Lost

I got lost today.  Actually, I've been lost for the last couple of weeks.  At least I was home when I couldn't find my way through the jungle of a new computer program I was trying to learn.  I'm grateful that I was physically safe while teetering on the edge of nerve wracking crazies.

There is a sweet spot when it comes to getting lost.  It falls somewhere between the excitement of the unknown as we test our ability to be resourceful, and the terror of realizing that we don't know where we are and don't know where to go next.  Numerous times over the last couple of weeks, I have visited both ends of the spectrum.  My head hurts.

But today, I threw in the towel, surrendered, cried uncle.  I heeded the STOP sign, and found my way back out of the Cyberspace mire.
 

The U.S. Parks' website gives the following five suggestions for things to do in the case of getting lost.  Now that I have found my way back home to peace and equanimity, I see that not following rule #2 was my biggest problem.

1. Signal for help.  Check.
2. Build a fire.  Damn!  I'm assuming they mean a fire for burning the computer.  Good idea!
3. Find shelter.  Check.
4. Stay warm.  Check.
5. Stay put.  Did that, but it didn't help a bit.

Coincidentally, I just started reading Rebecca Solnit's book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost.  From the book:

"Explorers, the historian Aaron Sachs wrote me in answer to a question, 'were always lost, because they'd never been to these places before. They never expected to know exactly where they were.'"

Do you hear the liberation in those two sentences?

We are always lost, because we've never been to this place in this moment before.  But we don't remember that we are lost - we think we know exactly where we are.  Or we expect to know how our spouse will behave, or how a computer program will work.    

Admitting that we are lost in life requires courage and trust.  But it offers us exciting exploration and the freshness of seeing everything with new eyes.

May I always be lost, experiencing the wonder of never having been here before.

But I'm still done with that feisty old computer program.  There are some paths that just don't call to us (or that are closed, due to bear activity).

Many Gates

For too long, I have thought that it was because she is the way she is. 

I gave up on thinking that she would change.

And I also gave up on thinking that I would change, since I kept trying the same things.  Over and over.

I was right.  We didn't change.

I have banged my head so many times, and I have also walked away, hopeless.

But now I realize that when one gate won't open, I can try others. 

The Moment Before

The moment before you and your husband received the biopsy results.

The moment before the car hit you, doing damage to your body that will be with you the rest of your life.

The moment before your mother died, before you got the eviction notice, before you lost your job, before you were robbed.

The story goes that all was fine, until out of the blue...

But is that true?  Did you really not have a care in the world before your boss called you into his office to deliver your pink slip, before the doctor called to announce your fate?

This is the moment before.

And so is this.

And so is this.

Yes, it can feel like a perfect life was turned upside down by events.  But isn't that a pretty limited view?

I know that the day I walked in the door, only to be greeted by Michael announcing to me the diagnosis the doctor had given him over the phone, I had been walking in a beautiful park with a friend.  I know it's a beautiful park, because I've been there many times.  That day, I don't think that I noticed the views, because I was distracted with worry.  It had been a week since the biopsy, and we were waiting for the results that were supposed to have been available four days earlier.  I felt a dark shadow hanging over my head.  So, by the time I walked in the door of our house and heard the news, darkness was already with me.  The "moment before" was not much happier than "the moment that changed everything."

Before diagnosis, I could be lost in thoughts while walking in beauty, and after diagnosis, I still can find myself lost in thoughts while walking in beauty.  Before diagnosis, I noticed sunsets and red-tailed hawks, and ever since the diagnosis, I still notice sunsets, red-tailed hawks, and the beach ball of a full moon rising.  Maybe I notice them more often now.

Of course life might change drastically after a major event - we might need a wheelchair, we may never see a loved one again, we may be uprooted to a new environment.  We may think we want to go back to "before" (as if that is even remotely possible).

But this is the moment before.  Notice it.  Be it.  We don't know what comes next.

Right now, I am alive, breathing.  The sun is rising outside my window.  Oops. I'm missing that show!  I'll be right back!

Ahhhhhhh...  gray skies grounded by dark skeletal tree silhouettes gave way to a hint of blue, light caught the edge of our neighbor's roof, and a bright ball of yellow and orange peeked over the house behind us making bare trees glow golden.  Welcome, sun!

I don't want to walk in the park caught up in thoughts that take me away from the skies and water and geese around me.  But I probably will.  And I'll miss sunrises as I type on my computer.

Truly, there is no "moment before".  That is only a memory, thoughts that take place now in this moment.


Each moment. An opening.  Every moment of our life, we walk through the door of the moment - we have no other choice.  Life says, "Let me show you the way" and we let it carry us.  Sometimes kicking and screaming, wanting that last moment back.  But it has never come back.  Just opening and opening.

“What day is it?"
It's today," squeaked Piglet.
My favorite day," said Pooh.”
― A.A. Milne

Sacred Money, Part V

Four days ago, Denver police killed a 16-year-old girl.

So, what's new?  It seems that every day I read of police officers killing someone.

The teen was not perfect - neither was I when I was sixteen.  When we are sixteen, we are still learning how to be in this world.  We are young owls, sitting on a branch right outside the nest, taking little test flights, trying out our wings.  We screw up.

Grown-ups screw up, too.  They are not perfect, either.  But it is their job to protect, to learn from, to teach, and to empower the young people of this world.  In an ideal world, grown-ups would lead by example, doing their best, while taking ownership of their mistakes.

I wasn't there when the killing happened.  There are different points of view coming out, and I don't know if the police are telling the real story, or if the truth is being told by those who were in the car when the teen died.  

I do know that it is a rare event in our country for a police officer to take responsibility for killing someone he shouldn't have.  So rare that I don't have any hope of an officer being charged in this case or in any other police killings.  This is not only unfair to the victims and their families, it's unfair to you and me, and it's unfair to the police officers who kill.  When a person doesn't admit wrongdoing, he can't ask forgiveness, he can't heal.  How would you like to live with the blood of another on your hands and in your heart?  It takes a lot of armor to silence the heart of someone who has killed a girl not much different than one's own daughter or sister or niece.

This killing has sickened me for days.  Like Jessica's mom, I, too, raised teenagers.  When I put myself in Jessica's mama's place, my legs nearly buckle out from under me.  And when I think of the girl's friends who witnessed her killing, I wonder how they can possibly grow up respecting the people who are charged with serving and protecting.

So today, I sent some of the Sacred Money to Jessica's family in order to help with her burial and other expenses.  What a small drop in the large ocean of grief...

I broke my rules by doing this.  I had intended to form a relationship with the receivers of the money, but I have not met Jessica's family.  I probably won't know how the money is spent, and I won't know the journey of Jessica's mama's grief. 

The only "better" I feel, now that I have given the money to Jessica's family comes from getting rid of the itch that kept bugging me to donate.  Jessica is still dead, and police - and others - will still kill.  Hopefully, the family feels a little comfort in knowing that there are people who care.

May we all be kind to one another.



Sacred Money, Part IV
Sacred Money, Part III
Sacred Money, Part II
Sacred Money

There is only $50 left in the Sacred Money fund.  Some ideas for where that money will go are brewing in my head.  This has not been the journey that I expected it to be.  I will write about it soon.

If You Cannot Make It Different

Ever: if you cannot make it different or better, make it holy.

- Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Today CE wrote the line above in her piece about the loss of a child (for those of you who do Facebook, you can read the whole beautiful piece here).

Estes' piece touched me deeply, because my baby lies under winter's brown grass in a cemetery two miles from my home.  My baby's tiny body has been there for thirty-three years now.  His presence has been in my heart even longer.

If I can't make different or better what happened to my baby, I can make the loss holy, sacred.  Even in the most tremendous loss, there is beauty and grace.  I know it.

If I cannot rid Michael's body of cancer, I can make living with cancer in my house holy, honoring the teachings, the life changes, and the love that have come from it.

If I cannot give a warm home to the man in the sleeping bag beside the South Platte River, I can see my sadness, his face, and his predicament as holy.  That changes our relationship, doesn't it?

How can murder, war, living with PTSD or poverty or incredible pain be made holy?  We really can't "make" any of them anything.  But we can change the direction from which we look at them.  We can honor the pain and suffering, not being afraid to look the person or the issue in the eye, to touch them with our hearts and gentle hands.  To say,

"I see you.  You are not alone.  I am here with you.  I am not afraid of being with your suffering.  I see your pain, and I see your wholeness."

~~~

This morning I went to the cemetery to take the photo of my baby's grave marker.  While there, I thought I wanted to photograph the sky above his head - this is what Brian would see if he were able to look up.  (I know, I'm weird.)  So, I stretched out on my back next to Brian, and shot this view of the sky above my angel's head.

When I sat up and then kneeled to take a couple more shots, I noticed goose poop next to me.  Oh, yeah, I forgot about the geese...  I checked the knees of my pants, and I patted down my back.  All good.

I left the cemetery in time to drive to my therapy appointment.  After sitting in the waiting room a few minutes, Karen called me into her office where I sat on her black leather couch.  You know where this is going, don't you?  I sat down, and Karen looked next to me, and said, "What's this?"  I immediately knew what it was.  A green piece of holy shit!

Yeah.  I bet that was a first for Karen.  "Hey Honey, you'll never believe what one of my clients did today!"

Cindy

They finally cut down the dead tree.  Next to the huge stump that they left, there rests an RV and a big, ol' beat-up American car of some sort, green, looking lonely, forgotten.  The single driveway on the other side of the yard is taken up with two white cars - a VW bug, maybe 1970, and an old Camaro that could use some lovin'.  

Black plastic covers the windows of the red-bricked ranch-styled house, and in all these years of walking our dogs past this place - the "eyesore of the neighborhood" - we have never seen a sign of life.  The only evidence that humans might inhabit this place is the recent accumulation of the RV and green clunker next to the stump. 

Until today.  

Today when I left our house with Dharma, there was an opening in the clouds where sun rays poured down.  You know, the kind of image that makes us think of God.  I wondered if I tend to attribute such things to God because of books I saw when I was a kid, or if it's just a human thing to do - to think of higher things whenever the sky seems to open up and say, "Here I am, in all my stunning glory."

Dharma and I walked a couple of miles, and as we walked, I noticed the snow and ice that still linger on the north sides of houses and streets.  Everywhere else, it's browns and grays, but particularly in places that have to do with northness, ice makes walking just a bit of a challenge - especially when being pulled by a dog named Dharma.  Contemplating the significance of the north, I flashed back to the teachings I've received in the desert while on quest.  In many traditions, each of the four directions signifies something.  There are some that say the North is the color white. It is winter. It's a maturing, learning to work together, being in community.  I take it to mean that we slow down, care for one another, after coming from the West where we are more adolescent, impulsive.  In this ice and snow that wants to stay on the north side of things, we must slow down a bit, be a little more careful, and work together, Dharma and me.  I asked her not to pull as I took each careful step.

As we neared that house, the eyesore, a woman was standing outside of it!  Now a black car sat in the street, surrounded by a bunch of stuff, including a metal teapot.  In the street!  The woman called to Dharma - but she didn't know Dharma's name - she called her "Here doggy!", and Dharma and I walked up to her to visit.  Cindy.  Cindy has only one tooth on the bottom - at least that's all I could see - and there aren't too many on the top.  Cindy has skin as black as the plastic on her windows, and it must be a wig that she wears - long and sexy.  This house used to be Cindy's mama's, but Cindy's mama died a year ago.  She was all that Cindy had.  The VW was Cindy's first car.  My first car was a VW, too, but yellow.

Cindy loved on Dharma, and Dharma was good - didn't act like the crazy girl she can be sometimes.  I can tell that Cindy loves.  I felt love.  From her and from me.  I wonder if I will ever see her again.  After all, this is the first time in all these years that I have seen a human outside that house.

I just knew that was God who had come out to shine on our walk.