because i have this thing about everest, high-mountain-climbing tales and the arctic, we have a propensity to seek out movies we can view that tell these stories. we stumbled upon an explorer series that followed the adventures of an arctic explorer at the north pole. the photography was stunning. so much white. and then the blues. a turquoise aqua that you just can’t accurately describe. the explorer described the north pole as elusive, as theoretical, since it continually moves and the longitude/latitude is never constant, always fluid. he is there at the exact north pole and he is not. both.
this painting BLUE PRAYER feels like there. sitting at the very top of our mother earth, the deep night sky behind her, she prays. for our planet, all people, tenets of goodness, generosity, peace. she is quietly still and bowed in fervently verbose prayer. she is praying for the elusive, the theoretical. she knows it is all out there and she knows it is not. both.
this could get ugly. it could also get too honest. and maybe too personal. and too detailed.
this is the week. i’ve been dreading it for months. it is the final week to select health insurance for 2020. sometime this week i will wait online for probably hours to take my turn, to take my turn to sign up for a plan on healthcare.gov. i have been awake all night on and off for weeks.
we are artists. both of us. neither of our jobs and none of the other work that we do provide health insurance or benefits. we live in the state of wisconsin and have four options of healthcare companies on healthcare.gov. an insurance agent pointed out that we could opt for short term health insurance (up to 360 days) instead of a regular policy, but those do not cover any pre-existing conditions, do not provide for physicals and most preventative care and are basically catastrophic plans. hmmm. as a grown-up who has been working my entire grown-up life, i would really like to have grown-up insurance.
so. four companies. bronze, silver and gold plans in each. none of these companies provide nationwide coverage and a couple do not even allow for emergency room coverage out of network. two of those companies do not cover our doctors, professionals with whom we have established relationship through years; last year (2018) our coverage did not allow us to go to our own doctors, so we didn’t. we paid for coverage and never visited the doctor’s office at all.
so let’s get more mealy here. there are plenty of arguments about healthcare out there and plenty of naysayers and supporters -each- of the affordable care act. are you even familiar with it? if you would prefer not to know, i would stop reading here. but if you really want to know more, please read on… but keep in mind, i love math and research.
we are 60 and 58 and healthy. these four companies on healthcare.gov presented bronze, silver and gold plans that will cost between $1600 and $2800 per month out of pocket, which is a total of $19,200-$33,600 per year. the $1600 options have deductibles between $14,000-16,000. in many cases, this is what you must satisfy before the company even begins to pay a portion. that would mean you have paid in the neighborhood of $33,200 a year for you and your spouse to be treated on a bronze plan, without figuring in the actual cost of the treatment.
let’s explore an example for example’s sake.
let’s say you make a combined salary of $70,000. let’s assume a meager (and understated) tax bracket of only 20%. $70,000-14,000 = $56,000. now let’s assume you own a house or pay rent and your mortgage plus escrowed real estate taxes are about $1200 combined (also underestimated in most cases). $56,000-14,400 = $41,600. add to that your utilities bills; let’s just estimate that at a lowish $250 per month, which is $3000 year. $41,600-3000 = $38,600. now subtract out for cellphones, home phones, cable, wifi again lowballing at $250 per month, $3000 per year. $38,600-3000 = $35,600. at this point you have not included any of your outstanding student loans or parent plus loans, nor have you subtracted out for home insurance, car insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, any kind of retirement savings or a car payment. nor have you even considered food, clothing or gas for driving to and from work, even if you don’t drive anywhere else. any outstanding rotating credit card debt or medical related costs that you are paying on installment are not subtracted. but you are sitting at $35,600 usuable income.
so. if you take the bronze plan you must assume that you have approximately $16,000 in the bank for the deductible and you must subtract $19,200 (27% of your gross income) from your $35,600 leaving you with $16,400 to cover all the aforementioned items we hadn’t subtracted and maybe perhaps saving a little to cover the percentages of medical expenses you need to cover post-deductible. OR you can take a silver plan, which is in the neighborhood of $2200 per month or $26,400 year (38% of your gross income) leaving you with $9200 to cover loans, home insurance, car insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, car payment, food, clothing, gas, etc. you clearly can’t even consider a gold plan at $2800 per month (the most grown-up plan) because that would cost $33,600 a year, leaving you with a mere $2000 to spend on the rest of life (as listed above). again, that’s assuming a meager 20% income tax rate and not considering state or local income taxes as well.
i’m sure you are beginning to see my point.
and then there are the subsidies. yes. if you earn below 4 times the poverty rate in your state, you are eligible for subsidies for this healthcare insurance. naturally, the more you earn, the less subsidy you are able to receive. that makes sense. it feathers out as the numbers go up. and then? there is a dollar level – one dollar this way or that – that a granted subsidy would drop from hundreds, even more than a thousand or fifteen hundred to – ZERO – . for instance, if you are granted a subsidy because of your level of income and sometime in the year (as you have worked hard to earn more to live a little better) you go over the healthcare cliff by ONE DOLLAR, ONE dollar, you will owe back the entirety of the insurance plan. in the above case, that would be anywhere between the difference of what you paid in and the plan total of $19,200 or up to $33,600.
we are the poster children of this so-called sweet spot in the healthcare crisis of our country. a bit older, working hard, multiple jobs, no job-provided healthcare. not making enough to scoff at spending say $29,000-$33,000 (silver or gold plans) or even $19,200 (bronze) for one year of health insurance, nonetheless be able to actually budget that, but making a bit more than the cliff. no ropes. no guardrails. just a cliff.
the professional insurance agent on the phone said she had “a lot of people your age in that circumstance.” she suggested considering short term health insurance, the kind i mentioned above that precludes pre-existing conditions etc etc. etc. that doesn’t sound like grown-up health care to me. and the deeply disappointed, frustrated cynic in me asks this question – when will breathing be considered a pre-existing condition?
something needs to be done. is the health of the people of this country important or not? it’s a basic question. with an obvious answer. where do we place value?
some things just stop me in my tracks. strolling through school days antiques mall i turned the corner and screeched to a halt. familiarity swirled around me as i stared at this painting – a paint-by-number. my breathing slowed. the scene, the hues…all made me feel like i was embraced. by my sweet momma. i texted a picture to my sister, to check in, to see what she said. she texted back that it, indeed, felt familiar and we tried to remember what happened to this painting of my mom’s. every time i look at this photo on my phone i feel ‘home’. even right now.
this wasn’t the first time this happened. back a couple years ago ON mother’s day we were tooling around an antiques store in woodstock, illinois. we had taken a ‘sunday drive’ (i am turning into my parents!) and looked for antiques stores to visit. as i turned the corner from one booth to the next it was there, staring at me. the paint-by-number-jesus that my mom had painted. i photographed it and called everyone that day. this painting was hung somewhere in our growing-up house that we can’t all agree on. but we know it was there. i turned the painting over looking for my mom’s signature on the back, but didn’t find it. i studied the frame, one that was identical to a frame that my sweet poppo had made on a paint-by-number-nude (yes, it’s ok to laugh aloud here) my mom had painted and hung in their bathroom (which i know i have written about before). i pondered how it might have gotten to woodstock, if indeed this painting and truly-identical-wooden-frame might have been my mom’s paint-by-number-jesus. it wasn’t likely. our growing-up-house was on long island and then my parents moved to florida so illinois was a bit off the mark (unless she had given the painting to my brother a million years ago and he “generously” donated it, which would make me laugh aloud.) we left and went home and a few days later drove all the way back, just to study it a little more, to touch it again. i thought holding it in my hands might tell me if i should buy it and bring it home and, well, i had no idea what to do with it then. i mean, what does one do with a paint-by-number-jesus? i didn’t buy it. i left paint-by-number-jesus in woodstock and i gratefully welcomed my mom’s embrace from afar.
so the other day, in the midst of the stresses of life, we took a stroll in one of our favorite antiques stores, chatting and reminiscing and laughing about all the stuff we used to have growing up and all the stuff that we still have in our cabinets that are now considered antiques.
we tried not to talk about the things that were nagging us, the things we are worried about, the things that seem insurmountable.
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.
reverse threading 