Turning In Circles

Do you have a dog?

Do you know how sometimes they turn around, and around, and around, and then around some more, before finally plopping themselves down to settle in to just the right spot?

Do you ever feel like that dog?

Me too.

In fact, lately, I’ve felt a lot like that dog. Maybe you have too. We’ve been turning around, and around, and around, and then around some more, all in an effort to plop ourselves down and settle in to just the right spot. It can feel like we’re wasting time, not getting anywhere or making any progress. But the good news, for that dog, and for us, is that when we are turning in those circles, we’ve found the right spot. We’re just not quite ready to plop ourselves down and settle in there yet. There are a few more circles to turn before we settle down to write that book, start that new painting, or sign up for that class. With a few more spins under our belt, we’ll be ready to find a therapist, get serious about our health, or make a long-awaited change. A couple more circles, and we’ll finally find the courage to ask the question, have the conversation, or face the issue head-on.

Take it from that dog. With every circle, we are a little bit closer to plopping ourselves down to settle in to just the right spot.

A Dream Come True

Start where you are.

Use what you have.

Do what you can.

~ Arthur Ashe

My husband had a dream last night where someone combined dirt and chocolate chips to create a kind of fabric that could be used as a protective covering.

If anything has been constant in our neck of the woods these days, it’s been dirt and chocolate chips.

Our daughter and her family moved in with us for what was supposed to be a two-week layover on their way to Scotland, where they will be living for the next few years as she pursues her Ph.D. We are now going on eight weeks, and everyone is going a little, or a lot depending on the day, crazy as we wait for their approved but yet to be seen travel documents to arrive.

Dirt and chocolate chips create a protective covering helping to hold our lives together. It’s like a dream come true.

Our wee grand boys, ages 5, 3, and 1 1/2, love nothing more than playing in the dirt. Some days it seems like it's what they live for. They pile dirt into small dump trucks, scoop it up by the handful, roll in it, run in it, and when no one is looking, fling it at each other. At the end of another dirt-filled day, their dirt-brown clothes piled on the floor of the mudroom ready for another whirl in the washing machine, the three of them head upstairs for a bath to get the dirt out of every nook and cranny.

Sometimes there’s nothing better than a chocolate chip cookie, so there is always another batch ready to be baked. No need to look up the Smitten Kitchen Crispy-Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, because we know it by heart. We eat them warm out of the oven after naps, grab one to go with a cup of coffee or tea, sneak one before bed, or forgo the oven and just shovel the dough straight into our mouthes.

This experience together is nothing like we ever imagined, harder than we ever expected, and yet miraculously, more than we ever could have hoped for. One day at a time, one dirt pile at a time, one more load of laundry, bath, and batch of chocolate chip cookies, we are learning in new ways what it means to stay the course, hang together, and love each other well, come what may.

So take heart.

When things are nothing like we ever imagined and harder than we ever expected, sometimes all we need is a little dirt and some chocolate chip cookies to form a protective covering to remind us that somehow, some way, life is miraculously more than we ever could have hoped for.

A Gathering Of Words

Life is nothing if not a maze of grace.

I’ve loved that gathering of words ever since it appeared on my page. Hanging together like good friends, they are at ease in one another’s company. Each word separate but intimately connected, the meaning greater than the sum of the its parts.

Life is the condition that distinguishes us as animate beings, it includes the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change, signifies our existence as a human being, and refers to our time here from birth until death.

In other words, life is kind of a big deal.

A maze is a complex, and sometimes confusing network of paths and hedges designed as a puzzle.

In other words, a maze challenges us to find our way through.

Grace is courteous goodwill, an extended period of time granted as a special favor, and unmerited or unearned favor.

In other words, grace is what helps us transcend our blunders.

Our time on the planet is our shot at becoming who we are meant to be and doing what we are here to do. There will be dead ends, unexpected detours, and wrong turns along the way. Treating ourselves and others with kindness and goodwill smooths the way for everyone.

In other words, life is nothing if not a maze of grace.

No wonder these words found their way to one another.

Going First

One Friday afternoon in February I sat down to watch a virtual keynote I’d recently delivered to a live leadership development event. While the message was good, my delivery was anything but. I certainly wouldn’t have been inspired by me if I was watching me. Granted, it was the day after the sudden death of my brother, and I knew I could give myself a pass for that. But even still. The energy, juice and mojo that usually characterize my work were missing. Were they gone for good? Could I get them back? Was I losing my relevance?

The following Monday I wrote an email to two friends about the experience of watching myself in sub-par action. The three of us have had a standing monthly virtual meeting for several years now, and together have created a safe space where we can show up in whatever state we find ourselves. Once I started my email to them, the words wouldn’t stop. Lump in my throat, I uncovered a fear that has been lurking inside for some time, and the longer it lurks, the stronger its grip.

Re-reading what I had written, it felt so raw, so real, and so exposed, that I was tempted to hit delete.

I hit send instead.

“As much as I believe in the beauty of aging, and the importance of doing everything I can to be the very best, most vibrant, strong, wholehearted, and attractive me possible, and of being an example of what real aging looks like to my daughters and the world at large, it is a lot easier said than done when it's me staring back at me.”

Both friends got back to me in short order. Not with words about why I shouldn’t feel that way, or to boost my confidence, but with gratitude for having told the truth, and inviting a conversation they were eager to have and in need of themselves.

Putting my experience into words and sharing them loosened fear’s grip, and paved the way for me to find a new interpretation of an old story. Rather than sliding into irrelevance with each new trip around the sun, I am being invited to step into my role as a teacher of the well and hard earned wisdom collected along my way. I can even say that I’m (mostly) looking forward to bringing my communication skills to a new kind of stage.

As it turned out, after watching the video, one of those same friends left me a voice mail that brought us both to tears. While my message might not have been delivered in the visual way I would have wished, she said that she couldn’t take notes fast enough on what I’d shared, and it paved her way for a new interpretation of an old story too.

That’s what happens when we tell the truth.

What happens is that we find out that we are not alone.

What happens is that we give other people permission to tell the truth too.

What happens is that we start a conversation where it is safe to tell the truth, which in the long run, is the only kind of conversation worth having.

Ours is an if-you-show-me-yours maybe I-will-show-you-mine kind of culture. It simply feels too risky to go first, and so usually, no one does. Better safe, isolated with our own fear, pain and insecurity, than risk being sorry to have shared them at all. It’s a vicious cycle. One that can only be broken when someone dares to go first.

We Are The Mountain

For us humans, emotions are a tricky thing. They can come and go in the blink of an eye, drop in without notice and drop out just as quickly, or decide to settle in and stay for a spell. Most of us relish what we deem the good emotions, and resist having to endure the ones we’ve come to see as bad or negative. The ones that don’t, well, feel good.

I’ve always been a feeling kind of girl. Emotions, even big, hard, painful ones don’t scare me. However, they can snag me, and before I know it, I’m wrapped around some kind of axle and in full reactive mode. It’s like I am the emotion, rather than me experiencing that emotion. It can be exhausting. For me, and for the people I share life with.

This morning, as most mornings, we sit on the front porch, coffee cups in hand, and read the daily offering of Fr. Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

His focus this week is Wisdom.

CAC faculty member, Cynthia Bourgeault, suggests that, “Wisdom is not knowing more, but knowing with more of you, knowing deeper.”

To help us dig deeper into wisdom, what it is, and how to grow more of it, Fr. Rohr created a list of 7 pathways, or ways of knowing, that can help us along our own wisdom way.

One of those pathways is emotion.

“Emotion: Great emotions are especially powerful teachers. Love, ecstasy, hatred, jealousy, fear, despair, anguish: each have their lessons. Even anger and rage are great teachers, if we listen to them. They have so much power to reveal our deepest self to ourselves and to others, yet we tend to consider them negatively. I would guess that people die and live much more for emotional knowing than they ever will for intellectual, rational knowing. To taste these emotions is to live in a new reality afterward, with a new ability to connect.”.

As we sat reflecting on our emotions as a way of knowing with more of ourselves, the changing light hitting Mt. Adams seemed to underscore what we had just read.

We are the mountain.

Emotion is our teacher.

Read the todays meditation in its entirety

Hopeishness

hope | hōp |

grounds for believing that something good may happen

hope | hōp |

want something to happen or be the case

---

There is little certainty in life beyond its eventual ending. Depending on how we look at it, this is either a very comforting thought, or a deeply troubling one. If we are looking for certainty beyond our own eventuality, It will be a long wait.

That’s where hope comes in.

Hope is both a noun and a verb. For it to infuse our lives, hope must not only be something we see, but also something we do.

Hope as a noun invites us to look for the evidence that things will work out. Maybe not in the short term, but in the long run. Since the eye, (and the heart) see what they look for, to have hope requires that we train ourselves to recognize it when we see it, and save it up for those times when it is nowhere in sight.

Hope as a verb bids us dare to imagine something being true. In this way, it is like a muscle with which we work for what we want. Walking toward what we envision, without yoking ourselves to certainty, we are free to collaborate with life and whatever it brings our way.

Hope, as much as we yearn for it, is hard. Sometimes life is such that hope feels impossible. Almost like a waste of our time, when life turns on a dime. What was true yesterday no longer is. What we counted on an hour ago crumbles beneath our feet. What we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the moment before evaporates in front of our very eyes. Given this precarious nature of life, it is no wonder that we go from hopeful to hopeless in the blink of our eye, with nothing in between. Hope can feel like an either or proposition. Getting it right or getting it wrong. A dualistic way of living with only two choices—we can either be full of hope, or not.

That’s where hopeishness comes in.

Hopeishness sits squarely between hopeful and hopeless.

Always there and never out of our reach.

Hopeishness detaches us from the outcome, loosens the grip of fear, and settles us in the present moment, which is all we’ve ever had anyway. It reminds us of all the evidence we’ve collected along the way, making it possible for us to simply take the next right step without needing to know exactly how it will all turn out.

It may not be a real word, but hopeishness is a real thing.

Who Gets To Do This? And Why?

Fourteen years ago when we first set foot on the five acres we now call home, we were smitten. Mt. Adams, the 12,281’ high volcano sat directly in front of what was to become the site for the house. Pine woods on three sides gave the property a tucked in feel, and would provide protection from the winds that can frequent our valley. Sitting at just under 2000 feet, we were guaranteed all four seasons. Standing together and taking it all in, we began to envision building the home that we had first imagined over a bottle of wine, on the back of a cocktail napkin, the year our youngest daughters went off to college.

It was hard to fathom that we might actually be able to realize our long held dream of building a rustic home, east of the mountains, where we could live and that we could share with family and friends. I mean who gets to do that? And why?

Slowly the house took shape as we split our time between the city where our jobs were, and this piece of ground where our hearts were.

Sitting on the porch with my coffee 13 years ago, I continued to wonder, who gets to do this? And why?

2008

Thirteen years later, sitting on the porch with my coffee, I continue to ponder, who gets to do this? And why?

2021

Living here, having created the place that we hope to call home for years to come, is an unbelievable gift. I’ve never felt that we owned it. It is ours to steward, share, and make use of for the good of many. A safe haven and refuge for all who come here, and a place from which to imagine and work for a more just, loving, and inclusive world.

After this past year, I am starkly aware of the immeasurable, culturally inherent privilege granted to us that has made this dream of ours possible.

And to whom much is given, much is required.

By A Thread

When my parents died within six months of each other back in 2000, I was sad that they were gone and ready for them to go all at the same time. People have asked me if I had any regrets when they were gone. Gratefully I don’t. Several years before they passed the three of us were sitting in their kitchen, and I found myself telling them that I would miss them when they were gone. That they had been good parents in so many ways. That I never doubted their love for me. That the memories we shared mattered. That they mattered, and that they would be missed.

Are there other conversations I wish we would have had, could have had? Probably. But I think it is rare that any of us leave the planet without a few loose ends. Ours is the task of leaving as few as possible.

My oldest brother, Peter, died suddenly on January 14th. I wasn’t ready for him to go and was grateful that he didn’t have to linger. He would have hated that. Again, no regrets. To say that he and I sat on opposite ends of the political spectrum would be an understatement, and we had more than our share of animated conversations over the years. To decompress I attempt to meditate. Pete would listen to Rush Limbaugh. He had a heart that was as deep as his political convictions, and would move heaven and earth to help someone in need. On the night of January 6th, after all hell broke loose at the capitol, he called me. “You kind of want to talk to the people you love on a night like this, don’t you?” I said. “That’s why I’m calling you.” he replied in his deep, gravely, cowboy voice. The day had deeply saddened both of us, and we found ourselves standing together on the holy ground of our shared hopes for what this country could be. Should be. It was our last phone call. A few more loose ends tied up.

Every morning, no matter what the weather, Tom and I sit outside in the early morning darkness with our first cup of coffee. Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle at our feet, we start our day together on the porch, sitting in old rocking chairs with red cushions on the seat and red and black plaid Woolrich blankets on our laps. One morning not long ago, Gracie and I were out there waiting for him to join us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his rocking chair. Empty. The red cushion and plaid blanket waiting for him. One of us will go on without the other someday.

We are always just hanging on by a thread. If we think it is otherwise, we are simply fooling ourselves. However, it is that thread that weaves our life together, one breath, one choice, and one moment at a time. And, when all is said and done, ours will be a tapestry of each and every one of those stitched together moments.

Ours is the task of leaving as few loose ends as possible.

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

This is Christmas

It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

Except it isn’t.

Not this year. There are traditions we’ve come to count on year after year, and if we can’t honor those traditions, well then, it’s just not Christmas.

Except it is.

We have to let go of so many things that make the holiday the holiday, that it almost feels easier, more manageable, and less painful to pretend that it’s just not Christmas.

Except it is.

It might not look anything like the ones we remember, but a reminder of what Christmas has always been— Love showing up in the darkest of places and the most unlikely of circumstances.

It might not look anything like what we want, but it might be just the one we need.

If we try and make it what it’s always been, we’ll miss what it could be.

This is Christmas.

Let’s not miss it.

A Picnic In The Storm

My ninth-birthday plans included skipping school to go to The Portland Zoo with my best friend, followed by my favorite dinner—broiled flank steak, baked potatoes, birthday cake and ice cream. Perfect plans for my birthday docket.

Then The Columbus Day Storm of 1962 hit the Pacific Northwest. It was the most powerful extratropical cyclone recored in the U.S. in the 20th century. 46 people died, and hundreds were injured. If your home wasn’t damaged, you were the exception. The cost of damages in Oregon alone were estimated to be more than 200 million in 1962 dollars. Few if any escaped this storm unscathed in some way.

We were at the zoo when the wind started to blow, wind that would eventually top 100 mph. Running for the car we passed an exhibit where large birds were being tossed into the air like bean bags. Driving home I remember seeing a mop fly in front of our car, and tall trees crashing across the road out our rear window. We made it home just in the nick of time. The power went out, the wind howled, trees toppled in our yard, broken branches blew against the windows, and the huge black walnut tree in our back yard bent nearly in half over our roof. Thankfully it stood strong, or I might not be writing this today.

On that dark and stormy night, my biggest concern as a little nine year old girl wasn’t for the damage being done outside as the winds ravaged cities up and down the West coast, or the safety of those caught in the cross-hairs of the storm. It was, of course, for my birthday plans that had been blown to smithereens.

Now I loved the zoo. But what I really loved was flank steak. Prepared just the way my mom made it, there was nothing better. Marinate it for several hours, spread Dijon mustard on it, put it under the broiler, and don’t, under any circumstances, overcook it. (If it turns out anything but rare, you might as well throw it out and start over.) Slice it thin and serve it up with baked potatoes oozing with butter.

No electricity? No flank steak and baked potatoes oozing with butter.

No flank steak and baked potatoes oozing with butter? No birthday dinner.

No birthday dinner? No birthday.

Mom saw it a little differently..

No power to broil the steak or bake the potatoes? No problem. Out came an old-school hibachi, hot dogs, and potatoes chips. We ate my birthday dinner by candlelight, sitting on a checkered table cloth on the floor in front of the fire.

That was the night I first remember watching my mom do one of the things she did best. She made a picnic in the storm, literally. Time and again, she brought us together, made something good out of something bad, and created beauty in the midst of almost any mess, leaving a legacy that every one of us can live into today.

The gale force winds of 2020 show little sign of abating. There have been over a quarter of a million deaths, and 12.5 million cases in the United States, and it isn’t over yet. The economic fallout is hard to fathom, and few if any will come out of this year unscathed. If ever we needed to learn to make a picnic in a pandemic storm, it is now, and this holiday season, as difficult, devastating, and disappointing as it might be, is a place to start.

Whether it means huddling together outdoors around a fire pit, setting a place for one or two using our best china, cooking treasured family recipes and making extra to pass across the fence to our neighbor, supporting our local restaurants by ordering takeout, or lifting a glass around our separate tables over Zoom, anytime we can find the will to make a picnic in this storm, we are smoothing the way through a rough patch in our shared history.

The year before my ninth birthday and The Columbus Day Storm

I know, I was already a fashion icon.