I would like to note some progress on my part here. This time of year, it is so easy to fall into the traps of societal craze, and I just don't do it. Every year I get better and better. I wrap less, want less, bake less, decorate less, and therefore stress less. I have no expectations about what Christmas should be, I just let it be, and each Christmas that passes transcends the magical.
This is because I am watching and not doing.
While there may be people in my life that feel they received something small from me when they expected something bigger--a gift, a greeting, or glitter pouring out of every orifice on my body--I hope they notice that not getting "caught up" allows me the space I need to give what I want to give: the time to be the ear on the other end of the phone and not the voice, the Mom who says, sure, let's read that book for the fifth time today, the person who stops to listen what God is saying and not the advertising industry.
After closing this post, I am going to drink strong coffee and sloppily wrap some gifts. When my daughter wakes, we will eat the last piece of waxy chocolate from her 49 cent Advent Calendar. I will turn on the Christmas lights that are so ill placed they look like they should decorate a frat house. Then I will think and sing and dance and eat with my family, because today we celebrate abundance of spirit. This abundance will be just as exciting in August as it is today, and next year, if we choose, it will still fit.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Dear Sophia,
I could write this whole letter about how yesterday, I left you for one minute to grab something from upstairs, an act that I totally thought was pretty okay, seeing that I birthed you over 2.5 years ago. Then your father, of course, walked into the room and saw that you were getting crafty with the scissors I was using for Christmas cards. My sharpest scissors. It is not as if you were cutting your plump, tiny fingers off...you were just making fringe out of the Christmas Eve mass schedule. Of course, my first thought was to feel like a negligent, dangerous parent, but then I thought no, no she knows what she is doing. She is making fringe on that paper so I can no longer read it because if so help her God she has to wear another scratchy dress and a pair of droopy tights this winter...
Nice try babe. We are going on a 7 night cruise next month and I have purchased scratchy dresses for every day. I may make you sleep in them. Oh, and Christmas mass? Droopiest tights ever.
You see? I am learning to handle you with such grace!
I ran a marathon a week ago today. What got me across the finish line was thinking that I had you at home and I missed you. I know if I never made it, had croaked at mile 2, you would assume that you would have Daddy all to yourself to build you one big fort your entire life and cook you bacon for every meal. Well, I made it and there are once again big tubs of salad in the fridge.
Lucky you, lucky me. Let me tell you something about luck. That marathon showed me how much of that day was luck for me. Yes, I had to do the 4 months of work that prepared my body for five hours of running. The rest was pure luck. I was born in a country where events like marathons that contain over 10,000 people eager to inflict torture on themselves happen every weekend. Luck. We are not distracted by hunting our food for survival or dodging bombs. Luck. I have not been in an accident that has left me wheelchair bound, like so many of the spectators that looked me in the eye and said, "Keep going, great job." Luck. My right hamstring did not snap at mile 9, as it did for a man who was screaming behind me and rolling around on the ground. Luck. The marathon course took us through some pretty destitute areas surrounding Las Vegas, and I grew up differently than the children who were hanging from the walls around their homes watching us with faces that plainly wondered if they would ever be in a position to do something like a marathon. By position I mean rich and educated and under stimulated enough to even think about running a race. Luck.
I hope at my age, you have as much luck, and I hope even harder that you are aware enough to notice. If you do not notice, you will not feel it, it is as simple as that. I will do my part. When we watch a sunrise together, I will talk about this kind of luck. I will even talk about it while searching for the good in a crisis.
Seeing how you react to Christmas lights, sparkly ribbons and unexpected gifts--you make a sound that no animal or soap opera actress can duplicate, like you are replacing breath with pure glee--I am sure you know a thing or two about abundance and gratitude.
Love,
Mom
Nice try babe. We are going on a 7 night cruise next month and I have purchased scratchy dresses for every day. I may make you sleep in them. Oh, and Christmas mass? Droopiest tights ever.
You see? I am learning to handle you with such grace!
I ran a marathon a week ago today. What got me across the finish line was thinking that I had you at home and I missed you. I know if I never made it, had croaked at mile 2, you would assume that you would have Daddy all to yourself to build you one big fort your entire life and cook you bacon for every meal. Well, I made it and there are once again big tubs of salad in the fridge.
Lucky you, lucky me. Let me tell you something about luck. That marathon showed me how much of that day was luck for me. Yes, I had to do the 4 months of work that prepared my body for five hours of running. The rest was pure luck. I was born in a country where events like marathons that contain over 10,000 people eager to inflict torture on themselves happen every weekend. Luck. We are not distracted by hunting our food for survival or dodging bombs. Luck. I have not been in an accident that has left me wheelchair bound, like so many of the spectators that looked me in the eye and said, "Keep going, great job." Luck. My right hamstring did not snap at mile 9, as it did for a man who was screaming behind me and rolling around on the ground. Luck. The marathon course took us through some pretty destitute areas surrounding Las Vegas, and I grew up differently than the children who were hanging from the walls around their homes watching us with faces that plainly wondered if they would ever be in a position to do something like a marathon. By position I mean rich and educated and under stimulated enough to even think about running a race. Luck.
I hope at my age, you have as much luck, and I hope even harder that you are aware enough to notice. If you do not notice, you will not feel it, it is as simple as that. I will do my part. When we watch a sunrise together, I will talk about this kind of luck. I will even talk about it while searching for the good in a crisis.
Seeing how you react to Christmas lights, sparkly ribbons and unexpected gifts--you make a sound that no animal or soap opera actress can duplicate, like you are replacing breath with pure glee--I am sure you know a thing or two about abundance and gratitude.
Love,
Mom
Friday, December 5, 2008
26.2
As I am writing this my hands are clammy. I am having a hard time taking a breath as I pour my first cup of coffee down my throat. This is because my marathon in Las Vegas is this Sunday, and today I leave with my sister-in-law for that sunny city. I can't decide if my nervousness now is because of the travel, leaving my daughter for the weekend or the running.
This is how I center myself: I have trained. This body of mine has 26.2 miles to give. Even if I sprain my ankle at the starting line and cannot continue, the fact remains that I could finish even if I never start.
26.2 is in me.
Once again, my pre-race-courage-giving poem:
This is how I center myself: I have trained. This body of mine has 26.2 miles to give. Even if I sprain my ankle at the starting line and cannot continue, the fact remains that I could finish even if I never start.
26.2 is in me.
Once again, my pre-race-courage-giving poem:
ATHLETE GROWING OLD
By Grace Butcher
The caution is creeping in:
the step is hesitant
from years of pain;
a soft grunt bends the body over,
and straightens it.
The skin loosens; everything moves
nearer the ground.
To overcome the softening,
the yearning toward warmth,
she exercises,
makes her muscles hard,
runs in the snow,
asks herself when she is afraid,
“What would you do now if
you were not afraid?”
She listens for the answer
and tries to be
like that person who speaks,
who lives just outside
all her boundaries
and constantly calls her
to come over, come over.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Happy Birthday, Rainer Maria Rilke
Sorry Matthew, Mark, Luke and John...but I kinda pretend that this guy was the one who knew how to sum it all up best.
"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."
"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke was born in 1875.
"For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation."
"Let life happen to you. Believe me: life is in the right, always."
German Poet Rainer Maria Rilke was born in 1875.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Gratitude. It has to travel.
Logan International
by Mary Oliver
In the city called Wait,
also known as the airport,
you might think about your life---
there is not much else to do.
For one thing,
there is too much luggage,
and you're truly lugging it---
you and, it seems, everyone.
What is it, that you need so badly?
Think about this.
Earlier, in another city,
you're on the tarmac, a lost hour.
You're going to miss your connection, and you know it,
and you do.
You're headed for five hours of nothing.
And how long can you think about your own life?
What I did, to save myself,
was to look for children, the very young ones
who couldn't even know where they were going, or why.
Some of them were fussing, of course.
Many of them were beautifully Hispanic.
The storm was still busy outside, and snow falling
anywhere, any time, is a wonder.
But even more wonderful, and maybe the only thing
to put your own life in proportion,
were the babies, the little ones, hot and tired,
but still
gurgling, chuckling, as they looked---
wherever they were going, or not yet going,
in their weary parents' arms (no!
their lucky parents' arms)---
upon this broken world.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gratitude. Something other than food to increase me.
An Arabic proverb:
Write the wrongs that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. Let go of all emotions such as resentment and retaliation, which diminish you, and hold onto the emotions, such as gratitude and joy, which increase you.
Write the wrongs that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. Let go of all emotions such as resentment and retaliation, which diminish you, and hold onto the emotions, such as gratitude and joy, which increase you.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Gratitude. A pre-Thanksgiving kick in the ass.
As the days are darker and shorter, so are my thoughts. They are gloomy, often clipped complaints about the status of the physical world around me. Cold hurts. My house is messy. My child is whiny. I feel blah.
I hear it out in the world too, these same crabby reflections from tired and over-bundled bodies. It is hard not to fall into that dialogue of constant negative judgment.
I am about 2 weeks away from running the Las Vegas marathon. Because I have run one marathon and several triathlons, I know that training the body is nothing. Easy. Anyone can do it.
Training the mind, trusting your mind is everything. Training this time has been a reminder that what the mind says, the body follows. When I am out there, especially the day that I ran 24 miles in a steady rain, I felt despair when my mind let me think of despair. I felt elation when my mind decided that there was nothing wrong; yes, I was uncomfortable, but is that really something wrong? Was I not going to be warm and resting soon?
I have been using this training tool to refocus my day-to-day thinking. My complaints and discomfort are fleeting and can be easily changed. This is not the case for millions of people who are sick, afraid and really despairing. If I ever become one of these people, I will be ashamed of how I wasted my good days with made-up complaints.
Living in gratitude is living prayer.
I hear it out in the world too, these same crabby reflections from tired and over-bundled bodies. It is hard not to fall into that dialogue of constant negative judgment.
I am about 2 weeks away from running the Las Vegas marathon. Because I have run one marathon and several triathlons, I know that training the body is nothing. Easy. Anyone can do it.
Training the mind, trusting your mind is everything. Training this time has been a reminder that what the mind says, the body follows. When I am out there, especially the day that I ran 24 miles in a steady rain, I felt despair when my mind let me think of despair. I felt elation when my mind decided that there was nothing wrong; yes, I was uncomfortable, but is that really something wrong? Was I not going to be warm and resting soon?
I have been using this training tool to refocus my day-to-day thinking. My complaints and discomfort are fleeting and can be easily changed. This is not the case for millions of people who are sick, afraid and really despairing. If I ever become one of these people, I will be ashamed of how I wasted my good days with made-up complaints.
Living in gratitude is living prayer.
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