life

Honking at Me?

Applying sunscreen to a two-year old is now a two person job. This morning, I held the wriggling creature, as her dad tried to make her laugh. One hand on her waist, the other trying to hold hair back from her neck, I counted to five as we swiped the deodorant-like stick across her face. In our juggling she paused, “Earrings Mama!”

“Where?” I asked.
“Right there, on the counter.”
“If we get this sunscreen on your face, you can pick a pair.”

She agreed and the wiggling subsided. As she calmed, her focus turned toward selecting the perfect pair of stick-ons, she started humming to herself.

“Which ones do you want Mama?” she asked.
“You pick first.” I said, sucking my teeth as I looked at the clock.

“No, you.”

She insisted. And I succumbed, being given a pair of pink daisies with blue petals.

I remember once seeing a meme that said if a toddler gives you something, you must accept it. They have so little tangible things and most are connected right to their hearts.

Few people saw me out in the world today. I’m not sure if the clerk at the post office noticed my ears. But I knew that little gift was there.

On my walk back to my office, my head full of thoughts of what-ifs and anger about the current state of certain things, I noticed I was getting honked at.

“What the hell?” I thought, looking down the street.

But no, the looming big trash truck wasn’t honking at me.

They were tooting the horn for the gaggle of school children flocking to the fence at recess.

As the blue truck moved towards me at the crosswalk, I watched grown men in green vests delight small children in their green Catholic school clothes.

Tears came to my eyes.

Yes, the world is hurting, but the trash men are honking. The children are laughing. And giving gifts.

We must slow down to notice them. What’s getting in the way of your ability to receive?

I’m still wearing the earrings tonight. Those suckers are surprisingly sticky. If they make it through the night, I’ll be sure to remind my daughter just how grateful for them I am.

Confirming the Milk Order

History was made this week. In the same ten minutes I absorbed the results, I asked my husband to confirm the milk order.

John Lennon said it wisely, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

Or when you’re tackling to-do lists while watching the possibilities for humans literally shift in one direction or another.

Regardless of what you were hoping for this week, I hope you have found chances to be kind to one another. I hope beauty surrounded you. I hope comfort abounds.

It’s hard to write in times like these. Cautious fingertips pause paralyzed, intending not to offend. I hope we can agree to open our hearts to the good things in front of us.

In a coaching session with a friend today, I recalled a mantra I learned from my compassion colleagues. Strong back. Soft front.

May we stand true in our strength, letting our values guide our interactions and our hopes. And may we be open to the very magic that happens when we truly see one another. Fears, scars, hopes, wonderings. May we crack open, just a little bit, in the direction we want to move, with softness.

Because the milk orders beckon. And, so too, does the future we are writing for our children.

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light“. – Albus Dumbledore

A Blessing for Beauty – John O’Donohue

This week, I’ll invite you to let the words of another bless you. A poem from John O’Donohue.

May the beauty of your life become more visible to you, that you may glimpse your wild divinity.

May the wonders of the earth call you forth from all your small, secret prisons and set your feet free in the pastures of possibilities.

May the light of dawn anoint your eyes that you may behold what a miracle a day is.

May the liturgy of twilight shelter all your fears and darkness within the circle of ease.

May the angel of memory surprise you in bleak times with new gifts from the harvest of your vanished days.

May you allow no dark hand to quench the candle of hope in your heart.

May you discover a new generosity towards yourself, and encourage yourself to engage your life as a great adventure.

May the outside voices of fear and despair find no echo in you.

May you always trust the urgency and wisdom of your own spirit.

May the shelter and nourishment of all the good you have done, the love you have shown, the suffering you have carried, awaken around you to bless your life a thousand times.

And when love finds the path to your door may you open like the earth to the dawn, and trust your every hidden color towards its nourishment of light.

May you find enough stillness and silence to savor the kiss of God on your soul and delight in the eternity that shaped you, that holds you and calls you.

And may you know that despite confusion, anxiety and emptiness, your name is written in Heaven.

And may you come to see your life as a quiet sacrament of service, which awakens around you a rhythm where doubt gives way to the grace of wonder, where what is awkward and strained can find elegance, and where crippled hope can find wings, and torment enter at last unto the grace of serenity.

May Divine Beauty bless you.

John O’Donohue, from Beauty – The Invisible Embrace

Melancholy Or ….

On Halloween, I found myself awash in the mixture of my life. As I walked our little downtown’s streets, holding hands with a baby Elmo, I missed my dad with a well-worn, familiar ache. And I looked up to blue skies, and noticed an older gentleman sitting on a bench, holding up a Jack Russel Terrier to his face for a kiss. Golden leaves were falling, and with their descent came another landing truth – we have stepped into grief season.

November is here and with it comes a mixed melancholy of anticipatory grief and chosen celebration. While there are no safe months in grief, I think the reminders and triggers are easier to manage in the window from the day after Father’s Day to, well, maybe today.

We’re talking about smoked turkeys, and who will sit at what table, and how to juggle parties and planned celebrations. And in the busyness that tempts us to brush our feelings under the rug by the fire, are reminders of who won’t be there, gifts that won’t be given, memories of holidays gone-by. I suppose that’s the gift of getting older, the remembering mixed with the space for creating new things.

New neighbors to share soup with while juggling toddlers in costume. New freedom in ordering out rather than filling the counter with boxes of butter and bags of mini marshmallows. New high-chairs at the table and writing gift lists with entries including play food and puzzles. Old leaves fall, and we watch them release, letting them land to be crunched. And, still, there are old men smiling, and dogs waiting for kisses, and a toddler’s laughter takes up more space than we knew to allow.

And in the missing, I’ll add an apron of his to my outfit. Maybe I’ll pour his scotch as we take out boxes of food already prepared in our familiar kitchen, where he once stood bickering with my grandmother about which way was the right way to put a turkey in the oven. I’ll also be kind to myself when I realize, with new waves of small devastation, that they never set foot in my new kitchen.

Grief season is here and with it the choice to pick melancholy or create something new. A beautiful thing.

Maybe Living Fully

I walked through the front door and looked straight through the house to see Dylan wearing gloves in the backyard. A baby squirrel, so small its eyes were unopened, had fallen out of the nest in the tree shading our deck. He gently scooped up the creature and wrapped it in a towel.

We stared at each other, wondering what we should do as it whimpered quietly.

We called animal control and waited for the inevitable.

The morning came, and with it, a blessing of release for the creature who couldn’t make it through the night. The tiny body seared itself into my memory, for when I was brave enough to see, vulnerability, potential, and hope were revealed. We are all so very fragile.

Yes, it’s the circle of life, and the realities of survival of the fittest, but in a baby squirrel I saw so much more about what alive means. Those explanations never fill the gaps or provide solace for the being experiencing pain.

The weight of our fragility has been bringing me to tears these days. That we live to take a breath, in and out again, is miraculous enough to make me weep.

I’m tired of living afraid.

What now seemed safe perhaps isn’t, and the conflicting messages on masks and numbers has heightened my nervous system once again.

I find myself in a torn place – between wanting to consume everything I can about grief and our realities of sorrow, and also wanting to avoid all pain. I envy those who easily move on towards living.

Perhaps the balance is in the in-between.

I’m moved by ordinary things, both magical and mad.

Perhaps living fully is being scooped up after our falls, waiting to recover in piles of dirt or the garage towels.

Perhaps living fully is dirty work.

I know, with certainty, that living fully means allowing my tenderness to be witnessed.

And maybe, living fully is the opposite of waiting for the inevitable.

Maybe living fully is eating funfetti cake waiting six months for a half-birthday celebration and licking frosting laced with freezer burn from cold fingers.

Maybe living fully is calling a therapist and saying I need some help again.

Maybe living fully is hugs in the kitchen and snot smears on t-shirts.

Maybe living fully is showing up scared.

Maybe living fully is masks in the workplace, and the grocery store, and the crowded hallways.

Maybe living fully is the honoring of the in-between.

What a beautiful thing.

May your days be spent not waiting for the inevitable, but instead focused on tending the fragile and the beautiful and caring for others with gentle hands. And cake. I hope there is lot’s of beautiful cake.

To Toss Into the Flow

I had taken a seat in the plastic-moulded chair, waiting for the meeting to begin. In the center of a room was a circular table covered in grey. In the center of a circle, a candle burned, again surrounded in a small circle of smooth river rocks. Whether they were collected from nearby stream beds, or manufactured and sold on the shelves of craft stores, I was unsure. I simply noticed their existence.

‘Welcome to bereavement for beginners’, the young facilitator said, jumping me out of my wondering.

Curious how the passing of time morphs a memory. I can’t recall the exact name of the support group. I do remember how shocking it felt to belong to a group of people titled ‘bereaved’.

After introductions, and open sharing, we were led through an exercise. I followed directions having been told to choose a small river rock of my own. We were to create a totem of support for when emotions felt too large. I selected my stone and, using a white paint pen, wrote the word hope across its surface. I circled the word and tucked the rock in my pocket. When I left the class, I sat in the parking lot and sobbed.

I left the stone in the center console of my car for years. It’s collected dust and become friends with pens lacking ink and a melted chapstick or two. Its presence serves as a reminder to generate hope as I’ve driven from place to place, moving further away from my early days of grief.

This week, I started a Grief Educator Certificate program with David Kessler. In the first teaching I learned a new label for my bereaved status. He says the term for the grief we experience after the two year mark is ‘mature grief’. I snickered to myself when I heard that name.

Mature? Grief? Wasn’t mature something to aspire to as a young child?

Mature people have it all together. They have arrived. Even the dictionary uses the auspicious claim of being ‘fully developed.’ My grief does not feel complete.

My grief has, however, become a source of motivation to seek wisdom and share what I’ve learned. My longing has brought me to classrooms and support groups I never could have imagined before. Old skins have shed, leaving new layers, still tender to the touch as I figure out what to do with this gift of darkness.

Over the weekend, we drove up the canyon nearby with the goal of simply sitting by the river. I needed to hear the woosh of water colliding with rocks as it carries on to what’s next.

Under hazy skies, I made my way down steep stairs to the riverbed. Stepping over small stones, I placed my toes into the icy water and took a seat.

Fingering the rocks, I made a pile of smooth ones, perfect for skipping.

I placed three in my pocket for keeping. Perhaps I’ll carry this selection forward as I move about, from here to there.

In Colorado, the ripple metaphor is common. Throw a stone, see how far your impact can reach. I hadn’t thought of the stone from my first beginner grief group in quite awhile. The word hope was an anchor that got me from there to here.

And now, as my grief matures, I’ve found a new collection of stones to toss into the flow. I’m learning how to serve others in their pain. I’m applying radical self-compassion to my own wounds and connecting with others who believe the answers to our hurts are found in first saying, “Wow. This is unbearable.”

I’m standing in rivers, with toes icy and lungs full, using what I’ve learned to make new ripples. What a beautiful thing.

PS. There are still spaces open for the July Writing Workshops – As We Carry On: Using Words to Explore Your Grief with a Compassionate Lense. Register here.

This is it.

I was doing my best to stay back from the people in front of me as my face covering kept slipping. My efforts to create the six-feet distance seemed silly as others swarmed around me in the busy store. Like a salmon unsure of how to swim upstream, I tentatively wrapped my little fins around me wondering if this big ol’ river was safe. As I followed my husband through the aisles, I looked ahead and watched a man pause.

As he stood still, I did too, waiting to move forward as I kept my space.

This man removed his mask, sneezed, and then put the face covering back on.

I was furious.

“You wear the mask to stop the sneeze!” I thought to myself “Ohhhhh my Gosh!”

I wanted to pull my hair, to yell at him, to shriek what the heck he was missing! I felt my muscles tense and my annoyance rise. I’ve never hated being around people more. 

I stood still longer, silently praying thanks for my own face mask and wondering how long it takes for germs to disperse before I walked through his invisible, fearful cloud of possible germs. 

I continued forward and was uncomfortable for the next twenty minutes we spent in Home Depot. Get in, get our supplies, get out.

I know I can’t be the only one worried in public places and at the same time, by the looks of things, there are thousands of people not worrying as much as me.

Our neighbors are gathering and stores are busy and friends are posting pictures of time spent on the lake. I’m still sitting, writing from my couch, wondering what dials will have to turn for me to feel safe again out in the world. I miss my mom and want a hug and wonder when my brother will be able to go back to work. This isn’t fun.

We drove back home and washed our hands and wiped down the cans of paint we purchased with off-brand, lemon-scented cleaner because Clorox wipes are still nowhere to be found.

Later in the evening, I turned on an old favorite movie, About Time. The main character Tim has the gift of being able to travel back in time and can re-live any day he chooses. There are consequences of the re-dos but mostly, his gift gives him the ability to live less anxiously, be more present, and delight in the extraordinary ordinary things around him. The things we worry about are easier to face if we know the outcomes don’t cause us pain.

I kept thinking while watching the movie, if I went back to today two weeks from now and stood in that same concrete, box store would I be kinder to the man who sneezed if I knew I wasn’t infected. I would have gone down a different aisle. I would have pulled Dylan closer and slowed my breathing. Or would I have chosen to avoid that store all together?

What would I do differently if I knew now what I’ll know in two weeks? The exercise is exhausting, isn’t it?

Here’s what I know now.

This is it.

We don’t get a do over. I don’t get to go back.

I may have to spend much of my thirty second year in my house, wondering, waiting, worrying.

When they say it is safe again, I’ll wander out and get emotional about sitting in a public park and plan vacations and toast champagne at weddings and still, new anxieties will present themselves. The world will give me something else to be scared of.

Moving through things doesn’t erase fears – the process of arriving on the other side means I’ll place my anxious claws into something else. Worrying and wondering just wastes my time today.

This is it.

How can I live differently here in these pandemic days while I wait?

I asked my friend to pray for me – may I have compassion for the people who aren’t taking this as seriously as I am. Compassion for myself and my family. May I be at peace. May I use my creative energy to invest in the things I love to do, even while home. May I honor the outbursts and fits and tears coming from the stress of this global melt down.

Our world is changed and my little world, here on the big blue couch with the sun streaming in, still offers a chance for peace. I may be missing out, but this won’t be forever.

david-mao-m0l5J8Lqnzo-unsplash

The sun is up. The garden is being watered. The coffee is hot. Books begging to be read beckon. I’m breathing.

This is my life, here and now.

As Tim says, “We’re all traveling through time together every day of our lives. All we can do is do our best to relish this remarkable ride.”

What a beautiful thing.

What My Grief Gremlin Taught Me About Pandemics

 

jason-abdilla-Dfl6S3PIUvg-unsplash

Photo Courtesy of Unsplash

March may be the worst. Historically, the turning pages of the longest month ever continue to bring bad news to my doorstep. Four years ago, we lost my dad unexpectedly smack dab in the middle of the month. On that day, a grief gremlin took up permanent residence in my front pocket. She waves her ugly wings and tattered feathers on anniversaries, the start of football season, or when I see a man over 60 in Starbucks. She also flaps and flitters in the middle of a pandemic.

Bad news comes in threes, they say, and in 2016, our three rounded out with two more job losses before April.

All of our supposed-to-be doings came to a screeching halt. To cope, we gathered around the worn kitchen table in the home I grew up in and stared. Our eyes glazed over at blank walls then would drift to the floor. I’d make note of the raspberry color of my shoes and watch the puddles of tears dribbling onto the mesh just below my ankles. I’d lift my head and smear the remainder of tears on my t-shirt sleeves.

Grief is a powerful force – she takes what you once knew and shreds what was to bits.

Two weeks ago, life all around the United States came to the same screeching halt. We packed up our desks and set up spaces at home. We went to work remotely and just when the desk was looking beautiful, we found out the dream job we just landed crumbled into dust.

People are dying and communities are slowing. All of our supposed-to-be doings have come to a halt. It’s March and people are hurting again.

In our homes and at hospitals, we sit staring at walls. At screens. At puddles of tears dribbling down our faces and onto tile floors. Tears smear on sleeves. We can’t gather around the kitchen table because we aren’t allowed to be together. We can’t hug or touch or greet.

The pain is broadcast on the news, captured in memes, and thrown angrily at others in tweets and mad dashes to grab the last package of toilet paper off the shelves.

I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned from the loss of a parent and how, if I let them, the lessons grief continues to massage into my heart can serve me during a global pandemic.

Writing to you from the same basement where I heard the news my dad had left us, I hug myself and realize grief can be a teacher in times of duress. My gremlin has taught me how to cope with the squeezing, the panic, the uncertainty, and the pain.

Here are her three lessons that prepared me for a pandemic:

1. I was never in control – I’m not now. I can choose my responses. 

Elizabeth Gilbert recently posted on her Instagram this quote, “You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. You never had control, all you had was anxiety.”

After experiencing unexpected loss, my anxiety came into sharp focus. It hasn’t eased in four years. I’ve accepted the anxious little bug living – roommates with gremlin – in my front pocket as she accompanies me everywhere I go. I worry about getting texts, not getting texts, and the ten pm phone calls. I worry about hospitals, and diagnoses, and imagined accidents.

I worry about who will go next, and where I will be, and if I said I love you enough because you just never know.

This week, we’ve all been reminded we just never know. With all that never knowing comes immense anxiety. Bank accounts are examined. Rice is rationed. YouTube distracts.

As humans, we think we have a say in how things are going to work. I realized in my mid-twenties, this is a lie. We have influence. We have preference. We have choice. We don’t have much control.

This truth has allowed me to live more deeply and experience the ordinary in a richer way. Seizing the day doesn’t take away the anxiety. Believing I have a choice in how to respond to the things outside of my control changes my perspective. I don’t have control of global markets, government relief, or the small company I wanted my husband to work at indefinitely. I do get to choose to stay home, to connect with loved ones, and to weep in the basement.

2. Find Comfort

The best advice I got when I lost my dad was, “Find comfort.” Surround yourself with things that bring delight, warmth, light, and tenderness into your space. Make a list of at least five things you can draw upon when the unknown feels too much. My pile has ground coffee beans, a white blanket, my mom’s number on speed dial, knowing where my dog is, and sweatshirt of my husband’s.

What’s in your pile?

Be careful of what you consume. You know yourself. Moderate unhealthy substances and be wary of who and what messaging you are letting into your space. Now is the time to be diligent about boundaries, turning off the news, and asking for help.

Self-medication isn’t always negative. What positive things can you allow to bring you comfort right now?

3. It’s going to be ok. 

I share those five words with immense empathy. It never feels ok when we lose something or someone we love. My life will never be capital O-K, because my dad will not be a part of it in the way I had hoped. But my family is doing ok in the way we’ve adapted. We hurt, relationships are still strained, things are far from perfect. And yet, we’re still here.

When we come out of this pandemic, which I believe will happen, things will not be capital O-K. Lives are being drastically altered. Grief is seeping in and taking up residence in thousands of heart pockets. Our hopes have changed permanent shape. We will have to adapt. Our resilient spirits will get to choose to lift their chins and answer the question, “How can I make what I have lowercase o-k enough?” You need not push the gremlin away.

Weep, release the tension in your hands, stare at walls. Yes.

And wait and see what is yet to unfold.

What we make with the things that remain can be beautiful.

For Sarver

I went to a show last night. We entered a big dark room filled with eager fans. I shuffled to claim my space and looked up to see rows of massive speakers suspended overhead. Lucky for me, my friends were keen to lean against the grubby wall with torn purple wall paper. How do you know you’re old at a concert? You wear tennis shoes for support and seek out hidden spaces to rest your legs already aching from eight hours at a standing desk.

As the singer screamed with passion, I nodded along in the back hiding from the rays of yellow flickering from the wands of light on stage.
It felt good to be in that room.

As the musicians emoted and the twenty-somethings jumped to the beat, I stood with my feet planted to the concrete floor. I swung my arms and let the intensity pulse through my body causing my knees to bend and shake. With each drum beat I absorbed the reverberations and welcomed, over and over again, the pounding reminder – I am beautifully alive.

There were times the audience’s screams of admiration caused me to plug my ears and I felt, once again, embarrassed to be an introvert in a loud space. I reminded myself it’s a radical act to care for oneself and while I left my ear plugs in the car, I pushed my hands to my head and my fingers in my ears. Sometimes, the noise and the darkness became too much.

While the band may not have been my first choice, they are my husband’s old favorite and I knew he was standing behind me, screaming well-known lyrics and smiling ear to ear.

This morning, my ears are ringing to prove it. I’ll never again get return to yesterday’s base level of hearing capabilities.

And this morning, I woke up and scrolled through my Facebook feed and found out again someone we knew, someone my brother loved, has died.

There is too much darkness haunting our young people. Hurting kids are turning to the wrong things to help ease their pain. And I swear to God it never gets easier to hear the truth that people we love will leave us. That one kind, searching kid just did.

Peace be with us.

We stand in darkness, there are flickering rays of light, and we bend and shake with the magnitude of our choices. We can lean on walls, hold hands, show up to support the ones we love. We can shake our heads and scream and pound and let the pulse move through us. And we can weep when people hurt.

A swirling mess of fog and noise and joy created in big, emotive sounds exists – this is what the world asks of us. I want to be affected. I refuse to go numb.

For we are still alive and we can choose to move toward the light.

If you know someone who is struggling, reach out.

If you are fighting demons, get help.

I want the pulse and the verve to continue on through me and through you. Lean on walls if you must. I want your ears to continue to hear the beautiful music. Please continue to live loudly. To see beauty. To run towards the flickering light mixing with the screeching feedback. Get on stage and help find your voice to sing.  I’ll be with you to help plug your ears when it all feels to much.

How do you measure?

I’ve always loved the musical RENT. I saw the show on Broadway on a high school trip to New York. I remember feeling slightly scandalous because my mormon and catholic friends chose to see Phantom of the Opera instead. I sat in the dark theatre and trembled in my seat as social justice soared through air. These anthems taught me about Alphabet City, rent control, AIDS, and drag queens. The lessons stirred my heart and steered me towards sociology, social work, and the importance of advocacy.

Later that year our choir practiced Seasons of Love for months. At graduation, I proudly belted out the song wearing my bright blue robe, tassels brushing my face as my head bobbed along proudly to the now familiar tune.

Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes – how do you measure, measure a year?

Dylan celebrated another birthday this past weekend – another five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes of his life passed. And mine too, walking along side him.

Minutes filled with tears. Minutes blowing my nose. Minutes coughing up crud.

Minutes filled laughing.

Minutes of This is Us, and Chopped, and Gilmore Girls.

Minutes drinking beer. Minutes trying to figure out how to use a wine bottle opener.

Minutes giving up.

Minutes brushing my teeth.

Minutes whispering help.

Minutes of pitting cherries, chopping onions, planting tomatoes.

Minutes on Facetime and Instagram and Facebook.

Minutes staring at a computer, fingers typing, thoughts swirling.

Minutes at work.

Minutes frustrated that the trash isn’t taken out, and the dog peed on the carpet (holy hell, yes, again) and that your career isn’t unfolding as quickly as you thought it would.

Minutes on your knees, praying, making gratitude lists, blessing food and family and appreciating a peach.

Minutes trying something new.

How about when its 4:58 pm and you look at the clock at 4:58:01 and 4:58:15 and 4:58:42 and 4:59:01. Those slow, desperate minutes – those matter too.

Time goes so quickly.

And yet, try holding your breath for a full minute.

.

.

.

I’ll wait.

.

.

.

Stopping for that long is hard!

rawpixel-626050-unsplash.jpg

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my minutes – all the ones we have left – and what I want to do with them. How I want to use my time to serve others and dream bigger and dip my toes into uncharted territory.

Because when you lose someone at an early age, you’re always wondering how many minutes will I have left? And what about all the minutes of people I love? 

I turn 30 in 4 months. That’s 175, 200 minutes.

I’ll be filling time with:

Minutes reading books.

Minutes worrying about my husband, my mom, my brother, my grandma. They’ll sit and say like Anne Lamott – “quit getting your help all over me”

Minutes on airplanes.

Minutes abroad.

Minutes at work.

Minutes frustrated at the dog, at the dishes, at cooking dinner yet again.

Minutes swapping kisses.

Minutes learning to drive stick shift.

Minutes chasing dreams.

Minutes singing karaoke.

Minutes baking bread.

Minutes with tears, I’m sure, and minutes looking for beautiful things.

This past May I was invited back to high school graduation to sing with my choir because my teacher was retiring. She’d spent over twenty five years teaching kids to sing their hearts out at graduation. While waiting in the hallway in the basement of the stadium the band director organizing the event waved his hands to get us to quiet down.

“After they sing Seasons of Love it will be your turn to file out. And yes, we still sing that god-awful song.”

I chuckled to myself, because you see, some beautiful minutes last forever.