So this’ll come around every year, huh?

25
Jun

Here we are, getting to the end of June. It’s a great time of year, people are past those initial sunburns and more dutiful with that sunscreen application. We’ve found the beach towels and swim toys, the lake water is finally starting to warm up, and the trees are stretching all the way to their fingertips with leaves. Birds frantically feed their peeping chicks, young squirrels are ripping around the yard playing tag, and dogs are finding more cooling comfort on the kitchen tiles.

Ain’t summer great?

I’d mostly answer with a resounding yes, but I’d keep one silent popsicle of ‘no’ stashed in the back of the freezer because I know this month holds a difficult anniversary. Today is that day.

Anniversary isn’t quite right, but what do you call the date of a loved one’s passing?

We’re long past the funeral, and we had a ceremony to commit my dad’s ashes, so now what do we do on this date?

I got curious if other countries mark the date of someone’s passing. I came across some things that would have been difficult four years ago, so if your grief is new you might not want to read how other countries do funerals (or you might find it fascinating. For me it would have depended on the day. Take care of yourself). Also, as makes sense in our abbreviated culture, people have morphed death and anniversary into, you guessed it, deathiversary. I can’t decide if it’s clever and useful, or just dumb and trite.

Here’s one site that had some ideas and very practical advice about marking the day, and yes, they use “deathiversary” fluently.

It was interesting to see how other cultures mark these dates, and how for some — but not all — it’s tied into ancestor worship. Is that really that different than Western cultures saying that someone is smiling down on you from heaven?

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For one of the first anniversaries of my dad’s passing, it fell during a very busy week. Luckily, at the time, I worked at a place where I ran into friends, and especially this week, two of my dearest friends would be accessible. I bought a few of the world’s best apple fritters because my dad loved them, picked up coffee (which he also loved), and my friends and I sat together in the grass for a few minutes. It wasn’t the only thing done to mark that day, but it felt good to do something with people from outside my own family, with friends who are family but in a different way. It was almost like an acknowledgment that this loss existed outside just my family. It was them seeing the realness of loss for us.

This year?

I’m just not sure.

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The expectation is sometimes more difficult than the actual date, because it’s just one more day he’s not here. Just like all the other days he’s not here. There’s really nothing that makes it any different than all the other days of the year, except if you focus on a calendar.

There are times when that calendar focus is not helpful, especially if you think you’re somehow supposed to feel something different, or there’s supposed to be some breakthrough. For a while, I know my mom diligently marked the time from dad’s passing, maybe as a reassurance to herself, maybe as a comfort to think she could be closer to it being easier to go on without him. Because there’s this prevailing idea that it gets better after a certain amount of time. It’s not inaccurate, but it also sets up the bereaved to put their hopes in a certain time frame, as if one day they’ll wake up and their grief will be magically lifted.

That sounds so much better than the reality of it being a slow shuffle towards mostly less-hard.

Lately, I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy, because apparently this is what I do. I watched it in the year after Dad died, and I think it was the permission I wanted to cry…on the surface it was about someone else’s fictional pain but it was really my own.

Last night I visited my mom on a beautiful evening. We sat outside with a glass of wine and a tasty tapas-type plate she had thoughtfully put together. And we talked.

This morning, I got coffee and donuts.

I wore special sandalwood beads that remind me of the travels Dad made and the beliefs he deeply held.

I’ve exchanged texts with my family and we’ve remembered sweet moments together.

I’m going to paint for a little while this afternoon.

Tonight we will have giant hot fudge and banana milkshakes (well, I will. The rest of my little fam will probably have something else. But there will be ice cream.)

Maybe I’ll feel sad. Maybe I’ll feel numb. But I will carve out space to remember and give myself grace to feel whatever comes.

Grace.

Love.

Friendship.

Family.

Good eats.

Yup, that sounds like my dad.

“Talking about grief can make you feel sad” and things that were probably obvious to everyone but me

21
Feb

One of my favorite words is “fun” followed closely by “come on!” and “adventure”. These roll off my tongue like so many gumballs off a conveyor belt. “That sounds fun” or “It’ll be fun” or simply ” Oh, fun!” are phrases I’ve become aware of as having inherent merit and investment value — if something’s gonna be fun then it’s almost automatically worth the effort involved.

Photo credit: Morguefile: @ameestauffer

You know what’s not fun?

Grieving.

Loss.

Sorrow.

Mourning.

Sickness.

Death.

These things suck, plain and simple. Talking about them feels like a bummer, something inherently NOT fun and thereby something to avoid. Even though that’s my first reaction, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about them. It’s just that it’s hard. It can make a person feel sad (shocker, right?).

Don’t mis-hear me though. These things also have merit and value, if only because they have to because, you know, life.

Life happens and people get sick, people lose their jobs, things fall apart, and everything does absolutely NOT go according to plan, despite all our best efforts.

I’m starting to realize (reluctantly) that grief is a natural part of life.

Sorry. I wish it wasn’t that way.

This is probably something everybody else already knew that I didn’t.

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I don’t think things are this way because we screwed up God’s plan, even though that’s what I was taught way back when and what’s still being taught in many churches today. The line of thinking goes: If only that evil snake hadn’t fooled that ambitious Eve and that dimwitted Adam hadn’t just gone along with it, everything would be different.

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I’ve started to think of grief as part of the full range of human experience, as much as that’s bad news all around. Most of the time I think it would feel nicer if this wasn’t the case.

Do a little brain exercise with me, and let’s test that theory.

Pretend that everything had gone according to God’s plan (as some people think we know it (sorry to be contrary but I can’t just agree with everyone, even if I do like people to get along, and I’m just not so sure anymore about this anymore — another result of the process of grief for me.)) and everything was perfect. There was no sickness, there was no sadness, there were no tears for God to wipe away or store in some bottle.

Pretty awesome, right? I mean, how can you find fault with sunshine, rainbows and hugs all day long? You just can’t…right?

There was a time when I would have agreed. There would be nothing better than to be perfectly happy at all times, with no sadness or loss of any kind. Sounds like a super-sweet gig. (Also sounds like what I’ve seen of people when they’re doped up, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Anyway, it sounds like a sweet gig…

Until…

Until you realize that what you’re talking about is a one-sided experience, however blissful that may be for a while. What you’re imagining as perfection is a charicature, a cardboard cut-out, and it lacks the depth of full experience that magnifies the happiness of happiness, that cultivates an appreciation for the joy it claims to understand.

You’ll never get the power of the resolution without the tension.

As hard as it is, various forms of grief are a natural part of the way things just are, and it doesn’t help (meaning it doesn’t change anything) to rage against it, although that’s part of a natural response to grief. Friends are going to decide they don’t want to hang around with you anymore, significant others are going to decide they no longer wasn’t to be significant to you, offers on a perfect house are going to fall through, job promotions will be given to someone else, people you love — or even you — are going to have a health issue that can’t be undone with as many prayers and juice diets you might perform.

I know.

It’s rotten.

Nobody tells us this as kids, unless it’s already a part of your childhood experience. but even then, most parents wouldn’t go into great detail about any specific hardship facing the child or the family. I don’t say to my child with a chronic health condition, “Here, honey, here’s a list of all the things you’re going to have to handle that other people won’t even think to think about.” Nobody does that.

Should they?

What good would that do anyone?

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Talking about grief bums me out. Being a participant in grief is not easy. It’s draining and hard. And it is sneaky, showing up in ways that are impossible to prepare for.

Talking about grief, however, allows others to comfort us. It allows others to show their care for us. And it may allow others to be less isolated in their own journey of grief.

My dad died three and a half years ago. It doesn’t feel like it could possibly have been that long. How can we still be functioning? How can we as a family ever see each other and not talk about it? How can he have missed so many moments and events and birthdays and milestones and phone calls and questions and the national crisis that is presidency of 45? How can he keep not being here?

but he is gone. that’s just the way it is. and no amount of missing him can change that.

This fall, my 36-year-old cousin suddenly passed away. No car accident, no serious underlying health issue. She just suddenly passed away and we don’t know a reason why. How do you wrap your mind around that?

Just when you think you’ve navigated the most difficult waters, another storm blows in and a rogue wave threatens to capsize your boat.

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Retreat House Podcast thoughtfulness

Talking about grief is good for us to do together. I talked to my friend at Retreat House Podcast about grief and I barely even cried. Okay, I might have cried a little in the car on the way to meeting up with her, a little during our conversation, and maybe some more in the car after I left. But don’t rub it in.

If you want to listen to our conversation, you can click this link and shoot right over to that episode of her podcast. She’s doing a whole series on grief, and as weird as it might sound to say it, hearing other people’s stories about grief is good. Maybe it’s because we hear things we can relate to, whatever type of loss it might be. Maybe it’s because it makes us realize we’re not alone. Maybe it challenges us to think about how we respond to people around us who are walking in the middle of grief. As much as it’s hard and there’s residual sadness that comes from talking about grief (who knew? Talking about sorrow can make you sad!), I hope you’ll find it weirdly encouraging.

If you are willing, I’d welcome your stories of walking though grief in your own life, if that’s not too hard for you right now. If it is, I hope you find the comfort and support you need today.

Second week of Advent: Love

15
Dec

Love is viewed a lot of different ways.

It can be a flimsy thing, something Hallmark-carded for the purpose of being sweet or schmoopy.

It can be sentimental, conjuring up images of times long past, picture perfect moments that may or may not have actually happened. Nostalgia has a tendency to smooth over the bumps or tension that could smudge the feeling we want to maintain or produce.

Love can be steamy, a chemical wash over the brain that makes us drive long distances late at night, make us bold (or stupid) and disrupt our focus and productivity.

It wasn’t that I didn’t feel or experience love, but for a very long time I resisted what I saw a the softness of people who cried at commercials and movies, dismissing it as annoying, flighty, or weak. I might have thought of it as being stereotypically female, and there are few things that make me bristle more than fitting a stereotype.

Isn’t it too bad when we cut ourselves off from something too soon, before we give it a chance to come into itself fully?

I may be speaking out of turn or again, too soon, because I’m not that old, but I’m starting to think maybe grief exposes the rest of circle of love. The full expression of love’s strength and it’s power that transcends space, time, or physical presence is experienced when you lose someone you love deeply. For me that’s my dad.

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It’s easier to talk about at this point, three years out from his passing, but that doesn’t mean everything’s fine. I’m actually surprised by how difficult it is, especially around dates of significance and big holidays. It continues to surprise me. I wipe away sneak-attack tears and say to myself, “Gosh, I thought I was doing better.”

“Better” in the world of grief is a hard thing to quantify.

It’s definition can mean so many different things. Are you comparing “better” to before your loved one passed away? Are you comparing it to when they were sick and you had to watch as they received treatment/surgery or grappled with the decisions around that treatment? Or did you lose your loved one suddenly and you’re comparing it to what looks like the bliss of still having them in the world? It’s not really a fair comparison is it? Because after you lose someone, everything changes. There’s a before and an after. It’s a firm mile marker, a gate through which you’ve been forced to pass, and you don’t ever get to go back through that gate.

The kookoo thing about getting a bit further out from that gate is the pain of distance.

Here you are, still around by some cosmic mistake or the luck of the roulette wheel, and every month that goes by is a month they were supposed to be with you, every month is a month further out from the last time they were with you, is a month further away from your shared experiences and memories, another month of them missing out on being part of the events of sharing a life together.

It sucks.

However…there is a strange, surprising discovery I’ve made. Maybe you’ve already figured this out but it’s news to me.

You’ve heard a million times that phrase, “I’ll love you forever.” or “Love never dies.”

I’m starting to see how that can be actually true, not just a cliche.

There are people who honor their ancestors, who build traditions around honoring the memory of people who have gone on before us, but in my traditions we never really did that. In my tradition we might tell funny stories or speak with pride of accomplishments but that was the extent of it. It’s possible other people in my family or community were doing more than that privately (and I’d never fault them for that need for privacy), but it was never passed on nor shared with me.

I’m beginning to see how, if we choose to, we can stay connected to those who are no longer with us.

Turns out there’s some truth to the sentimental saying, “They’ll live on in our hearts.” See how I could have missed it? It’s too easy, too schmoopy, too hallmark-y when you say it that way.

However, when you see it in context of transcending space and time, it’s a whole different thing.

What if, in a mystical, cosmic way, Love really never dies? It just changes or becomes fully itself. Unfettered and untied to physical constraints, it passes into the metaphysical realm of being, which allows it — Love — to exist everywhere, all the time.

Why not? Why couldn’t this be true?

Think about the power of Love, the powerful force that would make you cross deserts, climb mountains to be with one you love or save them from some imminent danger. Think about the motivating force of Love that draws out our most sacrificial selves. Think of a life spent in cultivating that energy, a life emitting that unmeasurable volume of Love. What if that never dissipates but merely changes form, an invisible radio wave we have no physical scientific instruments for and yet have our gut, our intuition, our spirit that rings, prickles, warms, quickens to that force.

Amazing, right?

I’ll leave you with that thought for this second week of Advent, when we focus on Love. This is no dime store Love we celebrate. This is a Love eternal.

On Advent which falls the day after a funeral

3
Dec

When people say the holidays can be hard, they’re not exaggerating.

As magical and warm as Christmas and New Years can be (throw Thanksgiving in there for good measure) they can be equally lonely and cold, and on top of the memories of those we can no longer celebrate with, there’s the pressure of obligation to celebrate that adds a layer of self-judgment when we can’t live up to our past standards.

It’s a season that’s complicated and challenging for many, many people.

Please allow me to relieve you of some of your burden.

There will be other Christmases.

That’s the beauty of traditions, the beauty of holidays. They come around every year. So if you need to sit this one out, it’s ok. You’ll get to take another crack at it next time. And guess what? If that doesn’t pan out like it used to, it’s no problem. You can see how it goes the next year. And if you need to run away for a while, if the traditions bring back too many memories that you just can’t revisit right now, then you lace up those shoes and you run. There’s no way to predict how you’ll need to do this and it’s a bit like having to let a fever run its course. It often gets worse before it gets better. And the “worse” can feel like the worst thing you’ve ever felt.

But who wants to hear that, that it’s going to get worse before it gets better? That’s cold comfort for someone in the earliest, rawest throes of grief. There’s got to be a better answer…except there’s not.

People try to offer these “better answers” by giving greeting card adages but we know as soon as we hear them they’re not representing the sorrow of deep loss. It’s possible they simply can’t encapsulate it into something palatable by the general public, except that loss is a universal human experience, so there’s a built-in market for it. You’d think they would have figured it out by now. Thing is, if they set up a bunch of people in their “Sympathy” card department, half the staff wouldn’t show up and the other half would stare at the wall or accidentally put their lunch into the letter-folder to warm up.

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A month after my dad passed away I set up an appointment with a counselor. As I sat in her office and explained the timeline and that it had only been a month, I could tell she was confused. Why was I there?

Wasn’t it obvious?

I needed her to tell me how to stop feeling so terrible. I needed her to tell me I was doing something wrong and here was the right way to process my dad’s death and the gaping hole made by his absence. So why was she confused? There was nothing confusing about it. She needed to FIX IT because this kind of pain is unbearable. I must be doing it wrong because I forget where I’m supposed to be going when I drive the car, I can’t taste anything but sugar, and even though my eyes feel like there’s a permanent layer of sand under my eyelids and they won’t stop leaking all the time even when I think I’m doing ok and not actually crying.

I’M NOT DOING OK AND YOU NEED TO FIX IT.

This must not have been the training she received at school. Because she did nothing to fix it. Nada. Buptkis.

She did take my money though. And I went back for non-fixing about four times.

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All of this to say if you want to talk to someone, do it. If you want to cry into the phone while your friend just sits with you on the other end, call ’em. If you want to hack down fifty trees in your back woods, grab the handsaw and remember to take some Tylenol when you’re done.

Maybe you won’t ever want to do advent or Christmas or Easter or 4th of July or Thanksgiving or any other pre-existing holiday ever again.

That’s ok. Let other people work on those holidays. Now you have your own awful dates to mark, ones personal to you and those closest to you. The first holiday without her. The birthday or the anniversary. And once you get through the firsts, the kicker is that THERE’S ANOTHER ROUND of the same thing next year, another year of them not being here.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

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This Sunday is the beginning of Advent, the preparatory month before Christmas. This week many Protestant churches will light the first candle of the advent wreath, the Sandler which symbolizes hope. Hope. Hope right now, are you kidding me?

For those who have recently faced a devastating loss, it’s almost profane to ask them to focus on hope for the week. If it’s not profane, it’s blind, because too often our definition of hope has been morphed into something that turns its back on reality. Reality is too hard to fathom at times, so we resort to rejecting it in favor of cliche. There are people who are unable to remain in the depths of their sorrow more than a few minutes before they fear it will devour them whole.

A candy coated hope will get the job done if it’s the only hope you have available.

However, if you define Hope as a much grittier, denser thing, something that glows even when surrounded by darkness, that’s something that makes more sense. When you think of Hope as the next small step, rather than a shining monument, that’s more doable. That’s the kind of Hope I can focus on, that’s the kind that is present even when muted and muffled by hardship and loss, and therefore I’ll be trying to turn my shoulder towards that Hope this first week of Advent.

Are you looking forward to this holiday season? Are you not looking forward to it? How will you carve out space for those who may experience it from a different perspective than your own? I’d love to hear your perspective.

The Red Handkerchief

13
Jun

Hi everyone! I’m excited to share that I have a piece over at The Mudroom today. I’d love to have you stop over and see it there. Here’s an excerpt to get you started…

In the story The Giver, they had a phrase “precision of language”. This was an admonition when people used an irrelevant term, something their culture didn’t believe in anymore. We have antiquated words that don’t serve us or even offend us now, and we have phrases whose etymologies are hard to trace.

You can read more of it, just click here.

Items needed for optimum writing

In the Face of Evidence to the Contrary

13
Jun

Experience would tell me that my garden will yield more weeds than cucumbers this summer.

It would tell me I’ll be optimistic about the little wisps that appear in places other than where than where I’ve planted anything. It says I will wait to see if these little darlings are friendly wildflowers or a developing seed I sprinkled and forgot. And as I wait, the root of some strong-willed, drought tolerant, prickly-stalked invasive species will establish itself as the centerpiece of my garden. fluorescent

Not that I’m speaking from first hand memory or anything.

Experience says I will tire of the endless battle against Mother Nature’s crabby aunt, Rhizome, and will relinquish custody of the 10×15 plot when the mosquitos get too swarmy, the humidity too thick, or my allergies too ridiculously sneezy — like, how many sneezes does it take before you get annoyed with the sneezer and think they’re doing it on purpose? Turns out it’s not that many.

And yet…

Even though the above descriptions may be true, I can’t help but expect great things. This year will be different. This year, everything will work out!

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Someone I used to know is facing the most difficult, heart breaking thing she’ll probably ever go through. And even if it sounds childish, I can’t help feeling like it’s not fair. It’s not right. Her family shouldn’t have to go through this kind of loss, the kind that will forever change the trajectory of all their lives, the kind that will mark them with a scar that isn’t completely healable. How can this be their lot in life? How is this what God has for them? <— this is proof that old beliefs die hard. Once upon a time I thought God had a definitive plan for every one. Every single person. Imagine what that can do to your view of God, especially when everything’s not all sunshine and rainbows. I’ve shaken that off, but boy it pops up in weird ways every once in a while!

When I first heard the news of this tragedy, it wasn’t at the worst stage. The cancer had been detected, there was treatment ahead, and maybe things would be alright. What does it say that I hoped it would be alright but feared it probably wouldn’t be? Has grief so knocked me around that I’ve lost my ability to believe in the best for people?

People are saying that she has been given this burden to shine for God’s glory.

That sounds like a kind of spiritual abuse to me, and if not “abuse” certainly placing expectations on what grief should look like.

Because what if she can’t keep shining? Sometimes it seems that we’re only allowed to count for God if we say the right verses or smile the smile despite the circumstances.

What if she has to rage and gnash her teeth and spit and tear her clothes? Does that make her shine less?

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Even though there are times when the world too much, when so much evidence points to corruption, greed, and selfishness, there is substantial proof of the world also being beautiful, full of generosity and goodness.

Maybe having a healthy respect for the dark makes you look for and expect the Light.

Dreams and Memories

23
Oct

Do you take much stock in dreams? Do you remember your dreams?

My kids love to tell me about their dreams. They can remember their dreams in great detail, every weird random endless droning detail, and they don’t hesitate to share this all with me. Some people — including adults — like to tell others about their dreams, regardless of the subject matter. They just find dreams interesting.

I’m not that person.

…usually.

What I’ve discovered is that there are some dreams that DO interest me, usually ones that have an element of revelation in them. I’ve thought about whether God uses dreams, like the dream Joseph had about staying with Mary, the message delivered by an angel. Or the dream Jacob had about the stairway to heaven that angels were travelling on. These are the exceptions to regular dreams, the ones where you can’t find your car keys or you’re in a traffic jam. But even recently I heard a story about someone who was travelling internationally and received a message in a dream, one that told him to wake up. When he obeyed and woke up (in the middle of the night), he was able to stop a thief who was in the midst of stealing from his nightstand.

Spooky, huh?

When I was a student, I had a recurring dream that there was a party going on in my room while I was trying to study. This dream only happened when I was stressed and busy. It meant I would wake up tired, stressed and busy even after doing what supposed to replenish my body and mind.

In recent years, however, I remember very few of my dreams.

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My sister has had a few dreams about our dad since he passed away two years ago.

I’m pretty envious of her. I’ve only had two.

The thing with dreams of someone you love is that your brain knows you’re dreaming, even while you’re trying to shut it up so you can enjoy the unexpected opportunity to visit with him. You know it isn’t real, but you don’t want to know that, since dreams are supposed to be a break from reality, aren’t they? I mean, dreams are supposed to be places were we can do anything we want. Why burden them with a reality check when we’re supposed to be busy flying around or doing things we could never do in real life.

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I was taught to control my dreams. When I had a bad dream, my parents told me to make the scary thing (often a bear, now that I think of it) give me a present.

I’ve taken this and expanded on it for my kids. We’ve talked to them about turning the thing into a bubble and then pop it, turn it into a dandelion and blow it away, or even shrink it until it’s attempts to be scary become laughable.

What I haven’t tried is to focus on being able to make something happen in my dreams. I don’t think I have the courage to try and see my dad in my dreams. I want to preserve true memories I have of him, and I wonder if dreaming about him will introduce an un-real memory of him. I’ve already incorporated one of my sister’s dreams into my own memory banks, probably because the dream gave me comfort even as it was bittersweet.

I want to have real memories, and I want these to be separate from my dreams.

A painted turtle and a Burial

25
Jun

Stay present. Don’t run, don’t let yourself be distracted. This is real. This is happening.

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The utility company did a number on the boulevard again this year,

Left saplings broken off at the waist, buzzsaw shredded kneecaps.

The heavy tires, unable to tiptoe over the earth wet from days of rain, left their double footprints through the grass.

Pass the field where they’re growing a cash crop of thistles, past the next field where the wheat’s coming in nice.

I round a corner and in the sun glare I see a turtle on the double yellow.

Frozen in the heat of day.

Don’t run. This is happening. Don’t be distracted. Pay attention.

Mowers whir in the distance, the breeze in the top of the pines mimics the sound of tires.

It’s a painted turtle; the inside edge of its shell is bright red, it’s neck adorned with yellow stripe, mimicking the road.

“Move.”

I speak to it, as though it can understand me, like my plants in the yard. I tap it with my toe, hold the dog back and balance device, water bottle and headphones, watching the road each way, ready for a car to make the decision for us.

“Move.”

Slowly I scoot it forward, against its will.

“Move it.”

It doesn’t want to go. It wants to stay in the middle of the road.

Stay present. Pay attention. This is real.

I gently shove it across the whole street and into the scrap that used to be grass along the side of the road. I continue my walk with the panting dog.

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This is real. Don’t run. Stay present. What just happened?

I don’t want to put you into the earth. I want to pretend you’ll come back. You’re on a long trip. You’re phone’s acting wonky but I’ll see you at the family thing next …insert thing here. You’re on vacation and there’s no service, but we’ll hear from you soon.

We won’t hear from you soon.

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I continue my walk to the halfway point and turn around.

When I get back to the spot, the turtle’s gone.

I check the grass, I check the ditch, I check the other side; it’s gone. It’s home.

Pay attention. This is real.

I don’t want to, but I must. The turtle is gone. It is safe. You are gone. You are safe.

I must keep walking.

This is real.

Morning Walk

9
Dec

The thick air sits translucent blue on the ground.

The mud doesn’t know if it should thaw or freeze.

The gossip of the wind through the wings of migrating geese above metallic-covered lake,

Hundreds of rice patty cone hats strewn all over the grass, their little tufts punctuating the hillside,

The highway blows in the background, cautionary beeps warn of backing machinery.

Three white tailed deer sprint back into the trees, leaping, seeming to hang midair, though there is no fence here and no need to fly.

I pick up palm sized stones – three in my pocket so far – to remind me of something but I don’t yet know what.

I veer away from the naked bones of sumac and drag my fingers along the switchgrass that lines the path. When I round the bend my sleeve is wet.

A single-engine prop plane crosses overhead.

I stop to watch, waiting. Though I’m in the open field, the plane does not tip it’s wing at me,

So I know it isn’t you.

I hope when I get back and strip off my boots a pebble falls out of the left one to remind me of you.

Find your Breath

7
Oct

Sometimes the only thing to do is breathe.

The world is crumbling and the things you thought would hold start to wobble, their stable bases shifting just enough to set them off center.

You get through a few hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then the wobbling begins again.

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Sometimes there’s a lull, a quiet period when you start to think things are back to the way they used to be.

Part of you goes back to your routine, welcomes it.

Part of you settles back into the way your life used to be.

The roaring silence becomes part of your soundscape, the elevator music in the background of your day.

You start thinking maybe you’ve turned a corner. You start thinking things have settled into a new pattern. It’s not the pattern you’d wanted or what you’d ever imagined you’d be dealing with, but you can adjust. You can learn to deal with it. You’re strong, you’re resilient. You’ve got this.

You got this. Right?

Sure, right. You got this, until something else layers on, something new and terrible, one more spike to the system and then —

Naw, that was a blip, the exception. You get through a few more hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then it begins again.

Tip…tip…wobble…

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It’s not as simple as just praying through it. It’s not as cut and dried as just “giving it to the Lord” — remember those tactics? There was a time when those were the first things you turned to. There was a time when you’d follow the formula and even innocently twist your thinking to make the outcomes align with what was supposed to happen.

That only worked for so long.

After a point, you began to see the inconsistencies. After so many repetitions, you started to notice the things you weren’t supposed to question.

The great slow unravelling had already begun when the real life crises set in.

It wasn’t right to expect God to answer prayers, even on behalf of his most faithful of servants. We’re not supposed to treat God like a vending machine or Santa. You knew that, you tried not to approach faith that way. It made sense that a loving God wouldn’t want to have his loved ones treating him like an uncle visiting from afar, asking for bobbles and souvenirs. But the most human part of you screamed it out anyway: “Why don’t you DO SOMETHING!” Surely this wasn’t something inappropriate to ask, to beg. This was a most basic of needs. You pleaded, “Do something.”

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The old routines no longer served. You weren’t content to just go through the motions, but you weren’t content to disregard the truth of your experience, shaded as it may have been. Your beliefs were so ingrained you didn’t realize the English you spoke was a dialect unintelligible to many.

So you sought the new-to-you.

You sought the ancient.

Rhythms, air, pulses, seasons, wideness, candles, walks outdoors, grace and ritual.

When even these demanded too much energy, you returned to your breath. When the ache of loss and hardship threatened to upend you, you knew you could still breathe. The one breath you knew you could take, the one breath you could use to slow time, slow heartbeat, slow thoughts, slow it all down. That one breath would be the thing you could give yourself when nothing else seemed to help.

Just one breath.

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This doesn’t make it all better. Loss is still there, grief is still there, heartache, powerlessness, smallness, are all still there.

Getting through a moment is sometimes all you can accomplish.

Getting through one moment can be an enormous struggle.

One breath, if you can give yourself one deep, cleansing breath, you’ll find you can give yourself another. And in those breaths, you can find the strength to move forward. It’s already in you. You have to pause and breathe in order to find it.