A Small Thaw

This is the part of winter when I am my most crabby, my most tired and my most melancholy. I am crabby and tired because dealing with the winter in Cleveland takes a ton of energy. Especially if you are hauling around a super-tall, super-squirmy toddler most of the time. I suppose we could say that Cleveland is in a deep-freeze right now. It hurts to go outside. My fingers bleed when I try to open my side-door to my house with a key. I am afraid I am going to slip in the driveway or slide off the road in my car.

Now here is where I admit that I see a certain beauty at these extreme temperatures. Everything sparkles. Especially during these days of low, filtered sunlight. Subzero usually means clear, starry nights where the moon turns the world into a silent, glittery blue.

This morning as I pulled my car into our detached garage, I was annoyed at the loud crunching sound the snow made underneath the tires and how I practically slid into the garage at 35 mph without my foot on the gas. As I was walking out of the garage, I noticed that the wooden walls of the garage were blindingly sparkly, like the diamond mines in my imagination. I couldn't help but remove my glove and run my hand over the wall, in awe of the slick, yet warm surface. And somewhere deep inside of me, my crabby, tired and melancholy soul unclenched just a little.

To My 19-Month-Old

"And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of life, your pain would not seem less than your joy." --Kahlil Gibran

What could this possibly mean to you right now, my daughter, at 19 months of age? The whole world is full of joy for you these days. You are even starting to obsess about certain things that bring you boundless joy, such as the sight of the moon or Elmo. You smile when you see me, you smile and laugh when you are around your daddy and aunts and uncles and cousins. You have transitioned so effortlessly into new childcare, and you are obviously better at this than I am because this morning I watched you sitting and playing on the new sitter's floor and I was thinking, "don't you want to cry just a little because I am leaving?" You didn't and I did.

If I could keep you in this state of joyful innocence for the rest of your life, I would pay anything. But this is not how it works, and I can see that you are just starting to notice this fact. You now scream and cry at any person in a white coat, due to a few knock-you-off-your-feet illnesses. You have seen me cry (a lot) in the last couple of months, and this confuses and troubles you.

Maybe together we can use the words of Kahlil Gibran. He is right, you know, pain and joy are both part of the daily miracles that find us in life. I think we just need to open our arms a little wider and accept this. Let's search for the moon every night, let's dance to every piece of music that moves us, let's cry when we get sick or get a shot, or throw ourselves on the floor when we are angry.

Yes, it is wise to keep my arms open for the little miracles of every day, as to not miss the chance that you might come laughing and running into those arms, which is the biggest miracle of all.

One Foot in AA

Not that I think I need it (yet), but I have always respected the Alcoholics Anonymous way of rehabilitation and healing. A writer I worship, Anne Lamott, has been through AA and always throws out the most amazing revelations from that experience in her writing. For example, she said that AA taught her that "expectations are resentments waiting to happen."

My God.

Why didn't someone tattoo that on my forehead when I was born? How much easier would life be if we brought that mantra into every relationship? Especially the relationship with ourselves, which just happens to be the very one that I have been struggling with for oh...let's see...30.5 years.

Anyway, I carry a book to all of my hospice visits called "Prayers for Healing," full of blessings and poems from around the world. I am finding that this book is magical because I seem to open it every day and it says exactly what I need to hear.

Now back to AA. I always knew that they also used the serenity prayer as a part of their ongoing healing and rehabilitation practice. What I did not know was there is an extended version of this prayer, which I found in "Prayers for Healing" today. Yup, you guessed it. Exactly what I needed to hear. I pass it on to all of you so that your divine eyes, full of goodness might read it now:

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He* did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.

--Reinhold Niebuhr

*My note: This prayer is still amazing, but I tend to shy away from the genderizing of God. In fact, if you were to ever have a conversation with me, or look back on any former post with mention of God, you will see that I simply say God. Never Him. Never Her. That is not how it should be and I have not been struck down by lightning yet, so I am pretty sure I am right on this one.

A Month

It has officially been a month since I last blogged. I would like to blame the holidays, but ours were calm and easy for the most part. I think I subconsciously took the last month as a chance to let things happen without the need to write about it, as our family has been going through some big and small changes. Okay...the truth is I am frozen with fear by some of these changes. I find that I am still frozen enough by the prospective big ones to not quite write about them yet, until they become realities. What did I do in the last month during my non-frozen time?
Let's see...
1. Two visits from my in-laws as we emerge from a period of estrangement.
2. Christmas with an 18-month-old: Fun and frustrating as it should be.
3. Finding new child care for the 18-month-old and all the worries and tears that went along with this. Today is her first day. So far no phone calls from a sitter in agony. As for me, I miss my daughter so much I can hardly breathe.
4. A trip to Florida to see my parents flanked by a toddler illness and parental illness. Lots of fun and laughter in between.
5. Much thinking about my friends and family, and lots of prayer for them.

Now here I am facing a new year on some shaky ground. I should see this as an opportunity to reach into my spiritual toolbox and say something significant. Maybe tomorrow...

Blue Poinsettia

Last night I met one of my favorite groups of friends for dinner. We all used to work together once, and now we have scattered, but somehow have managed to remain a part of each other's lives. Last night was not our best. This seems to be a hard time of year for this group. I couldn't help but feel that we were all a little bit delicate, as we talked about the tattered yarn of our mental and physical well-being.
We went around the table and gave the specifics of our troubles. We offered each other serious as well as funny advice. We laughed and cried for each other. I continued to laugh and cry for these friends as I drove myself home.

We were talking about how this time of year can be so depressing, especially if you are facing a change-your-life crisis. Then one friend mentioned how she saw a woman in the grocery store buying a Poinsettia plant, painted blue, and sprinkled with glitter. We laughed and laughed about this ridiculous decoration. How ugly it must look in her house, and how she is going to find that damn glitter has gotten everywhere. What a stupid purchase!

This morning I went to the grocery store, an experience that sucked the very life out of me. As I slowly recover, I can't help but think about the woman and the blue Poinsettia. Now I am thinking she was on to something. Perhaps she was just like me, beginning her day, humming Carol of the Bells, only to find that the Christmas spirit seeped out of her as soon as she stepped into the world. As she sat in traffic, she noticed the abundance of deflated over-sized snow globes that littered the brown lawns. In the gray Cleveland morning, she could detect every mis-stringing of Christmas lights, every sign that blared "SALE" in the store windows. By the time she reached the grocery store, she could barely react to the drawn faces and quick, annoyed pace of every human. Then she saw it. Something that represented exactly how she felt. A Poinsettia plant, painted blue, sprinkled with glitter. Fake and in-your-face ridiculous, and she just had to own it.

Now I imagine that plant sits on a main table in her living room. Maybe when she glances at it, she chuckles, and her heart opens up the way it should this time of year. She remembers that she is human, that there is no way she is in control of this crazy puppet show we call life. She forgives herself for falling victim to that craziness. She sees for some reason this year, we have gone overboard with trying to cover up what is real with what is bizarre, false and flashy. And in that plant, she sees IT, what IS real: We are humans, we hurt, we are not in control...we need to find a faith in something, anything, and give it everything we have. Even if this means you chuckle in the direction of a crazy plant a few times a day. Anything. Let go to it. Surrender your control.
Out of the darkness comes a great light.

Today I am no longer laughing at that woman and her blue Poinsettia. I am simply wishing I had found one too.

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

As I grow older and more aware, this time of year becomes more and more confusing to me. People rushing, planning, planning to rush, planing ahead, scheduling, looking ahead. My spiritual teachers tell me that this should be a time of joyful anticipation as well. Out of the darkness comes a great light.

Yet don't you find it to be terribly conflicting? The holidays always become a terrible antithesis to my desire to be present in the now. I am finding that for most people this time of year does conjure up feelings of dread and loneliness. Some people find they need to mourn a lost loved one all over again, or a lost period of life, such as childhood. I listen to random conversations in public only to hear over and over again that someone just needs "to get through" the next month.

I also cannot bear the commercials on TV. Everything that is shown is geared to make you want something. Something physical. Something brighter, bigger and better.
The only thing that saves my spirit is a feeling of connectedness. As Mary Oliver says, I don't have to be good, or walk on my knees during this season. I am the person who wants better things, I am the person who mourns for a lost one, and plans are invading my calender even though I vowed them away this year.

No matter who we are during the holiday season, if you just look up, you will find yourself in someone. Like it or not, we can't rush ourselves out of the tapestry of hope. So we wait. In not-so-quiet (or sober) anticipation, for the light out of the darkness that announces our place in the family of things.

Quarantine

My daughter has croup, and if you were to randomly stop by right now, you would see that we look like an official sick-house (after I drop kicked you across the street). Do not randomly stop over.

What I mean is, there are enough plastic bags strewn across our small house from various pharmacies to take down planet earth in five years. It is almost as if we thought that Walgreens would have something that CVS did not have but Rite-Aid might have, if we could just get her to stop coughing and please, please, please stop crying. And please sleep.

If you looked through our recent calls on our telephone you would see that we have called the doctor so many times that if they blocked our number forever, we would not blame them. In fact, they might just pick up the whole office and move.

My house is a filthy disaster and those sticky Motrin syringes are everywhere, collecting dust and cat hair. It is not that I am careless enough to leave them everywhere, it is because I have THROWN THEM ACROSS THE ROOM after an effort to get my daughter to take the medication that I promise will make her feel a little better for the next 4 hours. How does she do that, though? Scream while locking down her lips, so that the tiny syringe tip does not even stand a chance?

I am not complaining. This is parenthood. I can't tell you how many times I have held and rocked her, thinking dear God, just transfer this illness to me 100 fold and make her healthy now.
In doing this, I cannot imagine how insane I would get if I had a child that was chronically disabled or ill. I want to take all of those parents into my arms and say, dear God, give me their grief and pain 100 fold, just so they can have one moment of peace.

So there it is. My lesson that I needed to learn. My perfectly healthy girl is going to get taken down every now and then and I am going to have to learn how to deal with it better than I have in this past week. It could always be worse.
I am grateful for our health care, our warm house, and my husband who has witnessed my complete and utter childish reaction to this whole thing. He has has two babies to deal with.

What am I doing now? Listening to her cough in her crib over the baby monitor and of course, waiting for the doctor to call.