love is a direction...

Soft shoe meandering tonight after a week swarmed by the buzzing energy of meaningful connections.  Beautiful, heartwarming, across the waters, fingertip lightening connections.  Front and centre, within my reach, embracing arms connections.  Over the phone, face to face, smiling eye recognition.  

Affirmation from voices, from looks, from shared stories..... texting flirts.  Texting facts.  Texting observations, feelings..... Humans expressing stress.  Fear. Delight. Gratitude.  Humans responding to my request for help with open arms, with encouragement.  Humility.  Me responding to someone else's needs.  Gratitude and humility.  

We help each other.  Its the best we can offer.  Love directing.

I held a newborn this week.  Cuddly little sleepyhead in caterpillar purple.  Sigh.  Time stopped as I inhaled the sweetness of her tiny being. 

Hips groove to a reflective tempo tonight.  Jazzed up salsa with feathery drum touches filters through the airwaves to surround me in upbeat momentum.  Not like a rave.  More like a spirit that moves its limbs like the body suit of a cat awakening.  High notes bleeding into the nostalgic earth.  It makes me feel grounded.  Barefoot on cool pine floors.....

I watched my children cocooned in their deep sleep..... burrowed under favourite covers.  Dreaming their own colours.  Their own beat.  Completely safe.  Utterly relaxed.  Sigh.  

I love late night radio..........  with its static touches from far off sounds beyond the woods.  Down a well travelled road.  Along the winding river darkened by a starless sky.  Settled under streetlamps moistened by raindrops.  Never ending raindrops....  It brings music that shares its own stories from a musician's zone flow.  I can picture them completely immersed in creating emotion from their strings..... making them laugh, cry, whine....... the human and the instrument blending together emerging from a studio....... from one microphone outward to reach my ears.  Absorbing it......

I listened to young love conflictions.  New complications.  Big flooding feelings and what to do about them.  His own Mom was away.  On the week he REALLY wanted her guidance.  I replaced his Mom for a short time.  He needed to tell me how happy he is to be with the girl of his dreams........ but what to do about the best friend who likes her too?  What to do?  I listened.  I asked......... tell me what you think you should do.  What do you think you're Mom would say?  He smiled......... and thought and remembered other coversations with his gentle soul Mom.  "Do what is right...."  she would've said........ Then, he knew how he would handle the conflictions.........

"Do you know what is right to do?"   It all depends.  On the complications  and the situation .......  

I'm tired.  Good tired.  Deep rooted gladness fatigue right down into the tips of my soaken soul.  

It wasn't all gladness.  This week.  No.  Sometimes it felt like I was pushing heavy air up a hill.  Sometimes, it felt like I was going to burst out of a tear bubble and land flat on my sorry ass.  Sometimes, all I could do was put one foot in front of the other.  Sometimes, I allowed someone to play hopscotch on my heart.  No soft shoe hopscotch. Heavy shoes.  It hurt.  It was confusing.......  It triggered my feelings of rejection to a point where I thought I'd be swallowed up again. 

Then, something would happen to turn the rain clouds upside down.  

Like a reunion with someone I can shed inhibitions.... let go of the roles, the masks........ escape for a while.  

Like meeting a new friend who burst into my life like a rainbow of blending personalities.  We only talked for a short while, as we shook our heads wondering how the heck we had never met before.  So much in common.  

Like watching my friend cross the finish line after running her very first 1/2 marathon on sore sore feet and a wonky muscle in her back.  She bested her time by a whomping amount.  How bursting proud I was of her overcoming so many personal and winter weather obstacles to be able to run with her head held high and all of us watching her achieve this goal.  She's now soaking her feet in Rome on a trip with her Mom.  The first time they've ever been able to get away together just the two of them. 

Like seeing the pre-midterm nervousness zip through my daughter's whole body only to see her hours later relieved that all of her hard work paid off.  Her smile melts my heart.  Her hugs melt me too.  A month from now, she'll be graduation from high school and heading off to camp for the summer.  Bittersweet life forging ahead.....

Like seeing my son........ with the crackling voice galoomp into the kitchen with new long legs raring to share a few funny stories from his day............... head in the cupboards looking for crackers!  His delight peaked too when he found out that the trip to Toronto next week is now on the agenda.   My 13 year old off on an independent adventure.  Am I ready?  He is.  I am. Maybe.

Like accomplishing the practical things around here.   Painting my bathroom, even hanging up the heavy mirror on my own without breaking it!  A guy named Shirley fixed my lawn mower and gave me shit for not properly storing it for the long winter!  Ooops!  Thanks Shirley.  Next week, a big hearted man named Edgar will fix my front steps.  It's all happening........... so often this spring I've been overwhelmed by these practical things.  Now, I see progress......... Upside down clouds! 

Like having a friend lending me her black heels to wear to a fancy dress ballet gala at the last minute so I didn't look like a flat footed underdressed fool beside my man in his tuxedo.  She is always one phone call away.  Just up the hill.  My angel.  

The music is becoming more ethereal, more experimental as the night lingers on.......... as my thoughts and feelings float down into my soft shoes......

And I remember that today, a stranger man my age called me Kiddo! He said......... " you helped out a lot Kiddo...."  after I tried to lighten up his anxious moment of having all of his groceries come tumbling out of the back of his SUV by informing him that he had just been struck by the luck of Friday the 13th!  

Kiddo!  I patted him on his sleeve and wished him a good rest of the day!  Our eyes met.  We smiled.  Then drove off in our own direction.  

Did you know that love is a direction?  Did you know that you can choose that direction?  You just have to put it out there.  

This week, I took a risk or two.  I put it out there.  And what came back?  Well, you guess.  It was beautiful.  So marvellous that I stand here tonight in my soft shoes smiling a sense of gladness and fatigue, looking forward to crawling under my own favourite covers and letting the dreams find this young little Kiddo. 

Thank you to everyone who made my week so fulfilling, challenging, loving, encouraging and important to me and for allowing me to truly begin to put my once quiet thoughts and plans "out there....."  I have miles to go before I sleep. Tonight though, I take a break ......... and soft shoe my little tushie to bed. 

The Year I Turned 50-Licious

Yesterday morning, I arrived at the diagnostic imaging department at the local hospital for an annual mammogram, grabbed a number and sat down. Routine.  No big whoop. Just one of those important tasks to accomplish in the day in the life....  

This is what I was thinking as I looked around at the other folks who were there for various x-rays, ultrasounds and boob looksees.  In  no time my number was called and I found myself sitting in front of the clerk as she verified my medicare number and home address in her computer, and made sure my name was on the list.  It was her last question that sent a sharp kick into my gut...... "And your next of kin is still............?"  I said "yes." 

Well, he still is legally and I sure as heck didn't want to complicate the intake interview while trying to figure out who my next of kin is now.  My kids aren't old enough.  My family live in another province.  Neither option was practical. So, I kept it simple.  "Yes."  The question and my answer flooded my thinking and feelings as I found myself sitting in a flimsy johnny shirt coldly wrapped around my naked torso,  by the door to where the machinery was located.  Alone. Processing my thoughts.  In a place full of foreign sounds, sickness and stress, ongoing paging for emergency doctors, and smells one only inhales in the stark reality of a hospital,  I felt the gut galloping shiver of vulnerability.  My stark reality mirrored my environment.  

I leaned back against the wall, closed my eyes and focused on breaths to take away the "reality hurt"  until a warm hearted woman with a welcoming Maritime lilt in her voice called my name.  It was my turn to have a few photos taken. My morbidly self absorbed thoughts quickly turned into wondering how in the hell they do that boob squishing procedure on anyone who wears an A or a B cup???? 

This is the year I turned 50.  From the moment after the clock struck midnight to ring it in when I stood feeling like a pariah beside my husband at a party and there was no loving kiss forthcoming to this very moment as I try to capture the words flying out of my fingertips on this frosty morning.......... the last one of 2010, it has been a year of awakening to loud thunderous change.  

Sometimes it has been so shockingly vibrant like when you get to the part in a mystery novel and all the pieces of the puzzle transform into BIG TRUTHS all at once.  Oh!  I can think of a few of those body churning events!  Though I'm trying to let go of them, they are still the ones that pound on my temples at 4 am with demonic pleasure from time to time.  Not nearly so often.  Not nearly so often.   

Most of the time, however, the thunderous change has been more like the WAKE UP surprise of POP Rocks sizzle bursting in your mouth. You know its going to happen.  You just don't know when. When it does? Your eyes open a little wider, while your first thought is........ "What is that all about???"  And,  "Why did I just put Pop Rocks in my mouth when I know how uncomfortable they make me feel?"  Sometimes someone slips a few of those candies into your tea when you're not looking.  There you are attending to a routine task and kapow! One of those damn things explode and you're caught speechless........for a second.  

"Your next of kin still is..........?"

This is life. It is a cache of awakening moments, some more seismic than others.  Some more life altering than others.  Mine aren't any different than anyone elses.  My feelings and thoughts are not unique.  It is what WE all share......... the ability to think and the blessing to FEEL always!  From the monumental hurts to the ecstatic orgasms, and all the little poetic symphonies that are the very thread that binds the whomping biggies together.  By sharing our hearts and minds, not only do we learn  important lessons from one another that guide us to LOOKING and FEELING from a different perspective....a different reality, we become a part of one another's tapestry. 

This is an awakened life unfolding.  I am who I am because of the experiences I have encountered, embraced, denied, refused, stumbled upon, viewed, processed, created, mourned, celebrated,  respected, rejected and reconciled.  Just like you.   We are offered up little Pop rock morsels.....events that seem inconsequential at first,  but end up providing awareness to where we are in our journeys as a means to process the thunder changes. Shifts happen even when you're least expecting it.  In the poetry of life.  

Yesterday, I texted a friend of mine briefly sharing the hospital moment with her.  She understood how it felt right away, and commented on how these moments makes one realize how the world registers you and how you see it differently too.   In fact, she is the one who has helped me throughout the year "see" how poignancy preys in the grace notes of life....  I told her that I realized it is the poetry of life, not the long storied prose that meaning is found.  Her response?  "What's a poem if not volumes of truth packed into a single glance?"  Blow me away!  Gotta love a friend whom you share wisdom text messages with that are poetry too! 

This year, the one when I turned 50?  Well, it has been jam packed full of events...... poignant, pathetic, pulsating..... life altering snippets.  I'm not at a point where I can say that I wouldn't change it if I could do it again.  That would be silly.  No one in their right mind wants to ever experience the deep gashes from being betrayed.  However, I have laughed with more gusto, and wept with more intensity than I have ever imagined.  I have been hugged more passionately, and cared for beyond what I ever thought I needed. Conversations that once skimmed the surfaces dove deep into heartfelt meaning.  Until this year, I didn't realize just how much we can grow from an original place of pain into a garden of beauty.  I have taken many risks, and every time I think of one I smile broadly because every single risk I took connected me to another beautiful human being and experienced some amazing adventures!  WOW!  

As well, I have inhaled air so beautifully thin as I have encountered a bouquet of spiritual compassion through the kindness of so many people in my life, and through the deeply quiet times I have been alone absorbing the goodness of a faith just waiting for me to embrace. Magical.  Blessed.  Loved.  Lovable.  Gee, I even learned that I am a bit sexy! Who knew?????  Yeah, despite the pliable sagging breasts and the hands that look a thousand years old, I've got a sexy factor happenin'!

I have learned so much..... and hope that I have been able to pass on some of my lessons........  

On this day, the last one of the year I turned 50-licious?  I feel strong and whole, weak as well as yearning. A contradiction I am, I am.   I see the poetry as truth in a single glance.  And I know now how I will answer the question of who my next of kin is........  It doesn't matter who the name is.  I walk with many.  I walk with you.   With a Holy Spirit to guide us along.  Aren't we lucky?

Bring on the Pop rocks!  Happy New Year. 

________________________________________

ps.  I have been keeping an eye on and a journal to capture many of these moments that have occured this year with the intention of pulling them together in a book......... I havent shared many of them on my blog because I haven't had a chance to digest them as much as I want to. Plus, I feel like when it is time to write it out fully, i want it to be fresh.  But, let me tell you, the majority of them are bloody hilarious! Absurdity rules, as does my dark humour.  Stay tuned!!!

you win some....

 a cross of limbs

But you might get lucky now and then

You win some, you might get lucky now and then

You win some

 Mark Knopfler, Get Lucky

I have learned to find stillness inside my core.  Not all the time.  When I need to seek it. Music guides me there. With its soothing melodic sound, I allow it to surround me like a warm comforting shawl wrapped around my whole body. Soft earthy colours that gently touches my senses but doesn't impede my freedom to allow life's hymns to penetrate my flesh. In fact, it seems to do the opposite.  It opens me up to receiving the flow of thought and feeling as I breathe.  Accompanied by candlelight clarity and ancient hymns, I have learned to seek out a relaxed sanctuary where I can embrace vulnerability with a sense of soul safety.  

Sometimes, I don't have to set up my own little chapel of stillness.  Sometimes, it finds me when I'm least expecting it or when I need it the most..... when the sounds of my world resemble clashing cymbals, offbeat noise generated by loud obnoxious fumes generated from life out of hand.  Ringing in my ears.  Ringing in my soul.  I've learned to recognize those off kilter moments, especially if I am physically and/or emotionally spent, and do something about it.  Then, I gather my outgoing energy and turn it inwards.  Just for a brief respite until I can reach the end of a stressful, busy, loud noisy day when I can snuggle into the comfort of the shawl for a longer period of time.  It makes me smile as I write this. Regeneration. 

Paradoxically, it's a process of regaining some control of what is allowed to penetrate me and what I long to release by letting go of the controls.  Recently, I learned itt's a form of centring.  Integrating head and heart with something far deeper and mysterious in the core of my soul.  That is where the guiding light is.  Down this dark shadowy tunnel, a guiding light awaits.  Its glow awakens calm, courage, clarity.  Its glow invites resolution by letting you safely look deeply into the place where tears are made.  Not the ones that flow down cheeks. These soultears are the ones that weep into muscles and bones.  They touch upon the tension and untie the bruising knots that stiffen the body and mind.  Just by breathing.  Alone.  In candlelight clarity.  Inside ancient hymns.  Healing happens.

Since I'm not a person prone to following directions or rules, my drummer beats to its own cadence.  In the summer, I sat outside on my back deck under the stars surrounded by the warm wafting breeze, enraptured by the fireflies while listening to music.  Sometimes I had a hot mug of tea close by.  Sometimes I poured myself a glass of crisp white wine to sip on.  Behind me, music would play out of the speakers, filling the air around me with loving familiarity.  A whole evening would slip away as I sat in peace, allowing the thoughts and feelings transfer in and out of my consciousness as I listened to a few selected CD's.  One of them was Mark Knopfler's, Get Lucky.  This fall, I misplaced the CD.  I don't have a clue where it went because I never took it outside of the house.  Mysteriously, it disappeared and it has bothered me that I have lost my copy.  Since then, I have found other pieces of music..... some classical, some traditional choir music..... some jazz melodies.

Memories, ideas, beautiful faces from the past, fears, grief, gaps of wondering if I would ever find the answers.  It helped me to immeasurably learn that not only are there many important situational events in life that have no resolution, it doesn't matter if you just let go of their hold on you. Ah, but then there were moments of clarity when the messages reached me........ of how blessed I am.  How loved I am.  How contented I felt.  How you win some.  How letting those tears hiding inside the soul come alive when the light is shone on them. 

This gift I have been given first revealed itself over a year ago when I attended the Greenbelt festival and found myself exhausted and jittered with stressy complications walking into an ethereal feeling room called Soulspace.  I wrote about the experience, here, here and here.  (I had a lot to say!  It was so new to me that I wanted to capture its full essence....)  Yes, I had to fly across the deep Atlantic pond to find a way to stillness!  I am forever grateful because it has been my companion, my guide, my way of resolving the pain and hurt I have felt during my marriage break-up more than any other activity.  It was only this fall though that I learned while at a writing/meditation retreat that what I had been practising was a formal way of praying!  And to think I thought I was moving to an original beat! Of course it is a process tied into the school of the eternal. 

So, why do I bring it up this morning....... a seemingly typical November day that is about to welcome daylight in shades of grey?  It has been a while since the music from my summer moments sitting out in warm healing breezes under the stars returned.  But, when I open my eyes, I swear I could hear it playing...... you win some........ you might get lucky now and then........ you win some........ Knopfler's reliable voice was playing in my psyche.  Needless to say, I awoke calm.  I awoke with a smile on my face of memories of stillness... of sitting alone but never feeling alone.  

No need to seek out the place of centring.  It found me.  Its a part of me now.  Symbolically, this is truly a good thing.  Because this morning, I will meet the person who has played a key role in the pain and grief I am gradually to let go of.  For the first time, I will meet a stranger who already is meaningful in my life journey, who has altered it in ways I never predicted.  Revisiting the music and stillness I gravitated to last summer has set me up with a sense of readiness for this encounter.  It will allow me to express myself in a manner that has a tone of forgiveness towards a human being and not the ugly monster I had conjured up in my head.   All the nasty accusations have disappeared from my internal conversations....... I'm ready to be human to another human.

Healing comes under different shawls of comfort.  Healing comes when stillness leads you to the internal light that shines on a place where tears are made.  Healing comes when you feel the breath of God in every breath you take, knowing you're not alone.  Healing comes when the hymns of life transform the energy from the outside zip to the inside stories unfolding.  It's soul work.  Not easy.  It was the hardest work I've ever done...pushing through all of those raging feelings, learning how to pray in my own manner.  But, now that I am capable of it, I'm free.  And lucky.

Ps. By the end of the day, I will have another copy of that CD! 

cleansing tears, awakening gratitude

Smiling market friends, Boyce Farmer's Market

October, 2010

 

Yesterday as I sat in church, I was flooded by tears.  They flowed out of me from a geiser just under my skin.  They streamed out  leaving me a bit perplexed over the quantity and over the fact that they didn't come from a place of sorrow nor joy.  It seemed like I was an open vessel........vulnerably open to expressing what I was receiving.  It's difficult to find the words to articulate it, except perhaps my sensitivities were heightened to flood stage while my heart was filled with gratitude.   I wasn't expecting the intensity of those feelings bubbling up, but there was absolutely no way of stopping them.  I didn't try.  Safe under the majestic  ceiling pitch of the old church, surrounded by the walls which have absorbed many stories,  I let go of the controls.

Its a bit disconcerting to be a person who can let the tears flow so effusively whenever I am touched by a moment.  When the moment happens to be in public, well it adds another flavour to the experience.  Tears are misunderstood by an onlooker. Automatically, we tend to think that they represent pain from grief or mourning and that crying is always a weeping.  Rather, they can be a communitative cleansing, a decluttering of the accumulative aches as well as the softened relaxation of the body and soul awakening to something only the heart sees. 

The service was poignant.  It brought forward a chance to recognize the gifts we have all around us and to feel a sense of love and belonging especially when one is moving through a new passage in one's life.  Gratitude felt fills the caverns inside us with joy.  It pushes out the sadness.  It awakens us to possibilities.  It leaves us sensing our internal tributaries flowing in and out with kindness.  It was a awakening affirmation of giving and receiving thanks, of remembering, of recognizing life's joyful harvest.

I had my head down during most of the service listening while envisioning the myriad of blessings in my personal life. I tried on occasion to put a halt to the tears.  I was running out of kleenex!  I wanted to be able to focus with clarity on the music, the words, the scripture.  But, there was no way of stopping them. Clarity came from inside.  What was spoken at the service seeped in through my pores settling in the emptied places where the tears had once resided.  

At one point, right in the middle of the sermon, I lifted my head up and at the same moment the angle of the sunlight filtering through the beautiful stained glass windows high up above me reached the spot where I was sitting.  Front and centre.  The light warmed the top of my head as a welcome to look up. When I did,  it bathed my face with a glow that pulled me right into it's healing.  The light reflected through the coloured glass, left me with a gift of radiance I can only describe as grace.  I can't believe how timely it was and how the air thinned all around me.  I took several deep long breaths.  

I prayed.  I sat quietly listening to the congregation all around me recite the creed, letting their expressive words be mine.  I gave thanks over and over.... in silent thoughts to God who guides us through the perplexities of an awakened life.  Yesterday, the Sunday of Thanksgiving,  I let the tears flow, like a river......... cleansing away the perplexities, emptying those overflowing soulcups, leaving me with space for receiving the vitality of Grace.  

Gratitude and Humility

Let this be a rambling outpost tonight as I make an attempt to catch up to my thoughts and emotions which seem to be flying out of every orifous on my body! How's that for a pretty visual? 

Ok, let's start with 5 words, eh Beautiful Human Becoming GrandPip?

Scrambledeggsheaded

Lonelyhearted

Jumbledinnards

Deeplyseated

Surrenderedhuman

You know, sometimes all it takes is to find the words that attempt to describe the state of mind and heart for the uncluttering to begin.  You speak them, write them, express them and the power of the feelings lessen.  Focus begins to replace the flooding.  Awareness is invited through the door of the soul.  My 5 made up words brought me some smiling levity.  Silliness reigns!

Deep breaths....... in and out, in and out....... slow presence breathing....

Here's she goes....

Today started off well and then went into decline around 9 am after I left the Market when I allowed myself to relax and fully recognize the significance of Thanksgiving in my life and the lives of my family.   Hands down, it is the most loved dinner I prepare because the whole weekend is filled with the goodness of gratitude and the humility of stopping to remember the importance of sharing our harvest with others.   The meaning and the symbolism of preparing a meal with that in our hearts fills me with joy.  I love, love, love providing the meal for Thanksgiving.  So, it isn't surprising that I am having a tough time this weekend coping with the changes and the loss.

Since this morning, I have been shadow boxing with new and old ghosts.   Memories from way back of celebrating and giving thanks with friends and family in Spencer's Island and here in my home came marching into my presence.  Memories of last year's Thanksgiving celebration trumped all of them however, as I realized just how much my life had changed and I didn't even know it.  As much as I have tried to stop obsessing on this, I can't let go of the thoughts until I express them.  Do you have any idea how difficult it is to accept the fact that the life you were living and seeing one way wasn't that way at all?  It feels like a violation. It really does.

I am no victim.  I have no time for that mentality and I am fully aware of where my own head was at this time last year and how much it was impacting my marriage.  It was in stuck mode, trying to figure out what I wanted and trying my best to express myself.  However, I didn't express myself.  I was reacting all over the place.  Not responding. Reacting and making things much worse.  I couldn't be fully open to hearing what was being said and NOT said.  I was too angry and burnt out from years of shouldering things, which of course closed down any opportunities for intervention on my end.  And since I was the only one to have taken the lead on that, it wasn't going to happen.  I stopped asking.  I let resentment cloud my vision as I struggled to keep afloat trying to seek solutions. I was questioning everything, and the most predominant feeling I harboured was fear.  Yes, fear. I see that now.

• I was afraid to take a real honest look because I knew it was ugly.
• I was afraid to really see the disconnect and numbness being projected from the both of us.
• I was afraid to push for openness because I didn't know how it would impact his health.
• I was afraid I couldn't cope with maintaining the status quo or what the future held.
• I was afraid that I would remain stuck and life wouldn't get any better.
• I was afraid of being rejected even though I was already feeling its realness.

This is where I was at last Thanksgiving.  Truthfully afraid and incapable of helping to steer my marriage back to safe waters.  I was so foggy while defensively protecting myself that it wasn't until much later that I began to see the signs that someone else had already replaced me in the love department.  Today, a year later these revelations have surfaced.  I see the irony of it too because all along I have been told that my reactions and my expressed feelings scared him.  I scared him. 

Turns out how I was behaving and how he was behaving was out of fear. Fear begat fear.   Of course, I know now that he stopped loving me months and months before last Thanksgiving.  It was all a ruse. Even if I had lifted up out of my fears, it was too late.  Resignation had already happened.  I just hadn't been told yet.

So, where am I today?  Am I still fearful?  In some aspects of my life, of course I am but in a much healthier and productive way.   My courage is bright and shiny again.  Through the knee dropping humility and the comfort of learning, reflecting, expressing, grieving, grieving and grieving, I am finding my way as I continue multi-tasking throughout my days, and stepping out into new territories with a new feeling of freedom gratitude.  Insights, late nights, bright lights, and dark sights and a whole lot of tears has stripped me of the layers of resentment (though I have a way to go......).  So has the unconditional love and support of my friends and my family.  Thank God.  Thank you.

Life it seems is a process of neverending surrendering.  What gets me is that the more you surrender, the less afraid you become.  Who knew??? Maybe I missed this lesson when I was too busy stubbornly trying to be a fixer, failing at it and then giving up? Or maybe I misunderstood, thought it was a commercial and went to the kitchen to plug in the kettle?

• I looked at the ugliness and it ran away, replaced by growing beauty.
• I reflected on the reality of the disconnections and take ownership of my side of things, while learning to forgive myself and others.
• I let go of the responsibility of his health issues and began to address my own.  I have more to do in this area, but I am taking it one day at a time.  I still have troubles sleeping.  The anxiety still kicks in when I am alone falling asleep, but it will leave soon.  Feelings are just visitors with messages.  They eventually go bother someone else.
• I am not living in the status quo of last year.  I broke free and learned quickly that my wings will continue to unfurl, my potential only grows as I learn to let go, as I allow my confidence to meet up with my competence.  What stalls me at times is this unresolved fear of being rejected.  When you've experienced the ultimate rejection and that happens to be your trigger button, well........... it takes time.

What I fear the most did come true.  But guess what?  I didn't keel over and fall into a fetal position.  Ok, I did a couple of times, but let's just call that meditative moments shall we?  However, I didn't remain there.  I got back up.  Dusted myself off.  Put on a cute little black dress and got my sexy little butt out there in the world again with a bunch of new learning stuffed in my lacy push up bra.  

Why is it that our most important learning seems to have to germinate from an open wound?  Why is it that personal enlightenment and transformation only occurs in the middle of a messy shift?  Maybe the imbalance, lack of footing, discomfort hurt we experience is the best way of appreciating overcoming our fears.  Kicking at darkness until it bleeds daylight, sings Bruce Cockburn. There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in., croons Leonard Cohen  I guess you've got to kick hard enough to make a few new light emiting cracks?  Beautiful Imperfection, writes Pip Wilson 

Tonight, I began this bloggie post with a scrambledeggs head.  I finish it in a very different place, with new awareness.  I will be attending a dinner at a new friend's place tomorrow surrounded by folks I will meet for the first time.  I'm very grateful and humbled that they are sharing their harvest with me.  I have much to be thankful for.  I know this deep in my heart. 

Happy Thanksgiving. 

friendship bouquets

Life has a way of throwing flowers at your feet. For goodness sakes, don't stomp on them! Pay attention!  Fancy blooms and a few  buds ripening ready to open are just laying there in a heap. Untouched beauty.  With a little attention and care and some creative panache, the bouquet is yours to add a warm glow to your surroundings.  I love bouquets and I'm determined to keep my eyes wide open to see them when they land. 

Conversations that ebb and flow with ease, and the sharing is a deep shade of indigo, bright yellows, perky orange, and the intimacy of a palette of pinks can have the same impact.  Connecting with another, knowing the conversation will be one that continues on into another and another, is like having flowers thrown at your feet every single time you meet.  With a little attention, care and some creative panache a relationship will add a warm glow to your surroundings....both inside and out.  These friendships come from a garden eternally growing blooms of cut flowers to admire from afar, or to snip off in order to create a unique bouquet to beautify your visual field.  

No two bouquets are alike.  No matter how hard you try to replicate an arrangement, it is always different.  The shades of colour, the straightness of the stems, the shape, and the size all play factors in creating a unique display.  The container you place them in, the way you handle them, the light reflecting off them, and the surroundings you put them in all.........external factors play a key role in enhancing or distracting from the blooms.  But you know what else is just as or even more important?  Its what you put of yourself into the creation of the bouquet.  Just like any relationship.  

Feed them both with love and tenderness.....with appreciation and respect for their beauty.  Take care of the little nicks, rough spots and blemishes while admiring the fact that this is what promotes uniqueness, and their gifts will reflect back to you.  Gifts you never even imagined.

Blossoming friendships need attention and respect.  When they land at your feet, don't ever question why they ended up there.  Only God knows that answer and he's not going to be blabbing about it!  And for goodness sakes, take good care where you tread.  Eyes wide open..........these blossoming friendship are everywhere.  This is what makes life so beautiful.  

Today, a new bouquet landed........... I will gently arrange the colour and contrast in one of my favourite vases and let it bloom as it will.  

As it will..........

Today, life threw flowers at my feet..... This friendship bouquet is for keeps.

The Transitional Zones. Turning Fifty-licious

"All endings are beginnings.

We just don't know it at the time......"

Mitch Ablom, Five People You Meet in Heaven.

If you were to examine the connection between an ending and a beginning, you'd probably see spaces between the loose threads that bind them.  Or maybe even a gap.  Yes, maybe there's a kind of a transitional zone where the synapses don't touch. This is where I am sometimes, like everyone else on this planet.  No matter who you are, there is a bit of flux happening in your life.  Change is inevitable.  We are not static beings.  As soon as we learn something new, we are in the process of an ending and a beginning.   This past week it has been a theme of sorts as  I've spoken to many as they find their "new beginning" footing as they start taking new courses at the College.  

The thing about endings and beginnings is that you don't just have ONE of them. Our lives are a complicated somewhat messy multi-faceted set of them.  Linearity is not a human condition that is natural.  We are jugglers of many endings and beginnings.  Think about all of them that confront you on a daily basis.  How easier it would be if we were only coping with ONE ending and ONE beginning.  Crazy easy!  But, not reality.  Not only that, our lives consist of coping with them at different stages of openings and closings...... 

It reminds me of the passage in the Bible (and a well known 60's song), for everything, there is a season........ 

Seasons on the calendar may follow one another in an orderly manner.  Seasons in our lives crossover, combine, and create a mishmash cornucopia unique to every individual.  You may be in the spring of a relationship, or the autumn of one.  You may be basking in the summer of your career, or standing on the precipice of retirement...... winter......... with snow covered seeds waiting to germinate a new lifestyle.   We may have all four seasons happening all the same time with respect to different parts of our lives.  And when I consider it that way, I can see how often I find myself in the zone of transition.... not for everything at the same time.  I think I would fall apart if that was the case.  But, living the circle of life juggling the stages and the seasons while the days unfold as they always will........ 

Moving forward,

Staying still,

Hesitating

Anticipating

Letting Go

Denying

Accepting

Keenly motivated

Unsure

Yearning

Dreading

Reflecting

Celebrating

Grieving.......

Opening and closing.........

ALL DOINGS with feelings........ 

Winter Endings blending into Spring beginnings are occuring all around us and in us.  Sometimes with ease.  Sometimes with unbalanced footing.  Whether we want them to or not.  We visit the zone between and ending and a beginning because we need to.  This is where we process the loss.  Every change, every time we let go of old stuff/knowledge/ways of doing or being/relationships/  we experience loss.  This is what is so difficult about change.  Not the change.  The loss.   There is a season for everything.   And a purpose too....... Loss is a part of life.  Loss is a part of living life.  Loss is the hurting part of resolution.

I turned 50 on Saturday.  I would be remiss if I didn't admit that it is a milestone I can't quite believe I've hit already.   I don't think my parents can either!  They don't look old enough to have a 50 year old daughter!!  :)  But, here I am!  50 for God's sakes.  A third of the way through my life!  :)   It wasn't going to be a big deal, or didn't seem like it was going to be when I thought about it.  

But, then life threw a major curveball and it became symbolically challenging.  It quickly turned into a huge hill to climb up and over.  You see, it was the first birthday in 25 years that I wouldn't be celebrating it with my husband.  He has been by my side for half of all of my birthdays.  And now, it's no more.  This is what I couldn't process.  This is the loss I was holding onto.   

To everything, there is a season and a time and purpose under Heaven..... so often it remains a mystery.  And that's alright.  We don't need all the answers.  We just want them! 

Something magical happened last Saturday.  I let go of the loss.  I put my party dress on, complete with a new pair of sparkly silver sneakers I had been saving for just this occasion!   There was a transference from an ending to a big yellow door opening onto a new beginning.  I stipstepped in my silver shoes across the threshold, beyond the gap, over the transitional zone and landed with both feet on new ground.  It could not have happened without the undying support of my friends and family.  Turning 50 all of a sudden became turning 50-licious! 

A birthday party took place in my home........the one I had envisioned!  My house filled with joy and laughter, with song and music, with wine and food and with a cake especially created by my 12 year old friend Maeve!  Everywhere I turned, I saw people of all ages interacting and having fun, including my parents who arrived to surprise me!  All the way from Ontario via Maine!  

Right at the appointed time, God seemed to push away the rainy clouds to let the sun take his twilight bow over the river horizon. AS the day turned into night, the stars lit up the sky with so many points of glimmerlights it was impossible to comprehend.  And before you knew it, the campfire was blazing the in backyard and a circle of friends gathered for warmth, song and stories.  Inside the house, the chatter and music continued to........   people flowed from to and fro.  And life for me took a giant step forward, lighter from letting go of some of the loss.  

I will treasure this milestone in my life.  It was the biggest, brightest, most brilliant gift I could ever have received.  The gift of love, friendship, and belonging to a group of people and to a place I call home.   Thank you.  Thank you.

Endings are really new beginnings?  To everything there is a season......... this one truly has a purpose and a few reasons.    I'll toast to that!

Fellowship and Greenbelt

Fellowship is made from the combined essential oils of our souls.  Its fragrance lingers beyond the time spent together.  On days when our lips are parched, thirsty in need, the quiet eye contact of fellowship gladdens into a renewed smile.  It massages the lost and broken bits; pent up stress from never stopping to take a deep holy breath of belonging and leaves us refreshed in pensive comfort.  During the dark hours of winter light, the late summer fragrant breezes from tall grass, heather and lavender weave golden moments through our ladened tone that beat from our hearts.

A gathering is about to happen in a field across the pond.... a field dressed in Big Top stripes, fluttering wind streamers so colourfully vibrant .... a field nestled in the sleepy hills, surrounded by a rainbow of tents, filled with people eager to reunite in worship, music, dance, laughter.  Arm and arm, toe to rain wellie toe, toasting to life and love through the communion of celebration, they will meet to open their pores .... to soak in the sacred harmony hovering in the air above the Greenbelt Festival.  

May old friendships deepen

May new friendships take seed.
May conversations take you to new frontiers of learning.
May you find a space to let yourself breathe in God's spirit.
May moments happen that take your breath away.... and leave you with twinkling enlightenment.
May burdens lessen even for a short reprieve
May the sentiment of fellowship annoint you with the spritzed essence of soul-full essential oils.

Thinking of my friends who will be attending the Greenbelt Festival, which officially gets underway tomorrow......... but unofficially has begun in a curry restaurant somewhere in Cheltenham tonight.  I may be far far away in body, but in spirit......?  I just have to close my eyes to feel the connections, the colour, the life of a very special place. 

Enjoy!
Enjoy!
I will be there next year with bells on my toes!

Growth and Elements.

"Let me wave to you,"  she said.

Sunflowers inspire me. Whenever I see a garden clump of them, their heads tilted like posed models, I am struck by how otherworldly they seem.  How can they possibly be from this planet?  From a tiny seed shoved into the dirt comes this majestic open faced beauty standing over 10 feet tall.  In one season. How can that be?  Though they seem still and sturdy, I always figure that if I watch them long enough, I will see them grow.

Sunflowers grow upward on the strength of their stalks until their fancy dress petals unfurl cusping the elegant eye which glows with the contrast of vibrant yellow and earthy shades of brown.  Beautiful. Elegant.

But never perfect..... If you look at them up close, you can see the visible imperfections which always accompany stretching and growth.... Like humans, nature's blooms must struggle at times against the elements thrown at them.  Elements take their toll, while challenging the very idea of perfection. They leave tatooed scrapes, unusual shapes.... beauty marks that tell their unique story. 

Sunflowers........ may we always look to them to learn a few life lessons, to recognize we too have the potential to thrive, not despite the elements we face, but because of them.  As my Emerald friend Pip says,  "Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable...." 

The garden of life, thankfully is not a comfortable place to be living in  most days.  May we have the strength to dwell there until we learn we too are all beautiful in our imperfections and that we thrive because of the elements, not despite them.   My we accept our flaws as what they really are.... beauty marks that tell our unique life stories.

dining room memories.

It barely fits 8 people sitting snuggly when the table is set.  It can feed many happy folks when I push everything to the side and serve a buffet.  It has been decorated with chinzy balloons, banners and crepe streamers.  It has been set up with votives and tapers flickering dinner light.  It has been turned into a haunting halloween howl, an Easter egg dipping den, a place to do homework, crafts and basket filling, a place to play cardgames, boardgames, a place to sketch out plans.

There are days when it looked elegant in its own humble way, and other days it was a creative mess during project contruction.  Flowers, cut from my garden or given to me by the one who loves a beautiful bouquet as much as I do often takes frontstage of the centrpiece.   Of the spaces in my home, my little dining room has been transformed more than any other.  If my kitchen is the heart of this house, my dining room is the open hands of giving. With love I have served many meals to  friends and family in that space. 

Today, I remembered so many good times as I began to freshen it up after 12 years with the same paint on the walls.   I didn't expect to be inundated with memories....silly me!  As I put the second coat on the windowsills and began prepping the room for a facelift,  the voices, the nusic, the ambiance, interactions, conversations, reunions, met me full on.

Initially, I was struck by the memories of when we redid it the first time when Max was a baby.  I remembered how I scraped the wall paper one square foot at a time because Max only ever wanted to nurse.  So, I would nurse him and then put him in his car seat and move him around the dining room with me as I scraped.  It took forever, but what I remember learning about it is how sometimes you can't look at a WHOLE project because it overwhelms you and then you don't get started.  You have to take it one bite at a time. 

Then, I realized it was a lesson I needed to revist and reflect on again today because it is an analogy for so many of life's bumps and bruises too.  Its the lesson I embraced when i began writing again..... I didn't have the time to write the novel I wanted to, but if I just posted one piece on the blog daily, I would eventually have enough for a novel.  Both have happened.

If only we had tried to take the issues in our marriage I pondered,  one bite at a time and not let the accumlated problems overwhelm us and smear our way of seeing things.... and how we felt.  Mostly how we felt.  If only we had applied the same philosophy.  But, we didn't and now it's too late.  My redecorating pushed this thought to the forefront as I celebrated and mourned the radical changes in my life and the life of my family and friends.  When a marriage implodes, the impact reverberates beyond the two people who expressed the vows. If only........ can't dwell there too long.

I was  flooded with all of the wonderful wonderful memories of dinners we had in that little dining room.  As my tears flowed, I tuned into the voices and music..........the laughter and companionship......... the debates and the stories......... the smiles and the gratitude you only ever feel right in the core of your heart when you're surrounded by people who love you and you love.  

Certain dinners came to mind. I relived many of them. The VERY first one with Heidi and Andrew right after Jamie had  finished painting it!  And how I ended up downstairs with a wretched crying Max while he entertained people who didn't know what it was like to be around a baby!   The reunion dinners with Bill and Helen and Jim and Ev while the kids played somewhere else  .......... Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving.........birthday parties when the dining room was decorated with streamers............ when the dining room was turned into a buffet for our Ground Hog day parties, and Open houses....... the times when Max would have the 3 of us laughing so hard on normal evenings when it was just the 4 of us.  Sundays.  Sunday dinners catching up and planning for the week always had music playing in the background.

It's such a little space, but it holds the music of love, lauighter, knship, family, ............. it holds many many words I pulled out of the air to write about.  It holds early morning thoughts and prayers when I was up writing and my family was sound aseleep on a Sunday morning ..... the crisp winter light refelcting on the snow outside.  I love writing at the dining room table.

It is where we were at our best......... hosting, being parents, being a couple...... sharing. This we agree on.  Man we worked well together in this little space.... me serving, providing, orchestrating the meals (in my element), and Jamie keeping the conversation, wine and music flowing........ what warms my heart more than anything is that there are many people in my life who hold their own memories of evenings spent right in this space....... late night conversations that led to learning more about one another.  Beautiful connections. 

One of the most memorable dinners?  We were sharing Christmas dinner with three families.  The magic of the season was present with full hearts. The adults sat around the dining room table.  The kids sat 5 feet away at their own table set up in the living room. The music was on.  The fire blazing in the fireplace.  The Christmas tree sparkled in tiny lights.  Candles were burning all around the two rooms.  Every one was in the mood to celebrate.  

I had placed photos on everyone's plates in random order....a photo of each person attending.  After grace I asked everyone to look at the picture of the person in the photo and share a memory or a thought about that person.  Sometimes my attempts like this fall flat.  This time for some reason, it rose beyond my expectations.  Even though the ages ranged from 10 years old to 45,  what was shared, and the insight expressed left this group with a sense of love and belonging that permeated into a meal of thanksgiving where stories were passed along on their own platter.   What warms my heart is that if I was to ask the kids who attended to choose one of their favourite Christmas memories, this moment of talking about the person int he photo inevitably is mentioned.  So simple, yet so poignant. 

It took me the whole day to primer this tiny dining room.  I kept having to quit and catch my breath again...... oh and to change the music.  I cried openly, mourning the loss.  I shed the tears of joy and gratitude too.  I tried to put aside the meals that had been painfully emotional since last Christmas, knowing now that there was one person at the table who had already moved out of the house emotionally, spiritually......... I did though reflect on the new variations of people who have sat around the dining room table when the silence and hurt was served even if no one could face the music.  I've served many meals last spring to my broken family and then retreated to my room so that the kids could have time with their Dad.  It turns out that of all the rooms in this little  house, it is the dining room that has absorbed the transitional times for the whole family. 

Lately though, the laughter and the stories are beginning to return.   This past week for example, it was just Max and I sitting in this space one evening.  The mood was bouyant and the conversation flowed back and forth in a bantering sharing way.  It ran the normal gamut of topics.  It felt right.  It felt comfortably lovely. Afterwards, we cleared the table and cleaned up the dishes together, continuing the discussion we were having on our dreams of travelling. 

So, the room has finally been painted with a primer ready to take on new colour, a new look.  But before I rolled on the white, I painted a few words on the walls............. "renewal" and "bless this space with love."  You won't be able to see the words once its finished, but I know the blessings are there..... I know that if I stumble saying grace as the sole one at the helm, I can look over at the wall and hear it encourage me to find the words........ 

This dining room will soon be ready to host a few good parties........ and many many family meals.   I'll toast to that. 

Post photos will follow..................