Our Bench

As we stroll alongside the glistening lake, I notice a few benches adorned with plaques or inscriptions, honoring the beloved individuals whose loved ones have dedicated these spots to them. The benches are mostly new and well cared for. Some made from the local pink flagstone and some of beautiful wood. A heartfelt representation of their persons favorite view immortalized on their behalf.

The dogs, constantly urging us along our path, we come across a rather unassuming sight: a weathered wooden bench nestled amidst the serene shores of the lake. I may have missed it if I hadn’t stopped to tie my boot laces. Despite its somewhat neglected appearance, with warped boards and peeling paint, the bench exudes a sturdy and sound presence. It bears no inscription, dedication, or claimant, suggesting that it has stood witness to countless memories and moments of solace over the years.

I yell ahead to my husband of many lifetimes “I claim this bench as our own!.”

This worn bench has been around for quite some time, just like us. It’s witnessed some breathtaking beauty and has likely provided a much-needed break and respite to someone who was feeling weary, a place to rest for those who felt they couldn’t go on. Despite enduring the relentless pounding of the sun for days on end and the powerful winds from the west for countless nights, it stands tall and sturdy, bearing the scars of its experiences.

Yet here it is, an old and weathered bench, still standing strong, like us.

Wrinkles

In an attempt to boost my social media presence and gain more readers for my writing, I found myself in a peculiar situation. A friend, a social media expert, suggested that I post more pictures of myself alongside my writings. While this idea seemed like a good way to connect with my audience, it also led to an unexpected realization: I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with my appearance.

It was as if I had never truly seen my face befor! Yet now in the frozen snapshots captured on social media, it was hard to accept that is me now. The deep wrinkles around my mouth, the “smokers” lines and the heavy wrinkles that are amplified when I laughed or smiled, all became starkly visible. I was stunned, wondering if this was truly how I looked. It was as if my daily mirror glances had become a distant memory, replaced by a distorted reflection in the digital realm.

Acknowledging the reality of aging and the natural transitions that come with it, I tried to reassure myself. Ointments, fillers, and Botox were all options I considered. I diligently applied my retinol and wore sunscreen daily, recognizing the impact of my past neglect of these skincare routines, coupled with the years spent in the sun and the arid climate of my home for over four decades, reflecting back to me in my face.

Despite these efforts, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something more was needed. I wondered if I needed a little intervention to enhance my appearance. But then, I paused to consider the deeper meaning of this quest. This was who I was now, at the age of 60, why was I so focused on gaining external validation?

As I grappled with these questions, I realized that I could choose to disconnect from social media, return to my ignorance, and shove my head (literally) back in the sand. Alternatively, I could delve deeper into the options available, consult with my dermatologist, and explore the various treatments that might help me achieve a more satisfactory appearance.

I am trying to come to terms with who I am and to love myself and my appearance. I’m trying to embrace my life well-lived skin and find inspiration in other women. Those who smile with glee without a care for wrinkles on their screens are my source of strength. I truly do see them as beautiful - so why not me?

I’ll continue using retinol, sunscreen, and hats, and I may consult my dermatologist for additional suggestions. However, when I see those lines and crevices in my photos, I’ll do my best to embrace them and become one of those women who smile gleefully. Hoping to help another woman who is catching her first glimpse of her “current” self.

We are not defined by our wrinkles. Our appearances do not limit us. Express yourself through your clothing style, color your hair, or let it grow long and gray. Whatever it is for you, be true to yourself.

After this self acceptance pep talk I raise my finger and gently trace the indentations near my mouth. I can feel their depths. I can feel their widsom and their experiences. I softly carress them with love.

Slipping Away From Myself

I sit here staring out the floor to ceiling windows. Light snow/ drizzle outside. The earth getting a much needed dampening. 

I feel myself slipping outside of myself. A trance. I told someone recently I’m on auto pilot. I don’t feel alive. Is this depression?  Is this disassociation?  I’m sure there are  100+ more diagnosis and words for what I’m experiencing.  

I wake up and meditate for approx 20 min. I get up go in a 1.5 mile hilly walk with my husband and the dogs. I set my own work schedule and do mostly what I want when I want. And yet it feels like my life isn’t truly my own. 

I’m just biding time.  It’s ticking growing louder and louder every day. 

The little things

Finn waiting for me and greeting me so lovingly. So happy to see me, tail wagging, ears flopping, leash dragging.

The 15 minutes of brilliant sunshine reprieve on a cloudy grey day. 

My love tucking a blanket around me like I am a child that needs comforting.

Witness

Witness 

To the man in tux and beautiful woman with your amazing afro hair and fully dressed to kill. Standing on the side of the road in the drizzling dusk, fender hanging off their car, dialing on their cell phones. They are going to be late. 

And to the couple in parking lot - as we got our dogs ready for a hike we overheard them from the car parked next to us. “I don’t want to be married to you anymore”.  Spoken loudly and firmly.  

I’m so sorry

The Wrap

My first time here. I was 20 years old. Now 40 years later I am sitting in the same exact room. Back then I was camping in the parking lot not even recalling who brought me here. Now I am in a luxury room with a small kitchenette. The room I’m in stirs my 40 year old memories. Really just the windows in this room are all that remains from back the. 6 leather lounge chairs, a table, and a few ottomans with a sauna and steam room now sit boldly in the corner

However, all those decades ago, this rooms had an entirely different experience.

My younger blonder self stepped into the darkened long room. The wooden tables lined up side by side with nearly space to squeeze between them. I lay, as instructed upon the scratchy warm woolen blankets with a towel as a buffer. The Native American men coming to each table one by one. We are all laid out like offerings, and they begin to wrap.

Tightly and securely wrapping each one of us in the warmed blankets Like body burritos on the flat planks. Tightly. Then somehow tighter still. My arms pinned by my side a wave of claustrophobia rolls through me. I can’t move. Then my internal voice states the obvious “yes that is the point” then somehow he tugs and pulls and tucks stronger and even tighter still. The deeply set windows above my head, 2-3’ recessed into the thick stone walls, my only mode of escape. Knowing it is there somehow soothes me and calms any panic that arises. A warm towel is laid across my eyes. I am fully immersed now

The sweat begins. My pores open. Sweat forms across my temples Softening - releasing. I can feel poisons leaving my body. My breath slows my hearts tempers its beat.

Hours pass (maybe 20 minutes?) and suddenly and angel of sorts appears with water in a thin paper cup with a straw. She places the straw to my lips as she gently lifts my head. Like a nurse with a feeble patient. I swallow the cold water with so much appreciation Feeling it slide down my throat and my cells absorbing it.

I think I fell asleep. I hear others in the room (about 20 of us) some softly snoring The room is brimming with us human burritos.

After many many hours (maybe 60 minutes?) the same strong dark hands firmly begin to release the tucks. Sternly pulling the blankets away. The woolen hug loosing. I am fully released from its grip. I’m instructed to move slowly to take my time. Allow a moment. As I swing my leaden feet to the cool stone floor the wooden table creaks. I glance at the door and see a figure sitting on a short three legged battered stool. The gate keeper. The space holder. Perhaps the angel of water?

I feel a sense of peace that they are there for us. This pod of beings lined up on tables are being tended to. Watched over. My feet find my flip flops and I retreat slowly from the blackness as I reach for the door intently whisper to the figure on the stool “what was that?” A husky whisper replies. “It is your welcome to ojo cliente “’

The View: Sept 3

The View:  Tues Sept 3rd

Hot, rough, pink stone

Warmth beneath my left foot,

 as the right

Dangles wildly above it.

Left; flat souled, drawing down deeper into 

Sun warmed flagstone, soaking up the day

Right: flitters about in an

Invisible, unheard, rhythm 

tapping through it

Casting shadow puppets chaotically across the patio

The waning sunlight their director.

Look Up

The green flowing contours of my view

A slow motioned flux of

Peaks, valleys and clouds

Still sunlit 

depths slowly growing cooler on my exposed warm skin

The rich forest green, spotlit and glowing 

Now a deep emerald, the color of a stormy Irish Sea

The suns casting its magic upon us 

As a painter with a brush

The valleys’ corners are gleaning now

Red adirondack chairs , 

the perch, the vantage, the place of witness, 

sacred spaces

Casting my shoulders back

by design

Ever so easily affording the cross of the knees

Right foot over left

Air over ground

Flight over anchor

Time for a sweatshirt.

Peony

This morning I tossed the last bloom in the trash.  It was a soft cream color, the petals limp and lifeless, its stem struggling to suck up the water it was immersed in.  Before I released it into the dirt filled waste bin I took one last sniff.  I snuggled my nose deep into the faded bloom and inhaled.  It was still there that undeniable scent of peony.  The softness of the petals now crisp, yet the scent still lingered, barely.  I tried to hold on to that scent as it will be another full year until I am able to harvest the peony blooms from my small mountain yard again. 

I began cutting the blooms from my peonies about a month ago.  Typically May and June are peony season.  For us living at over 7800 feet in altitude, it is usually June. I have been known to place umbrellas over my buds during the freakish snowstorms of late May here in the high country.  Tenderly caring for them and genuinely excited to see the sliver of openings in their tight bud ball reveal the beginnings of the bloom.

During the bloom season I carefully select the ones that are in their full glory, bursting with beauty, their petals smooth and soft and full, their stems barely able to keep them upright.  I carefully trim the clipped blooms and place them in glass jars around the house.  I love walking by the crystal hutch in our dining room, on my way to retrieve our vacuum and suddenly my nose is tickled.  The sweetness entering my nose, my brain quickly trying to place it.  Momentarily “what is that smell”? Passes through my thoughts, then just as quickly it is identified and I remember the jar of peony blooms I set out a few days ago on top of that hutch.  Or when I am in bed reading it catches me a bit off guard, unexpecting, trickling into my nostrils and then the question of identification, quickly followed by the recognition of the smell, and at once feeling refreshed and feeling my shoulders soften just from the scent.

They say that scent transports you to emotional memories.  

We had rented a house on the island of Nantucket. Nantucket was the home I never knew I missed. Our four rowdy kids running around the large house, the beach, the town.  Exploring the many streets on our bikes, cruising the flat winding coastal roads.  At the local farmers market I bought the largest bunch of peonies I could hold.  Securing them into my bike basket, I cared for them on the transport to the house.  I would ease my bike slowly over the bumps and turns being sure not to bend stems, or ruffle their precious blooms.  

I filled several jars with the flowers and put the biggest collection of them on our night stand directly beside the bed.  After full days of peach pies, ocean swimming and bike riding, each night I would inhale the deeply sweet, intoxicating scent of them.  As a lighthouse beam would swoop gently across our dark bedroom walls and reflect easily across our bedroom window, I would catch a sniff of my favorite flower.  I would reach out to touch their smooth petals.  Occasionally when a petal would fall from the bloom I would take it and gently rub it across my skin, desperately trying to supplant their nectar, their gentle moisture and subtleness into my own sun parched skin.

We recently purchased a small lot in the old western agricultural town of Paonia CO. Peonía being the spanish word for Peony. Paonia was settled in 1880 by Samuel Wade, Paonia is named for the peony roots he carried with him from Ohio. The town has 1500 inhabitants and at least that many peonies bushes, and of course, peaches.  Our lot is close to the downtown area, and currently it is a pretty ugly site, but we have big plans!  One of which is to plant as many peony bushes across the front of our yard as is physically possible.  

Full Woman of Wholeness = Crone.

I was late for my appointment, an appointment I had arranged weeks before. I shuffled in my worn sandals as quickly as I could through the hot crowded narrow alleys towards my hotel, our agreed upon meeting location. I skidded into the front reception of my hotel, only knowing it was the right one from all the other nondescript doors along this particular alleyway because of the large cow that was tied up outside.  The cow was tan and white with a large green rope gently draped across her neck.  Here in India the cow is sacred and treated accordingly. She was my location finder.

As I dashed past the front desk of my hotel, I was sweating and out of breath.  I plowed through the mazes of tunnel-like hallways to the “backyard” of the hotel property.  There he was, a vedic priest, sitting on an old plastic chair in a patch of thick bladed green grass, the kind that is sharp under your feet.  The grass patch was surrounded by a concrete patio.  He was dressed in the traditional white wrappings of his caste and the “sacred thread” of the Brahmins laid diagonally across his body.  It astounded me how in this ancient city filled with ash, dirt, pollution and so many people and cows, the locals kept their clothes so pristine. Despite my tardiness and the midday sun blaring down on us,he seemed cool and patient, a gentle smile spreading across his face as I approached.

There was a white cinder block wall to the left of my priest and over that wall was the thick greenish brown water of the Ganges river.  We were down a few hundred feet from the ceremonial cremation grounds so prevalent here in the holiest of cities, Varanasi. The smoke from the funeral pyres was a constant as it rolled over the walls of the hotel property and surrounded our small gathering.

I sat in the faded red plastic chair that had seen better days - there was a small, slightly tilted card table in front of us. To my left was my little hotel, the troublemaking monkeys still scurrying about on the balcony railings above.  As I sat and gathered myself I recalled replying to his email a month or so ago with the answers to his questions in preparation for this vedic astrological reading. My birthdate, birth time, location etc.  

He laid out my charts he had created onto the wobbly table. In my hurry to get to this meeting I had forgotten to grab a notebook or pen and paper so I couldn’t write down the pertinent information he was to lay out for me.  I did jot a few notes down in the margins of the charts he had prepared.  I remember asking him about the unsettling changes that I was experiencing, my entrance into perimenopause, hot flashes, mood swings, and a lot of anger.  Specifically how I hated the word Crone. 

One date was extremely important, he told me and asked me to mark this day in my calendar. Perhaps seeing my glazed and slightly preoccupied look he said “put it in your phone”  I grabbed my phone from my bag and scrolled into the future.  Six years into the future, March 7 2023. He spoke these words as I typed them into my phone “Full Woman of Wholeness = Crone.”

I absorbed as much of the profoundness as I could that is India. India touched deep into my soul, I cried often there, I felt things deeply there. It is designed that way. Varanasi, a congested, bustling city dating back to the 11th century B.C. the spiritual capital of India stirred up long forgotten dreams. On my last night in India, in Varanasi, my roommate and I got tattoos.  Again we were late for the appointment with the American tattoo artist we had run across, the boyfriend of another friend we had just met. I dozed on my small bed in the cramped room as he tattooed my roommates forearm with the waning and waxing phases of the moon.  It was well past midnight when he began to tattoo the piece of street art i had snapped a picture of earlier that week onto my left outer ankle.  This idea of getting a tattoo (I had never had one before) and its design and placement had come to me a few days earlier in restless mid day nap dream in this same bed.  

This trip was over six years ago now, but I still treasure those memories, even if I don’t think of them often. It sometimes takes a little reminder, like someone inquiring about my tattoo or by wearing a piece of jewelry or shawl I purchased there, and then they flood back.  The sounds, bells, gongs, taxi horns and chanting, and the smells, a mixture of incense and smoke, are what first come to mind when I cast my thoughts back to this sacred city.

This particular memory of my meeting with the vedic priest came back to me in full this past Sunday evening.  In my little mountain home, I was preparing for my week as I generally do on Sunday evenings by reviewing what is in my phone calendar and transferring those events of the week into my bullet journal notebook.  I scrolled through the days of the week on my phone and was stunned when I read the words “Full Woman of Wholeness = Crone” on this upcoming Tuesday.  It took me aback and at first puzzled me.  What did that mean? When did I write that?  Was it a mistake?   It was in a different color bar than what I typically use in my calendar and yet it was distantly familiar. The swatch of thick bladed grass, bending down in my unstable faded red chair to dig my phone from my bag, the seemingly endless scrolling forward into the future six years.  The late afternoon meeting in the holy city of Varanasi and a vedic priest insisting I put this entry into my phone calendar.

It was a Tuesday, a full moon, a day I could have easily skimmed through as I do so many days. I began doing some research and scrambling to find those old chart papers with my scribbles in the margins. My Second Saturn Return. I had heard this term recently from some friends in casual passing, I wasn’t sure what they meant and I didn’t really have any pull to learn, until now of course.  Google searches and Wikipedia revealed:

“The second Saturn Return is meant to reconnect people with their sense of purpose and set them up for meaningful later years,  it's a time when you pick up that metaphorical megaphone and announce who you are  At the second Saturn Return, people often feel like they're finally free to do what they want -- no longer trying to please or prove themselves to others.  The return occurs in Saturn cycles of approximately 28 years. If we are lucky we have three Saturn Returns in our lifetime: the first at ages 27-30 years old, the second at ages 56-59 years old (the exact years depend on the degrees of Saturn in your personal astrology birth chart) and the third at about 85-88 years old.  Saturn is a Roman name of the ancient Greek god Kronos that rules over boundaries, structure and time.   In horoscopic astrology, a Saturn return is an astrological transit that occurs when the planet Saturn returns to the same ecliptic longitude that it occupied at the moment of a person's birth.[1][2] 

This forgotten calendar entry brought back a flood of memories.  Memories from six years prior when I was on that auspicious trip to India. 

Complete any unfinished business. Now is the time.

This seemed even more poignant to me now as I recalled the funeral pyre smoke drifting across my nostrils all day and all night while I was in Varanasi.  

We don’t have as much time as we think.

Dog Walker.

I took a job as a dog walker today, have committed to walking my neighbors two dogs one hour every week day.  Its good pay.  I will get in shape.  I can listen to books on tape.  I have to show up every day - at ANY time during the day - so essentially I’m making my own hours.  Sweet side-gig, and I’m terrified. 

Showing up for myself everyday to exercise,to get a specific task done by a set number of hours, this has not been my strong suit.  I know it is what most folks in the world call “work”or a “job”, and I’ve done my fair share of them throughout my life yet….

Now, after 35 years of child rearing and not really being in the “outside of the home” work force I feel like I really don’t belong anywhere.  I’m in a sort of job purgatory.  Too old to start over, too young to not do something. I’ve submitted multiple applications for positions like Nanny, Writer, Admin Assistant, Personal Assistant…and the reply has been; crickets.  

It has been hard for me to be accountable to myself lately. I was always making sure one of my kids got to an appointment on time, or that forms were filled out and submitted, basically being accountable FOR my children and that WAS myself.  Now they are self sufficient and I find myself a bit lost.  

With benefits like extra cash (the pay is great!) the consistency (yeah routine!), the being out in nature (fresh air!), the exercise (been moaning about losing last 5 pounds!), the getting an hour or so to listen to a podcast or book on tape (another thing I”ve wanted to do for a bit), basically doing anything “good”  for myself on a regular basis hasn’t been a constant in my life.  My inconsistency was my constant. I’ve been longing for years to find my discipline. Yet here I am languishing over this decision about walking dogs on the regular.   

In retrospect I’m grateful that I’ve had such variety in my life.  Raising four kids, it was something.  It was definitely not boring.  And when it was, which was rare, the pause was a relief.  Now boredom has seemed to settle over me, like a lovely old quilt, that smells, “only a little’ of cat piss.  Somehow comforting and familiar and somewhat uncomfortable, but still longing.

 I haven’t been able to keep a routine, especially a morning one, yet I’ve “wanted” to for quite a while.  I have wanted to exercise regularly but somehow the equipment sits and sarcastically collects dust.  My “home practice” is almost extinct, lets say its on the endangered list.  I once taught yoga so I could again “show up for myself” if even through the commitment to others.  

Slowly I’m finding my own rhythm, my own pace, with a lot of stumbles and flat out falls into the pit of self doubt, quickly followed by the depth of despair.  This ugly spiral is fueled by my own self judgment.  Step by wobbly step, I hope to commit more to myself on these self care routines, habits, desires, but until that day seeps into me like a habit, I’m a dog walker.

Read Pema.

It was strongly suggested to me this week. “Read Pema”. 

Read Pema.  Really?  “I’ve read Pema” says my snarky self to my even more snarky self.  I’ve done the yoga retreats and the buddhist classes and the personal growth training and I’ve certainly read Pema.  I decided to Read Pema. 

I am actually “listening” to Pema Chodron this week. The assignment to read Peam, collided with the start of my new job as a neighborhood “dog walker”. The structure of my daily dog walks allows me to “listen to Pema” as I walk, wth the occasional poop pick up.  

I have my two, four footed charges safely by my side, their leashes secured while I have one earbud plugged into “audible” tethered to my trusty orange iphone. I keep my other ear free from buds in order to hear oncoming traffic, gratefully not much, mostly contractors at that early hour.  Their pickup trucks bouncing along the dirt roads, ladders and tools defying gravity.  I would, on occasion, be distracted from the reading. Squirrel, dog off leash, aforementioned poop.  I have yet to figure out how to stop the narrator on audible with a heavily mittened hand and simultaneously pull in one of the dogs that has wandered with his expandable leash a bit too far into the road.  Instead,I half ass it. 

I estimate I’ve missed about 35% of what is read. The other 65% of the time, while the eight paws and two human feet synchronistically hit the ground, Pema’s words come through, sudden and sharp. I'm not even certain of this audio books  title.  Many of Pema Chodrons’s glorious books are filled with the basic concept repeated,  basic goodness. Her proliferance for saying the most amazing things over and over in a very different way each writing is a true talent of expressing the Dharma.  Every time you re-read her books you learn a whole new lesson and deeper understanding.

On my dog walk today, one of those lessons was to find beauty in the boring.  The washing of the dishes analogy.  To be fully present in all we do, including washing the dishes.  Enjoy the warmth of the water and the scent of the soap and the lightness of the bubbles.  Fully present with the seemingly trivial action.  

I don’t wash my dishes by hand, but I do vacuum. It is an addiction and a nemesis. This habitual pattern has been built upon years and years of multiple hairy dogs, at least one equally hairy cat that often slinks into the house with a close to dead backyard find. Not to mention the four children and their plethora of shoes through the years. The floor dirt has not improved now that we live on a dirt road.  As my family can attest, I take my daily vacuuming seriously. 

So after “reading” Pema, today I will practice being more fully present with this daily ritual. I’ll do my best to drop into the sacredness of that present moment,  respecting the sweeping movement, the uplifting action, and be grateful for my long living Miele vacuum.  

Finding the beauty in the mundane.  

-Ryn Robinson

Letting Go.

I am writing this on the last evening of summer.  Fall, and its full on vibe, arrives tomorrow. Fall creeps into our consciousness, our bodies and our lifestyles. Its hard to overlook the bright yellow school buses as they cruise our streets or the matching yellow leaves they scatter in their wake.  A pumpkin on every porch stoop. However, I'm not quite ready to let summer go.

I adore the high country (land above the piedmont and below the timberline). My summer road trips this year included some of my Colorado favorites:

Westcliffe - Pop 568, Alt 7658 - Salida - Pop 5,666, Alt 7068 - Ouray - Pop 1,000, Alt 7792 - Ridgway - Pop 924, Alt 6985 - Telluride - Pop 2,059, Alt 8750

In my exploratory travels we drove through the San de Cristo mountain range just outside of Westcliffe.  Witness to the “blood of Christ” sun reflecting off the tips of the range, forming a crown around the perimeter of the town, a green golden valley glistening below,  the dark amber sunset of the evening setting upon the horizon.

Tonight I sit with a more familiar mountain before me. I try to decipher this mountain now in its contrasting form. I am intimately familiar with this mountain. I've been on it hundreds of times.  But today, in this changing season, it’s almost unrecognizable to me. Almost foreign now with its brown rocky edges and mottled clusters of cliffs and evergreens scattered upon it instead of my typical experience of it in its soft white blanket.

My “local” friend helps me find the recognizable landmarks on the brown ridge above tree line. He gently points out to me the bowls that I’ve skied, showing me where my favorite lifts and runs are on this unfamiliar landscape of my off season perspective. As I recognize more and more of the terrain, snow filled memories flood my mind. Skiing this mountain in a "snow globe", crystalline moisture suspended in the air. Sunlight glistened upon the edge of each minuscule perfectly shaped flake, creating a kaleidoscope of beauty to ski through. Carving out fresh tracks, often with very few others - strangers - but not - we let out a collective woop, and as a small community, we take the leap and hop down into the fresh pillowy bliss of the powder.

I draw my gaze away from the majestic view of the mountaintop towards its muladhara - the base,  the root of the mountains as it holds court before us. It feels so strong and humbling.  As my eyes focus closer in, I see the leaves are just beginning their metamorphosis, slowly releasing their chlorophyll until the absolute synchronized moment when they make the decision, and release, fully release. They flutter towards the earth, such a long, casual affair that lasts a few seconds. No panic. No hurry. Just a natural letting go.

I am a summer “holder-on-er”; it's my "favorite" season. This summer, didn’t disappoint and blessed us with its realm of glorious sun, showers  and rainbows.  I miss them already.

It is happening, the air is growing crisper the apples, now reigning the market, usurping the glorious peaches of palisades.  Viewing the golden aspens shivering against the pungently clear blue sky is classic Colorado fall.  I, like the leaves, will take my time following my own inner knowledge and of course the wisdom of nature, waiting for just the right moment to let go.

Westcliffe

The immensity of the Sky

as if we were tiny Lego people in a Lego village

the sky so Vast it Swallowed us whole

a Soft blanket laid Lightly upon my soul

Population: 559 (2020)

Elevation: 7,867′

And She’s Off…

I gave her a final hug in the security check line, the last possible place I could physically touch her without an altercation with the TSA agent that was already giving me the side eye. As she crept forward in line, I ran alongside the flimsy barrier to try and catch a few final glimpses of her. I scanned the individual queues and spotted her with the security agent she was showing her documents to. I scooted, like a crazed stalker, slinking, half run/walking, further down the large hall towards a strategically placed large glass window. This window is in the direct line of sight of the escalator that carries passengers leaving the security area towards the awaiting trains that will take them to their terminals, gates, and eventual planes.

In my frenzied moments of watching her from afar in the airport security line I struggled with my anxiety; “‘where is she? I can’t see her, why is she taking so long, she should have picked the shorter line, i hope she remembered to take her laptop out” my monkey mind raced. Suddenly she came into my view, unruffled, beautiful, confident and poised, stepping gracefully onto that escalator.

In retrospect I saw her process through that security check as a symbolic place of her metamorphosis. On this day, 21 years from the day of her birth, 21 years of living at our semi neurotic pace, of moving primarily as we do and as we directed her to, she has found her own cadence, sorting how she wants to move, which line she wants to choose, how quickly she wants to unlace and lace her shoes. She was hitting her own stride.

It reminded me of those times when we step off of a moving walkway, we have been taken along for the ride at the mechanical pace that was set for us. The walkway eventually ends, we actually see solid ground drawing closer, and as we step off we are left to find our own rhythm of propulsion forward. There is a little awkward step, a stumble sometimes, and then the security of finding our feet beneath us, solid, moving us forward.

That delightfully elegant young woman that appeared on the escalator heading towards her train was my baby, now heading off on her own into the world. She was oblivious to my deranged existence spying on her through that window as she began her decent to the platform. The woman standing behind her saw me right away, smiling to me compassionately. My panic rising and my heart sinking I thought to myself, she wasn’t going to look up, she wasn’t going to notice me. Then finally, at the last minute before she was to be completely out of sight, she glanced up, spotted me and gave me a tender wave.

And she was off.

I turned sharply, eyes stinging, and headed into the dark depths of the cold parking garage.

In the Lap of the Buddha

While I struggled to get out of bed this morning I read an article by Jack Kornfeld about Bodhisatvas during the time of this pandemic. I awoke with crippling worries of my elderly father or mother contracting this virus and perhaps dying now, of all times, and of all things to end a long life with. My fears of my adult sons out in the world making their way through these dangerous waters of jobs, relationships and loneliness. Compounded with the overall suppressive weight of sadness and anxiety pronounced currently in our world on every screen I look to. Per the Jack Kornfeld Bodhisattva article we are to take those fears, worries and anxieties and lay them in the lap of the Buddha. “Allow them to be carried by great winds across the sky” as the Ojibwa elders state. Just the simple act of reading these words softened my shoulders and opened my chest. However, then, as a Bodhisattva, you are to turn back to the world, towards sickness, deaths and fears and absorb them, take them in, allow them to penetrate you from all angles. Accept them from others in an attempt to offer relief and to radiate back generosity, clarity, steadiness and love.

This is the time for love, for beaming love to others — across the divide of social distancing and sheltering in place. To our trash truck driver with his quick smile as he carries away our refuse. To the brown bears that have awakened and are prowling our mountain. Now is the time for my fears for my parents and children to soften and open my heart to those same fears in others. My friends jobs, my neighbors loneliness, strangers lives and losses. Recognize this in them, behind their masks, beyond their rubber gloves, isolation, dismay and confusion. At this moment, this exact moment, keep my heart, our hearts, open with compassion.

I feel caught in non-doing. I want to do something; I don’t have a working sewing machine (plus hate sewing) so not making masks. I am supporting and buying from small businesses only, I am buying gift cards of local massage therapists, barbers, and restaurants. I have cut my hours so my teammates that have lost so much income can gain some extra. I am trying to keep my in-household family safe and well-fed, house cleaned and sheets fresh. I’ve made a few hollow financial donations. But what I can do, my “best and most noble aspiration” is to shine my light. This morning I had to dig around through my anxiety in the knotted sheets of my bed to find that light — but it lit as soon as I threw back the covers and placed my feet upon the soft wooden floor beneath me, like the flip of a switch. As the belly of the mother that the Buddha shone through — a lamp in the darkness — shining the light of love to all in my presence, across the distances and in my immediate periphery.

We were born with consciousness, it is our humanness. It is in our genetics to respond with love, to infants it is a gut reaction To elders it is a tenderness with each birthday I cross. Tears are expressions of love, as is laughter, we can’t help but love. Open our compassionate hearts, ingest the pain and suffering of our neighbors and respond with love, then in turn, placing all in the lap of the Buddha.

*a Free Write in response to Allison Stones: “The Sun Above”

She’s Leaving Home

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins….

Her test flights are going well.  Boyfriend, job, school, harp lessons, art projects.  I used to push her to be more “out in the world” as she is naturally inclined to be “inside her world” but now she has hit a steady stride of equanimity - the world has gained a beautiful gem.

Oh world, please be kind to her.

She was born at a time when life as we knew it changed forever. That mid September morning act of terrorism eventually led her oldest brother off to a war.  She was eleven days old when two planes struck the World Trade Centers.  We huddled in the security of our family bed together as we watched the horrors unfold. The world at her feet, now permanently altered.  

I remember having a little crib chat with her on that day - asking her to stay with us, to be strong. We need her softness, her kindness, her gentleness. I worried about the strain on her tender soul. I muttered into her sleeping baby ear “I do hope you will stay” but oddly I also gave her the option to go.

As our fourth child, I was so nervous about having  “pushed our luck”. How was it possible that we were blessed with four healthy children? The more kids we had the more the chances that something bad could happen,  I irrationally rationed. I used to fear walking down our steep steps with her in my arms, I could trip.  I would crawl up on her crib so as not to wake her to be sure i could see the rhythmic gentle rise and lower of the hand crocheted blanket covering her, soothing my unease.

Silently closing her bedroom door

Now a senior in high school, she still lives with us, or at least has her bedroom here.  Her bed is empty when I peak in before I go to bed.  Her bed is empty when I pass by with the vacuum in the morning.  Her curfew is later than my own bedtime, her morning routine is earlier than my waking.   I know there will be a day soon when she won’t be there for me to reach out and hug, stroke her creamy skin and smooth or long hair, it tears at my heart, the knowing of the longing to come that is now wrapped in the longing of what is.

A subtle golden stud occasionally sparkles from her right nostril when the light catches it.  Her first true rebellion, a nose piercing, looks perfect on her.  Her long blonde hair now hennaed a rich auburn seems to be her natural coloring.  She trusts herself, her instincts - she is knowing more and more who she is.  She is expressing herself and it is beautiful.

Between our tears and our heartbreak we witness her soaring. I steal glimpses of her. Her little red car, solid in holding her safely down the mountain roads away from the house into the town. Away from home.

Standing alone at the top of the stairs

She breaks down and cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone

She models the dresses given to her as gifts. Her tall thin frame carries them with elegance. 

We stare at her in amazement, how did she become this stunning young woman so suddenly?  When did her braces come off?  She has slipped into a young woman with ease, timelessly.

The family legend is that she saved my dad's life.  Gave him life.  A reason for life.

Heavily pregnant with her in Ireland, I take the call. I huddle into the phone receiver under the ancient stairs of the BnB.  My mother describes the procedure they were wheeling my father's hospital bed into. I smelled the ham being grilled for the guests in the kitchen next to the stairs.   My father on the end of the line, across the sea, the nurses stretching the cord of the phone to reach his ear as he lay on the bed.  I imagine the sterile white, blue/green of the room.  I hear the beeping of the machines, the struggle of his breath.  My last chance to speak with him before the doctors openly explore his heart.  I tell him through gulps of words caught in my dry throat, about  the tiny Irish sweater I saw in a shop window last night. He replied “buy the sweater, I can’t wait to see my new grandchild in it”.  I bought the sweater as soon as the shop opened that morning.  The news finally came, we could expect about five more years with my dad.  That was 18 years ago.  Cardiologists were amazed at his recovery and longevity.  What was it that over ruled their sentencing?  

That little sweater carefully placed with her other baby hood treasures in a cedar chest.  A testament to the power of her spirit and her grandfather's love. He looks forward to her graduation this spring.

Our job is nearly done, 32 years of growing people.  Four children nearly all flown.  Reacquainting ourselves, meals for two.  No need to really set the table any longer.  Even the dinners left in the oven for her aren't eaten.  “I grabbed a bite earlier”.

Sometimes before I go to bed I go into her room and turn on her fairy lights.  Maybe fluff her bed pillows and turn on her space heater.  These little things are all I can do for her.  These tiny expressions of my love.

Logically of course she is leaving.  We are very proud. She's made fantastic grades.  She’s made great choices.  She’s handled herself and situations with grace.  We pat ourselves on our backs for a job well done while inside we ache.

Waiting to keep the appointment she made

Meeting a man from the motor trade

As the years slip by, I long for the mother to child touch. I did not realize it would end so quickly. I miss feeling her thinness, her bird-like body, her girl scent, her thin legs.  My children are held by lovers now. My maternal touch has been replaced by her 6’ tall dark handsome first love.  

Freddie feels my pain.  The ginger has been her best friend and companion his entire life.  As a kitten she would dress him up.  He would slink out of her room with beaded necklaces dragging behind him.  As a cat does he would give us the look of “This is so degrading '' mixed with his utter devotion and love for her.  Every morning she slipped him a small saucer of milk.  Now in her absence we are left to continue this ritual to his loud meows until it is done.  He sleeps on her bed most of his days now.  He sits by the door and stares at it for hours, waiting, patient.  Sometimes I'll sit with him, Fred and I sharing her loss.  Missing our girl.  The tabby is older now, slower, a bit fatter, but his mistress is still his mistress.  “Where is she?” He questions us daily.  “When is she coming home?” 

Quietly turning the backdoor key

Stepping outside she is free

Our already grown and flown kids come by for meals, birthdays, holidays.  A pile of monster sized mens shoes inside the door, respectfully removed, as they were taught for all those years.  In the kitchen their man sized bodies fill the space.  Picking at foods, rummaging through the pantry.  Peeking into the fridge for the craft beers.  Setting the table for six, is one of my greatest joys.  

Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away

When all four are together they are a force, they are a pod, a clan, links in an invisible unbreakable chain.  They are all very different and they never forget they are the same, they are siblings, bound.  They share the burden of care for each other.  Their wings are strong, their innate spirits lifting them, individually and collectively.  We await their occasional return.

Her room is so empty now. 

Bye bye.
*Beatles: She’s Leaving Home written by Paul McCarthy

Spoon Fed: Life During Coronavirus

Our lives were going along in a normal fashion even as reports of a respiratory illness were coming out of China and had begun to hit the media.  My husband was still traveling on business, returning from a trip to Chicago at the end of February, 2020.  Our 18 year old daughter was enjoying her final semester of her senior year of high school.  I went on a “girls” trip to Washington DC in early March.  Like the rest of the world, we were following the reports, but with no great concern as to what it all was going to mean eventually.  

On my DC trip  we went to all the common, crowded, tourism sites.  I tried to wear my winter leather gloves everywhere, too warm for the beautiful spring weather, but more as a half-hearted attempt at precaution.  My sister uncharacteristically asked a stranger at the airport she saw coughing open mouthed to please cough into her elbow.  We had awareness yes, but no idea of the escalation that was soon to come. 

CDC:  The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The disease was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019.

Growing up, every weeknight evening a man sat behind a desk and read the news on television.  He wore a suit and tie, the desk was plain, in the background was a clock.  He was on at six o’clock, on three channels, sometimes only one. He just sat there with papers in front of him and read - dispassionately.  He wasn’t angry or outraged. He wasn’t snarky or funny. He would just read the information to the cameras.  The viewers would make up their own minds about the information they heard.  They would talk perhaps with others the next day at the office and discuss what was on the news the night prior. There was the opportunity to make up our own minds about the news. After 30 minutes he was done reading and he would sign off, until the next evening.  

An important role which is often ascribed to the media is that of “agenda-setter”. Georgetown University professor Gary Wasserman describes this as "putting together an agenda of national priorities — what should be taken seriously, what lightly, what not at all". Wasserman calls this "the most important political function the media perform.”

“Always predict the worst and you’ll be hailed as a prophet” - Tom Lehrer

We currently have thousands if not tens of thousands of news sources at our mere finger tips.  We don’t have to tune in to one particular channel at a specified time on a certain day.  It is ALL there for us 24/7. Some of our major news sources are:  ABC News, CBS News, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, NBC, New York TImes, LA Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Vice News, CNET, Techmeme, NPR, Hollywood Reporter, Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, The Guardian.  I’m sure each of you could add many more sources of where you get your information. Not even mentioned are the numerous omnipotent social media platforms we rabbit hole into daily, hourly.

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal with a market reach over 90% combined.

Approximately two weeks after my husband's business trip to Chicago he woke up not feeling well.  Headache, body aches, overall flu symptoms, he spent a few days on the couch horizontal, a very uncommon sight.  Two days later I woke up with similar symptoms.   We both wrote it off to a “bug”.  As the days wore on the symptoms began to compound.

• Upon waking each morning a bitter/poisoned feeling of the body

• The only time we felt good was when we were sleeping - we slept a lot

• I lost my sense of taste and smell 

• Night sweats, fever

• Body aches - headaches 

Then after about 5-7 days a second round of symptoms arose:

• Nausea vomiting diarrhea

• Rash on torso (spreading, itchy)

• Severe chills

• Cough

As we zombie-like stumbled around our home we tried to find remedies, anything to help relieve our symptoms, what worked for us were:

• Humidifier - ran non stop for 5 weeks

• Alka seltzer - for the nausea

• Tylenol - a staple every 4-6 hours

• HOT epsom salt baths - 2-3 a day some days

In the depths of the sickness time straggled on.  There were days when I struggled to get out of bed.  I often awoke with crippling worries of my sick elderly father or mother contracting this virus and perhaps dying now, of all times, and of all things to end a long life with.  My fears of my adult sons out in the world making their way through these dangerous waters of jobs, relationships and loneliness. Compounded with the overall suppressive weight of sadness and anxiety pronounced currently in our world on every screen I look to.  I found a Jack Kornfeld Bodhisattva article in which he urged us to take those fears, worries and anxieties and lay them in the lap of the Buddha. “Allow them to be carried by great winds across the sky” as the Ojibwa elders state. Just the simple act of reading these words softened my shoulders and opened my chest. Just a few words affected my unease profoundly.

On day eight I called my doctor. Her nurse practitioner said we most likely had Influenza A with an added GI bug.  We waited, slept and sweated it out.  At our sickest we were seeing reports everywhere of the Covid19 outbreak.  Countries were closing their borders, Washington State and California were reporting confirmed cases, “social distancing” became a thing, toilet paper was being hoarded…. we laid in our bed.  On day 12 I called our doctor again and was told it was possible we had COVID19 but we did not qualify for testing.  Wait it out, it should end soon, and if we have any trouble breathing we should get to the ER immediately.  

That Saturday I awoke in a start and literally leapt from my bed.  My chest was heavy, my pulse racing.  The usual sweat covered me.  I had to get outside, if I didn’t get to a place of spaciousness I knew I would die.  I ran to our open sun room, I looked upon the bright moon light to soothe me.  I practiced my yogic breathing, slowly following the breath through one nostril and crossing to the other nostril.  My mind was whizzing with fear, is this it?  Do I need to go to the hospital?  Am I breathing?  Is my pulse too fast?  I worked hard to steady my breathing, it was all I focused on.  I eventually found my way back to bed, and told my husband of my panic attack.  We laid down together and listened to a guided meditation.  After the unease quieted I marveled at what our minds can do to our bodies.

We continued to muddle through, sicker than we’ve ever felt. I had to get up one night and stop our grandfather clock, the usual comforting tick of the pendulum and melodic chime that comforted me most of my life, was now too much for my nervous system. 

To pass the hours and days when not sleeping and when I couldn’t find ANYTHING else on Netflix I would turn to my news app on my phone.   I am a known non-news gal, and have been told I even have “my head in the sand” when it comes to news. I have a strong belief that news is just “spoon feeding” our society.  When in 1990 the Kardashians began to inundate the media I decided I’d had enough.  I was over the sensational lure of the media, so clearly distributed for the sole purpose of generating revenue. The scent of hyperbole was overwhelmingly toxic.  I knew if there was something I needed to know, I would find out.  I have held true to this approach for my “news” for over ten years now.  Until Covid19.

It has been several weeks since my symptoms have receded.  I am no longer living on Tylenol.  I am no longer awakened in sweat and coughing spasms yet each morning I now read multiple news articles before I get out of bed.  I am addicted to seeing the charts and graphs each day, the number of changes in new cases and morbidly, the number of new deaths.  It is a sick sort of occult. It is the last thing I do before I close my eyes each night and first in the mornings.  I’m hooked, like a drug.  I've allowed myself to be swept up, I’ve lost my own mind.

 I long for the man behind the desk for 30 minutes each evening.

My meditation practice is replaced with fear, anxiety and worry.  

My yoga practice is replaced with doom scrolling.

Very slowly as my body heals and my mind adjusts to our new lifestyle I feel a prickle of awakening. A kindling of my own mind, my own truth, my own path to moving forward. Gradually my mind begins to rise away from the media fog I have entered for the past several weeks.  I am able to be a witness to how it has affected me. 

“More than half of Americans say the news causes them stress, and many report feeling anxiety, fatigue or sleep loss as a result. Yet one in 10 adults checks the news every hour, and fully 20% of Americans report “constantly” monitoring their social media feeds—which often exposes them to the latest news headlines, whether they like it or not.  Today’s news is “increasingly visual and shocking, and manipulative”  “Our studies also showed that this change in mood exacerbates the viewer’s own personal worries, even when those worries are not directly relevant to the news stories being broadcast,”

 The human brain is also wired to pay attention to information that scares or unsettles us—a concept known as “negativity bias“. “There’s this idea of following the news in order to be an informed citizen, but a lot of what you see today is gossip elevated to a sophisticated level,” if the news you consume is getting you worked up or worried—some would say this is exactly the goal of much of today’s coverage.

In an attempt to help snap me out of my media coma my husband sent me Some Good News with John Krasinski. It didn’t stick, perhaps due to the above mentioned “negativity bias”, it was just another channel, another media outlet. Another spoon feeding.

We are born with consciousness, it is our humanness.  It is in our genetics to respond with love to infants, compassion is a gut reaction to elders, a tenderness with each birthday I cross.  Tears are expressions of love, as is laughter, we can’t help but love or laugh. Open our compassionate hearts; ingest the pain and suffering of our neighbors and respond with love.  Social media has the ability to connect us with many people, yet we do have a responsibility to post things that are true, kind, beneficial, offered with good intention, and shared at the right time.

Do you remember Kobe Bryants helicopter crash headlines? The Australian wildfires? Death of Iranian major general Qasem Soleimani? #sussexit?  These were the top headlines a mere three MONTHS, 12 weeks, 90 days prior.

Was it my illness or media that clouded my mind?  Was it my “flu” or news that has made me feel down and depressed?  Has turning up news poisoned me or was it a novel virus from a wet market in Wuhan China? Assuredly a combination of both these toxins.

I have learned that all media simply takes you away from the reality of what is the present.  What and how much, and from where, we read/watch is a choice, even if a difficult choice.  I feel invaded, deluged in the media when I travel through an airport or sit at a bar with media flooding from the background. The world news can be overwhelming and leave us feeling helpless and powerless.  I have found all I can do is to be involved in my own community.  Support small local businesses, pay attention to my neighbors, notice what is going on in our community schools and local homeless populations.  I wholeheartedly endorse “if you want to change the world - start at home”. 

I know for me, for my peace of mind, for my own sanity I need to look away from the screens. I need to write more.  I need to stay hydrated and take my supplements.  I need to eat well.  I need to exercise and watch the sunset.  I need to continue my practices.  Break from media, limit information - don't allow this to derail me, stay the course for myself and those around me.  Feed my consciousness what nourishes it.

I have taken up my meditation practice again in the mornings, I practiced yoga for the first time in a month yesterday.  I am writing again.  I have turned off my news apps.  

As we gratefully see the numbers surrounding COVID19 pandemic begin to level off, as we hear of plans to reopen societies I can’t help but wonder what will be our next new “headline”  What will be served up next?                              

We are what we eat. 

“They don’t publish the good news

The good news is published by us

We have a special edition every moment”

Thich Nhat Hanh

As of April 15, 2020 in the United States:

622,923 confirmed cases

27,586 deaths

47,707 recovered

RESOURCES:

CDC website 

Wikipedia

worldometers.info

https://time.com/5125894/is-reading-news-bad-for-you/

dictionary.com

Written while loudly listening to and inspired by “Culture of Fear” by Thievery Corporation

https://www.metrolyrics.com/culture-of-fear-lyrics-thievery-corporation.html

The Second Half

======== “The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their fullest freedom and development…” ― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet =======

In a football game, it usually means you can come back for the win, even if you’re down, dependent of course,  upon the deficit at halftime. 

The second half, implying there are only two sections, the first and then the second, and that, my friends, is it. That's all we got. So here we are perched at the equinox, the equal point of light on the equator, the great divider of the halves. 

The first half went fast. Sure there were drudergy days that felt like centuries. There were those most horrible days that will never be forgotten, and those most glorious days that will never be forgotten, imprinted equally upon my soul. I now stare down the barrel of the second half of marriage, smack in my face. My husband's recent reply to the benign question innocently asked: “how old will you be this year?” and in his most crotchety old man voice possible his reply: “20 years ’til I’m 80!”. 

We are suddenly talking about retirement, not the airy dreamy wavy haze of talks when we were young about gardens and vacations. No, these talks have the twinge of outright bile in my throat reality to them. In how many years do you want to retire? Panic over the short distance that timeline is. The mortgage calculations keep me up at night. 

We’ve been married 23 years, together for 27. Looking at the second half we will be married for 46 years, in the “end”. Anything past the second half I consider overtime with sudden death being the ultimate decider. The year would be 2044. This of course is if we are lucky and all goes according to plan. Which, as we all know, it doesn’t always. 

The retirement numbers, the 401k numbers and the college tuition numbers are hard for me to get my head around, but it's the unknowns that haunt me. What will we do? Will we be able to travel? What will it be like for us to not have a “job” to go to each day? How is this all going to work out? Is it too late for long term health insurance? Is our plan going to work? Do we even want to do our plan or have we changed our minds? What if I change my mind and he doesn’t? 

I must remember; we can do anything when we work together, unstoppable. Including almost tearing “us” down to the nub, the near culmination of divorce as the close call cherry on top of the occasional shit pile. We are easily tangled in the quagmire of worry, insecurity,  stress, a pandemic, politics, overall wolrd madness. 

We have never not had kids together. There have been children in our house for 32 straight years, longer than our marriage. It’s complicated. 

The recipe for a happy marriage, according to a couple I met randomly on a long plane ride told me “take one week a year just the two of you, one weekend a quarter, and one date night a week!” This adorable older couple were on their way to a holiday to celebrate their 50 years of marriage, I was on my way to my parents house mid divorce, three little boys in tow. 

We learned we had to always appear as a “united front”.  It was important to take time away from the consistent din of three sons, one daughter, numerous dogs, houses, jobs, and legos. If we didn’t make “us” the highest priority it would all be for naught. We have  stayed true to our Friday night date nights, and tried to keep to the 50 years married couples formula. 

We saw how easy it could be to simply lose each other in the first half. We held on tight to one another. Maybe a bit too tight. Admittedly I clung to him like a life raft. Our fateful meeting one freezing New Year's eve via a blind date, he came into my life at one of its most difficult and darkest times. I had just completed the nastiest of divorces, hence the three kids I brought to the table. We didn’t realize it that night, but it was the beginning of our first half. 

I had some interesting role models growing up of what “marriage” was to look like, mostly from TV shows. Besides the Bradys, the Arnezes, and the Bunkers of my youth, the longest coupling I ever witnessed was my parent’s. My husband and I were both raised in traditional military style families of the 1970s. Moms stayed home, cooked, cleaned, and dealt with everything in the household. They always had some volunteer positions that seemed “pretty damned important”. Dads worked a lot, usually somewhere mysterious and what they did all day was equally mysterious. They washed the cars on Saturdays. We took a family vacation once a year. Every weekday at 5:30 dad would park his Dodge Dart in his parking spot on the driveway. He was home, it was a distinct point of reference every day. We heard a lot of “it had to be done before your dad gets home” throughtout the days, as well as the often repeated “WAIT until your father gets home!” and the ultimate; “you’re staying in your room until your father gets home!” 

There was a mini celebration with his arrival each day. He’d casually fling his heavy dark green officer’s jacket over his shoulder and stride into his home. He’d walk past my sister and I smacking each of us on our foreheads with a kiss and a “hi girls” - “hi dad” we echoed back in chorus without lifting our gaze from the tv set with “I Dream Of Jeannie” blaring in the background. With his peaked hat, formal and molded, in hand he moved down the hallway in his stiff, highly polished shoes, the scent of starched shirts, lingering cigarette smoke, and mustiness would trail behind. He’d continue his stride to the master bedroom where he would be met by my mother waiting for him on the edge of their twin beds that were pushed together. He would change his clothes from his formal officers uniform, hat tossed onto the top shelf of the closet. Shoes placed neatly side by side. My mom would inspect the uniform, did it need a press? Could he wear it again? Was it too wrinkled from driving in the heat? Depending on her prognosis it would go into the cleaning basket or carefully hung on the wooden hangers made for just this purpose. 

They would emerge in unison from the room, him in dungarees and keds, or in summer, bermuda shorts with hibachi leather squeaky sandals, completed with white socks  and a crisp t-shirt . His good night kisses as he tucked us in smelled of evenings, ice, and a hint of old spice aftershave. My dad was like a real life Mr Rogers changing into his slippers and cardigan, taking off and putting on a new persona. I loved witnessing this ritualistic evening metamorphosis. 

They seemed to be tied to each other, my parents. Like there was nothing sharp enough to cut through their ties, and at the same time hanging together by a frail thin thread. They seemed slightly trapped, but not uncomfortable. I never really knew about each of them before they met. The two of them as individuals, as if they only began to exist once they were married. This was the common model of the time. The idea of one person making another person whole, as Jerry McGuire crooned from the screen “you complete me” being the attitude of modern love. 

I’m realizing that you can only hold on for so long to a life raft, until the stark realization that; you are either going to have to let go and swim, or sink. Eventually something has to shift, no one can hold their grip that tightly for 23 years. My nearly paralytic fingers began to ease the hold when the youngest left the nest this past fall - empty at last. It is as bitter sweet as it sounds. 

I was very much looking forward to this transition for a large part of the first half. I was a mom young. Now some 35 years later, I do not have any children in the house. Yes they will always be my children, I will always worry for them, I will always accept them, I will always love them, and that is made easier when I don’t really know what they are doing and where they are, exactly. I trust them. We all did our best. Here they are world, the most beautiful beings I have ever had the honor to know. They are swimming out there in the sea of life, knowing there is always a home life raft to come hold on to for a while if they get tired. 

It’s an adjustment, the emptiness. Oddly similar to the lacking, the void, of when a family pet dies. They just aren’t where they always used to be.  Leaving behind evacuated space.

Sometimes when boundaries are quickly released it can be like a flood gate breaching. When the wall comes down there is a mad rush to cross the divide, leap over the threshold. A sudden loss of boundaries can run a bit too wild at first. With the edges of responsibilities gone it is hard to know how far to go, or how far not to go.

There are places of rarefaction now, where there once was a child. I try to find a comfortable seat here in the uncomfortable silence of the second half. I didn’t realize the emotions that would accompany the loss and  longing of the second half, all tossed, like a salad, with freedom and joy. 

Without this cloak of motherhood around me who lies underneath these heavy folds? In the bright sunlight she is clearly older, dustier and with wrinkles that have settled in enduringly upon her life experienced sun kissed laugh lined face. Her essence shines from her blue green heavily lidded eyes.  The ojas, of those first half years, diminished. 

Through the hot flashes accompanied by the sometimes rage and frequent tears, he has been standing by. Witnessing the transition of the female body from child bearing to non childbearing may be almost as challenging as experiencing it directly. He is softer now, standing from behind his shield. Softer in body and spirit. No longer feeling the immense responsibility of providing for the large tribe. His salt and pepper thick hair is lustrous. His hands are strong and age spotted.  He is learning to exhale more, to model the best man he can be for his sons and daughter. He dreams of the days when he will be skiing with the currently non existent grandchildren. 

We’ve done some damage to “us” for certain in the first half. Fights: likely, more than most marriages of this duration. At a conference long ago, an innocent attendee walked down a corner corridor in the conference center, only to encounter me screaming into the pay phone at him. I thought I had walked far enough away from public ears, but with great embarrassment I hung up and turned to her and said “that’s passion, it goes both ways.” 

He told our marriage therapist recently, “we know everything there is to know about each other.” We have shared the same house and same bed for approximately 8000 hours. We know each others bodies, each others “buttons”, each others cough in a crowd, and each others inflection when on the phone with their mothers. 

At once he is the custodian, defender, chaperone, attendant and curator of my authentic self. He protects and encourages the waving of my freak flag. We know to be gentle around our tender spots. 

We are now consciously restructuring “us”, him,  me, marking this halfway milestone of our togetherness and our separateness. We have our eyes wider open. We are working to  repair some of the resentments and injuries that were too hastily covered, not given enough air to heal properly in the first half. We are maturing together and individually talking about second half topics. Our commitment to one another is our cornerstone, even with a chip at its base, a little stained perhaps, but strong and holding all together. He said once “all we need to succeed is for one of us at any given time to be fully committed to the marriage, thats all it takes to stay married.” Brilliant. 

We have time and history on our side and that  makes it harder to simply walk away. We’ve come very close to breaking, yet we hold on.  The TV “love” of my husband and wife mentors, above all else, were portrayed as committed and with a deep love for one another regardless of circumstances. Yes Lucy and Ricky were always in tiffs, Archie was downright horrible to Edith and Mike and Carol seemed honestly a bit sterile when together - yet all were a “perfect” marriage on that little box I loved to stare into. There was never any discussion of divorce, or abortion, or affairs, or anything at all uncomfortable. Leaving the viewer to fend for themselves here in real life.

In this second half I see us as the beautiful unique individuals that we are. Independent diverse and distinct humans that will always hold love for one another regardless of what may come. Our autonomous history of likes, tastes and cryptic phrases.  We have lived together the longest we have lived with anyone. We have influenced, swayed and shaped each other into the beings we are today, and still are independent of each other. At the beginning of the second half, its essential that we see our individual silhouettes, like shadow cutouts, in negative space, light shining behind us separately yet always together. 

The marching band has left the field….. 

=============“...But once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and before an immense sky.” Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet ========

Megalopolitan

I was just coming around to consciousness, awakening from an unnatural sleep. My eyes  work hard to focus in on the blurry, large, neutral colored, stone tiles moving, somehow,  below me. My little body was so heavy, I could hardly lift my head. I had been drugged again.  

I could hear the endless canned voices over speakers squealing their important  announcements. I felt the scratch of my dad's sideburns against my tender cheek, my fine blond hair sticking to his stubble. He shifted my dead weight over his opposite shoulder, adjusting my bulk more comfortably for him to continue walking. I was an island in a roaring sea. Hustle and bustle, loud, quick movements all around me yet somehow not touching me. The only one it seemed, in this swarm of thousands, that was not able to move of my own accord.  

The voices eventually tuned in and became sharper. The familiar and calm tone of my dad's  voice directing us to turn right here. My mother and her beehive Marla Thomas hair flip do  scampering down the corridor in her all too mod red polyester dress. She clasped tightly the  hand of a little girl about 7 or 8 years old with auburn colored thick ponytails bouncing along  to her own inner rhythm. She skipped through crowds in her white mary janes and white chiffon dress, with large blue polka dots across its bias, matching mine draped over my  fathers shoulder.  

 The mood was electric, everyone seemed to have a  purpose, a destination. There were floor to ceiling windows and black leather, waiting room style chairs at every turn. As we approached the gate lady I realized I was keenly aware of  everyone's shoes, due to the position of my head draped over my dad's strong shoulder.  With my last ounce of energy I picked up my head in time to see the disappearing door where the gate lady still stood, the gate lady with her white bucket hat plopped upon her bobbed  blond hair. I felt the familiar cool sweat spread across my neck. As the woman began to  grow smaller and smaller in my vision, the walls began closing in as if I were in a tunnel. “Oh”  my four year old brain finally processed just before I fully dropped off to deep slumber “we are at  the airport again”.  

I’ve always had motion sickness, cars, buses, trains, boats, airplanes, anything that moves me,  eventually moves me to throw up. I would sit in the middle of the back of the car, no reading or  looking out of the window, just straight ahead focus, breathe, it didn’t really help, nothing did.  If the roads were windy  enough and I was subsequently green skinned enough, I would get the coveted front passenger seat reserved for my mother (first) and my older sister (second). Dad was always the driver.  It was only relegated to me in  times of severe vomiting out the car windows. As a result of all of this, my parents would give  me the drug Dramamine, side effects: drowsiness, constipation, blurred vision, or dry  mouth/nose/throat may occur. It worked for them as I turned into a  pliable sack of potatoes vs. the active young nauseous child I truly was. I was easy enough to  carry when drugged and gave little resistance and/or discord while traveling. What more could  young parents want? Perfect. 

We would always get “dressed” to travel. Very much our “Sunday Bests” or outfits bought for  just the airport occasion. My sister and I were often dressed in identical dresses, though clearly  looking at us, all could tell that we are nowhere near being twins, identical or fraternal. She is  four years older, tall and thin, freckled and redheaded.  I am not. My mother spent considerable  time on our  “outfits” and overall appearance for our trips. Perhaps she was trying to  announce to all that would take notice, we are sisters, we are a family.  Our individuality muted in matching frocks. 

===================

Even through my Dramamine infused coma of childhood travel I saw airports as exciting,.  To me they were glamorous, and stimulating places. I am now oddly comfortable at airports. They are not home, not a final destination, but in-between places, connectors.  Not “real”, their strategically designed optimal flow plans glaringly obvious, but  these man made portals are an exactingly choreographed gateways of voyage.

I love to see  flocks of flight attendants as they glide seamlessly across the polished floors of  international airports. A gaggle of men and women wearing precisely matched uniforms of the  same cut and color. The women with delightful hats perched on coiffed hair, the men with ties  and suit coats to match. What particularly makes my little joy needle skip a beat is when the  women are wearing high heels. Some have the sensible, yet professional, lower heeled shoe,  but some, usually the youngest of the flock, strike out in 3-4” high heels, clicking their way,  like birds feet, across the terminal's highly polished marble floors. A secret dream of mine was to be a member of this club, the romance of it all,  decidedly dashed early on by my untamable motion sickness. 

As Stephen Spielberg wrote, and Tom Hanks portrayed in The Terminal, a movie about real life  Mehran Karemi Nasseri’s 18-year-long stay at Terminal 1 in the Charles de Gaulle Airport of  Paris (It was reported that all the while, Nasseri had his luggage at his side) you can actually live at an airport.  I’ve recently wondered if I could ? If I had endless resources I’d  choose a popular European airport.  I could buy outrageous unguents from the Pharmacias.  I could  be at the early morning drop of the latest Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines in the  local language outside the newstands.  I would be sure to find the best food, the best espresso.  Airports are a city inside a city with their own scandals, police departments and construction. As with a lot of cities they can be tricky to navigate.   My advice; keep your head up, your destination in mind at all times, your hand  physically in reach of your documents (tickets, phone, passport) your eyes on the signs and boards, your ears on the jumbled announcements. Pay attention. 

If I lived at an airport I would find some security in the meticulously timed pods of the Lufthansa flight L37 arriving from Tokyo by the passengers' appearances and attendants' uniforms.  The pattern of the business travelers landing home Friday evenings, hurriedly scurrying into awaiting cabs to get into their children before bedtime, and then eventually into their lovers arms - already ticking down the hours until the lift off  on Sunday night. The predictability in the scheduled flow.

Airports are the thoroughfare for residents of the world,  literally parading in front of your eyes. Each airport reflects its environment, its  culture, its people, and history. There are over 41,700 airports in the world with 13,000 of those  being in the US.  Whether you are at Chicago O'hare airport or the world's busiest Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport in China, if you have time, visit the international  terminals. You will find travelers for business, pleasure, relocation, funerals, weddings, holidays.  It is a kaleidoscope of the world displayed in one big bright moving mural of global citizenry.  

I’ve come a long way from the paralyzed young girl being carried and dragged across these thoroughfares.  Now I embrace travel and have figured out my own way of making it work for me.   I have consciously recreated my dramamine comatose early experience of traveling, into a more modern, holistic, adult way:

• Headphones and phone charged and ready for transport at all times 

• Whereabouts of power cords for above known at all times

• Playlist of Moby Long Ambients and Long Ambients Two  downloaded and in que 

• Never go below deck of ANY boat

• Silk cocoon style body bag to fully envelope me for long flights - with custom slit holes to  accommodate “visual” of seat belt for flight attendants, so no need to wake me 

• Window seat whenever possible - best opportunity to cuddle into a limb deadening ball

• Thick book that can double as an elbow prop on arm of window seat 

• Sit in front or on the wing (most stable for turbulence) 

• One glass of white wine, preferably in a real glass, as soon as wheels lift

• Travel pillow - still looking for most comfortable one out there 

• Air travel landings still get me, be  prepared

• Water or coconut water, force yourself to drink them

• Lavender or Rose water spray in smaller than 2oz TSA approved spray bottle to stay fresh.

• Movie and audio book downloaded, just in case 

• Backup plan if all falls through - high does of CBD 

My best of list: 

1. Dublin Ireland, friendly enough to get a taxi easily at 2:30 am  

2. Denpasar Bali - best bathrooms for getting violently ill in - large enough to change an entire  outfit. 

3. Seoul Korea - best traditional dance demonstration with women in full makeup and  costume on a small stage inside the terminal, accompanied by  live flutist 

4. Rome Italy - upstairs lounge best for plugging in and dropping out - best gelato 

5. Santorini Greece - best for chaos of magnitude scale 

6. John Wayne CA - best for small feel in big city (complete with HOT tarmack you walk across outside from plane steps! Cute!)

7. LAX - best chair massage and best gate agent that allowed my 2.5 ounce expensive  face cream to pass through security check

8. Laguardia NY - no idea, just a place to pass through? 

9. Nantucket, MA - best for dropping you into Biff and Muffy asap 

10. Telluride CO - best for scariest runway balanced on top of a mountain  

11.  Honolulu HI - leis made of orchid, jasmine and kika blossoms

12. San Francisco CA - best yoga room for stretching  between layovers

13. Fargo ND - best small time, and I mean small time, airport 

14. Ohare Chicago IL - best at being my worst airport, recreating scenes from Home  Alone, I am easily lost here and always grateful to the stereotypical Irish cop standing by  to guide me to the right train. Ohare Trivia: Basement of Ohare is the The Billy Goat burger stand from the infamous old  SNL sketch of “no coke pepsi”

15. Delhi, India - best for scaring the crap out of me  

16. Trivandrum Kerala India - best for arriving in paradise 

17. Houston TX  - best at longest custom lines ever 

18. Heathrow UK - best at being British 

19. Logan Boston MA - best for feeling like I’m  home 

Next time you find yourself with a layover, with your headphones blaring your favorite playlists, watch the soup of a collective community of random strangers thrown together, all going somewhere.  I somehow fit into this  autonomy nicely,  where I belong, between places. Homeless yet not, and always with the security of a return ticket.

The Phantasmagorical Bardo of Becoming

Bardo: noun

(in Tibetan Buddhism) a state of existence between death and rebirth, typically  49 days and includes three stages.  It is a Buddhist tradition to pray for the deceased during this time, hoping that the benefits of such practices would reach the deceased.

In Tibetan Buddhist practice, death is the separation of the mind (consciousness) from the body.  It is believed that one's consciousness does not die with the body, but continues in subtle form in metaphysical dimensions called Bardo, or 'hanging in between'.

I often think of my son's friend as “hanging in between”, even all these years later.  He was just shy of his 21st birthday when the wheel of his skateboard caught at the pebble in the road and he was flung backwards, landing squarely on the back of his head.  I imagine my son, his best friend, by his side, waiting for medical help, reassuring him.   Before he left consciousness, never to return, perhaps trying to comfort them both my son saying “its going to be alright.”  I picture blood coming from his nose, his eyes were glassy and slightly panicked, yet he seemed to be relieved to hear these comforting words as he was loaded into the back of the ambulance..  I sometimes wonder if he heard those final words from my son and held onto them as he suddenly found himself in the throngs of his death.  This is not what he, or any one of us thought would happen on that glorious spring afternoon.  The crew of friends casually set off to the park  on skateboards to toss the frisbee as they did many times before.  The pebble creates a sudden stop.

He lived for a few days longer on life support after the airlift to the brain surgery was realized the brain did not survive the impact of the pavement.  He artificially  lived on for his mother and his brother to travel to his bedside to say their goodbyes.  He was kept alive so that his vibrant healthy young body could be used to help others.  On the day of his accident he had in his wallet  his signed organ donor card, securing life for others.  He was later honored as one of the most life-giving organ donors in the state.  His eyes now shine from someone elses face.  His life gave organs, pumping and pulsing in a multitude of other bodies scattered across the country.

I feel he is somehow still right there, a steward to the first stage of Bardo.  A chaperone, a guide if you will, particularly for other young men who meet a sudden and unexpected death.  For those who were going to pick up their friends and didn’t see the red light turn, drug addicts simply looking for their next high yet going too high, and those walking across the intersection minding their own business, all abruptly confronted with death.  I believe he introduces the concept of being dead to those transitioning.  He is a comfortable web for the frightened to land in, he  is waiting there to reassure the suddenly dead and perhaps speaks to them repeatedly ‘its going to be alright”.

We have a friend who is facing death as I write this.  Kevin will die of cancer soon.   He knows he will die soon, he is home with Hospice. His body has been ravaged, his organs are beginning to succumb to the tumors.   What does he think of when he goes to sleep at night? Does he go to sleep?   He  has some time, his doctors say 2 weeks - 6 months..  The sense of urgency moves us all to call and send cards more often, time quickly shrinks.  Do the pain meds help him not only with the physical pain he is currently enduring but also with the mental anguish and or peace of knowing his life will end in the near brilliant future, and not in the distance foggy years of the unknown, as most of us have the leisure of.  Will he move through the states of Bardo differently since he knows death is arriving soon and, maybe he is preparing his mind for this ultimate transition.

We could all be there at any moment , and we are all heading there eventually.  Nobody gets out  alive.  By practicing the corpse pose in yoga,  that stillness, that releasing, that letting go of the mind body and breath, it as just  a rehearsal  for our ultimate final pose.   

Kevin’s wife texted us this morning:  

“Sorry to text early, but Kevin has taken a turn for the worse. Would you be free to talk to him? He won't be able to respond, but he can hear you. Text me when you can”

She arranged the phone call - we were on speaker and she would tell us “he’s smiling, he’s nodding” in response to our shaking voices and tearfilled laughter.  We tried our best to tell him “It is going to be alright”.

After the call I texted her:

“Thank you for letting us call  and giving us the opportunity to say good bye.”

Two hours later we received :

“Kevin passed at 2:10pm today”

He entered Bardo stage one at 2:10 pm Saturday September 25th..  While in the bardo between life and death, Buddhist texts state that the consciousness of the deceased can still apprehend words and prayers spoken on its behalf, which can help it to navigate through any confusion or chaos it may endure. We have Kevin’s photo on the mantel, candle lit beside it.  We send out into the ethers the universal prayer “Om Mani Padme Hum”   (a powerful  mantra that is said to encompass every one of the Buddhas teachings) as we walk by his candlelit image through each day.  This small practice reminds me “it’s all going to be alright”.

The Three Bardo States:

1. First Bardo state - It is the period of unconsciousness, which may last for 3 to 4 days.

2. Second Bardo state - In this state, consciousness awakens, it unfolds like a flower exhibiting its natural radiance, which is experienced as color, light and sound. This 'energy' then coheres to form a 'Mandala' of deities, like Bodhisattva, etc.  Enlightenment or if the mind does not recognize itself, the consciousness then enters the phantasmagoric Bardo of becoming.

3. Third Bardo state- It is the phantasmagoric Bardo of becoming. Here the mind takes on a mental body in a dimension where thoughts literally form one's reality. In the Bardo of becoming, one is still merely an automation, 'programmed' by one's Karma in the past lives.

Addendum: We kept the Bardo for Kevin through these weeks.  Lighting candles at cathedrals across Europe as we traveled recently.  He left us the greatest gift in the bright starkness of his death, life is short. Too short.  I see him fully ensconced by the light of his next path.  His vacuum is vast.  There is a hole.  There is a woman.  There are two daughters.  His celebration of life is next weekend.  It will be held on the exact 49th day since his death. 

SOURCES:  

Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche

 https://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/bdoor/0606/sources/teach104.htm#t1044