Simple Gifts (Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss)

Some of you will be getting this in the mail in the next few days; I need to unearth my holiday cards first... 🤣

Dear Friend – 

On Tuesday, December 26, it will be three months since Eric died.  My two overarching emotions are Heartbreak and Disbelief.  It is impossible (Unimaginable) to think he is never coming back.  And so I persist with my Grief Journey.  I am learning all I can about loss and healing and the (non-linear) Five Stages.  It eases my heart, and maybe I can help others in the future (although I don’t wish this tragic situation on anyone).  It is a lonely path, but it is also a road of gratitude and support and love and luck and blessings.

Adrift by Mark Nepo

Everything is beautiful and I am so sad.

This is how the heart makes a duet of

wonder and grief. The light spraying

through the lace of the fern is as delicate

as the fibers of memory forming their web

around the knot in my throat. The breeze

makes the birds move from branch to branch

as this ache makes me look for those I’ve lost

in the next room, in the next song, in the laugh

of the next stranger. In the very center, under

it all, what we have that no one can take

away and all that we’ve lost face each other.

It is there that I’m adrift, feeling punctured

by a holiness that exists inside everything.

I am so sad and everything is beautiful.

I’ve always talked about, but never implemented, a Christmas with no physical gifts, inspired by the Five Hands meme:  handmade… hand-me-down… secondhand… helping hand (donate)… hand-in-hand (spend time together).  What better time to follow through on a new tradition than this year… our First Noel without Eric?  I know that I don’t *need* any more things, and I’m guessing “stuff” might be a low priority in your life too.  My goal is to replace “stuff” with experiences.

I am sending this to friends with whom I usually exchange gifts, and I hope I’ve caught you in time (probably not, given my chronic tardiness!).  Please do not buy me anything; the generous gift of your friendship is enough.  Let’s vow to cross paths with each other more often in 2024… share more authentic and deep conversations… check in Just Because… remember how our connection began, and why it continues… encourage each other to focus on Radical Self-Care… remind each other to live intentionally and mindfully… be aware that life as we know it can change in the Blink of an Eye.

My Christmas 2023 present for you is:

(and I will fill in the blanks here...)

Happy Holidays, and So. Much. Love. Always… 🎅🎄🎁

SONG:  Simple Gifts, covered by Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss

BOOK:  Calm Christmas and a Happy New Year: a little book of festive joy by Beth Kempton

POEM(S):  A Gift by Denise Levertov

Just when you seem to yourself

nothing but a flimsy web

of questions, you are given

the questions of others to hold

in the emptiness of your hands,

songbird eggs that can still hatch

if you keep them warm,

butterflies opening and closing themselves

in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure

their scintillant fur, their dust.

You are given the questions of others

as if they were answers

to all you ask. Yes, perhaps

this gift is your answer. 

Meditation by Jay Leeming

You’re trying to meditate. Cushion

beneath you, eyes slightly open,

breath growing calm and steady.

But there are sounds, distractions,

thoughts: the distant highway,

a blue jay announcing himself,

a car starting down the block.

Always the struggle to pull attention

back to breath, to let each thought

go, not to cling or to keep

but to let it drop like a stone

fallen from your hand. And at times

you manage to stumble briefly

into peacefulness. But then

amid breath and highway and birdsong

you hear something else: the rumble

of a large truck, a sound growing louder

as it rounds the corner, creaks,

then pulls up maybe a half-block away.

The engine shudders into silence.

Footsteps in the street, stray words

you can’t make out, the slam of doors.

More words, a pause, and then the kick

and climbing roar of a wood-chipper

settling in to its raw throne of noise.

The quiet shreds and scatters

with the blow, then re-shapes itself

into a steady grinding drone.

And now comes the crack and shatter

of branches fed into it, the buzz

of tree-limbs being ground to dust.

You wrestle your attention back

to your breath as the tree is fed

into the machine. And hours later

when the workers have gone

and the street is quiet again it happens

without a thought, as while walking

down the block you simply find yourself

there, beside the stump, noticing

how it has been cut nearly level

with the ground so that you can count

the rings, and kneeling down

beside it you begin to count them,

rings of a tree probably thirty

or forty years old, and around you

sawdust scattered in the grass,

a few scraps of leaf, and over your head

an empty space left in the air.

QUOTE(S):  "Joy appears now in the little things. The big themes remain tragic but a leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the taste of coffee. Joy accompanied me as I walked to the press. The secret of joy is the mastery of pain." ~ Anaïs Nin

"Through the empty branches the sky remains.  It is what you have." ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

"Brave birds still fly through fog." ~ anonymous 7th grader

“I have noticed that when all the lights are on, people tend to talk about what they are doing – their outer lives. Sitting round in candlelight or firelight, people start to talk about how they are feeling – their inner lives. They speak subjectively, they argue less, there are longer pauses. To sit alone without any electric light is curiously creative. I have my best ideas at dawn or at nightfall, but not if I switch on the lights – then I start thinking about projects, deadlines, demands, and the shadows and shapes of the house become objects, not suggestions, things that need to be done, not a background to thought.” ―Jeanette Winterson

"For it is in giving that we receive." ~ St. Francis of Assisi