who are making it through, all the women who will make it through.
your fire has brought you to the edge of the battlefield many times and you have still made lemonade; you have still prevailed.
you have made it through intensely emotionally abusive relationships. you have picked up the pieces and you have moved on.
you have made it through physical or sexual abuse. you have risen from the ashes.
you have made it through terrifying health scares. you have pulled up your boot straps and determinedly plodded through with massive courage.
you have made it through society’s prioritizing of body image and appearance. you have been measured by your cleavage or lack thereof, by the indent of your waist, by the clothing you choose, by your hair. you struggle to remember you are beautiful. you stand tall.
you have made it through vacuumous times, the middle of chaos, the middle of multi-tasking. you have created.
you have made it through physical summit experiences. you have scaled mountains. you have boarded down untracked chutes. you have trained your body with weights and exercise. you have run. you have skated. you have pedaled. you have breathed in and sighed an exhale. you’ve run thousands of lengths of playing fields. you took the next painful recuperating step. you dove to the depths. you have been on world stages. you have risen with hungry or fevered children night after night. you have competed. you have given birth.
you have made it through falling. you have made mistakes. you have been human. you have forgiven and you have been forgiven.
you have made it through an education steeped in gender-inequality and bias. you have chosen to learn more, to actively seek the resources, rights and opportunities due you, to resist against the discrimination.
you have made it through a system that undermines your success and devalues your value. you have fought for your place.
you have made it through financial challenges of single womanhood, of single motherhood. you have been scrappy and, without complaint, you have layered onto yourself however much it took to get it done.
you have made it through work situations where you’ve questioned how you would be treated were you to be a man. would you be yelled at? would your professionalism be questioned? you have asked these questions. you have stayed, holding steadfast, or you have moved on; you have decided what is best for you and moved in that direction.
you have made it through the skewed-world fray into leadership roles where your every decision is challenged or thwarted. you have overcome; you have triumphed.
you have made it through being-too-young and through aging. and you are not irrelevant.
you have made it through. you have spoken up, spoken back, spoken for. you have written letters. you have marched.
you have been pushed around. but you have pushed back. and, just like the tortoise, you have made it through.
download MADE IT THROUGH from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby
i just read these words and stopped and re-read them. for no specific reason – just because, i had taken the sarah ban breathnach book simple abundance out of the old wooden north carolina cabinet on the other side of the bed. i flipped open to december 5, old cards and notes and newspaper clippings trying to slip out of the pages into which they were tucked.
the quote at the top of the page read, “most of the sighs we hear have been edited.” (stanislaw jerzy lec) and the meditation for this day was about sighing. in fact, one of my favorite sentences reads, “women sigh so that we won’t scream.” oh yes! sarah continues, in rare exacting form about screaming, “there are several occasions in the course of any woman’s day when, without question, screaming is the appropriate response.” sarah continues, in rare exacting form about sighs, and writes, “the act of sighing is a quiet vote of acceptance – of … moving on. …letting it out. letting it go….” resilience.
sarah’s quiet wisdom touches a nerve: “…sigh more… because … preferences, needs, wants, wills and demands to be dealt with, if there is to be a state of detente in the daily round. more bending in order not to break…” sisu.
i hadn’t thought about my sighing, but i know i do it. the intake of breath and the slow exhale. the thought i-have-no-idea-what-i-can-actually-do-about-this-anyway or the thought i-have-no-control-over-what-others-are-doing-or-thinking-or-feeling. my own feeling of being astounded by someone or something. the feeling of hurt. the feeling of exasperation. fragility. fortitude. both.
the sigh. a release. from my heart into the hands of the universe. isn’t that prayer too?
i read this text after rehearsals tonight. today was one of those days…not enough time and so many layers. we all have them. all the colors in the crayola box. at once.
“…the present now will later be past…”
my sweet momma would say, “this too shall pass.” knowing that applies to the most astonishing moments as well as the most staggering, i’m thinking i will try to cling to the present a bit harder. even if it is a-changin. especially if it is a-changin.
i stopped and went back. i had to take this picture. reminders are everywhere and right now, although, truly, as always, i knew i wanted to capture as many as possible.
it feels as if we are surrounded by whirling hypocrisy. those people who proclaim one thing and treat people in an extraordinarily different way. i’ve been stunned into i-don’t-even-know-what-to-say-silence more than once lately. people who demand respect but don’t give it, people who are unnecessarily controlling, people who go behind your back, people who list toward cruelty, people who declare appreciation but tear down, people who hide behind glossy words. what is going on? narcissism seems to be alive and well as we suffer the effects of those-who-believe-they-are-on-pedestals, pedestals that seem to exist on every step of the ladder. it’s shocking and more than a little disconcerting. we each have first-hand in-our-own-life experience. what a disappointment. we are humans capable of so much more.
and so, the reminders are incredibly welcome. the heart leaves or rocks, the sun’s rays glowing through clouds in the sky, the presence of a cardinal or two blue jays crossing our path in the woods. a text message or call out of the blue, beautiful generous raw-matte-finish words spoken to you. all reminders. a kindness extended by a stranger, an eye-contact smile. the big initiatives, the little gestures. not picking up the tug-of-war rope. reaching out to offer the olive branch. life-giving. practicing. we are truly capable of so much. we need be reminded.
“live generously and the world will treat you royally.” (crown royal commercial)
“practice makes perfect,” it says on an index card in the piano bench of my old piano downstairs in the basement. written in the careful-penmanship-printing of me-probably-as-an-8-year-old, i have kept this card in my bench for over 50 years. i’m sure there were multiple times i rolled my eyes at this, as i opened the bench to take out and work on lesson music. i still roll my eyes. everything takes practice.
everything. including living generously. there’s always that moment when you have to decide to either take up the rope, as they say, and tug back or let the rope lay still. so much easier to pick it up and tug, letting it lay there and not touching it requires sheer grit-your-teeth-restraint sometimes. it’s too easy to tug, to even wrench, and too royally hard to let a sleeping rope lie.
but in those moments, the really tough ones and the little ones, that you actually and intentionally choose to mother-teresa your way through, your generosity spins outward in concentric circles and goodness spreads. goodness has a way of coming back, returning to center, with centrifugal force and your heart in the middle. gravity draws back goodness and keeps close the spirit of all with whom you have been generous. kindness bestowed upon you is royal treatment; it is the world treating you royally. we are all so fortunate. we are already receiving lavish unconditional love. what would happen if we practiced living generously even more?
“all of us have special ones who have loved us into being. would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are….ten seconds of silence.” (mr. fred rogers)
he brought it up on the trail. the movie we had recently seen. not an action thriller or a mystery. just a movie about a man who changed the world. mr. fred rogers.
quietly hiking on the trail, he broke the walking-arm-in-arm silence, “i’ve been thinking about all those people. those people who loved me into existence.”
what could you possibly be more grateful for? that trail of thought found us yesterday morning and wove its way into all day, skirting along the edges as we cooked, back into the center on facetime, at the table with wine glasses, in a late night text out of the blue.
the people who love you into being.
mr. rogers got more specific, ” from the time you were very little, you’ve had people who have smiled you into smiling, people who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving.” what kind of legacy do you have to be known for this kind of wisdom? it changes everything.
the people who love you into being.
we spoke of these people on and off all day and late into the night. there was a moment i could feel shadows that were cast by any of those we talked about falling off, light covering the shadow. reasons. seasons.
the people who love you into being.
too many to list. too many to remember. we backtracked and stood still in our memories, telling stories and finding wonder as names – and the dear picture of that person in our mind’s eye – spilled out of us. a wealth of being-makers. every one of them a builder in the construction of some piece of us, like a giant box of tinkertoys or lincoln logs or even crayons. so much potential. a wildly wide spectrum of color and characteristic, texture and depth. profoundly moving. a tiny bit of shake-up. both.
“this is not goodbye. it’s just farewell to the you i recognize. i’ve got a long, long time to learn how to feel you in a new way.” (lowen & navarro: crossing over from pendulum)
thanksgiving dawns. 2019.
thanksgiving dawns. rewind. 1960s. 1970s. i remember waking with great anticipation to watch the macy’s thanksgiving day parade on our black and white tv. my sweet momma, having risen early-early to put the turkey on at some ridiculous hour and my poppo, trying to appear helpful, both dedicated parade watchers, sipping coffee and snacking on entenmanns crumb cake. made sweeter for us new yorkers by seeing it in person on the streets of nyc, my mom would recollect parades-gone-by with horse drawn floats and she would cheer aloud for the tv version, even in the den. dad would be quiet, but he would be grinning, waiting for bullwinkle or popeye or underdog. these were moments i didn’t memorize. i was too young to know that i should. i was steady in the world, surrounded by family who i loved and who loved me and not necessarily given to thinking in the terms “many years later”.
thanksgiving dawns. rewind. 1990s. My Girl and My Boy were little, in pjs, fully engaged in the turkey dance their dad performed with the turkey on the counter, happily catching bits and snatches of a colorful parade i was still enthralled with, waiting to lick the dessert beaters, while i was making a feast of turkey and casseroles and setting a table with candles and cloth. we let the wishbone dry on the shelf for days and sometimes longer, forgetting about it, but eventually, they would snap it, wishes in their hands. i’m sure they didn’t memorize those moments. they were steady in the world, surrounded by family they loved and who loved them and definitely not given to thinking in the terms “many years later”.
thanksgiving dawns. 2019. it is quiet. My Girl in the high mountains, My Boy in the southern hemisphere. we will prepare for a simple meal. we will hike. we will be grateful for all the thanksgivings of the past, for all the thanksgivings of the future. for the thanks-giving of every day. i know that, indeed, despite all our failings, our challenges, our sorrows and disappointments as well as our absolute joys and successes, we are steady in the world, surrounded by family who we love and who love us. they are all here. i memorize moments all the time these days. for later. and many years later.
i have said farewell to too many. but i have learned to recognize them in the kindnesses of strangers, in the serendipities and synchronicities of wondrous things that happen. i recognize them in the gentle breezes that sweep across my face. i am learning how to feel them in a new way. and i know they – my angels – are there.
“one million plastic beverage bottles are bought every minute around the world. yet recycling rates remain low.”
(article: our addiction to plastic, national geographic magazine, 12.2019)
close to midnight and the texts started arriving fast and furiously. a warning from My Girl that she was “fighting with people on instagram”. her passionate responses to objectors on #pattiegonia’s instagram were well-spoken, well-placed, adamant about the wellness of this good earth, vehemently supportive. i paid attention.
pattie gonia is an environmental advocate drag queen. a voice. a loud, sincere, fervent, educated, inspired, contemporary, courageous voice. pattie/wyn is out there making a difference. it is easy to be proud of them, to stand with them. with the partnership of rei, they have created video to draw attention to the things we, as earth-dwellers, have failed to prioritize. if you watch their dramatic and profound videos, you will weep. guaranteed.
we must pay attention. what plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic netting, garbage, waste….are doing to our mother earth is deplorable. we would not live in such a house. why then do we live on such an earth?
i was driven to nausea the other day when we were helping someone clear out a house. it was our job to load things up in big red and go to the mini-dump not far from us. we pulled up and backed up to one of many large dumpsters, all connected to a compactor, to throw in what we had in the back of the truck. it took my breath away watching all the people throwing in all the stuff….just in this tiny corner of the world. the great pacific garbage patch looms in my mind’s eye. THIS is the reason we still have our 40-plus-year-old stove. because i can’t imagine where it will go if we just throw it out to get a shiny new model before it’s necessary, just to make our kitchen look chic (which, incidentally, is impossible anyway.)
we have been conscious, using refillable water bottles, repurposing, recycling everything we could recycle, a practice of being consumers-of-less, less buying, less keeping-up-with-the-joneses, more picking up trash and, scarily, pulling up next to people who throw things out their car windows to tell them they ‘dropped something back there’. but we have been learning. and we can do more. we all can do more. we have to. pay attention.
“…right now, there are more plastic pieces in the ocean than stars in the milky way…” (everything to lose by pattie gonia)
it’s bracing. and it’s tragic. and it needs our true attention. as pattie gonia says, clothed in a dress made of plastic bags, fully standing in garbage, a ticking clock her companion, “we have everything to lose.”
a short documentary to learn more about pattie gonia:
but the real question is – do WE improve with age?
yes, lush red wine, dark chocolate, bold roast black coffee – all have risen on my list of chosens. i remember the days of sugar and cream in coffee. i remember the creamy milk chocolate days. and i remember the 1980s and 1990s days of ‘white zin’, the go-to wine of that age and time, a staple of the culture. but those days are past and we have moved on to rich red blends or old vine zins, 85% dark chocolate with no milkfats, and the boldest of the bold coffees with no sweetener or added dairy/non-dairy product. all improved (in my opinion) with my age.
me…on the other hand…i’m not so sure.
i read a brief article which proposed that your thoughts are less important than your feelings. it reminded the reader that, in light of everyone’s hard-to-speak-of mortality, there is no time more important, nothing more important than feeling the present moment.
how often do we get caught up in the swirling mind games of reviewing all the past? thoughts. how often do we find ourselves double-clutching on the future because of something that has happened ‘before’? thoughts. how often do we hesitate as we ponder-ponder-ponder until it’s too late? thoughts. how often are those thoughts – skewed – which have accumulated all through these supposed improving-with-age years – ruling our moments, nonetheless ruining our moments, the ones right-now? stick to the topic/don’t go backwards in time and drudge up old stuff/stay in the “i-feel” not the “you-did”…any counseling master’s program notes referencing ‘conversation’ (read: heated conversation) with a significant other. feelings. do we actually improve with age? do we learn?
i’m guessing the wine cork has it right. the moments you are sipping wine are quieter moments sitting by the fire. or moments of laughter with friends. or moments with a good meal. the older we get, it seems the more value we place on those things. we drink-in the heart of these most important times, with or without wine. feeling.
we gain perspective. maybe like that glass of wine in the evening. a little every day.
