quilt of life

What a glorious weekend! Full. Slow. Balanced. Sunny. Crisp. Fall weather. The colors of purple and gold with a little aqua bringing my new quilt together. Like pieces of life. Each piece essential. Each with its own personality. Some bold & brilliant saying, ‘play with me. laugh with me.’ Others muted and dark. Purple in every hue. Bits of black punctuating the surface. Gold—brilliant and shining like golden moments tucked into a day. Glorious moments of life. This weekend was filled with them.

Sitting in the sun while watching my daughter play soccer. The green turf gleaming in the bright light. Crisp autumn leaves blowing across the field. Date night with my husband. So wonderful to tuck my arm in his as we strolled through the brisk fall night. The train ride to Bellingham. Early morning quiet combined with excitement for the day ahead. A new adventure. A new friend.

The morning was cloaked in darkness. Me, cocooned inside the metal tube. A perfect seat—window on the water side. Slowly moving past the landmarks I know so well. It is odd to see them from this viewpoint. A tourist in my own land ☺. Moving along the shoreline, the herons stand like sentries at their posts. I try to capture the elusive birds with my camera—an impossible task as the train speeds by. Today, however, I still see them in flight and standing guard. They are indelibly marked in my memory. A golden patch of my day.

My thoughts turn again to the snapshots of my mind like pieces of the quilt. The dark spots that grab for attention and the golden moments that shine like new morning light. All of the other times seem to blend together—some standing out a little more than others. We need them all to make the full blanket—the quilt that covers our heart—that keeps us warm & protects us from harm. The thread that brings us comfort and binds us together to make us who we are. I feel blessed to have a Technicolor life—full of golden moments, blue skies and, yes, even dark patches to punctuate my existence.

So, I wonder: What colors punctuate your life these days? What is the thread that holds together the quilt of your life? Do tell, please.

photos taken 10.25.08 on the Amtrak to Bellingham (If you look closely, you can see one of the "elusive" herons in the top photo.)

life cycles

I am home and something is stirring in me. I have been emptied this past week. I have poured myself out in an offering to others and I have allowed them to begin to fill me back up. It is a cycle of renewal. It is the beauty of birth-life-death and rebirth.

I never cease to be amazed at the touch of those I have chosen to surround myself with as well as the impact of strangers and others who have entered my life for only brief moments. This morning I read the post of a dear friend as she wove her experiences of grief, loss and life. I am reminded of my own losses. Some as profound as the loss of my beloved father when I was barely nineteen and the fast forward to losing my dear sweet, Curry. Other people and family members stir in my mind, but I am most profoundly struck this morning by the loss of people I knew for only a brief moment in time like the student who battled hard against me and then chose to walk away suddenly and silently. I still think of the man on the bus and another stranger in a small Oklahoma town who I knew for an hour and then we shared a prayer. Each touched me deeply by their presence and I can feel the loss of their absence along with the significant impact they made on my life.

Loss is indeed profound in our lives especially when we allow ourselves to acknowledge it and feel it. Feeling the loss leads to an emptying which then allows us to be filled with joy and other experiences of life. If we refuse to empty ourselves, the old stuff fills us to the brim and we find ourselves like an overstuffed turkey unable to move or a box filled to the brim just waiting to explode.

This past week, I unconsciously and deliberately chose to be emptied. And so I enter this day, this week, waiting to be filled. Not expecting anything. Just as I did not expect the beautiful filling I received when I read Christine’s post. There is something in accepting what we are offered each day. Not expecting grand results, but then looking back and seeing that we have been touched and filled (perhaps only a teaspoon full) simply because we allowed ourselves to really feel the emotion of a moment—perhaps our own or maybe that of another person.

Will you allow yourself to be impacted today? How will you empty yourself? What are the moments when you feel the inpouring of life? Consider grief. Consider joy. They each make room for the other ☺.

racing the garbage

Yesterday I had a wonderful little “encounter” that I can’t seem to get out of my head and want to share here. I was on my way to work. It was a beautiful sunny morning made all the more delicious because of the gift it is! (At this time of year in Seattle you never know when the sun will disappear and the rain will set in.) Taking full advantage, I hopped on my scooter and headed down the four-lane road. Due to traffic and the not-so-timed lights I found myself stopping and starting quite a bit along with the other cars and in particular a giant garbage truck to my left.

Now imagine this…a little scooter next to a giant smelly garbage truck. Now close your eyes and take a big whiff. Can you smell it? Nice, huh? So, what do you think my instinct was? To get away from the garbage, of course! And so we played this cat and mouse game for a couple of stoplights until I found myself giggling to realize the imagery (& reality) that I was 'racing the garbage.'

Oh, what a metaphor for life!!! Isn’t that what we do all of the time? Race around trying to get away from the garbage!! Sometimes we feel as tiny as a scooter next to a mammoth pile of you-know-what and we go to great lengths to get away from it rather than consider “smelling” things in a new way. And my giggles? Well, I decided to enjoy the sunshine and laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation rather than putting myself in harms way or letting the “smell” ruin my day. I am still chuckling and I have an amazing collage brewing in my mind ☺. hee hee hee.

So, what garbage are you racing today? How will you choose to smell it? Plug your nose? Inhale deeply? Laugh?

I hope you have a grand week. I will be off doing my Soltura thing. I have a couple of posts that will pop up over the next few days, so please stop by. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to respond to comments until I am back, but I will be reading them so please say “hi!”

be alive!

“Being alive is the special occasion.” --Patti Digh

What does it take for us to believe that being alive is the special occasion? That each day is a gift—each moment? That I am special? That my wrinkles have been earned? My body has been well worn? That I am fortunate to be getting out of bed each day—aches, pains and all?

So, what gets in my way? Mind chatter. Laziness. Ego. Outside and inside messages. I let it happen. I let another’s attitude dampen my day. I allow too little sleep to make me tired and cranky. I buy in to the voices in my head that I often don’t even hear speaking.

Why don’t I put myself out there? What keeps me from creating? From stepping into the process? Lots of the time I won’t allow myself to enjoy the process of art making. I jump to focusing on the end result. It won’t be valued. What will I do with it? There’s no room to store it. It’s a waste of time…resources…money…blah blah blah.

Forget about the end result! It is a process. Just like life. Just like my blogs. When I focus on "productivity," I make my own destiny, because I worry about the end results. Again, what will others think? And so I don’t even put anything out there and then of course readers quit stopping by. I quit creating and the world—the universe—one person even has lost the opportunity…And, there I go again jumping to the outcome. I don’t know what happens when I don’t create.

Do I know what happens when I do create? I am learning I really don’t KNOW much of anything. Wonder if I can be o.k. with that? Will I allow myself to go with the process rather than focusing on the end result (which I can't determine anyway)!?!??!? I sure hope so, because one thing I do know is that being alive is the special occasion!

Now go on, get out there and be alive!!!

worth the risk?

“Explore and expand your capacity for love and forgiveness. Love people who are unlovable. As G.K. Chesterton said, “love means to love that which is unlovable, or it is no virtue at all.” Who in your life is unlovable? What would loving them look like? How would it change you?” --Patti Digh

I just finished reading David Sheff’s remarkable book, “beautiful boy.” I hesitated for many months before reading this book, because I did not know if I could stomach it. If I could survive it. If I could relive it. But alas it kept popping into my consciousness and finally someone handed me the book and said, “it’s o.k. to read.” (I was also inspired by Sunrise Sister’s thoughtful book review here.)

You see the book is my story. It is my son’s story although the names have been changed as well as the drugs…well some of them anyway. It is a remarkable book. At times I felt like I was inside the pages. In fact, I had been inside the pages. Again, the places had been changed but the memories and emotions were the same. And as I read the quote above from Patti Digh’s 37 Days, I thought of my son and how many people deemed him along the way “unlovable.” I think of the judgment that has come our way. Of the many people that said “I would have given up on him long before now. How do you do it?”

And, today I think of the amazing gift that my son has given me. Because, yes, he is my flesh and blood and that alone (at least for a mother, I think) makes him lovable, but for many years and many moments he presented himself to the world as unlovable. And so I return to Patti’s questions: “What would loving them (the unlovable) look like?” “How would it change you?” and I return to my response: It is an amazing gift. It is worth the risk to love.

I am in no way the same person I was that gave birth to my own beautiful boy just over 19 years ago. I am not even the same person who bought him a puppy on his first day of grade school or the one who home-schooled him when he was 12. I am not even the same person who woke up this morning. Because, you see, my son, “the unlovable”, shook me out of my complacency. He taught me about pain and anger, about hatred and forgiveness, about fear and love.

He sent me on a path (unknowingly) toward wholeness. Loving him looks like a miracle. It looks like new breath…new life. It has changed me profoundly and taught me how to love the unlovable, beginning with myself.

I returned to school at nearly 50 years of age to pursue a career totally opposed to my ‘prior life’. (This kind of change was something I never dreamed I would do while I was “sleeping.”) I latched onto a verse. “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” I learned that I had to start with myself and that God would be alongside me in ways I never could have conceived. Before I could love my neighbor or my son or the unlovable, I had to learn to love myself. And so for me, “loving the unlovable” began a circular journey back towards myself and toward the 'unlovable.' And, the circle grows larger and larger every day.

And so, today I thank my own beautiful boy. I honor him and love him and am so grateful that I never gave up on either one of us.

So, I pose to you Patti’s questions: "What would it look like to love the unlovable? How would it change you?" Would you be willing to find out?