reflection

Many Mirco-Accomplishments

“Never underestimate the power of a girl with a book.” – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

I pulled out my journal this morning to try and recount what exactly we did this year where many days felt the same. I surprised myself, sitting in the sun, as I scrawled twenty pages of reflection on what we did accomplish.

Nothing grand. No big adventures.

Instead, many micro-accomplishments. Harvests of cucumbers. Tiny reaches out of our comfort zones. A new job. Adjusting again to forces outside of ourselves. A basil plant taking in sun from cold winter windows. Witnessing pain. A new vitamin regimen. Striving for beauty. Ten gallons of paint.

2020 wasn’t a grand year. We were alone. Connected through screens, we grew closer to one another in ways I likely won’t understand for awhile. Isn’t it amazing how every human on earth now has this pandemic in common? How many other life experiences will stitch us together like this? The individual living of this year is different in kaleidoscope ways, yes. The tube, the crystals, the spinning disorientation – all the same.

I wonder how long it will take for the scapegoat disaster of 2020 to be reclaimed with something different. The ticking of time tonight can not erase what still lurks. 2021 may hold better. It may hold different. I know it will require processing, patience, and tending to pain.

Back in January I wrote I wasn’t going to be so bold to predict what would unfold on this year’s pages. I couldn’t have fathomed what actually was written in ink. I feel much the same about tomorrow. A new January. A new calendar. Pages to be ripped and discarded from organizational systems and goals to be scratched onto chalkboards in white. How many will be smeared in waiting in June?

This year, I read. A lot. On the floor, in the corner, tucked into my bed with cold bowls of vanilla ice cream. I got new glasses and my squinching face relaxed just a tiny bit as I escaped into story. Words comforted me. Challenged me. Seemed to be a constant companion.

As they lay Ruth Bader Ginsburg to rest, I welcomed with appreciation, all the work she accomplished to make the world a better place for my mother, for me, for women around the world longing for something different.

Never underestimate the power of words. How we absorb them, shape them, use them to search for beautiful things.

On this, the last day of a year we will never forget, I leave the list of books I read with you.

Bridge of Clay – Markus Zusak

Little Women – Louisa May Alcott

Red at the Bone – Jacqueline Woodson

Nine Perfect Strangers – Liane Moriarty

There, There – Tommy Orange

Dumplin’ – Julie Murphy

Counting by 7’s – Holly Goldberg Sloan

Still Me – JoJo Moyes

Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Kitchen Yarns: Notes on Life, Love, and Food – Ann Hood

Turtles All the way Down – John Greene

In Pieces – Sally Field

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country – Helen Russell

Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone – J.K. Rowling

The Year of Less: How I Stopped Shopping, Gave Away my Belongings, and Discovered Life is Worth More Than Anything You Can Buy in a Store – Cait Flanders

Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity & Love – Dani Shapiro

Such a Fun Age – Kiley Reid

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith

The Cactus – Sarah Haywood

Little Wierds – Jenny Slate

Wine Girl: The Trials and Triumphs of America’s Youngest Sommelier – Victoria James
The Gown – Jennifer Robson

Magic Hour – Kristen Hannah

The Hypnotist’s Love Story – Liane Moriarty

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion

The Scent Keeper – Erica Bauermeister

Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive – Stephanie Land

The Secrets We Kept – Lara Prescott

The Night Tiger – Yangsze Choo

Redwall – Brian Jacques

Mountains Beyond Mountains – Tracy Kidder

The Library Book – Susan Orlean

The Alice Network – Kate Quinn

The Light We Lost – Jill Santopolo

Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman

The Henna Artist – Alka Joshi

The Velveteen Rabbit – Margery Williams

More Than Words – Jill Santopolo

When Books Went to War: The Stories that Helped Us Win World War II – Molly Guptill Manning

Fortune’s Rocks – Anita Shreve

The Vanishing Half – Brit Bennett

Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Ordinary Life – Tish Harrison Warren

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue – V.E. Schwab

The Practice: Shipping Creative Work – Seth Godin

The AfterGrief: Finding Your Way Along the Long Arc of Loss – Hope Edelman

Finding Freedom: Harry & Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family – Omid Scobie & Carolyn Durand

Goodbye to All That – Writers on Loving & Leaving New York – Edited by Sari Botton

Angel Falls – Kristen Hannah

The Family Fang – Kevin Wilson

Bel Canto – Ann Patchett

Tomorrow Will Be Better – Betty Smith

Reach(ed)

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Photo by Slawek K on Unsplash

My word for 2019 was reach.

As the old dictionary says, there are many definitions and just as many applications of those five letters.

  • to make a stretch, as with the hand or arm.
  • to become outstretched, as the hand or arm.
  • to make a movement or effort as if to touch or seize something:to reach for a weapon.
  • to extend in operation or effect:power that reaches throughout the land.
  • to stretch in space; extend in direction, length, distance, etc.

This time last year I was hoping to put myself “out there” again. To stop retreating and re-enter the world in ways that would stretch me and help me touch new things, arrive in new places, and make bigger impacts.

With my word in mind, I started to live differently.

I walked into new networking meetings and said hellos.

I boarded planes to the mid-west and slept on plastic mattresses or in single hotel rooms as a solo traveler.

I led grieving individuals in workshops with words.

I asked for a desk chair.

I learned to put my own words to my needs with trembling hands.

I said yes more and swatted at my fears.

I stretched my stamina and extended my efforts and tried new things.

I had a good year.

What if, however, my reaching was instead grasping and my attempts to stretch were pushes (to press or urge to some action or course)? I was pushing myself outside of my comfort zone, pushing myself to take up space, pushing myself to live again when parts of me still feel the pins and needles of coming awake after loss makes your limbs turn to dead weight.

My kind yoga instructor often walks around her studio and places her warm palms on my shoulders, reminding me to relax the shell of protection I’ve created as my muscles inch closer to my ears. As we move our limbs into the next posture, she returns, same palms on the small of my back inching me closer to the floor in a forward fold.

Pushing would suggest success. A clear tick mark in the empty box.

You can’t push past pain to get release. You have to ease into it.

In recovery programs, people repeat “progress, not perfection.”

This year, I made space, I stretched, and I extended.

I made progress. I did not arrive.

I reached.

Our society waits at the end of that sentence and in the pause asks, “For what?”

At the end of this year, I’m still not sure.

Awakening wasn’t found in my accomplishments. Emptiness still lingers in my limbs and my ever-tight hips suggest I still have work to do. Healing isn’t found in over-extension. I’m still easing into my pain.

Deep breaths expand my life force lungs. I learned in my reaching, I’m still here.

Push, grasp, reach.

Move, hope, release.

The journey continues. What a beautiful thing.

Thursday Reflection

Scroll. Scroll. Scroll. Stop on Gold.

I saw this poem in my Facebook feed and just wanted to share it. I love it and I think it is thought provoking. Thinking deeply and critically can be beautiful things. What do you think?

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“Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.”

Naomi Shihab Nye