“the box: a place to put all the stuff of our lives.” (from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL liner notes 1996)
the old black suitcases store stuff. treasured moments, all in a jumble, some decipherable, others bits and snatches of times we want to remember, so we keep these feathers and ticket stubs, notes and river stones, scraps of wrap, cards, red rock. they proudly sit in the dining room, in a stack, their vintage scrapes and broken handles call to me each time i pass them by. they shower me with memories and times i have passed through, moments i have lived. i can feel what is in them.
in another box, in another place, are old dreams. torn vestiges of paper with lyrics, a few notes scribbled in the margins of old spirals. there are visions and imaginings, goals and undetermined outcomes. like you, these are the things undone. there are no ticket stubs or photos in this box; these are the things that have not come to fruition. these are the things that beckon over and over. these are the things that demand i consider and reconsider what i am doing today, tomorrow. these are the things that make me question. each time i pass them by. i can feel what is in them.
i am reminded:
“a ship in harbor is safe. but that is not what ships are built for.” (john a. shedd)
these are the full liner notes:
“the box: a place to put all the stuff of our lives. sometimes this place really hurts.” (BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL 1996)
download THE BOX from BLUEPRINT FOR MY SOUL on iTUNES or CDBaby
powerful emotions swept through me the first time i joined hands with d and prayed. it was quiet so any talking or wild display would have been inappropriate, but those tears…i was struck by the rush of it.
there is deep strength in the joining of hands or the kneeling down together and a universal ask for wisdom, for healing or an expression of gratitude. it matters not what your deity is called. what really seems to matter is that together you face the world, together you figure it out, together you give thanks, together you create love, acceptance, peace.
had the presence-most-powerful-and wise-in-the-universe wanted us only to be solely and inwardly and separately focused, perhaps there would have been just one person – ever – on this good earth.
but there are about 7.7 billion people. indeed, there must be at least one with whom we can each choose to join hands.
once upon a time, a geometric rug found its way onto our doorstep. it was carried in and put in the dining room, where all rolled-up geometric rugs go. it was The Boy’s rug and it would wait for The Boy to come get it. Rug waited and waited. until one day, The Boy came. Rug got excited. it knew it was going to go with The Boy and be his Rug. but The Boy gathered all the other large boxes in the dining room, which had become a holding ground for deliveries, and Rug heard him start his car and drive away. Rug panicked, thinking perhaps he had done something wrong, perhaps he wasn’t wanted. and so he sat, sad and alone, the only delivery left in the dining room, all rolled up and despondent.
until one day when we came home from the island. we walked in, carrying boxes and bins, unloading them in, of course, the dining room. there, leaning up against the cabinet, was Rug. sorrowful, lonely, dejected, left-behind Rug. i looked at the label on Rug and saw that it belonged to The Boy and so i assured Rug that we would bring him home.
like all other weird things we seem to get ourselves involved in, we decided to take the train to deliver Rug to The Boy. we could have driven directly to his door in the big city, but for reasons hard to comprehend, we picked up Rug and carried him onto the train. all three of us disembarked from the train and Rug and i looked at the gps on my phone. a beautiful day, it was only 2 miles to walk to the front door of The Boy’s place. and so, off we went. happily scampering down the sunny sidewalks of the city, a big triangle grin on Rug’s face as he anticipated his new home. we took Rug into a grocery store and rode up and down on an escalator, adventuring together. back on the street, people gawked at us walking with Rug, for it is clearly not often enough that people take rugs for a walk. when at last we got there, The Boy carefully unpackaged Rug and laid him on the floor, next to the new couch and under the new coffee table. we left Rug to uncurl and went to lunch.
in the pouring rain, walking the two miles back to the train, we talked about our next adventure. and we hoped that Rug was adjusting well.
i remember heidi telling me about a conversation she was having on a mother-daughter weekend with her sweet mom, among other mothers and daughters. they were sipping glasses of wine and started listing some of the things that were disconcerting to them about themselves.
we women (and men) have all done it. we are sitting smack in the middle of a society that puts great value on appearance and youth, rather than the wrinkles of wisdom, the not-perfect-shape of having children and nurturing families, the heart-showing-on-our-face that has learned great empathy through the years, the grey hair of hard work and compassion. and so we complain about the obvious changes we are going through.
i have looked in the mirror numerous times and thought, “wait! hold on! that is NOT how i look!” followed closely by, thinking, “it must be the lighting! good grief, why do they use these dreadful florescent lights? where are the soft white light bulbs? what about indirect lighting?! haven’t they invented soft focus mirrors yet?? umm, i prefer my photos over-exposed, thankyouverymuch.” we are hard on ourselves. understatement.
instead of recognizing the beauty, the light in our eyes, the smile lines on our faces, the brow of concern, we list to the negative. we do not look like the photoshopped version in the magazine; we cannot measure up to the three-or-four-decades-younger version of even ourselves. life changes us. why is it so easy to minimize ourselves and so difficult not to maximize what those changes have brought?
heidi’s mom interrupted the conversation. she gently stopped the flowing list of self-deprecating complaints. and she said, “you will never be more beautiful than you are right now.”
we passed this spray-painted graffiti in chicago. i grabbed the phone out of my purse and tried to quickly capture it. my finger blurred part of the image and i ruminated after on how i had ruined the photo. and then i realized that no, indeed i had not ruined it. for that blurry flaw in the photo would remind me (much better than were it not to be there) that we were walking fast down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street, trying to capture the photo inbetween lots of traffic, laughing and excitedly on our way to see The Boy. that blurred sixth of the photo – a photo that was not perfect – would remind me of that day, imprinting in my life right then, the reminder timely and empowering.
the sun set on another day on island. and the moon rose. who knew?
four years ago, when david walked down the aisle to this song, who knew? who knew what would come, what adventures would appear, what challenges would rear up, what tiny moments would tear up in our eyes, what heartaches would befall us? who knew? who knew what chaos would reign our world, what gentle calm would envelop us, what times with family would look like, what times without loved ones would feel like? who knew?
four years ago, when david walked down the aisle to this song, we were decades younger, starting out all over again, baby-stepping into an unknown, beguiling, mysterious future. who knew? who knew the times of decisions, of direction-choosing, of sacrifice, of abundance? who knew the dances we would dance, the cries we would cry, the pages of life filled with, well…life? who knew?
there we stood, last night, on the back porch, white happy lights glowing on the railing, watching the moon rise over our little bay, high in the sky, gigantic, tiny hog island in the distance. we wondered aloud, in wonder, about the wonderment of it all. who knew?
and now…….looking forward…..outward….onward….with great love….
this painting is magical. it is the stuff of dreams, the stuff of hope, a vision of the future, the thready sharing of life and love. it looks more to me like flying than resting and, perhaps, as the wedding gift that d gave me four years ago today, it was prophetic. with the presence of mountains and a daisy, holding hands, embracing, perhaps dancing in flight, it is what we knew then.
what we know now is so much more.
our journey, our flight, together has, in its rawest form, a newness. meeting smack-dab in the middle of middle-age has its interesting elements. not that either of us is rigid…oh, no….of COURSE not. but when you are nigh 60 years old you do have your ways of doing things. add to that the fact that we are two artists artist-ing together. sheesh! there are some lively chats in these here parts. and to feel like you are starting over again – in your middle 50s – is time-warpy. there’s a lot to learn…but i guess that’s always true.
i have to say that i have never argued as much with another person. i’m quite sure that we agree the sign we purchased on our honeymoon in the mountains of colorado says it all, “you are my favorite pain in the ass.” it goes both ways. we definitely have a full-spectrum of emotions together. we are the best at disagreeing; we are the best team together.
i’m eternally grateful for this gift. i cannot adequately put this into words, so it must suffice that – this is the man i skip with.
i have no idea where this journey with mountains and daisies will take us. we are open to the mystery as we continue this amazing flight. allways. always. magical.
the ferry raised up on the crest of the wave, angry sea all around us, the wind howling. then, just as smoothly as it rode the way up, it trounced down into the trough between the waves. the water rose over the ferry, splashing all the cars and running down the deck toward the stern. the wind kept howling.
it was a day like that. flags at 90 degrees, parallel to the ground. our prayer flags have seen many like that; the wind has tattered them. prayers have been released into the universe with gentle breezes; prayers have been thrust into the universe with forceful winds.
i tend to prefer the days without tempestuous winds. the lake has an uneven surf on those turbulent days, the rhythm as they hit shore not intuitive or familiar and one that i find unsettling.
yet i am reminded that this same wind i face down at the shoreline is also the wind at my back. it is the wind of wisdom and movement. the wind that carries me away, the wind that surrounds me with those who have gone before me, the wind of growth and courage.
and so, i welcome the wind. i watch as so.many.prayers. are freed to fly. i give thanks for the gusts, unfettered dreams and wishes, each step aided by the wind.
blank. it’s blank. this book i carry with me. it’s a journal, but i’ve never ever written in it. created by sue bender, the plain and simple journal has photographs of amish quilts and the shortest snippets of writings, many gleaned from time that sue spent in an amish community. i’m not sure why i haven’t written in it; perhaps it is a very-prolonged beaky rule – to save it. i do know that its pages have both comforted me and made me think. perhaps my own writing-on-these-pages would distract me or, once the pages are filled with scribble, it will detract from the printed snippets and fall out of i-carry-it-with-me grace. either way, it’s blank. and it’s profoundly wise.
“an amish woman told me, ‘making a batch of vegetable soup, it’s not right for the carrot to say i taste better than the peas, or the pea to say i taste better than the cabbage. it takes all the vegetables to make a good soup.” (sue bender)
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“to reconcile our seeming opposites, to see them as both, not one or the other, is our constant challenge.” (sue bender)
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“we all do better when we all do better.” (paul wellstone)
for where is it that we can not glory in another’s success, mourn with another’s failure, weep with another’s grief, dance with another’s bliss? we share the space. in community. not division.
we share the ride – we are all vegetables in the soup – we are not one or the other – and yes, we all do better when we all do better.
there is a moment when the sky turns a delicious shade of pink as the sun sets in the western horizon. each beyond-the-crayon-box-color doesn’t last long; they morph into the next color and then the next. each second, as you watch, counts.
there is a moment when before-night turns into after-day. crossing the pink.
“live in the present/grab onto this time/don’t look behind you/you gotta walk that thin line/of the future and the past/it’s all within your grasp/that second could come way too fast”
there is a moment – one that probably occurs multiple times a day – when you can choose how to react to things. you can linger in the not-taking-it-personally-they-are-hurting-you-not-because-you-are-you-but-because-they-are-them zone or you can step over the line and bite back. crossing the pink. everyone in relationship recognizes this. any relationship, be it spouse-spouse, significant others, parent-child, child-parent, colleagues, supervisor-employee, employee-supervisor, drivers stuck in traffic, customer-customer service rep, strangers in a long grocery line. not biting back doesn’t render you powerless; instead, in the hardly-ever-easy not-taking-it-personally, it aids in your health and well-being. you choose. crossing the pink.
“you look in the mirror/today’s world stares back”
there is a moment – a split second – when you stand still and see all that was behind, all that is here and now. it is impossible to see all that is possible, for surely if you were back many pink crossings ago you would not have imagined the now of now.
and so, this split second should tell us that we have no idea, that our imaginings of the future are both wildly over-feared and inconceivably understated, that with each split-second breath we take, we cross the pink into another split-second that is filled with hope of new. but sheesh, we are human and we are worried, fearful, guilt-ridden, persistently trying to figure out what we did wrong to elicit ‘such a response’, repeatedly weighing everything, sorting, feeling powerless.
what if we stayed in the moment of delicious pink, watching the sun promise rest and a new day.
“take it slow/don’t let this moment go/it’s here and it’s now/use this gift somehow”
reverse threading 