Fix You (Coldplay)

Family vacation, July 2017, Cudjoe Key, photo credit: https://www.emileemcgovern.com/

It was a quiet, low-key week... Day-Quil-ing and Night-Quil-ing and Hall's lozenging, oh my!  I should have given you all a heads-up to buy stock in Kleenex... 🤣

It was also a strong emphasis on Radical Self-Care:  lots of hot baths, early bedtimes, catching up on TV shows (I finished Six Feet Under, at least as fabulous as I remembered it, if not more so):

"You think you finally get to the bottom of the feelings... and then there are more."

***

"I know.  I still can't believe it.  It's like... now we just go on with everything?  It's what people do."

***

"This is a hard day, and we're all very upset.  The loss of a young person is always a terrible blow.  But, in this case, it's even more cruel because [no spoiler!] was an idealist, and he struggled, all through his life, to be a good man.  He wasn't perfect; but then who among us is?  And he never gave up on himself, the people he loved, or even love itself, in all its vexing, beautiful forms."

***

"I forget how anyone ever gets over anything."

"...with time."

"...by remembering love."

"what the h*ll does that mean?"

"Slowly you fall back in love with whatever really mattered to you."

I started a WhatsApp Winter Wellness Challenge (in a no-pressure, no-guilt, no-stress definition of the word) for the month of December, inviting immediate as well as extended family members to join me in sharing (publicly or silently) their accomplishments... their stumbles... their affirmations... their words of wisdom... their get-up-and-do-it-again-amens... their memes... their goals, etc.  Motivate.  Inspire.  Encourage.  Today is Day 3 and it's already unbelievable lovely... 💖

I was delighted to test COVID-negative on Friday, meaning I could gather with Sarah, Colin, and Rob to decorate her Christmas tree that evening... as well as get back to the Hope garden yesterday.  "Oh patience" indeed... ॐ

SONG:  Fix You by Coldplay

BOOK:  Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman

POEM(S):  Allium by Rosemerry Wahola Trommer

 

While I did not fix

the thing I most

wish to fix, and I

did not do

the most important

thing on my list,

and I did not save

anyone, and I did

not solve the world’s

problems, I did

plant the onion sets

in the garden,

pressed my fingers

into the dry earth,

knew myself as

a thin dry start.

Oh patience, good

self. This slow

and quiet growing,

this, too, is

what you are

here to do.

Shoulders by Naomi Shihab Nye

A man crosses the street in rain,

stepping gently, looking two times north and south,

because his son is asleep on his shoulder.

No car must splash him.

No car drive too near to his shadow.

This man carries the world's most sensitive cargo

but he's not marked.

Nowhere does his jacket say FRAGILE,

HANDLE WITH CARE.

His ear fills up with breathing.

He hears the hum of a boy's dream

deep inside him.

We're not going to be able

to live in this world

if we're not willing to do what he's doing

with one another.

The road will only be wide.

The rain will never stop falling.

QUOTE(S):  “You begin to cry and writhe and yell and then to keep on crying; and finally, grief ends up giving you the two best gifts: softness and illumination.” ~ Anne Lamott

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don't really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” ~ Pema Chödrön 

"Our death is our wedding with eternity." ~ Rumi

"I held on to a thought about my boy that helped me face a future without him:  He had loved me his whole life.  That love is precious; and it's for keeps.  I will not waste it." ~ Hilda Bastain