celebrating blessings

Only 20 pages in and I am LOVING this book:

My Grandfather's Blessings - Rachel Naomi Remen

"Blessing life may be more about learning how to celebrate life than learning how to fix life."

"...life is about filling yourself up so that your blessings overflow onto others."

"celebrating life" photo by lucy 6.20.09

lucy comes out to complain...

I love driving. I hate parking. Let me clarify that a bit. I love driving most of the time – particularly long stretches of road with the convertible top down and the sound of music or the silence of the evening swirling through the air. I don’t specifically hate parking in the sense of pulling into a space and placing the car in “P.” In fact, just recently I was complimented on my parallel parking skills. The precision of a perfectly executed sideways entry gives me great satisfaction.

The parking to which I refer is more the hunting for it and, then to add insult to injury, the paying for it. Now, I would rather circle a block a dozen times in the hope of a metered space for $3 rather than a quick stop in the $10 lot. (I realize you New Yorkers are asking about now, what am I whining about? Believe, me it’s not even the price that gets me.) So, what is the deal here? I honestly have no idea and it is not something I care to take to the shrink’s couch. However, I feel strongly enough that I must expound on it for a few more moments.

This week I have had to look (& pay) for more parking than normal. Tuesday, I had lunch with a long-lost friend. I rode my scooter downtown, quickly found the perfect spot marked “motorcycles only” and went to dine in the sunshine with my dear friend. Fabulous, huh? Then as we walked back to my “ride”, we noticed a meter-maid (I’m certain there is a more politically correct term, nonetheless), who was carefully adhering a parking ticket to my handle bars. Aaarrggghhh. I was not enraged or even particularly bothered at the moment. (My friend offered to pay for drinks the next time we gathered ☺). Since then, however, my aversion has raised its not-so-pretty head again and again until I decided I just needed to write about it.

So what is with that? I mean I am willing to drive or walk miles today to avoid the thought of looking and paying for parking again. My mind fantasizes about what kind of person would enjoy giving parking tickets for a living. Who are the bozos who placed all of the meters in MY neighborhood? Where’s the law of attraction when you’re looking for a parking place? Oh, I could go on and on. I was visiting a friend who lives in a high density area several weeks ago. I love this person and I adore spending time with her, but after 20 minutes of unsuccessfully looking for parking (there isn’t even any you can pay for in her ‘hood), I almost turned around and drove back home.

You might be wondering what is the point of this post? What self-revelation have I come to? Where is the spiritual component? The lesson to be learned? The questions to be asked? The point is I love driving. I hate parking. Parking is one of my pet peeves. I am most human behind the wheel. Hmmmmm.

So, I can’t end without a question (or two)? Parking? Any thoughts? How about other pet peeves? Where are you most human?

"an early driver" circa 1967? if you look closely you will see my father in the background. there is not a doubt my mother took this picture since she was infamous for cutting off people's heads (in photos).

Do Not Drop

I am feeling restless lately. Have for several days. I want to write and can’t seem to string two coherent sentences together. I have volumes to say AND absolutely nothing at all. Life feels full with lots to do AND I have spaciousness that sits like a parched gully waiting for the rain to fill. I feel edgy and restless. I have tried everything. (My inner monk says, “Stop trying.”) Meeting with friends. Taking naps. Walks. Yesterday I danced. Now, that was fun and cool and removed the restlessness for awhile (and I hope to come back and write that little story ☺.) But for now…

Today would have been my father’s 90th birthday. Happy Birthday, Daddy! He was a long-distance truck driver and I believe had a bit of the wanderlust in him. Last year at this time I took off on my “Baby Road Trip.” I have felt the same call recently, but cannot quite bring myself to do it. It is so odd. I don’t feel blue or sad or empty or any of those other things. I just feel restless. I wonder if that is how my dad felt? I wonder if this is the time of year where I sense his presence stronger and somehow inhabit his restlessness. I imagine that might sound a little kooky to some of you. I’m not talking about channeling my father like a Whoopie Goldberg impersonation from “Ghost.” I am referring to an embodied sense. His blood flows through my veins. Perhaps he had DNA that drove him to hit the road and that DNA stirs up in me around his birthday which also happens to be a few short weeks before the anniversary of his death – September 12.

Who knows? Maybe it’s all in my head, but you know what? I don’t think that’s totally it. It didn’t even dawn on me that any of this was happening until I was out for a jog a couple of days ago with my i-Pod shuffling away and Jimmy Buffett’s song, Big Rig*, came on. I stopped in my tracks and had another “moment” with my dad. Crazy? I don’t think so. Connected? Restless? Present? You bet.

Like I said, I am having trouble stringing two coherent sentences together, but it still felt important to put this out there for myself and for my dad – and maybe even for you? Do you ever feel sensations like restlessness or grief or something that you can’t quite put your finger on? Have you experienced “anniversary dates” in your body before they popped into your mind? Have you ever thought about something like this?

*"I wish I was a big rig
Rollin' on home to you
I wish I was a big rig
A big rig baby
Rollin' on home to you"
--Jimmy Buffett

"Do Not Drop" - lucy, late 1960's

Bend or Break?

Warning: Lots of questions. Few answers.

“Why are some of the sweetest and most profound moments created out of agonizing heart break?” This is a question recently posed by an amazingly resilient friend. I wonder at times why she has not broken into a million little pieces.

Our conversation and several other events led me to consider the next question(s): Why do some people rise to the challenge and become stronger, wiser and more deeply committed to life; while others break or sink into despair, pathology and bitterness? Why are some resilient and others brittle? Why can some see beauty and sweetness even in the midst of heartbreak?

This month’s Vanity Fair includes an article on Farrah Fawcett’s last years. It really, however, is an article about her surviving lover, Ryan O’Neal. The depth of pain and bitterness that comes out through O’Neal’s thinly-veiled cynicism is heartbreaking - particularly as he speaks of the addiction that tormented his family. His anger, hatred and hopelessness pointed me toward thoughts of men and women I know who battle similar challenges. The difference in response is astounding as I witness parents who keep holding hope for their children through the direst circumstances while O’Neal jokes about wishing some of his offspring had never been born. (Please do not read this as a judgment of O’Neal. I see a heartbroken man and not someone to be condemned.) It is the contrast of which I speak. Why are some people able to see through the ugliness to the inner core of beauty and others are unaware beauty might even exist?

I think of Biblical examples, like the prodigal son and the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to find the lost one. These parents keep coming back with love – again and again. They bend and stretch, and do not snap. Their resilience and flexibility surpass the rigidity that ultimately causes rupture and bitterness. Why do some rubber bands keep stretching and others snap and break?

Is it by Christ’s example of selfless love? By loving God and your neighbor (or child) as yourself? By practicing self-care? All of the above? Or is it just plain luck? Who am I to say? In my experience I have learned one pretty simple thing: if God is eased out of my equation, bitterness quickly seeps in...and the downward spiral plummets. I do not know why some rubber bands break and others stretch, but I do know: If we can’t love ourselves, we can’t love anyone else well.

"golden spiral" - bermuda 7.09

How do you raise an artist?

You never know when memories of life will take on new meaning and perhaps shift into deeper understanding of yourself – or someone else. I have just finished reading Sunrise Sister’s recent post about an obscure artist – Orren Mixer. It is a story about art and her mother – who happens to also be my mother.

Art and my mother. Somehow the two pieces do not seem to fit, yet after reading SS’s post, I am filled with an overwhelming sadness and grief. Perhaps it is in the lack of understanding I have for my mother (who died in May, 2004) or possibly I understand in this moment more than I ever have before. I seem to feel the deeper sadness of my mother and renewed compassion. She never showed her sadness through tears. It was disguised in her perfect appearance, her critical nature and her adamant statements about good & bad, right and wrong. Was she covering a broken heart? Vanquished dreams? I have often wondered who stamped the joy out of her. Her mother? Her mother’s mother? Her children?

As I think of those women, I see scraps of fabric. Pieces of quilts and remnants of cloth cut from McCall’s patterns. I have a flash of thought. Did I pick up my love of art from these women - women who never spoke the word art with anything but scorn? For years I knew I wanted to quilt – needed to quilt even. Sunbonnet Sue –the little girl with the hidden face - called to me. Could I relate to her? I have never made my own Sunbonnet Sue, but when I began to quilt I found something that had been missing deep inside. I was passionate about it and spent hours on end precisely cutting squares and piecing them together. I love the feel of the fabric between my fingers and arranging colors like the rainbow. No one taught me how to do that. It came from an instinctive place inside.

Ah, but my mother taught me how to sew. One of my favorite places at my grandmother’s house was underneath her old pedal sewing machine. I felt safe there. I have fond memories of Mother sewing for me. Lovingly piecing together multiple patterns to create the dress of our vision. Was this her craft? Her art? Did she come alive when she created? (I am sorry to say I don't recall that joy about her.) If she was joyful, why did she stop? Why the staunch refusal to support any career for her children that was not practical? Rumor had it, our mother wanted to be an English teacher, but she married the day she graduated high school and began a family shortly thereafter. I considered a degree in Fashion Merchandising, but ultimately graduated in accounting, pushing aside a dulled vision of anything more creative.

I have been told I have a strong sense of style. I don’t know from where it came. No one taught me. I have a good eye with a camera. No one taught or encouraged that either. I am a decent writer even though the art was nearly pounded out of me with demands for perfect sentence structure and footnotes to reference “real” writer’s work. So, I wonder who pounded the art out of my mother. Because as I read my sister’s post, I know it was there. I’m not even sure my mother knew it was there. 'Fabric Arts' was not in vogue in her lifetime. It was simply sewing – something often done out of necessity. Does necessity take the fun or beauty out of our craft(s)? If my writing becomes work will I love it less?

The stakes are low as I post a few words here on a blog; and they are very high, because writing brings me joy. My soul is at stake here. My life breath depends on doing what I am called to do. So what was my mother called to do? Perhaps it was to raise three brilliant children. I wonder though if a little piece of her didn’t die somewhere along the way. Was there a spark inside her that needed air and instead got suffocated? We weren’t raised to appreciate art, but there are traces of it all throughout our lives. Tiny little seeds planted somewhere along the way, sprouting now in the children she inadvertently raised to be artists. Along with those seeds comes my hope for growing compassion and understanding of a woman who was an artist in her very own way.

You never know when a memory of your life will take on new meaning.

my mother and sister
sunbonnet sue
"reading at an early age" - me