“We get to keep all the limitations we defend.” – unk
Well, I think I’ll post this video on a Sunday…because church. This is my church. Actually, every day is my church now. I do so love Carolyn Myss when she yells at us. Preach. Here she teaches us about animals communicating…like DUH.
And yes, I AM humiliated by humans who don’t understand animals. I’m embarrassed by and for my species. And for all of us who don’t see or grapple with our addiction to being superior. You know, like we were taught in school – top of the food chain. And it stood to reason we would next be taught that some humans are superior to others. Definable. A noun. As Tiokasin Ghosthorse (well, and The Indigo Girls) teach us, we are healthier when we define ourselves as verbs.
“The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” – The Indigo Girls
I listen intensely when the birds are singing outside my window. I desperately wish to understand what they are saying – because I know they are saying something important. And I don’t speak the language. Every once in awhile I catch a word, an idea, a meaning, on a soul level….and I know. Ahhhhh. Yes, that. Ooohh. Uh-huh, yes. And I have only one response: “thank you.” Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for allowing me, despite my deeply flawed humanness, to eavesdrop. Thank you for staying near.
The birdhouse outside my front door is part of a display I made in a planter box. Under the wide roof overhang of this mid-century ranch, it defies the modern aesthetic and alludes to country cottage, the style I much prefer. The French iron planter is stuffed with coir and small branches from the Hawthorne tree it faces. A few flowers drape over the side closest to the door in the shade. I rarely use this door. A chickadee has taken up residence and hatched her eggs in the little house. Those babies are gloriously loud! She hangs out in the Hawthorne tree, watching intensely, and sings the sun up. She is so happy and proud of her brood. That’s what I imagine she is saying, “look, listen…see us. Aren’t we beautiful?” I assure her that I, too, am made happy and proud that she has graced us with her family. I leave a small makeshift bath on the porch for her, worried how they will cope with the wildfire smoke.
And I sit inside and listen to Carolyn Myss for hope, for us all. The time stamp on this video is very deceiving – it was recorded over a decade ago. This is actually about healing, yours and mine and the worlds. And then how to…fill in the blank. Live. Be in the world and not of it. That’s always my goal, because that is where freedom is found. Thank you. Thank you for telling me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you, despite my deeply flawed humanness…for allowing me to accompany you on this journey.
When you are reading this I am on another journey. I’ve been asked to accompany a friend on her business trip to the Detroit Book Festival. Let’s go see what the paperwork has to say. I’ll share my experiences with you next week. Thanks for being here.
And so, home now with the day ahead free of obligation, I can sit here and review my week. Something I have yet to define has me feeling like something big just happened. Something life changing, just in the past 72 hours. And I know what started it: the book I am reading – Permission by Elissa Altman. Specifically, the chapter titled The Magic in the Mundane. It – she – has given me permission to be mundane.
“In the most mundane stories lie humanity. It is where the magic is, where the stories lurk, where the most stunning and affecting art is waiting to be made. It is where joy and sorrow and the absurd and the human are plaited together in a tight braid…forget perfectionism: the mundane reeks of imperfection, and that imperfection is what makes for beauty of a human sort.”
If you read the last few days posts you’ll know that I walked out on my job last Thursday. There wasn’t anything wrong or bad happening there. There wasn’t much happening there at all. I didn’t need to be there. It was a distraction from what I need to be doing. I need to be here. It has taken me 73 years, 5 months and 4 days to get here.
You may begin to see a theme running through all the posts of this week. Perhaps it will continue, but I am not about to predict the future – I still have the rest of my life ahead of me, after all.
In January of 2012 I participated in a 13 week group study of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It would prompt me to start this blog. A woman I had never met before sat across from me in the circle and commented on something I had said – or maybe written – in response to one of the exercises. She exclaimed, “Oh my gosh – you’re a writer.” For some reason I thought of that today, and what it meant to me at the time. I was shocked and somewhat confused. I didn’t believe her. Until this past Thursday. Fourteen years later. Is it too late? Apparently not. I’m still here. Or perhaps I should say, I’m here now.
Elissa Altman pulled me aside last Thursday in the bookstore, in that little back tarot-card-reading-room closet. Families of tourists scurried outside the mysterious curtain that provided no privacy for my tears. She let me know quietly that, yes, my family also taught me that perfectionism was the only way to avoid shame. And she let me know that it wasn’t working. It wasn’t keeping the shame at bay. Not the grief. Not the sorrow. “Go home,” I heard her whisper.
And so I am home now. I slept all day Friday. And all night, until the nightmares woke me. This morning, Saturday, my son asked if I had been having nightmares last night. “Why, yes. Why do you ask?” “Because you were standing outside my bedroom door early this morning calling out to me for help.” I wasn’t there physically. But my spirit was.
I used to write poetry. In high school my English teacher submitted one of my poems to a student contest with The Atlantic and it was published…I guess I could say I’m a published author. But I won’t. That same year I also won my second honorable mention in The Detroit News Scholastic Art Awards. And then I left school. A couple of college teachers acknowledged my writing, encouraged me. One invited me to skip a year. But then I left school again.
Schoolwork was too difficult to maintain with a full time job and a baby and a household to run. And an abusive husband who was closer to my abusive family than I had ever been. If I were to believe them, I was crazy still and again. That pattern had begun in the very early years of my life. And it would continue until last Thursday.
I’ve lost most of my family now. Divorced more than once. I’m estranged from most of my remaining family and many well-meaning friends. I am not easy to get along with. Most perfectionists aren’t, especially the ones wallowing in the shame of unexpressed creativity.
My father was not a good man. He was funny. Creative, charming. He was brilliant but uneducated, gay in a time and culture where it was never to be revealed, or even remotely tolerated. Permission was not granted him. And he was enormously gifted as a musician. He was also married at nineteen and had 5 children by the age of 29. He would enter the family business whether he liked it or not. All of his rage would come out sideways. It always does. Of his 5 children I have fared the best, with the least damage. I am the eldest by more than 3 years, first grandchild on both sides. Not only was I adored as a young tot, but my parents addictions were not yet in full swing. The dream was still intact.
The opposite of perfect is not flawed. The opposite of perfect is free. This is not a story about what could have been. It is a report about what is becoming. A PSA of sorts, a heads up. It is a story of endless curiosity and hope and never ending love. It’s my story. Maybe some part of it is also yours. I say we tell it, no matter how long it has taken us to get here.
My dear fiend has been ill. I texted her yesterday and she responded to tell me she was in the ER. It’s that horrible parasitic yuk going around western Michigan right now. Kinda scary. She called me back later once she was home and feeling better, after a few hours on a gurney with IV fluids. And sick as she was, she still managed to be her usual gracious self. I admire her so for that. I am not that, especially when I am sick. Or stressed, which has been much too often lately.
She always seems to have a gift for me. Yesterday it was a great big juicy gift. Infinitely useful. I told her I was losing my wits, and she assured me I will be okay. Told me I have “hippie wits.” “What?” Did she just make that up? Yes, yes she did. How wonderful. I will always have my wits about me now; I can keep those. I’m not crazy. I’m just a hippie. Which is to say that I have solid values. Trustworthy values.
And then, just coincidently (if you believe in those) Terry Tempest Williams shows up in my feed. Talkin’ about how we – women of a certain age – have been culturally programmed to think we are crazy. Witless. For most of my life it was the most powerful word used against me as a gaslighting technique. No…no no no no…anything but crazy. Crazy people are unacceptable. Weird. Never okay. Unloveable. Broken.
But it turns out that not only are we not crazy, we are fabulous. Smart. Creative. Genius. And spectacularly alive. We are good, we are beautiful, and we are true. We are very certainly sane and we are transforming an insane world. It turns out we are the holy ordinary. Albeit, unemployable.
“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.” – Rilke
7/11, 7:38 am.
Just once. Maybe that’s all it takes. I was at my recent workplace taking a break. Sitting in a back room, I opened the book I had been reading to the next chapter, The Magic in the Mundane. I would finish those twelve pages and pack up my things, say my goodbye as graciously as possible and leave. Sure, I’d been thinking about it, but I hadn’t realized that today would be my last day until I read about it just then. Elissa Altman was speaking to me, and I happened to be listening.
This week I will be making a series of posts here that include some longer videos. Because healing. Maybe healing requires longer videos. I can promise you one thing this week – there is a consistent theme. I am a consistent theme these days: no matter your age, there is no time to waste. Forgive me my sudden sense of urgency. It might be my age, or maybe my rebellious nature. What a good friend calls my hippie wits. I don’t care. I fucking love my hippie wits. I’m no longer explaining myself or dissecting my psyche. My reality no longer requires justification nor explanation – and neither does yours. I am giving us permission. We are a lot of things, crazy is not among them. That’s tomorrow’s conversation, however. Today we visit with Anne Lamott and Elissa Altman. Because healing.
And healing means that I am no longer treating my grief as a pathology. Grief, fear, shame..whatever. Let’s build an altar for all the angels and demons. Let’s honor it all. And then let’s burn that candle and go live.
Monday, 6/15: Good morning. I’m gonna change up the format here a bit. Since it’s basically always been a journal, let’s go with a journal format, beginning with the date…but all bets are off. Consistency is not a virtue I claim. I aspire. I’m…ya’ know, aspirational. It is a gorgeous summer morning. It is sunny and cool. Fifty-three degrees. It reminds me why we live in Michigan. But Michigan is not for everyone…it’s an “if you know, you know” kinda thing.
Detroit is the same. What an absolutely magnificent city. But if you know, you know. As a young woman I couldn’t wait to leave, but it was never because I didn’t love Detroit. It was because I wanted to live away from my highly dysfunctional family. Well, I wanted to raise my son away from them. And while I am very happy to be living “up north,” I will always miss Detroit. You can take the girl out of the city…
Growing up in Detroit was one of those “right place, right time” things. Born in the early 50’s, I became a teen in the 60’s. Detroit was the U.S. center of the British Invasion of rock in the 1960’s. And I was there for it. I was a sponge for it. I was growing up in a musical family, and as I’ve often said, my parents were beatniks in the 50’s who became hippies in the 60’s. I was the flower child.
I’ve also talked here a lot about being a privileged white girl in Detroit in the 1960’s. And having a conscience, thankyougod. Let’s just say, it shaped me. It would not make my life easier. Naive and 13, we were on one of our many summer getaways with our big-ass Chris Craft cabin cruiser to Georgian Bay, Canada. If you know, you know. It is one of the most spectacular places on the planet. We would use the depth sounder to check how deep the water was at our mooring, often off the beach of some deserted little island. We would watch the fish swimming thirty feet below us as we scooped up a pitcher of water to make orange juice or coffee. We had somehow stumbled into heaven, never suspecting we might not be worthy.
Bored in Tobermory harbor one stormy afternoon my younger sister and I walked into town, where I bought my first-ever record album. Not only did Joni Mitchell sing like no one I’d ever heard, but she had also drawn the jacket cover. Song to a Seagull caught my eye because it looked a lot like my fantastical drawings. Little did I know my life would never be the same.
Fast forward (hahahaa!) another six decades and here we are, you and I…talkin’ trash and livin’ our best life. Have I mentioned how grateful I am? I would try to articulate this sentiment, but then I would turn to a mush puddle and not be able to type through the tears. That’s me these days. Hence, the month-long hiatus since my last post.
Life continues to unfold and reveal it’s many complex layers. I can barely keep up. Is this progress? Who TF knows…it feels like a loop. A loop of grief and addiction with brief glimpses of joy. Is that joy? Would I recognize joy if it bit me?! Today I sit here in dappled sunlight looking out through the trees in a state of absolute delight and possibility. Yesterday I was sick and in a state of dread. Did I mention that consistency and I are not natural companions?
I had big plans for yesterday. A long ta-da list. But I woke with a migraine. Nauseous. Stiff joints and sore muscles. Where did this come from? I had been working outdoors in the garden the previous day, and I had been stung. It could just as easily have been caused by something I ate that day. The raspberries I put on my yogurt were just beginning to mold but I couldn’t stand to lose them. I live on that edge between blissful wellness and painful incapacity. It’s called chronic illness for a reason. So yesterday was a lost day. I sipped electrolytes, ate tiny bites of dry sourdough toast and stayed in my dark, cool bedroom.
But these days I have a job. I hate having a job. Oh, I love my work. It’s the schedule I resent. Having to be up and out of the house (preferably dressed) and then drive 40 minutes to get anywhere. Regardless of how I feel. Take Sumatriptan if necessary, but show up. Because consistency counts. I was loving retirement. I will again. Life threw another curve ball that I was ill prepared for, and now I face a new challenge: find a new way to earn income. So you’re 72?! Buckle up, buttercup. You live in Michigan, and Michigan is part of the good ol’ USofA….
Honestly, this is very likely good for me, being forced to get dressed and leave the house on a schedule. With the inconsistency of ADHD, and it’s sister component lack of discipline, a little imposed structure usually serves me well. It stimulates creativity and I am forced to overcome my preference to hide; forced to engage with others. As in people. Ugh. Present company excepted.
During this past month, I’ve been overwhelmed with grief and…well, despair – for lack of a better word. I guess I must admit despair. It has been a long 6 months of winter filled with grief. I am depressed. Getting out and driving through gorgeous countryside will do me good. I have reconnected with a dear old friend, who gave me work immediately without question when I called for help. And I’ve also met some very nice people. I certainly cannot complain. How fortunate I am when I get out of my own way. Honestly, are we all our own worst enemies?
I’m beginning to engage with life again. One new rabbit hole I’d love to share here is a vlog I’ve recently discovered on YouTube. I love YouTube…so way better than television. Apparently so does everyone else. In fact, in her first year on YT, Angie has rapidly grown to be one of the most popular channels. There are reasons obvious to me, but I will let you see for yourself.
Confession: I found this vlog because I am researching lifestyle channels, thinking about starting one myself. Sort of a live-action adjunct to this blog. There are aspects of Angie’s vlog I would copy – like wearing sunglasses indoors, of course. And her vulnerability, which I would much rather disguise – but what are the chances?! However, mine would also be quite different. For starters, I’m 12 years older. And far snarkier. Hard as I might try, I am not British. My vlog would have to include my metaphysical studies and spiritual experiences to be authentic. We all know I’ve never had a humble opinion in my life. But there are many things I admire about Angie, not the least of which is her consistency. I could learn something.
I have a long list of ideas…I would love your ideas. Let’s share our curiosity, in hopes that you and I can continue this conversation about life and loss and hope and inconsistency and beauty and all things human. Thank you for being here.
So here is my offering for today: Rare Birds, for those of us growing older, expanding rather than shrinking. For real people, highly sensitive people, who take life as it comes with all it’s foibles and inconsistencies. People like us, who keep on keeping on. Meanwhile, I’m off to my local hardware store to buy myself a garden fork…I hope Angie would be proud.
“Let the beauty you love be what you do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.” – Rumi
It’s time for some true confessions. The less I see of others sharing their vulnerabilities, the more I wanna. Because I’m also seeing some others who are sharing and it looks en-lighten-ing. I want that. I want to be lighter. I will always be a moth to the flame of freedom. All freedom – physical, financial, emotional, spiritual. I’m in my 70’s, and let’s just be frank here – I’m on the approach toward my death. I don’t feel like I’m going to die anytime soon, but the truth is we never know. Yes, I’ve lost much younger loved ones suddenly. But the recent shock of losing my former husband is a different kind of lesson.
He died unexpectedly last month at the age of 88. That sounds reasonably old. But there were things to be considered: firstly, he was the youngest of 5 children. His mother died of complications from an auto accident. But his father and four siblings all lived well into their 90’s. He lost his brother last October at the age of 97. They still golfed and played bridge twice a week with friends. They were active. He fully expected to live into his 90’s. And his death was “unexpected” because he died as the result of a fall, not of old age or natural causes. I had spoken to him a few days prior about getting together for lunch soon. I fully expected that to happen.
But this is really about the fear it triggered. We had been together for over 30 years when we were younger. He was not ever willing to discuss any arrangements for his death, natural or otherwise. He simply refused to consider it. When we were first married, I used to goad him that he thought he was the first immortal human. We had teenage children. His income was 10 times mine. There was no life insurance or any kind of financial arrangement in the event of his death. He was the most stubborn person I have ever known, and believe me, that is saying something in an Irish family.
So when he died in April he left nothing. His retirement pension stopped, which means so did my alimony. The State of Michigan is richer now; they won’t be paying him any longer. His new car has been repossessed by the bank. His 4 daughters inherited a savings account just large enough to cater his memorial service luncheon. Gratefully, I will receive his social security survivor benefits (but no longer receive mine. Social security pays whichever is greater, not both.) My life has just gotten exponentially harder. I’m 72 now and scrambling to figure out how I’ll support myself. It didn’t need to be this way, and of course, it’s absolutely perfect. It must be. I just don’t get to know why.
Yes, I had tried again and again to reason with him, even recently; to put some kind of a plan in place. He refused. In fact he laughed at me. He wasn’t going to die anytime soon. I thought he was unreasonable. He thought I was ridiculous. I guess we deserved each other. I miss him anyway.
If you’ve been here long, you know I’ve been grieving the loss of my beloved cat since October 20th. Just a couple days later my brother-in-law died, and a friend’s sweet dog whom I also loved. Three deaths all at once. And you also know that Chewy, my cat, was coming to me in my dreams and meditations. Twice he said very clearly, “do not make any decisions before spring.” When I heard this the second time, I asked what he meant by spring and he replied, “March 30th.” So…March 30th came, and while I did not feel any better, I was watching and listening for a change. Dick died 2 days later.
Since about the age of 65 I have worked at overcoming one of my biggest fears. It had incapacitated my creativity all of my life. My big, fat, ugly fear that people (especially loved ones) would think I am crazy. Insane type crazy. If you’ve read past blog posts, you know that I have truly healed these fears. All of my life my family and my two husbands had told me I was crazy. So I hid. It was blatant manipulation, what we now call gaslighting. It worked brilliantly. Kept me right where they wanted me – at their service.
Only today am I remembering that decades ago I went for a psych evaluation with a leading psychiatrist at U of M. I had asked my primary care physician to refer me because the antidepressants weren’t working. I thought maybe I needed something stronger. During that hour the psychiatrist said to me, “Well, you are not crazy, if that’s what you’re worried about.” He recommended that I not take stronger medication, but work toward improving my “circumstances.” In other words, pull your head out of your ass, Susan, and stop letting yourself be manipulated. Maybe stop living with addicts. My “over-developed sense of responsibility,” also professionally diagnosed, would get the better of me for a few more decades. Speaking of being stubborn…
So today I find myself back in survival mode, plagued by fears. And I wish to be free of them. I will begin with what I know – I will speak them. Name them. Expose them to the light. When Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) met evil on the road to enlightenment, he named it Architect. The Architect who would design his demise. The Architect of self doubt. He turned to face anything or anyone he felt this threat from. He would address them, and he would say, “I see you, Architect.”
Architect, I am scared of dying – not of death itself, but of suffering. Of lingering, being a burden to my only child. Let me be clear, I’m not afraid of pain. I know how to remain whole inside myself when my body is paralyzed with pain. When the morphine isn’t working and you can’t cry out for help. No one wants to learn that, but I have. I have walked trembling and yet confidently through hell and smelled the breath of huge, huge demons. Hoping their chains held; knowing that if not, at least my death would happen swiftly.
I’m afraid of losing the loved ones I have still, but that comes with aging. That’s just the way this works. I’m afraid of poverty. Of not having any control over where I live. Of becoming less and less free as I age. I’m afraid of this grief…of never finding joy again. That scares me most of all. I don’t know how to do grief. I guess I’m learning.
As I’ve said here before, my small group of friends have been patient with me. I went to lunch last week with one friend. It was a make up date because I had messed up our previous plans; I put them in my calendar wrong. Patience…while I am obviously being reset by life. Or as I say, “I’ll be with you in a moment” – my own euphemism for “I am not functioning.” Anyway, after a lovely meal we sat in her living room while I cried, consumed in self pity as I am these days. She reassured me as sweetly as I hope I would do for her. “There’s comfort in melancholy when there’s no need to explain…”
Suddenly she noticed a blue bunting on the bird feeder outside the window. Next thing we knew a spectacular oriole flew in. Brilliant orange, like it was lit up. Then a red cardinal. A bright yellow finch. It was surreal. Surreal is my default notification that God is hangin’ close. The veil is thin, and I am being blessed. I might have dismissed the significance of that if I were afraid you’d think me crazy. If that is crazy, sign me up for more.
“So now I am returning to myself these things that you and I suppressed.”
I know, I know – you probably think I’m cool like Trent Crimm. Refined and sophisticated like Rebecca Felton. Humble and magnanimous like Ted Lasso. But no. No, I’m actually awkward and nerdy and a lot more like Higgins than any other character in this series.
For instance, I am apparently the last remaining human with a television to watch the show. Not that it hasn’t been recommended by everyone I know. But recently, in a group of highly respected women creatives, I realized that I couldn’t hold my own in the conversations any longer if I don’t get the references. I’d have to catch up to keep up.
When my sister ran a dementia care home years ago I volunteered part time. I learned about the common occurrence of a symptom called sundowners. Certain activities were planned around and after dinner because the patients became anxious as the sun was setting. I immediately thought, “I have that.” Not just because I am somewhat of a hypochondriac, but because I recognized that I have been that way all my life. Or as far back as I can remember anyway. I become anxious and sad at sunset. My nervous system relaxes once dark has fallen, but for an hour or more every evening I am not myself. I’m guessing that the medical community became aware of this phenomenon in Alzheimer’s patients, and that no one has noticed yet that it happens to many of us without the dreadful disease. I’m guessing it is common in people with ADHD, or like me, AuDHD. But medicine lags behind our cultural experience…so, so far behind. And once again, I am never consulted.
So. I do what any self respecting intelligent person would do – I plan for my shortcomings. I find things to distract me, especially intellectually, after dinner. My preference is entertainment. I’m usually ready to sit down to dinner and then not get up again for a few hours. By 6 or so in the evening I am spent – physically as well as mentally and emotionally.
But oooohhh-eeee….there is a sad, S A D shortage of suitable entertainment available. My standards…once again…too high. Or so I’m told. Well meaning friends have made all manner of piss poor recommendations, from Game of Thrones to Outlander to Gilmore Girls. Jesusmaryjoseph. (Yes, that is all one word.) What, in the ever-loving….?!
No. No, people. Here are the criteria: INTELLIGENT. Which means exceptionally written. With intelligent, believable characters. Who actually behave like the intelligent, MATURE humans we are being asked to accept. Lorelai Gilmore’s neurosis might have been cute when she was 22, but now she just needs therapy. She’s tedious and annoying and if she were your cousin you’d have slapped her already.
Also, good writing must be well acted. Have extraordinary cinematography and preferably spectacular scenery. Fabulous clothing doesn’t hurt my feelings. It needs an awesome sound track. And most importantly – the context must be redemptive. What does that mean? It’s simple: no human evil. Occasional mental illness expected, psychopathy not so much. I love murder mysteries. Cannot stomach crime dramas. Not the same thing at all. Jesus, I don’t believe we are having this conversation again…but, okay, here goes.
Murder mysteries solve murders done by distraught, misguided people experiencing temporary insanity. Crimes of passion where somebody losses their shit and probably didn’t really mean to do it. Bad decisions are made and unfortunate mistakes follow. And, well, honestly – the victim usually had it coming, didn’t he? There is compassion to spare in these intricate stories of deeply flawed people. Nothing is pre-meditated. No serial killers. No middle-of-the-night creepy stalkers in dark alleys. Don’t frigin’ scare me. Instead, explain how this happened and resolve that merciful justice shall be carried out so I can have a good night’s sleep tonight. And merciful justice is why I do not watch period dramas. There was nothing merciful or just about the past. It’s exactly why we don’t like fascists now. Anybody with half a brain has seen the long term effects of that psycho shitstorm played out. Move along smartly.
I have a confession here. I resisted watching Ted Lasso for, well, years. The story revolves around a football team. I do not simply dislike team sports, I abhor them. They require a certain cult mentality that I avoid like the plague that it is. Large cultural groups are conditioned (I hear groomed) over decades of sanctioned violent dysfunction. Codependence abounds unchecked. Copious amounts of alcohol seem to be involved. Something about this entire subculture is just not right. Is it just me?!
But last week someone said to me, “watch Ted Lasso. It will restore your faith in humanity.”And I was desperate for some entertaining distraction from the crushing grief I have not yet come through. I was desperate for my faith in humanity to be restored. And…this series delivered. Five stars. Do recommend. I wish there were 100 seasons to binge watch; that would get me through to gardening season. To Richmond!
“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.” -unknown
My dear friend (who we affectionately refer to as Ramda) came to visit. My son nicknamed her that because we revere her wisdom. We live about an hours’ drive apart, on a good weather day. Since we are located in the NW region of Michigans’ lower peninsula, good weather days are random. In the winter months – November through April – the roads are going to be treacherous many days and impassible some. But it is spring now, so better. Unfortunately, this entire northern half of the lower peninsula has been experiencing record flooding. My friend got tired of me putting off a visit. I’m grieving and having panic attacks lately. Long distance driving is a daunting obstacle.
So she decided to come here. And then all hell broke loose in the form of thunderstorms and high winds. Many roads were washed away. The people who live in Traverse City have been told that the repairs will likely take six months or more. The damage is widespread, and given the weather this time of year, could potentially get worse. Ramda had to set a long, circuitous route and go north into the Leelanau peninsula and then come south to me. But she insisted, and I am grateful for her wisdom and her company.
As it happened, the sun was shining that day. We bundled ourselves against the forty degree temperatures and ventured to the nearby lighthouse for a beach walk. I pocketed only a few stones. As with most everything in my current life, I have refined my collecting habits. Now I only collect rocks shaped like hearts, or pink granite with a green line running through it. They grace my windowsills and sinks. These are the same beach stones that caught my eye as a child along these beaches. I’d tell you I’m in my second childhood, but anyone who has known me long will tell you – I never left my first. And it’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
She and I sat on the bench and had our usual deep, loving conversation…and some good ol’ belly laughs. Somehow we got on the subject of language itself, one of my favorite topics. We started talking about recent buzzwords that have entered the cultural vernacular. Words like envisage. And conversate. Soon we were cracking ourselves up using those in sentences…you kinda had to be there. But really, why? I see; I visualize. Feel free to envisage yourself right along…I talk. I don’t conversate. Whatever.
Anyway (which does not, nor has ever had, an S on the end, people) we had a lovely visit. These early spring days are glorious here. Exactly what I need for healing. I am more and more acutely aware of the collateral beauty. You know what that is, right? It’s the inherent beauty in all life, in being alive on the planet earth exactly where you are now. For reasons beyond me, it is far more noticeable when you are in a state of grief. I want to learn to be aware of it always. I want to learn to live with heightened senses, from inside a state of grace and compassion. To miss my lost beloveds and to see and hear them in the earth as it comes alive again.
My son and I have decided that we love living here near the water. Our little village has everything we need. When I was looking for a place to move I wanted to be off the beaten track (not in the drop-by zone) but with the most important amenities: a library, a post office, and a grocery store. I also got a wonderful local bookstore and several restaurants, and a six-bed hospital with world class medical care. But we do live on, as we call it, “the edge of the world.”
This is a destination, not a pass-through place. It is our own thin place. And it is just right for us.
When my son was little I used to say, “you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time…but you can’t fool me.” It was straight-up manipulative programming. I’m not proud. Not only was I living in survival mode myself, but I had noooooo clue how to parent a child, let alone a sensitive genius. I set out to convince him that he had best not try to pull the wool over my eyes. I would not be fooled. Maybe not the best way to build trust.
In truth I had pulled just about every trick in the book with my own parents. I’m not sure they were actually fooled, but they allowed me to get away with anything and everything. They subconsciously taught me to think that I was really smart…hahhahaa. I was certainly creative getting myself into all manner of sticky situations. God, my guardian angels, always had my back. Like the night of my 18th birthday when I drove to the tattoo parlor to get a tattoo – and the building was literally on fire! As it happened, I got my first tattoo for my 40th birthday, and I’m glad I waited for a number of reasons. Never mind in the year 1972 that industry wasn’t regulated, so…eewww.
Fast forward decades and I am no more savvy than I was at 18…or, am I? No smarter, perhaps, except to know what I don’t know. But oh…way, way more trusting. Exponentially more faith. Faith in my intuition, imagination, God. Those are all the same things, just by the by…and somewhere after midnight, in my wildest fantasies…
The original Star Wars came out in 1977, the year before my son was born. There were no streaming services then. I insisted my husband take me to the theater, and I remember that it was only showing at one theater in the northern Detroit suburbs, in Southfield. The next day I made him take me back with my teenage sister in tow this time. My heart knew something truthful was happening and I was going to glean every drop of inspiration I could while it was available. It was life-changing, like watching The Beatles on Ed Sullivan as a kid. A bold new world of possibilities was opening up.
When my son was old enough – 7 or 8, maybe – we watched Star Wars together. And I told him something I believed to be true then, and still now: “you must become a Jedi to survive in the world of your future.” He is, indeed, a Jedi for his time. I encouraged his intuition despite not understanding how it worked.
Recently I lost one of my heroes, my former husband. I say that with a whole clusterfuck of mixed emotions. He needed to be my hero to feel worthy as a man – and thus, he needed me to remain in the role of damsel-in-distress. It took years for me to become cognizant of that unhealthy dynamic; more years to extricate myself once I had tried and failed to change it. But I never did overcome the need for him in my corner when I was truly in trouble. And he never abandoned me. He might not have had any emotional intelligence (he was an addict, after all), but he was always at the end of the phone in an actual emergency. That was his love language. For example, when my son was diagnosed with lymphoma, he showed up at the door unannounced, dropping off bags of groceries. He did his best with what he knew, also a product of his own dysfunctional upbringing. I’m learning to forgive him. And me.
And so here I am, grieving again and still. I’ve had another hero step in since his death, a dear friend. She’s the rare kind of friend who doesn’t wait to be asked if you need help. She knew what I needed and she just showed up. And it wasn’t the first time she’s done that. Somehow she has always believed in me. There are no words to describe my gratitude.
We all need heroes from time to time. All of a sudden they are everywhere I look. Fear shall not prevail. One of them is my aforementioned friend. Four of them just circled the moon in Artemis II. My son is my hero, just not in a way I expected. He never fails to inspire me, nor to make me laugh and feel safe and loved. He tells me emphatically that I am magic when I least believe it.
One of the women friends I admire most just bought us tickets to see the story of Mary Oliver at the City Opera House next month, a wonderful evening to look forward to. Mary Oliver is one of my heroes, as is Anne LaMott, who wrote:
“I was reminded of the Four Immutable Laws of Spirit: Whoever is present are the right people. Whenever it begins is the right time. Whatever happened is the only thing that could have happened. When it’s over, it’s over.”
Help shows up in many ways. Having faith is recognizing that you are, and always have been, blessed and highly favored. God, the angels, show up in many forms. Sometimes they are the loved ones who have always got your back. Sometimes they frustrate the ever-loving bejesus out of you. This dawn it was simply birds singing me awake. So I mean this, and I say it to you with all my heart: May the force be with you.
Since the internist saved my life in the ER five years ago, I have been a patient. The man is brilliant. So, it stands to reason that he has the smartest nurse practitioner in the region. I love this woman. They are the best medical team I’ve ever had, and I have been blessed with some brilliant doctors. All who think outside the box, drawing upon a wide knowledge of medicine and natural treatments. Like the Sufi M.D. I had in Detroit when my son was a toddler. I complained about how hard it was to get him settled at night. He suggested I massage Steven’s little feet with sandalwood oil to help ground him. It was life-changing.
I’ve told the story here of how I was limping around with sciatica when I bumped into the chiropractor who had an office near my workplace. He offered to help me the next morning before we both began our work day. I’d never been to a chiropractor and was hesitant, but I was in pain. He sat me on the table that morning and asked me about the nightmare I had just woken from. “How did you know I had a nightmare?!” He just looked at me. In the nightmare the zoo was on fire, and I was being chased by a polar bear that had escaped. The doctor guided me through a meditation where I allowed the bear to catch up, turned to face it, and it wrapped me in it’s arms and nuzzled me. We cried together. No adjustment, but I never had sciatica again.
As it happened, sitting in the chiropractor’s waiting room that morning, I picked up a magazine off the table. The Sun. I’d never heard of it. It’s a literary magazine, and the cover story was an interview with the author of a new book. The author was Helen Palmer. The book was The Enneagram. I liked and subscribed, decades before social media existed. I bought the book, the magazine, the philosophy and the new perspective.
You’ve heard my stories before. I have thousands of these stories, in case you didn’t think I was living a charmed life. This doesn’t mean I haven’t lived in doubt. Of myself, my intuition, my nature. I’ve even come to appreciate my self doubt. No doubt, no growth. I’m a walking testament to the value of curiosity as a life path.
White haired now at 72, I say that I have discovered that I am a witch. I didn’t set out to be one; still don’t know much about them. They did fly in my window and heal me years ago when I was deathly ill passing gallstones. That was the first I had ever thought of them as anything other than fictional creatures. Was I hallucinating in my fever? You bet. Did that make them less real? Nope. Recognized one downtown several days later, eating lunch in a local restaurant. Real as you and I.
That day was my first outing since being so ill. I was picking up a book I had ordered. I had bought a deck of tarot cards the previous week while visiting Marion down in Grand Rapids, and I wanted the companion book. When I walked into my local Traverse City bookstore late, it happened a strange book sat on the counter. It was waiting for someone who had ordered it but changed their mind. The Flying Witches of Veracruz. I bought it. The Mexican witches had healed the tourist…you guessed it – he was passing gallstones.
That was my life. It hasn’t been obviously magical like that for decades now. Since I married a narcissist and forgot myself. I often joke that I am Rita Van Winkle, Rip’s great-granddaughter – and in my family we fall asleep for 20 years. That’s about how long it took for me to begin to extricate myself from that spell. And the witches showed up for me. They always will.