some day

i used to think that no one would love me because

my kids were too wild too crazy too loud

my house too messy

my thighs too big

and my intellect too proud


my children are grown

and my house is less messy

my thighs are just right

and my intellect, intact


my imagination has grown

large enough to imagine

a love big enough to dream

strong enough to embrace imperfection

and steady enough

to invite itself in and stay

coming down and the river of gratitude

today I have a whole day of no work

just play

whatever that means anymore

as my writing has become work

as my work becomes play sometimes

as my self becomes my work

as my worth has become tangled up in

measurement of cash and education

that translates into letters after my name

and the addiction to praise to being smart

enough

and I let the layers fall away

it is a bit painful

to feel

but underneath

is the soft fleshy part

that is real

and I am grateful

for the pain

for the beauty

for the intensity

with which I am allowed to live my life

flowing like a river

teeming with life

forms too many to count

so I feel my pain

feel my bliss

look upon my children

my grandchildren

my friends

my family

try to count the stars

in gratitude

for every single breath

give up counting

and just rest in

blessings

New Car

Getting what you want. How hard is that? Sometimes not so hard, if what you want is a cup of coffee. Knowing what you want? I think this is the tricky part for many of us. We are born into a life that we have no control over, except in our brain, the part of us that screams at our caregiver as soon as we can, “You’re not the boss of me.” This we know, that somewhere, deep inside, we are actually our own boss. Some people grow into this, their autonomy is nurtured, and applauded, and they learn to take steps to take good care of themselves. For others, this child's autonomy, this personal power, is a threat to their parents or caregivers, something to be squashed. My mom, for example, when I was pretty little, would actually tell me about my older siblings getting into trouble and how she punished them, and then she’d say something horrible like, “I wasn’t about to let those little shits get the best of me.”

When I was a kid this sounded bad and scary, and it still does now, and I wonder, should I even share this? But there it is, and it’s the truth. Just recently, at 85, my mom shared with me that her mom would beat all of her children with a strap, that way, if she didn’t know who was the culprit of what ever small thing a child might have done wrong, she would have at least whipped the guilty party. What does this do to the child’s autonomy, the child’s right to keep themselves safe? What does it do to their sense of caring for their sibs? Their small sense of self feels the sting, and carries this pain with them, maybe for a lifetime. Maybe then, whipping their own children. My mom went on to tell, that her youngest sister, intent on keeping herself safe, hid the strap down the drain in the basement, where their dad found it, when the sinks wouldn’t drain. I imagine, she simply got the strap, again. I wonder, how all this beating of children got started, was deemed, OK?

What’s this got to do with getting a new car? Well, really all of life is interconnected, we try to chop it up into different parts, work, school, at school, different disciplines, you get the drift. For those of us who think integrally, this can be very confusing, we have to learn to un-connect all the connections we see, to survive in some way. To get the ‘right’ answer, when we continually see, there is no one right answer. That the truth is in the interwoven-ness of all of life. But the ones who think there is only one right answer are often the ones with the strap.

Because of the circumstances in which I was born, and grew up, I didn’t think I could ever really get what I wanted, and so I was taught to be happy with what I got; even if I was unhappy. Being happy was a value, and even this, I could see and accept, what with so much beatings and unhappiness all around. I was fortunate in many ways, and happy to be alive, especially when I wasn’t being oppressed in my family. I loved the sky, the clouds, the lakes that I grew up surrounded by. I grew up with lots of music, since most of my sibs were teenagers when I was young, and there were the band concerts from Lake Harriet that would waft through the summer night’s air.

Sometimes, my dad would take us younger kids in the station wagon and park in the Lake Harriet parking lot to hear the band concert. He’d buy us popcorn, as we waited in the car, jammies on. Life could be good, and if you wanted a box of hot buttered popcorn, you got what you wanted. Every so often, like magic, your wish would come true.

A few years ago, I needed a new car. My old car was paid for, but costing me lots of money in repairs. I didn’t even know who to trust about it’s worth, or if I should continue to fix it. So, I traded it in for a newer car, sight unseen, that my brother-in-law drove down from up North. It didn’t take me long to know I didn’t like this car, but I’d bought it, and I was uncertain as to how to proceed. I was working full-time and in grad school, and I just wasn’t in any sort of place to take the time to think about what I wanted or didn’t want in a car. So, I did nothing, and kept the car, unhappy, but not knowing how to resolve it.

I kept trying to tell myself, it was ok, I was lucky to have a car, and a newer car, but really, I didn’t like the car. It didn’t handle well for me, and it was not a good fit for me to comfortably drive. I wanted a new car. I didn’t know how or if I could afford one, but the day came, just last week. My car needed work again, while I was still making payments, and I mentioned in the service garage how frustrated I was. Well, they hooked me up with a salesperson, and instead of putting more money into a car I didn’t like, I started over, putting money into a brand new leased car. A car that I like. It resonates with the person who is the boss of me, inside of me. The person who knows what I like and don’t like, but just gets lost in figuring out what is acceptable to like, what is ok to want to go after, in a world where getting exactly what one wants out of life seems, well, unthinkable. Because, well, you should just be happy to not be being beaten.

fear of flying

You’ve heard it before, fear of failure, fear of success, it’s one or the other or a little of both when we have the fear of the future, fear of the unknown, when we leave the comfort of what we know for the unknown. Trouble is with life, it just never, ever, really stays the same. Maybe the trick is to balance out the known with the unknown, if this is possible. To have just the right percentages of safety and adventure, but then I’m sure those percentages are just not the same for each person, or even the same for the same person, at different times in their life.

So, here I am in the space of the extra hour of daylight savings time, filling out paperwork for new office space, feeling very anxious, and yes, afraid. And so I had to ask myself, “What am I most afraid of?” And part of it is not wanting to let people down, not wanting to fail, and not wanting to be vulnerable, in that place of not knowing, and having to trust other people to trust me, that I can do ok. And so, I have to feel my fear, my heart racing, my shoulders tensing and move into the future. I have to still the thoughts that say, “Just stay where you are, it’s not so bad.” As if there really is ever an option, to stay where we are.

I do keep thinking about how hard life is, not necessarily physically hard, but its these existential dilemmas that keep our breath rattling around in our bodies, instead of coming steady and strong, peace in, anxiety out. The thoughts wondering if we’re measuring up, or not, the worry of “Is this all there is?” that seems to come out of nowhere, just when we think we’ve got it all figured out. So, I’m trying to figure out my base line, where is it that I can just live and love and accept myself and others. To say, so what if I fail? I can always come back home to myself, breath in, breath out, and start all over again.

Woman as Spirituality

This weekend my daughter and I attended and presented at the 30th annual Women & Spirituality Conference at Minnesota State University in Mankato. It was a beautiful weekend for the drive, and a wonderful way for my oldest daughter Kathleen, and I to spend time together. I continually am awed by what it means to be a mother. The keynote speaker this year was Winona LaDuke, Native American activist and writer, mother, grandmother, amazing woman. I’m still hoping to get her book, Naming the Sacred, soon. I should have stood in line to buy it after her speech, but I was there not just with my daughter, but also with Max, her nine year old, and he’d been sitting very patiently for the entire speech (and opening ceremony); we were all hungry and ready to find lunch.

I continue to think about the things that LaDuke presented, about who gets to decide what belongs to whom? Who does get to name what is sacred? Why do we believe our justice system is even about being just? Why do we have so many incarcerated people in our country? This morning I spent too many minutes (any minutes at all are too many for me) on Facebook. I keep vowing to shut down my page, but then I’m drawn to telling someone “Happy Birthday” or something, and there goes my meditation time, to Facebook browsing, not a good trade-off. But I was there, and found some ‘friend’ dissing the Occupy Wall Street folks, and it made me so frustrated, but I didn’’t answer, didn’t reply, didn’t want to start a Facebook fight. So, one more note to self, stay away from Facebook, except for pics of grand-babies.

This doesn’t mean, however, that the fight is over. It’s not. Ignorance and fear are hard things to fight. I know, I fight them in myself more often than I’d like to admit. A person like LaDuke, however, gives me courage to continue to ask myself the hard questions, to hold out hope, to be appalled that a company can own the rights to seed and food. Really? How did that happen?

safety of the seasons

I am not a cold weather lover. This is the time of year I am usually overcome by dread, wondering how I’ll manage yet another season of cold. The voice on the radio tells me the windchill this morning is 39. After the middle of October, telling us the temperature outside just isn’t dramatic enough, we need to hear the windchill. Brrrrrr.

This year however, I have a plan. Just like Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird, I will live through this wintry season, month by month. I will survive another Minnesota winter. Since I’ve lived here all my life, you’d think the season change would move seamlessly for me, but as you might have noticed, nothing in my life moves seamlessly.

So, here it is, already halfway through October. It’s been an amazing October, blue skies and warm breezes mostly. I am still getting by most days not wearing socks. But I’ve gotten my cooler weather clothes ready, you never know when that windchill will plummet. The grocery stores are stocking eggnog, but I won’t indulge until next month.

You see, I can do this. Next month is eggnog latte every day for breakfast, and pumpkin ice cream from Sebastian Joe’s. Dinner out with the family for Thanksgiving. I know it’s not traditional, but I’m beginning to like not having to lug a turkey home and I don’t have to be resentful about doing all the dishes afterwards.

Then it will be December and that month is, well, really magical if you dress warm enough. The trees will be filled with lights and the snow sparkles and dances. The holiday brings with it lunches out and hot toddies in. So, you see I can do this, month by month. I don’t dare go ahead into January, because, well, that is just biting off too much winter for one page. I will get there, resting in the safety of the seasons, content that the seasons still change, that the world still turns and right around the corner, I see spring.

do have be

It does seem that there is a power in the concept of trinity, just ask me, the mother of three daughters. There is definitely some power going on here. Another trio, that I think we need to balance out in life is do have be. I’ve mulled this over, in different ways, before stumbling upon the simplicity of this, this morning. I’ve been wondering a lot about the do and the have, as I’ve been working really hard, ever since I was fifteen, and changed the nine on my birth certificate to an eight, so I could work downtown at fifteen, when the legal age to work was sixteen. Now, with a lot of academic work behind me also, I’m a bit tired of the doing.

I’m also pondering the having, as I wonder about what do I want to have, to own, to carry on with me into the future. As I was growing up, owning your own home was drilled into me as the epitome of having. And having your own home can be amazing, it can be safe, and a place to have fun and a place to put all your other stuff. It can also be a burden, when keeping up that home requires you not to be there, or being there just means dusting off all your stuff, when you could be say, renting something like a kayak and being somewhere on a lake. So, how hard do you work for stuff, how much do you need to hang on to “home” when life seems to be calling you out, somewhere else?

Now, (big sigh here), being. This one is the one that’s challenging me now, the one that seems, well, indulgent. The one that seems such a threat to the other two. Because, if you are being, it doesn’t really matter what you have or what you are doing, or even that big one, “What do you do?” as in, “What do you do for a living” which translates into, “Who are you?” When we allow ourselves to be, we have to let go of all the questions and all the answers that we think define us, and others. But without being, the doing and the having are empty, reverberating questions that only begin to haunt us, the more we rely on doing and having alone.

So, if we can master, and somehow integrate, do have be, maybe, just maybe that is the better way to live. The way to walk our path, without too many regrets, to face the future with both desires and the ability to enjoy what is, to savor the desires that we fill, and to be okay with each moment that just happens. Maybe...