Flux

I started to write this post while at the Apple Box on Saturday and am finishing it at another (more ubiquitous) coffee establishment Tuesday night. 

The lesson that keeps coming to me in the last week is that all of life is in a continual state of flux. Change and transition are constant. So things go well, things go poorly, one is happy and one is sad - but that's all right. 

The weather has shifted again so we're back to some sunshine, but with the added blooming flowers and slightly longer days, it feels like Spring is coming, and with it hope and optimism.

As more personal drama unfolds around me and emotions run high, I find myself feeling (mostly) calm and centered and clear. This is very helpful, because objectively, I can look at everything that has come to light in the last eight weeks or so and realize that it's the kind of chain of events that could derail or depress or distress a person. I'm not sure where this equanimity is coming from, but I'm grateful for it. Perhaps listening to Pema and meditating has helped. That, and long and frequent conversations with friends, including that best friend to whom I'm married.

D. surprised me last night with a custom home-made chicken coop for our little lame Nefertiti and for any future hens we might have. It was composed of recycled pallets (cedar) and special paint - which he shared was on sale.

Love it!!

In the Moment

Is it all human beings, or most human beings, or just some of us (myself included) who are incapable of sustaining the memory of being cold when we are hot, or hot when we are cold, or hungry when we are full, or the idea of mortality when we are breathing?

I wake up and am grateful I have made it through another night, so that I can try yet again to figure out a way to be that will honor this amazing gift I've been granted. (Please, Lord, let me figure it out.) It's not a given that one will wake up each morning. Less than a week ago, my coworker Ron - 43 years old, healthy, loving gentle Ron, whose 4-year son was only recently diagnosed with cancer - Ron did not wake up. It's believed that he died in his sleep from a massive heart attack.  My mind grapples with a way to understand this and comes up empty. I'm not alone in feeling the shock.

It's pouring rain as I write this, and I've just returned from a memorial service in the coastal town where Ron and his family lived. I didn't stay for the reception afterwards. In times like this, I want more than anything in the world to retreat, to be alone. Maybe other people feel the need for community, and long to share their grief and memories of the beloved who has left us. That's just not how I'm wired.

When I got home, though, I called my older daughter to tell her that I love her. Right now, it feels especially important to communicate such things. If Ron can die in his sleep, any type of sudden loss seems possible. My daughter is recovering from some kind of cold or flu, and although she has missed a few classes, she'll be coming back into town next weekend - but during the conversation, she admitted that at the moment, as she comes to terms with all of the unhealthy aspects of her parents' relationship with one another (is it really that bad? I wonder) she is not inclined to want to speak to either of us or to see us. While it's very difficult, even painful, to hear this, I also understand that just because she needs this space, it doesn't detract from the fact that we love her, and she loves us. That love is a constant, regardless of temporary circumstance.

But as I say, with the rain, and the grief and the loss and the pain, it's hard to remember sun and Spring. Hard to remember warmth when your fingers are numb with cold. Hard to accomplish the aforementioned figuring out of how best to move forward when one is feeling one has already squandered so much time. How can I make my life count for more than it does? Most schools of thought put a great emphasis on love and in connecting with one's fellow fallible humans. It's all about love. It's all about relationships. Family. Friendships. This daunts me rather than encourages me. I can hardly find the resources to love and support myself; it seems impossible that I could be part of community. I just don't have the wherewithal to relate to others in any sincere way, so I continue to isolate myself like a wounded animal needing time to heal - while frantically feeling that this is too passive a way of being when my time may be horribly limited. Silly, isn't it?

I suppose the best thing today is give myself the gift of time - to prioritize my life so that I am taking that time, which I feel is such a limited resource, and using it but not filling it. In other words, instead of panicking and packing every moment with something active but in the big picture empty, I will try to breathe slowly, and let the moments be full in and of themselves. I have never been a patient person, and I have never been good at doing nothing. But perhaps if I can learn to honor the Now, and the Now, and the Now, I won't be wasting time concerned that I've lost the past or that I have no future.

Before Revision, Vision

Gee, let's look again at why I may feel a little adrift. The roll-call of what's happened in my life in the last eight months:

my oldest daughter graduated from high school and moved out
her boyfriend became her girlfriend (it's complicated but also not very)
my younger daughter stopped taking ballet after 10 years of dance and joined a 2nd orchestra
my husband left a job he's held for over a dozen years and started his own business
I went to Phoenix for a wedding, Wales for a sabbatical, Colorado for a funeral and Japan for business
I had a surprise suitor - flattering, but not at all welcome and not mutual
I lost five friends, family members and/or co-workers to death- some expected, some very sudden
I hired three new employees and fired one long-standing one
I've been forced to scrutinize my relationship of 30 years with my husband

I think that's all. Just that.

And so really, it is little wonder I feel I haven't been able to catch my breath, to take it in and find my way. I'd like to re-vision my life and en-vision where I want to go, what I want to do - kind of what I want to be when I grow up, I suppose. And as a colleague pointed out today, "Gee, all you have to do is buy a new house and a new car to complete the list!" She's right. And what's funny is that those two items are actually on my list.

But I also feel like I can't seem to get my brain around where I am now.

Can you find your path to the next way-station, the next place to stop for the night, if you don't have a "You Are Here" X on the map? Perhaps. Another friend whom I ran into at random last night (is any of this random), said, "Sometimes you don't have to 'sit with it' - sometimes you just know the change has to happen and you just do it."

New Month, New Post

So I did break my daily posting streak by a week and a half; however, rather than go back to fill in blanks I'm starting fresh again with the new month.

The swords of daffodil leaves are starting to cut their way through the winter earth, heralding (in my mind, anyway) the approach of St. David's Day. March 1st. Spring.

There's the struggle to push through dark and cold and the dead tangled messes inside & out right now, toward warmth, light, growth and green. This weekend I'll be working on the back yard and the clutter in the house.

Three weeks into the eight-week fitness challenge; it's been going well. With one exception, I've had no dairy, no grains, no alcohol and no sugar (not even honey) since Jan. 10. It's been surprisingly easy - have I already said as much? That and daily exercise, stretching, drinking lots of water and getting lots of sleep - all combine to keep my body healthy even if my mind still feels numb with overwhelm.

But as I say, the daffodils are making an appearance.