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

The Lights and Buzz (Jack's Mannequin)

[click photo to "biggen", as my friend Pat used to say! ]

Well, obviously... these 2020 holidays have wreaked havoc with tradition, ritual, and get-togethers.  We can invoke the time-honored cliches of "lemonade from lemons", "make the best of it", "Plan Q"... but there's going to be a wrench in our hearts when we remember what was, and what could have been, and what won't happen this year.

I think I'm a funny person anyway (some of you may not agree), and I seem to be invoking humor a *lot* these last 9 1/2 months, trying not to be snarky but, at the same time, making it real.  The pandemic has forced us to be more creative in how we celebrate and how we gather, and my catch phrase has become "Nothing says Christmas like...", which is now a game:

~ Nothing says Christmas like... Jurassic Quest in the BB&T parking lot which, crazy as it sounds, was a super-fun outing Sarah invited me to share with her and Colin... and about 50 animatronic dinosaurs, complete with roars, squeaks, and an audio narration as you drive along at bumper-to-bumper speed, much slower than the 5-miles-per-hour they discourage you from exceeding!

~ Nothing says Christmas like... Disney princesses, Mickey Mouse, Ninja Turtles, and Olaf, right?  There is (pictured above) a house in our old Pembroke Lakes neighborhood that has been overdecorating for twenty years, adding new features along the way and, this year, making the path one-way in an attempt to keep things safer for all.  Just when you think you've seen it all, you haven't.  They even featured the leg lamp from A Christmas Story.  Fra-gee-lay... 😍

Nothing says Christmas like... seeing Santa at Bass Pro Shops, two concepts you'd never think to hear in the same sentence.  There was plexiglass involved... sigh, and hooray... 💞

Nothing says Christmas like... watching Holidate, a hilarious and irreverent film (on Netflix) that is surely the anti-Hallmark (and that's a good thing for me, Martha!), which you realize in the first seven minutes when one of the characters has a line of dialogue that's not repeatable here, but make sure you're not eating or drinking anything so as to avoid a spit-take.  I loved it, but your mileage may vary (which won't keep me from loving it!).

The non-snarky events of these last few weeks:

~ Listening to the Hipster Holidays Pandora station on my phone while I'm out on my walk

~ Surprising Rob for his birthday at his job in Pembroke Gardens 

~ Enjoying an Extended Family (the MossFam6 plus my sister, her husband, daughter and daughter's roomie; my brother couldn't make it) Zoom call.  How lovely to see everyone, even virtually, as it had been much too long... and we've vowed to do them regularly!

"It's good to be alive!" indeed... 💖

NR:  The Caregiver by Samuel Park

SONG:  The Lights and Buzz by Jack's Mannequin

BOOK:  Share Some Kindness, Bring Some Light by Apryl Stott (Author, Illustrator)

POEM:  Yellow Glove by Naomi Shihab Nye

What can a yellow glove mean in a world of motorcars and governments?

I was small, like everyone. Life was a string of precautions: Don't kiss the squirrel before you bury him, don't suck candy, pop balloons, drop watermelons, watch TV. When the new gloves appeared one Christmas, tucked in soft tissue, I heard it trailing me: Don't lose the yellow gloves.

I was small, there was too much to remember. One day, waving at a stream — the ice had cracked, winter chipping down, soon we would sail boats and roll into ditches — I let a glove go. Into the stream, sucked under the street. Since when did streets have mouths? I walked home on a desperate road. Gloves cost money. We didn't have much. I would tell no one. I would wear the yellow glove that was left and keep the other hand in a pocket. I knew my mother's eyes had tears they had not cried yet, I didn't want to be the one to make them flow. It was the prayer I spoke secretly, folding socks, lining up donkeys in windowsills. To be good, a promise made to the roaches who scouted my closet at night. If you don't get in my bed, I will be good. And they listened. I had a lot to fulfill.

The months rolled down like towels out of a machine. I sang and drew and fattened the cat. Don't scream, don't lie, don't cheat, don't fight — you could hear it anywhere. A pebble could show you how to be smooth, tell the truth. A field could show how to sleep without walls. A stream could remember how to drift and change — next June I was stirring the stream like a soup, telling my brother dinner would be ready if he'd only hurry up with the bread when I saw it. The yellow glove draped on a twig. A muddy survivor. A quiet flag.

Where had it been in the three gone months? I could wash it, fold it in my winter drawer with its sister, no one in that world would ever know. There were miracles on Harvey Street. Children walked home in yellow light. Trees were reborn and gloves traveled far, but returned. A thousand miles later, what can a yellow glove mean in a world of bankbooks and stereos?

Part of the difference between floating and going down.

QUOTE:  "After church on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, my family would go chop down our Christmas tree. Once it was home and placed in its stand, Mom and I would painstakingly decorate our tree. It took hours to place the tinsel, string the lights, find the perfect spot for my favorite macaroni and felt ornaments from kindergarten." ~ Molly O'Keefe

Starting Over (We're About 9)

It's the last day of January 2020 and, despite the re-occurrence of my back problems and a few blips with family and friends, it's been a good year so far.  I really have enjoyed being off Facebook (so much sensory overload), being more productive, spending more time with Colin, and reading like a motherf*cker (more on that in another post...  :-)

My calendar is full, but with joyful activities and interactions, and I'm trying to create white space for breathing and introspection as well.  Who the h*ll am I without a job, a concert series, social media?!?  Stay tuned.

Thunder rolls in the distance and, if it does start storming, I'll probably make a cup of lemon ginger tea, with a swirl of honey, and go out to my lounge chair on the balcony to listen and smell the agitating air.  Feels like my heart, or the backs of my legs when the sciatica hits.  Electricity.  Shocking.  Awareness.


SONG:  Starting Over by We're About 9

BOOK:  The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo

POEM:  Burning the Old Year by Naomi Shihab Nye

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

QUOTE:  “And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The Cold Song (Jewel)

Actually, there's a bit of congestion... but my true diagnosis is strep throat - I woke up with the scratchy/burning feeling Saturday morning (after feeling puny all week), which only worsened progressively. I went into work this morning and was promptly told to leave - I drove straight to the walk-in clinic where, one-hour-and-a-few-dollars-lighter later my suspicions were confirmed. I filled my antibiotic prescription immediately after, came home and told the office I'd see them Wednesday morning - I just finished eating some leftover mixed wonton and eggdrop soup Robert brought me last night (ah, the heat felt soooo good on my throat) and will head back to bed soon.

I'll use the next few forced stay-at-home recovery days to take care of myself as well as get some long-neglected tasks done around the house - I'll rue the loss of income but will take this as a sign from the Universe I'm meant to go undercover (pun intended... :-)

My blood pressure was also higher than they'd like to see, so I'll be monitoring that over the next week, in addition to reading about ways I can bring it down, hopefully without medication - can you spell W-A-K-E-U-P-C-A-L-L?

SONG: The Cold Song by Jewel

BOOK: Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing by Christiane Northrup M.D.

POEM: Making a Fist by Naomi Shihab Nye

For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.

QUOTE: "Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy." ~ Izaak Walton

Cup of Kindness (Emmylou Harris)

Yesterday afternoon, when I came out of work, I noticed that two of my tires seemed less full than usual, and my car had been feeling shaky the last few days - I decided to stop at the gas station on the way home to add air. I put air into the back one (not too much, I still believe) and moved to the front to do the same - about that time, the first one blew (bam - d*mmit!).

I sighed... rather loudly, and proceeded to call AAA, of which (because my husband has traveled most of our marriage) I've been a member forever - they told me someone would be out in 30 minutes so, fortunately, since I was at the shoppette/gas station, I went inside to buy a Diet Dr. Pepper (surely a guilty pleasure, although I avoided the Sun Chips that normally go so well with it... :-)

Not 10 minutes later, I received a call from Jim, who identified himself as the tow truck driver, and asked how soon I'd like him there - I unfazedly replied, "well, as soon as possible would be nice, because it's really hot, but get here when you can". He laughed and said he was actually at the light a block away - I laughed back and told him I hadn't expected a trick question!

As soon as I hung up, Katie with AAA dispatch called to tell me someone was on the way - I laughed again and said, "I'm impressed - your driver is 30 seconds away"... :-)

Jim arrived and made fast work of the repair, taking off the old tire and putting on the temporary "donut" - all the while, we yakked, pleasantly, about the Comedy Channel and unexpected expenses and having a good attitude. What could have been a nightmare, with me waiting outside in the 5:30 p.m. sun for an hour evolved into a delightful exchange of human contact, each of us calling the other by first name, each respectful, each connected/connecting - I only had $7 in my wallet, but gave it to him appreciatively, as he was to receive (even though tips are not required).

I still have to get my car into Tire Kingdom to buy, and install, another tire... which, given my busy schedule, may take me another few days - however, yesterday's good experience will stay with me a very long time. Kindness matters - in fact, I'd venture to say, given the ripple effect, it's the most important attribute a human being can possess...

SONG: Cup of Kindness by Emmylou Harris

BOOK: Random Acts of Kindness by Daphne Rose Kingma (Foreword), Dawna Markova (Introduction)

POEM: Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

QUOTE: "Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love." ~ Lao-Tzu