there is little as comfortingly sweet as watching your dog sleep. dogdog is whirling motion so when he sleeps in your presence it is a magical time of trust and deep respite. the vision of him asleep on the bed or in the middle of the living room rug is a picture of all-is-right-in-the-world; he has no other cares except he is with his people and he can rest.
some of the times i remember most about when My Girl and My Boy were young are the times they fell asleep with me holding them, in my arms, on my lap. the moment you feel their little-child-body relax and fall into you. exquisite.
it’s that moment you sigh and lay your head back to nap with someone you love. the moment you close your eyes on the beach towel in the sun, warm sand beneath you. the moment you drift off in the grass watching the clouds. oh yes, the moment your face plants against the window at the rest area during your long journey and a couple hours pass by. the moment, hiking in high mountains, you lean against a tree and your eyes close to the sound of the wind in the aspens.
rest. a time of no real conscious worry. a time of innate trusting that all-will-be-well. a time of repose, of tranquility, of solace.
i have found, sometimes, if i want to go to sleep and cannot, that if i watch dogga or babycat sleep it will slow my overthinking-breathing. it will settle my heart and mind a bit. it will remind me that my own whirling motion – physical, intellectual, emotional – needs time to rest, to curl up on the living room rug and close my eyes.
“i want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.” (oriah mountain dreamer)
in the middle. of the storm. of the fire. the stallion of human nature rears up; we push back; we flail hooves with words, with rebuttals, with defenses. and the circumstances that have created the storm or the arsonists who have built the fire prevail, deaf, obstinate, bullheadedly dogged.
after a bout, we raise our beaten heads up, panting. and we silently stand. we slow our breathing down, and begin to calmly wait, deliberately, intentionally trust that the storm will pass, the fire will go to ash.
for “every storm runs out of rain.” (maya angelou)
and we will come out on the other side. joan once told me that the only way to the other side is through. those wise words have echoed in my heart time and again. there is no circumventing, no avoidance. the fires, the storms will come. no matter. and although we will live in them longer than we wish, longer than we ought, they will not last forever.
“this too shall pass.” (my sweet momma)
the pain will subside, even a tiny bit. the angry words will run out. the crisis will start its labored, interminable return to zero axis. good will begin to tilt the seesaw. the sun will rise. next will come. and we will have survived a worst day, worst fire, worst storm. we will still be breathing, having passed through hyperventilating, catching our breath, slowing our pulse. we will be standing.
” i don’t care what’s in front of me or what’s behind me; i just wanna stop the wheel and stand still…” (phil vassar, ‘stand still’)
and we will be in this moment, this one we won’t ever get back. the fire, the storm attempt to rob us of these very seconds, to draw the breath from our ashy-rain-filled hearts. but we stand still. we know it will pass. we know that every storm runs out of rain.
two broken wrists. there’s not much that can stop me, but two broken wrists has done it.
it is profound what you do in daily living with at least one hand. really everything. this is my fourth day on this hand-less journey and i know there’s a long road ahead. i am not a good patient and the inability to perform the simplest of tasks has been world-stopping. i had to teach david how to ‘properly’ wipe my mouth, put on girl jeans, comb out wet hair. he has to hold my coffee cup (and yes, a wine glass or two) with the infamous sesame street ernie straw, feed me every bite, help me sit up from laying down, open doorknobs, pick up my cellphone so i can voice activate it, wipe my tears as i cry in frustration. the list goes on and is only limited to your imagination.
i wanted to have a tiny window into my beautiful daughter’s world. My Girl tells me lots of coaching and instructing stories from her high mountain snowboarding career, but i have never stepped on a snowboard. i wanted to physically experience the board under my feet, even a tiny grasp of how she feels. so we have planned for a long time to take a lesson and surprise her with our tale.
this week was wisconsin ski and snowboard week and for a mere $29 you could purchase lift tickets, rental equipment and a group lesson. it seemed perfect.
and for an hour and twenty minutes it was. a really difficult sport, we stood on boards and managed to learn the slightest of skills. until that little girl on skis was in front of me downhill just a bit. not really well-versed at turning and, clearly, less versed on stopping, i worked to avoid her. the stop and the fall were simultaneous. tailbone down i clearly put out my hands to help my fall, the first do-not-do-this rule. instinct took over; reflexes prevailed. that was step one in this two-broken-wrists tale, this whole rest.
four days ago i took for granted every little thing my hands (and arms) did for me. i could play the piano at any given moment, grab a pencil and jot a lyric, readjust the bench, open the blinds and let the sun into the studio. today the studio is dark, the piano quiet, the pencils waiting.
instead, moment by moment i am aware of every move i make, every single thing i need assistance with. i work each day to gain one more tiny ability. we have slowed down to a crawl and are abiding in each minute, one by one. i appreciate david’s help beyond mere gratitude or words; his commitment to my every-single-movement is humbling. our friends and family have reached out with offers of meals, company, words of encouragement and vast amounts of humor. we are right here in this very moment. presence defined.
i wonder about my piano. i know that my right hand in a hard fiberglass cast is on hiatus. i think that maybe my left hand, which is in a hard splint, might have a beensy chance at a few notes, regardless of the ensuing pain. when i was 19 i broke three fingers on my left hand slammed in a steel church door. they were splinted but i was fending for myself making a living for college as a musician and so i relentlessly started playing with those fingers anyway. this too-early-in-the-healing-process-playing prevented full healing, so i am cautious now. the piano is a part of my soul and so i honor the process of getting-back.
in the meanwhile, in the way that only the universe understands, after these last months, i seem to have needed a reminder of being loved and cared for, a reminder of attending to ‘now’ with no dreaded worry of ‘next’, a reminder of what’s truly important.
too old. too young. too busy. too tired. too apolitical. too rabid. too conservative. too liberal. too artistic. too left-brained. too analytical. too kinesthetic. too emotional. too opinionated. too apathetic. too uneducated. too educated. too poor. too rich. too believing. too agnostic. too manipulated. too manipulative. too confident. too tentative. too work-engrossed. too free. too lofty. too basic. too orthodox. too unconventional. too open. too closed. too rigid. too fluid. too not-from-here. too down-home. too much. too little. too far-reaching. too little impact. too intentional. too haphazard. too unknown. too anticipated. too cavalier. too afraid.
d’s master’s degree embraces the organization of whole systems; when i recently read this it felt like everything he has said in a nutshell (and i, not being a nutshell person, embraced this nutshell with the glee of change). here is what i read about systems theory:
‘our family systems. our work systems. our neighborhood and community systems.’ our country. our world. the system reeling inside ourselves.
too trouble-making. too resistant. too dysfunctional. all good reasons for a system not to be too chicken to change.
life. too short. too fleeting. too few golden opportunities to learn. too few possibilities to stand tall and face down adversity. too few windows to be kind. too few chances to say ‘i love you’. too many people to laugh with. too many places to see. too many moments to miss.
all good reasons for us to be “not too chicken to change”.
we bought snowpants. on sale for only $7 they are a wise investment for two people who hike year-round out in the woods or wherever we are. it’s a big deal for us to buy anything new so, this time, instead of looking at them every day and saving them for good (ala beaky) we celebrated our good deal by putting them on, going out in the snowy woods and hiking.
we were pretty much silent. you could hear snow falling from the trees and the crunching of our boots on the trail. but we didn’t talk much. with so many things to talk to about and the woods being our best meeting room it was unusual. but sometimes, it is silence that is most needed.
our path, like this stream, has zigged and zagged. it has brought us past jagged rocky times and through sweet gentle lapping pools. it has been lit by warm sun and darkened by the deep worry of late night.
but one thing is always consistent in the inconsistency of life. no matter how we arrive in the woods, no matter the angst we bring. arm in arm, because it is our habit, we walk through the woods. arm in arm on the trail we silently hike toward quieting our hearts and minds. under trees older than our troubles, arm in arm walking reaches past even anger-inspired words, things spoken in frustration. arm in arm we remember all that is good, all that is certain. the day’s hurdles and fears and unease fade as the sun sets. and we zag.
1977. graduation. yashica fx-2. my most-prized possession and my constant companion was the 35mm single lens reflex camera my momma and dad gave me when i graduated from high school. it went everywhere with me and i made every reason to be out and about with it, capturing sunrises, sunsets, beaches, state parks, roadtrips, lighthouses, birds and other wildlife, my nieces and nephew. i loved this camera and still have it, although i haven’t used it in years. i learned about f-stops and aperture openings, film speed and depth of field – all with this camera.
somewhere along the way, automatic cameras began to reign supreme and i joined the ranks with a minolta that made taking pictures of My Girl and My Boy easier, faster, somewhat brainless. as they were little and moments passed in lightning speed, this camera made moment-seizing more possible, although one still had to wait till the film was developed to see if you were successful. sometimes it was the blurry photo, the funny face, the i-wasn’t-trying-to-get-that-picture photograph that are the prizes. they are the ones we couldn’t erase, delete, photoshop, filter. they were what they were.
i remember roll after roll, walking in to rode’s camera shop and taking advantage of their double-print deal, always sending photographs to grandparents, family and friends who were afar. having sorted through every one of the prints in recent years, i can honestly say that i have literally thousands of photographs of my children when they were growing up. perhaps this is the reason they roll their eyes at me now when i want to take pictures of them?
i can’t help but think of what i might have captured on film had digital cameras or cellphones with the exquisite-cameras-of-today been around back then. video without having a gigantic vcr camcorder on your shoulder or even a smaller, still cumbersome 8mm camera, instant photos that you can preview and take over, every photo or image or video ‘fixable’, ‘changeable’, ‘alterable’.
i have to say i am a little envious of the ability of parents today who are able to document their children, their travels, their, well, every move, not to even begin to mention selfies, and instantly facebook-post it, email it, text it, snapchat it, instagram it, tweet it, snapfish or shutterfly-book-it, sharing it with the world. it’s so simple. their documentation will be so much more complete, the phone-camera a constant companion with no real added burden of weight or case or extra lenses or film or a flash. the rise and ease of amazing technology.
it was with a sense of uh-oh-we-really-are-getting-olderrrrr that we happened upon the display of cameras and movie cameras in the antique shoppe. i wanted to pick each one up, look through the viewfinder, compose a photo or two. i was instantly transported back to crabmeadow beach with susan, climbing the fence to snag a few sunrise pictures. i was in the boat with crunch, cruising long island sound lighthouse to lighthouse. i was on the floor with my babies, catching their moments.
there was something magical about waiting for that old film to develop. something that made it sometimes easier to put the camera, the device, away. something that made it paramount to memorize -for your very own mind’s eye- the most precious of events, the most intimate details, the agonizingly briefest purity of a perfect moment in time.
a dime. if i had a dime for every time i heard, “is this you?” as i answered the phone i would possibly be a rich girl. i am a rich girl, nevertheless, simply because of the utterance of those words. a dime for every lifeline.
in the craziest time of life, when i was reeling, hearing the voice of my dear friend scordskiii on the phone was a lifesaver. it was a crazy time of life for him as well, profoundly devastating. but we weren’t alone in our individual fires. they raged about us and we each held the other safe, just away from the flames. were i to have gotten that era over with as-fast-as-possible i would have missed it, this symbiotic exchange of breathing-together, of MAKING-it-through not getting-through-it. conversations of laughter, singing, telling stories, pondering, arguing points, more laughter. hours upon hours while he drove in some other part of the country and i sat up all night keeping him company or i drove way-far-away from where he was and he talked me through what i most needed to process at the time. or we just sat still, in our own corner of the world, talking. really really talking. hours of review, of planning, of sorting, of truth, of fear, of ranting. and laughter. i have no idea what i would have done without him. and, despite the pain and the fallout and the ash that (still) remains after the smoldering fire was finally doused, i am grateful to the universe for making me walk through it. for making me be present. for not keeping me from the lessons, for giving me reasons to not try to get it over with. it was an extraordinary time. the lifeline he extended to me is a thread that will never be broken. despite his ensuing here-gone-here-gone-ness, his presence will always be a part of what has woven into what looks like me, what is me.
the fire. who are the people who will stand in the fire with you, will stand still with you, will unconditionally love you, will be your guardian, your buoy, your champion, your lifeline? how many dimes would you have by now?
we are all bombarded. two days before christmas and we wonder if we did enough, bought enough, wrapped enough, entertained enough, baked enough, decorated enough. we are surrounded by images – piles of presents under ornate christmas trees, horse-drawn sleighs on currier and ives backroads, families gathered at tables merrily chatting, churches full with congregations happily singing and the bells in the belfry ringing. the kind of images that nag you into thinking, “more. i must do more.”
the other evening, gathered around bowls of homemade hot thai soup, 20 said, “it’s hard to keep things simple.” the three of us share some profound times of conversation, of life’s changes and choices, of simple togetherness. he talked about soup and wine and chocolate and conversation, of appreciating each other’s company.
the catalogs arriving in the mail and the ads in the paper and the online streaming advertising all pander to the indulgence of our insecurity. of not enough. how do we respond and say no?
it’s hard to avoid. it feels like we have to say yes to everything. or we don’t quite measure up. we search for meaning. in things. we are searching outside of ourselves. holding ourselves to some sort of external standard of holiday-completeness.
how do we seek more centeredness? more connectedness? more moments held in the stillness of awe?
the video from My Girl made me out and out cry. it was just a little hello, sent from around a firepit in the high mountains after a long day of working. and it was perfect timing. to see her face and hear her voice was pure joy.
we walked and walked and walked. miles from millenium park’s christmas tree and skating rinks, past beautiful ornate displays of lights and simple twinkling white branches. in a rare opportunity linking my arm through My Boy’s as we strolled, i was filled with joy. the loudspeaker music and dancing lights of the lincoln park zoo just echoed my delight.
as adults, the holidays carry a different set of qualities than they did as when we were children. much pressure, oftentimes grief, maybe a slippery slope feeling of never-doing-enough, some disappointment, a measure of jealousy or envy perhaps as others-with-family-all-in-town gather together in big festive celebrations. for those of us who work on christmas eve and christmas day, there is a yet another added layer.
we walked through the woods yesterday looking for the right branch laying on the ground. we don’t yet have a christmas tree up. we have other little trees – i have collected small trees through the years – but no true christmas tree. each year in these last years, we have chosen that “tree” carefully, always something we found, something re-purposed into a christmas tree, something that had meaning. there was the christmas-tree-on-a-stick – a christmas-tree-misfit – we cut down on the tree farm, a piece of the tree that fell into our backyard narrowly avoiding the house, a branch that had snapped off of our beloved tree out front, a star suspended over a straight trunk wrapped in lights to tease The Boy.
this year i thought about just going to a lot and purchasing a tree, thinking maybe, in the midst of the ending of a really tough year for many, that might put me into the holiday spirit. but i just couldn’t bring myself to do that. we figured that the answer would become obvious, as it has done in the past years. and it did. watching My Boy, clearly proud of the decorations of the neighborhoods north-of-downtown, agree with us about how simple, beautiful and truly elegant the white branches were, made up my mind.
last night we put the first coat of white spray paint on the two sets of branches we brought home. we’ll finish coating them with paint later today and wrap them in white lights. we’ll gently place silver ornaments as we play christmas music in the background. i will miss My Girl and My Boy like crazy. i will yearn for my parents, my brother and sister-in-law and sister and brother-in-law and nieces and nephew and all their families, david’s parents and extended family. it isn’t the christmas of christmas-past.
but there still is magic. those moments of joy – when everything else ceases to exist and joy eclipses it all.
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.
(©️2020 narrative lectionary resources)
