Blessed Days

RETURNING TO LIFE AFTER BEING DEAD – When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh, there’s a light switch! I haven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look – the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that bother me? It’s so…endearing.-Amy Krauss Rosenthal

One day I found a banana smashed on the floor.  Annoyed for days, I related this disappointment to a friend who reminded me that someday my house will be empty and quite tidy with all the banana wielding children of mine adults. I never considered that my home would really be empty.  Jerry and I anticipated an empty nest with just the two of us.  Sadly, it will never happen.

I have read that survivors hold their loved one in a state of perfection.  It is true, I am hard pressed to think of things that annoyed me about him, yet I bet my kids would say I was plenty annoyed. After taxing my memory, the few things I can think of are now trivial: throughout the week dirty socks littered the bedroom floor and remained in balls until I put them in the laundry basket and he never seemed to change the cat box as much as I did. After almost six months without him, the petty annoyances have filtered out of my brain like a dream catcher releases nightmares.    On this dreary, cold rainy morning in Maine, when I am feeling just a bit sad, I remain sentimental about my life with Jerry.  I treasure every day I spent with him-the good days, the bad days and the days that were quite ordinary and mundane.  They all take on a renewed energy infused with love and sentimentality. I realize just how blessed I was.

Great Love

                                          An Original Rendering of My Great Love


“Emptiness is not a great loss. It creates a great opportunity to fill yourself again and again with great love.” ― Debasish Mridha

This is not
a chance to
re-write my
life story,
but to
embellish it,
to capitalize on
a great love
that is
infused in every cell
enriching
who I am today,
and with God's
healing and succor
who I will become.

Off News

Life is overwhelming
enough,
I am off news,
but I caught glimpses
of PBS News
at a friend's house
the other night
and
learned about the bomb.

Fox News blares
while I get my car
serviced,
the more I try
to avoid listening
the more I hear-
strange thing.

This morning
I talked with a kindergartener
about chickadees and
hardwood trees
as we meandered
through the forest
with every student
and
adult
in my school
celebrating Earth Day
Arbor Day
beginning the day with
a hike.

I am off news
preferring the views of the
world
from a 6 year old perspective,
I like it that way.

Heaven

As a kid,
Attending daily mass
Fueled my Catholic
Identity
Until,
Sister Mary Somebody
Announced
"Your protestant grandfather is
Not in heaven,
He's in
Limbo."

My seven year old sensibility
Knew
This
Was
Not
So.

There is a place that accepts
All,
Despite
Religious Affiliation,
Color,
Rich or Poor,
Age,
Or
Orientation.

No.
None of this
Matters
In the long run.

Grounded

On a warm day in early fall, I walked into a metal smithing studio.  I knew nothing.  It was like stepping into a foreign land with strange-sounding tools, implements and labels for procedures with hammers and torches.  Even after six months, I  still approximate the language.

My teacher, my mentor reminds me that muscle memory has a lot to do with her ease in completing a job in mere two minutes, when after 45 minutes of struggle, I ask for help.  That being said, I have learned that I have not completely shed perfectionism.  If the muscles in my hands or fingers fatigue or the solder does not stick to the flux and falls off after 55 tries; I may just give up-frustrated.  I look for fast, speedy results.  This seldom happens in the studio.  Sometimes "gluing" metal pieces together with fire has disastrous results.

"Oh prongs are easy," my teacher said looking at a piece of fossilized coral.  That was weeks ago.  After tedious steps and having to take it apart several times with more filing, sanding and soldering; last night I was able to walk out of the studio with my first pronged piece on my finger.

Walking to my car it was dark.  I had no light.  With trusty Bean boots on my feet, I opted to venture through the muddy edge of driveway to my car.  This seemed the more sensible route rather than swim through the depths of puddles or slip on ice.  Nearing the road, I remembered that delicate shoots of green were popping up in the owner's garden at the corner of the driveway.  Last I knew they were submerged in water.  Despite the cold temperatures the mud still provided a slippery footing.  It was troubling when my left foot splashed in deep water. I was certain I was crushing plant life, someone's prized daffodils or something.  Quickly lifting my foot out of the puddle to save the flowers, I took a sharp turn away from the bed and found myself lying face down in the cold gravelly mud.  Realizing my left foot was stuck in the mud, I tried to release it hearing a sucking noise.  I got up quickly, but only as high as my knees when I was knocked to the ground again.  My left hand (the one with my ring) plunged into the cold, muddy dirt.  My bones could have shattered, but after all that work I was  concerned about my ring.  Once I was upright, I sloshed a few steps into the road and  lifted my left hand closer to my eyes.  It was too dark to see.   For the five minute drippy ride home I realized that there was not much I could do about my situation.   It is likely that my car is muddy.  It is also likely that my ring was crushed with the blow my left hand and wrist took to catch myself.  There is a lesson in everything.  The lesson here is patience, persistence and detachment.  It all became so very clear when I was grounded in the mud.

Free

Ever since I watched the Brene Brown TED talk on vulnerability, I have been more aware of the times when I feel guarded and instances when I exert control.  The essence of her talk is that one must be vulnerable in order to feel the full measure of emotions such as joy and love.

I have raised five teenagers.  There are three more to go.  Lately, the experience has been riddled with sadness, worry and frankly not a lot of joy.

Raising my first born, I held onto the image of perfection.  After all, I was raised on Leave it to Beaver, The Brady Bunch and the antics of the Huxtable family.  As a first time parent I learned so much about myself.  And even though decades have past since my son was a teenager, I continue to discover new things about myself through my role as a parent. Perhaps at times I cling to the notion of perfectionism.

Today during lunch I called a friend who I have not seen for a long time.  She is wholly accepting of me.  She knows more about me and the inner workings of my quirky brain than any other person.   I can sit on her couch and be totally transparent, without fear. There is mutual trust.  I daresay that I have not encountered this often in my life. In her presence I allow myself to be vulnerable.

Struggles with raising teenagers in this era, often cloud my vision of who I am.  Preferably, I would like to be a fully joyful parent, free of strife and anxiety; at least some of the time.   I look forward to seeing her tomorrow.   It is sure that  together we will laugh, cry and dream in a space of time where I can be accepting of who I am and make no apologies.  Totally vulnerable.  Free.

Living

"Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough."

—Emily Dickinson

This morning my niece and I sat quietly in her backyard.  A warm breeze brushing against us, birds perched awaiting their turn to feed and our ears opened to their joyous song. After breakfast we meditated.  The focus of our meditation was finding inspiration.

This routine has helped ground me and reconnect with joy.  There is little responsibility here while visiting.  I am at peace.  How can I find inspiration and joy when I return bombarded by stress and responsibility? It is the inspiration that feeds my connection with Spirit.  It is indeed my lifeblood.  

I have been reading some essays by Andre Dubus.  He speaks of Sacrament. He writes of his little kitchen. He  is making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for his daughters from the confines of his wheelchair. He has mastered maneuvering this tiny space. Clearly, he struggles with the fact that he can no longer walk, but throughout the book he discovers all that he can do to prove that he is living.    This is Sacrament.  Could it be called Grace?  

Life is a gift; nonetheless I must remind myself of this everyday.  I find joy in the inspiration that comes from creating.  I must remember that I too am a Divine creation.

Is it Different?

My mother at 43 gave birth to her last child.  My sister Bethany, a feisty sort even at three years old tested my mother’s common sense, at least from the perspective of others.   In the dead of winter with fingers stiff and numb, my mother regularly hung the clothes on the line.  One particularly cold day, she could not get in the house. Bethany had locked the door.  My mother became a negotiator on the frigid side of the door.  This was only one incident of many that helped fuel others’ perspective that having a baby in your 40’s and raising a child into your 50’s and 60’s is crazy stuff.  

At nearly 60 my youngest is 14. A daughter.  I am not so sure that I am approaching late age motherhood as gracefully as my mother did.  The world was different when my mother raised her last.  War was happening across the expanse of the earth.  Far away. News came days later via newsprint or through mail. Today the globe has shrunk.  Every little decision made has instantaneous repercussions.  The internet is a blessing and a curse.  Our lives are no longer private.  Boundaries are blurred. There is some real disfunction out there.  All these elements, in my mind, puts my daughter at risk.  Much of my brain space is spent in my desire to protect, which at times robs me from the joy of mothering.  

The mamas of today balance the wonders of the world with the dangers of the world.  Did my mother worry as much as I do? She made it look so easy and so much fun.

A Stranger?

I am home.  I am home.  And I daresay that I am mighty nostalgic about it all.  Everywhere I look, from the grate in a sidewalk where my grandmother warned me never to walk to a storefront glittered with trophies where I took baton lessons, I am filled with the wonder of memories.  They come at me from all sides. 

I am sitting in a cafe-writing.  Tucked in a stuffed chair, I face the sidewalk.  A mother and her daughter, arms loaded with books walk passed, their step light despite their weighty load.  They just came from the same library where I sat on the floor and opened book after book and smelled that library smell.  Where all whispers echo within the chambers of the MacArthur Library.

Strangers file by.  They are all strangers.  I recognize no one.  This city holds my memories among strangers.  Surely a comfort, but am I now the stranger?

Refuge

Loneliness magnifies sorrow

That things in life aren’t easier or just.

It is my dip into the disfunction

That compels me to seek refuge alone

Yet,

I am alone.

Loneliness magnifies

The sorrow

I carry with me always.

I seek refuge.

shifting

                                           Photo by travelinma

 The doctor announces, "He was near death when he came in."  A sobering fact.  I sat in the emergency room trying to grasp this message. Thinking shifts.  I almost lost my son.  Anaphylactic shock.  Unknown cause. "We may never know," a health practitioner added.  How do we all live with this possibility?  Without realizing, fear of death may restrict the joy of living.  Until we have more answers, living is cautious.  Carefully measured text messages: How you doing?  I love you.  Do you have your EPI pen on you?   I have awakened from a slumber.  Each moment is precious.

Repeat

Writing a blog everyday is an act of faith.  While I was clicking button after button to get to this blank page, my mind was spinning wildly hoping to land on a topic substantial enough that I could write for an extended period.  After a long week preparing my three week departure from school (I am part of a team who is testing in all of our schools in the district) my mind appears to be empty. After school I walked the shore path with Rex, shopped for fruit and veggies and prepared a simple dinner of chicken, salad and broccoli. As I age, I yearn for simplicity in all things.

Most days have become simpler since the kids are getting older.  We gained a driver in the family who is more than willing to make some pick-ups and drop offs happen. After school today, I walked with Rex long before the sun set.  Everyone was busy doing their own thing which allowed me to do my own thing; to walk and empty my head.

I could get used to this simple life. Eat, drink, walk, write and read.  Repeat.

the view

The world is distorted through rain.