Monthly Archives: July 2012

Jul31

Muscles and Miles to Make a Difference

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Sarah and Chris during one of the PMC rides.

In a few days, my husband Chris and daughter Sarah will set aside the gentle appeal of speech. They have many stories to share, but for several hours, theirs will be the language of action, instead. This Sunday (August 5), they’ll put their feet, calves, quads, thighs, gluts, abs, spines, pecs, shoulders, arms, biceps, triceps, hands, lungs, hearts (okay, all their muscles) and minds to work in the annual Pan Mass Challenge bike ride. It’s their fourth year as a father-daughter team in this event.

It’s a case of deeds versus words. It’s putting your body and your spirit into gear, once a year, because you can. Riding for a cause. Making a difference. Remembering someone you love. Celebrating someone who survives. Honoring someone who currently lives with this challenge. Or marking a milestone in your own journey, too.

Changing the world, one mile, one life, one revolution, one ride at a time. It sounds dramatic, doesn’t it? Yet it’s true, and it’s possible for any of us.

All of Chris’s major bike rides support charitable causes. He already completed the Coast of Hope to raise funds for our family’s nonprofit foundation Bright Happy Power that works with children and families living with cancer and the ADA’s Tour de Cure to raise funds for diabetes research, an illness that impacts many of our friends, including several children and young adults here in Ipswich. He’s riding this weekend in the Pan Mass Challenge (his 7th year) to raise funds for cancer research through Dana Farber’s Jimmy Fund. He’s also riding later this season in the ALS ride to support research for an illness which affected fellow Rotarian Lou DeGeorge and which has recently changed the life of a peer’s 20-something son.

Over the past few years, Sarah has joined him in the PMC. It’s now a father-daughter tradition.

Even before Chris started riding, back in 2002, cycling teams rode in honor of our younger daughter Jessie, who was originally diagnoised with leukemia in 2001. The first team to ride as her partners were the Carver family and the North Shore Cylcopaths. She was their Pedal Partner. Within a few years, a local crew of Ipswich friends and North Shore colleagues formed a team to ride for Jessie …

Jessie and Sarah together on bikes.

There are also Kids PMC events that make it possible for children to ride, too. Jessie even participated in a Kids PMC in Topsfield while she was on treatment (see a PMC Kids video that features many children … you’ll find Jessie in a straw hat and blue dress).

The big PMC ride remains an annual family tradition. We still believe in its power. Chris and Sarah ride. I show up as SAG wagon (their own support vehicle) and cow bell chorus. I’m sure Jessie’s paying attention, and putting wind in their sails.

Many of our friends are survivors. Their stories are riveting; their experiences were difficult, but there’s a happy ending for lots of families, including Ipswich folks. We see some of them grow up and ride!

We surely know that the work of Dana Farber’s research programs (which is implemented in almost every cancer clinic and hospital around the world, by the way) gave us extra years with Jessie … providing alternative treatment regimens after she relapsed twice with leukemia. She had extra time among us: long enough for her to change many other people’s lives during the brief span of her own.

Make no mistake, pediatric cancer remains the leading “natural” (aka, disease-related) cause of death in children. This is a mortal illness for too many children and adults.

Yet research has made a major difference for many children; it has changed the course of many forms of diagnoses. This isn’t a hopeless cause; we are actually making headway.

Have we … I use the word “we” because our family and every other rider participating in the PMC surely feels invested in this effort … have we identified the causes and cures of every form of cancer? No. Have we narrowed down and improved the long-term survival chances for many children (and adults) diagnosed with varied forms of cancer? Yes. How many more lives can be saved and improved? Many. Have we promised a happy ending to every child or grown-up living with a form of this illness? No. Yet have the “odds” improved? Yes. Are there more survivors? Yes. Greater reasons for hope, decade by decade, year by year? Yes!

This is our family’s cause, for reasons that are obvious to anyone following along. Maybe it’s yours, too. Or maybe there’s something else that has become a personal challenge for you.

Regardless of what issue you care about, there’s something you can do. Volunteer. Walk. Ride. Run. Become a supporter. So many ways you can be part of the collective effort to change the course of events around specific problems.

Words are great. They’re my medium, a lot of the time. (You know I like them, because I use lots of them.) Language has tremendous power to affect people’s opinions or touch their feelings.

Yet actions? Deeds? These are the commitments that get work done.

Me? I sometimes walk for Childrens Hospital Boston (helps the hospital where Jessie was treated for 6 years). I volunteer at a water stop for the ADA’s local Tour de Cure ride (supports fundraising for diabetes) and I volunteer on the course for the Rotary 5k Run and Walk (fundraising for high school scholarships). Of course, I coordinate the Coast of Hope bike ride. Those are my athletic commitments, if you will. I’m more a behind-the-scenes volunteer as opposed to an event participant, but that’s part of what allows these events to succeed, too.

Cowbells as a call to action? Believe!

Meanwhile, our family believes that where Chris and Sarah are riding, Jessie rides along, too. Of course, you’re invited to support Chris and Sarah‘s PMC ride.

But really, this is also a reminder to choose your own cause, whatever it may be, and however you may decide to become involved. You are powerful. You have the potential to be a change-maker. You can create hope. And you’re not alone. In most cases, your time and talent is combined with the work of others. Together, your power is exponential. Your efforts make a difference. Really.

Do you hear the cowbells clanging? Ride, Chris and Sarah, ride!

Jul30

Discombobulated and then …

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Mill River General Store porch by Chris Doktor

What do you do when you can’t finish what you set out to do, and have to change your plans? What do you do if you’re in a place you didn’t expect or want to be? How do you respond?

That’s been a big question on the past few youth group trips, and it was a challenge again this past weekend. Chris and I spent three days in Western Massachusetts, with all the gear and supplies for bike riding. We were part of First Church’s summer youth group trip. (For sake of clarity, let me say that I was the designated van driver, not a cyclist. I followed the riders’ route with the support vehicle that includes first aid, water, snacks, dry clothes, bike rack and extra seats if anyone needs a lift.)

Indeed, adults and teens cycled about 50 miles through 3 states in two days. That’s less than our group wanted or planned to do, but our riders accomplished some portion of their goals, anyway. We did it, despite setbacks such as severe storms.

On a prior trip to Staten Island at the beginning of the summer, a soul-searching discussion about responses to big setbacks, problems and disappointments moved a larger group of students and adults to tears. Later they focused on “what is your rainbow?” in a time of storms and floods. Adults and teens sought insight into how they discovered hope or resolution when they found themselves in trouble.

This weekend, our challenges weren’t as dramatic, but similar themes arose again. What happens when things don’t go your way? What do you do about it?

In part, our group decided to “go for it.” They rode out beneath overcast skies in chilling, heavy downpours, climbing steep hills and braking cautiously as they descended again. They wound along scenic rural ridges, wooded peaks, pewter-colored waterways, through small villages and bustling town centers. They used the driest, earliest hours of Saturday and Sunday to capture those experiences. By the middle of each day, bad weather heightened to thunder, lightning, storms and a few flash floods. Our crew had to stop riding.

Yes, our youth group managed to make the best of each day’s forecast; they sat in the saddle for a few hours, and did what they’d come for. Yet everyone wanted more. More miles. More hours riding. More adventures on their bikes.

We also cancelled tempting destinations like waterfalls and scenic farms. We opted not to attend the outdoor Tanglewood concert. We gave up some of our plans for fun.

So we had to adjust our expectations, adapt to the change in plans, and find something else to do with all that extra time. We had many reactions. We were … Restless. Surprised. Tired. Annoyed. Sad. Distracted. Nervous. Irritable. Weepy. Playful. Hungry. Creative. Silly. Hopeful. Resourceful.

What didn’t we plan for?

  • Wash outs on roads we’d just traversed.
  • Power outages in villages where we took refuge.
  • Unavailability of road maps, just in case we got lost, GPS didn’t work, or our printed directions didn’t have enough detail.
  • Being stuck half-way through the route by impending storms, and needing vehicular rides for the entire group to a safe, dry shelter.
  • Hours of free time indoors during rainy weather.
  • Cutting our whole weekend short, because it didn’t make sense to attend an outdoor concert later on Sunday, in such torrential conditions.
  • Language barriers, since one of our younger guests spoke more French than English.
  • Lugging along more food than we could ever consume.

What did we have going for us?

  • A warm, cozy starting point from Bob Lee’s home in the Berkshires, with showers and beds.
  • A van loaned to the church by Ipswich Ford, that was big enough to transport our gear and members of our cycling group, in two back-and-forth runs, to a safe dry place when our first day ended very suddenly due to bad weather.
  • The unplanned-for hospitality and emergency shelter of the Mill River General Store’s front porch, with hot coffee and warm muffins, in the worst of the storm.
  • Later on, a spacious, warm and dry UCC church to host us on the second night, with a fabulous kitchen and plenty of space for games and group worship and community meals and sleepovers in the heart of Great Barrington.
  • Great meals and plenty of food for healthy cuisine.
  • Chocolate.
  • First aid kit for falls, cuts, bruises.
  • All our safety gear and experienced riders to make sure we were safe.
  • A local guide (Bob) who knew every road and gave detailed turn-by-turn directions to get us back home again.
  • Coffee (or in my case, black tea).
  • Secret buddies who gave little gifts to each other all weekend, for more fun and fellowship.
  • Good temperaments among our participants, both young and old, willing to go with the flow and find new ways to engage each other in fun and fitness: yoga or abdominal workouts, games of Simon Says and cards, cooking, washing up, journaling, worshiping, cycling, and talking.
  • Members with enough French, especially one eloquent high school student, to translate sufficiently that our young visitor eventually relaxed, made friends, and began to participate more fully in communal experiences by the end of the weekend.
  • The magic of card games and other forms of play to bridge the gap across culture and languages, and connect people of different ages, genders, traditions and nationalities in a common experience.
  • The universal communication of music. Two youth members, Grace and Anna Josiah, played Bob Marley tunes on the ukulele. Our new friend Lucas grinned broadly through that impromptu prelude to our last gathering of the weekend.
  • Even when you know the lyrics, they’re more beautiful when everyone tries to sing along, off-key and in more than one tongue, because we’re all unified, at least for a little while.

Since it’s a faith-based group and outing, we read scripture as part of the weekend’s activities. One of them, Matthew 6:25-29, talked about not worrying. Easier said than done, sometimes. After all, I was the SAG wagon driver (support vehicle that followed riders during the weekend, and yes, I got lost, and yes, we had storms and a hurt rider and plenty of adventures). Plus I’m also a … well, let’s admit it … a mother. And mothers, by nature, tend to worry.

As it turns out, though, “don’t worry”  worked as a theme for us. As a message, in the form of a raggae song, it closed the gap in our group, drew smiles on an overcast day, and brought unity. Our youth sang …

Three Little Birds
by Bob Marley

“Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”

Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, (“This is my message to you-ou-ou:”)

Singin’: “Don’t worry ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”
Singin’: “Don’t worry (don’t worry) ’bout a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!”

Rise up this mornin’,
Smiled with the risin’ sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin’ sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin’, “This is my message to you-ou-ou:”

Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing, worry about a thing, oh!
Every little thing gonna be all right. Don’t worry!”
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing” – I won’t worry!
“‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”

Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right” – I won’t worry!
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing,
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.”
Singin’: “Don’t worry about a thing, oh no!
‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right!

In preparation for our closing circle, as we reflected on the weekend, everyone drew symbols or scenes about what the weekend embodied for each of us. We used scratch art to do this, so every page started out with a black wax coating on it. (You use a wooden stylus to scratch away the top layer, exposing colors underneath.) Your work reveals vibrancy in the shape or pattern of your choosing. Even the act of clearing away the black coating, and finding something special underneath, was a symbolic act.

  • The common elements among our drawings were rain clouds, spiky suns, bikes and riders, curving roads, trees and mountains.
  • One youth drew interlocking circles, as a symbol of connection, since he was only able to participate in part of the weekend, but felt like he’d been tied to the entire experience.
  • Someone else drew a border of spoons, reminiscent of our silly, laughter-filled card game called “Spoons” (which is a game that requires no skill with cards or numbers, but requires lots of monitoring other people to see who has gotten four-of-a-kind and has taken the first spoon … this game is like musical chairs, so everyone sneaks or grabs for a spoon, and the last person to reach for one, won’t get a spoon, and loses that turn, accumulating points in the form of letters, aka, S-P-O-O-N).
  • Our French-speaking member wrote, “Merci” alongside his whimsical sketch.
  • People drew and spoke about the metaphor of journeys as a path without beginning or ending.
  • Or the cycling as a roller coaster, uphill and downhill, exhilarating and alarming in turns.
  • One rider drew the wheel of life with the spokes of the experience connecting the outer circle to the inner hub of water and rain.
  • Another drew herself riding with her hair blowing, depicting the chance to think while out in the silence and solitude of nature.

(Plus, of course, if you follow this journal, or  read our www.dok.com blog during the years with Jessie’s childhood cancer, you know that riding bikes is one way that our family continues to make meaning out of events in our life. In a way it’s a a sacred, spiritual and healing act.)

We closed the weekend with the song “Let It Be” by the Beatles, after reading Psalm 139 about being claimed and known by our Creator at every turn in our path, regardless of how far we may go. The Beatles lyrics answered, in their way, the conversations and questions we posed to ourselves all weekend, and the very life lessons we learned as we problem-solved through storms and other challenges. I don’t think you have to belong to any specific faith to be moved by the Beatles, even if they mention Mother Mary in this song. It calls to all of us, and gives us some response to the universal question, “What do you when you can’t complete the journey what you started, when your plans change and you’re rerouted on detours toward a different destination entirely, and you must choose some other activity and goal instead, or you cannot continue at all?”

Let It Be
performed by The Beatles (written by Lennon/McCartney)

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Jul27

A Time for Every Matter Under Heaven

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On a grey and misty day, when the sky is overcast, and I have heard sorrowful news from many places, about the return of cancer in a grown man’s body as well as a little child’s belly, why do I feel like crying?

Today, it seems as if even the sky weeps. It comes down, not salty or briny, but as fresh water, pattering gently, renewing the earth.

Don’t you sometimes feel as if the world recognizes your emotions? On a bright windy day, in kite-soaring weather, you might think the earth’s spirits are as feisty as your own wheeling, enthusiastic thoughts. Then at a solemn time like this, it seems as if the earth mourns along with families who are in pain. On occasion, our world echoes back, gently, tenderly, but on a greater scale, our human-sized grief.

After all, this fall of rain is the letting go of pent-up pressure. It is the release of something that was carried great distances, transformed and contained, until it grew too heavy to bear any longer.

Oh, rain. Fall. Fall. Weep, when I can’t. When I don’t have a particular reason to do so, except that I empathize with the news that comes today.

Mind you, no one asked me to worry about a distant family’s  pain or grief. But I do. I care. It happens, I suppose, because humans are wired to have emotional connection with each other.

So today’s journal is a meditation on the news I heard from other cancer families, as well as what I have witnessed as a companion of friends in hospice and reflections from inside our own family’s journey through twice-relapsed leukemia, transplant and its aftermath.

Right now there’s an ache that seems as big as the sky’s sorrow, to know there’s pain inside these families. A different sort of pain than first learning about a dangerous diagnosis. A pain more final than wrapping your head around the threat of disease, then lifting a chin and taking a deep breath, planting your feet and looking fate in the eye, and saying, “We can get through this. There are answers. There is something to be done. We have hope.”

It’s an altogether different reality, when the experts tell you, “There’s nothing more we can do.” And that’s the news that different families received recently.

For the family who hears these words, there comes a new squaring-off with time, fate and faith. When you hear such irretrievable pronouncements, you may …

  • Want to stay right where you are, put your hands over your ears; pretend you didn’t hear, you don’t know, you cannot see. Hope that if you just wait in one place a while longer, ignore it, deny it, then this bad news won’t be happening.
  • Then argue, and say you’re going to find an answer, even if you have to go somewhere else, ask someone else, do something more experimental and unconventional, because this cannot possibly be all there is.
  • Pray. Beg. Barter. Beseech the Creator for a miracle. Or peace. Whatever is possible.
  • Eventually hold on tighter to each other, try to fill silence with everything that needs to be said, begin to check off the best and brightest experiences on your loved one’s wish list, because the calendar isn’t on your side anymore.

For a while, perhaps you think it can’t be happening. It’s not possible.

Then at some point, there’s another transition. A realization. It’s happening. Oh, Lord, this is real.

Relapse? Recurrence beyond known forms of treatment, or beyond any useful medical response at all? It’s not fair. It’s not just. It’s not logical. It’s not … it’s not anything you can easily reconcile or understand. Not at any age, but especially not a father and husband who should justifiably expect decades ahead of him, or a little child who may never attend kindergarten.

But it happens, all the same. For many families, the result of treatment after diagnosis is ultimately hope, survival, and recovery. For others, there is this other other outcome.

I feel … just a little … like I understand families who must keep vigil, make the most of their living time together and perhaps … probably … although we always hold out hope for miracles … find ways to say good-bye. Please know that I recognize that every individual and family’s journey is different. And the outcome isn’t pre-ordained, though science may say it’s predictable.

Because I can tell you more than one story … from our own years on treatment with Jessie … about children who survived, inexplicably, with amazing outcomes, after every scan and test and medical opinion said it wasn’t likely, or even possible. So it’s okay to keep holding out, at least in some quiet part of you, or maybe in the biggest, loudest part of you, for the miracle.

Meanwhile, it may be healthy to immerse yourself in this place where you are. This time … of being together in the face of farewell.

Such experiences can be profound. Meaningful. A blessing in their own way, though very difficult and wrenching. (Or something else entirely.) It depends, largely, on the family’s response, and the support of their caregivers and community.

As a family continues on this journey, they do so in the way that seems best to them. Together they think about … and feel their way toward  …  how to be together in the time that is given to them.

No one, bearing witness from the outside, can say what is right for someone else. We cannot step into the path, and avert a difficult journey. Change what will happen. Only the family, the patient and their loved ones, sometimes with guidance, can choose their direction, do their best with what resources they have, and go wherever this path leads them.

Meanwhile, their medical caregivers? The ones who say there isn’t anything left to do? Likely they have tried everything. And despite this insight, some specialists continue to try to prolong life. Caught up in such extreme measures and momentum, medical caregivers … and sometimes guardians and patients themselves … may seek intervention. (Which could be a viable choice, but might also be more damaging. Such decisions are best approached with much consideration, since you can’t be sure of the results, or the cost to the patient’s wellbeing.)

In the optimal scenario, part of a family’s caregiving team is thinking about different values and assessing the whole situation from an alternate perspective. This person may take the opportunity to pause events. Often we need a trusted individual, hopefully a professional who is trained and ready to handle this form of advocacy, to take on that role. Perhaps this is someone neutral, from outside the family: a trusted mentor, counselor or medical practitioner. Who can credibly say, “Wait. There are other consideration here. Comfort. Dignity. Your belief system. Let’s balance the invasiveness of more treatment, more heroic measures, with measures that will preserve quality of time.”

The healing a family may seek, at such times, is not always recovery from the diagnosis. Not anymore. Instead you wish for a dignified and peaceful letting go, that involves family and friends, and makes the most of the time that remains.

Yet even the experience of being together, and letting go, can offer a form of healing. Solace. Peace.

In the case of families treated for cancer at Childrens Hospital Boston and Dana Farber, this journey is often guided by PACT, its Palliative Care Team. For many others, it also includes hospice professionals. When such a practice is integrated into the process, it provides immeasurable resources and comfort for families.

After all, in the face of such relapses, your concept of time changes. Your focus shifts. With additional support, the energy of the family can be aimed at the most important issues: emotional and psychological interactions with each other. Other bodily concerns can be managed by a team of people who are experienced in this area. Sensitive changes in moods, emotional state or mental outlook may also be tended to, by caregivers knowledgeable about what’s happening inside the patient and family’s hearts and minds.

Just for today? So soon after families have first heard and shared this news, and their friends are just trying to let it sink in? Perhaps they aren’t yet ready for all of those concerns and negotiations, those steps and decisions.

Sometimes, it’s too soon to cry. So you let the sky weep for you. Until your own tears come.

Finally, there’s this other truth. Believe it or not, the weather will change. The sun will flicker into view, grow hot and bright again. And even in this part of a family’s journey together, when people are probably starting to understand that they may say good-bye to each other, a person may want to stand in the light, turn her face to the sky, and laugh as loudly as possible. Cast a long purple shadow across the earth. He may wish to listen as the world echoes back his presence, while he has breath to move and shape the air, to fill the wind with the sound of a human voice, human joy.

This isn’t new wisdom, although I have learned it firsthand, over time, too. It is written in many sacred texts.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8

3 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:

2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace.

There is a time and a season for  grief and hope, sorrow and joy, anger and serenity. One follows the other. They are all integrated. Parts of the same mortal experience. And the same sacred journey. Over and over. Again and again.

Just now,  it feels comforting that the sky seems to weep for the families whose pain we cannot ease. And later on, that the same universe will grow bright and laugh with us, because that time will come, too.

Jul26

Taking Stock

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The past day has made me pause, and realize that it’s time to set aside a little of what’s best about this season, this community. Pay attention. Make note. Maybe even save some of it, put by, to pull out again during cooler and busier times of the year.

Many of us have transitions coming up at the end of the summer. Maybe sooner. School resumes. Work hours change. Pressures seem to mount up. Children have different schedules and needs, or go off to their own new destinations (our living daughter is headed for college). Demands on our time, energy, focus and resources grow more pronounced.

Meanwhile, there is something just a bit slower and more reflective about summer months. We take a little longer to finish projects, linger over meals, sit outside in the fading daylight hours, sip a beverage, talk until night truly falls, and realize that we’ve captured some memorable moments along the way.

Yesterday, despite hours of work, I had time to savor a few experiences. And it made me realize that just like picking fresh produce in the fields at Appleton, and maybe preserving some of that summer vitality as sauces and other pantry goods, to be stored up for later use … it’s a good idea to stock up on some sunny, special moments now, to draw upon later.

For instance, while Chris was at a meeting for the United Way yesterday evening and Sarah was out with her peers, I walked over to Meryl’s house near the river. As twilight fell, I sat still long enough for Raina, Meryl’s daughter, to paint an extravagant henna tattoo on my ankle and calf. Caught up briefly with friend Terri about her photography and some of the projects that are coming up. Spoke to a local writer about her jaunt to Harvard’s Baker Library with a member of the Heard family for a celebration of Augustine Heard and our historic economic connections to China. As Raina traced out her henna design, she and I talked about theater and dance, boarding school and sacred symbols in tattoos, and the future of the kittens she and her mother are fostering. Despite being allergic to cats, I bottle-fed and cuddled a tiny grey furball named Brie, just a few weeks old, who is technically under the care of the Merrimack Feline Rescue Society, but is living for a few more weeks in their home, learning to be people-friendly, playful and to expect affection in his life. (Aaacchhhoooo.) Meryl shared a scoop her homemade chocolate cayenne ice cream, made in anticipation of family arriving this weekend. The scent of lavender oil infused into henna clung to my skin, and the unexpected bite of spicy seasoning in sweet dessert stayed on my tongue.

Later I was invited to a late dinner with our neighbors Hugh and Gary. Over the table we discussed books and travel to Maine, friendship and work, pets and family, the fate of old musical instruments, and all kinds of food. Good things that we all love. We talked about the connection between daily yoga and the habit of prayer, meditation as a channel to God, what we believe about life here and a spiritual life beyond this one. I walked home, barefoot, in the dark, gallantly escorted to my front door by Gary. At the end of the night, I snuck in a few pages of a novel by Daniel Silva. Went to sleep, holding Chris’s hand in the utter darkness, as if we were the only two people in the whole world.

Tattoos, art, kittens, tomato-basil salad, chilled wine, history, recipes, books, friends, photography, travel, family, reflections on loves ones departed and living … it all wound into the beauty of the latter part of the day.

If I can decant such times, distill them and put them into the pantry of my heart and mind, I will be able to draw them out later. Hold up their deep golden colors and purple shadows to catch the light. Savor again their pungency and sweetness, motes of dusty summer drifting through the layers of flavor and memory. Close my eyes, release sensory richness from its captive state, and recall what is good about an evening in this community. Let days like this one warm up my soul from the inside out.

Jul25

Teachers and Students

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In the past 24 hours, the following teachers have been part of my life.

  • Started my day under the guidance of kundalini yoga instructor Ingrid.
  • Talked to one of my spiritual mentors over tea.
  • Checked in with writing buddy Miriam and discussed some techniques.
  • Received editorial feedback from colleague Lisa.
  • Communicated with two professional mentors, Rebecca and Jan, about next steps in the process of becoming a pastoral candidate through the UCC (demonination which will ordain me after I earn a degree)
  • Followed up with another freelancer, Camille, who swaps design tips with me about specific web-building projects.
  • Got a ping (quick note) from Jenny, our family friend and my daughters’ dance teacher, from her location in Colorado, where she’s teaching aerial and modern dance to older students.
  • Observed that my longtime kickboxing teacher, Tashi Mark, is opening his dojo in downtown Ipswich.
  • Remembered in a lively conversation, Jessie’s teachers Mrs. Lampros and Mrs. Falabella, and so many other staff members from Winthrop Elementary.
  • Caught an update on Facebook about JT Turner’s latest theatrical production, and reflected on his mentoring role among youth who love the performing arts, including both of my girls. And many other kids in this town.
  • Listened to Chris working on his latest piano lesson, as assigned by his teacher Vianna.
  • Got some cooking and dessert-making tips from foodie friends Meryl, Dana and Linda.
  • Talked to a young man at the Greek consulate about the process of securing Sarah’s student visa to Greece, where she’ll study nursing this fall, as part of an international program through Northeastern University.
  • Spoke to a financial aid officer about completing the process of payments for school.
  • Read the wise words of an author that I admire.

Think about it. In most of those situations, I have been a student, learning something new. A skill. A step. An insight. A lesson of some kind.

Yesterday I also poked fun at class titles and descriptions, while registering for graduate courses. Yet I’ll reiterate that I’m extremely privileged to start school in September. While it promises to be a lot of hard work, I’m enrolled for positive reasons. It is my choice; no one is making me go back to school. I want to do it, because it’s exciting and motivating, even though it’s also intimidating and overwhelming.

The response to my grad school decision, among friends and peers, has been varied. A few people … not too many, luckily, or it might be daunting … think I’m crazy. After all, I’ll be 50 years old by the time I earn my degree. (If everything goes smoothly.) Others say I’m brave, to start over now. In either case, that response is triggered by my “advanced years.” From some points of view, I’m o-o-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-l-d-d-d-d-d to go back now.

Chuckle.

Let’s put this into perspective. Age and challenge, I mean.

  1. My mom completed two graduate degrees after the age of 50, both of them in the aftermath of catastrophic injuries, including brain trauma, in the wake of a severe car accident and subsequent complications. She had to audio record lectures, transcribe notes twice for every class hour, then type them, and read materials over and over, in order to complete every course, because of memory impairment and information-processing deficits caused by the coma and brain injury. Yet she persisted, and earned two Masters degrees.
  2. Meanwhile Dr. William Tan (our friend) earned his doctoral degree, a medical degree and two post-doc degrees from Harvard and Oxford Universities, while challenged by the complexities of life after polio, living as a paraplegic with a wheelchair. He also competed in world-class athletic events while finishing his studies, setting world records all over the globe. He completed marathons on every continent, in a wheelchair, including in arctic conditions. Plus he assisted during heart surgeries and delivered babies.
  3. When I attended college in Boston, one of my classmates was in her 70s, just getting her first undergrad degree in literature.

We all know people like these. Inspirations. Reminders that we’re never too anything — too young, too old, too impaired, too obligated — to do what we’re inspired and moved to do. Compared to those examples above, returning to school with all of my faculties intact, even at age 47, isn’t such a big deal.

Many other members of my community recognize enrollment in graduate school as a solution to a spiritual or vocational restlessness that they have also experienced. This itchiness … this impetus to go in different directions, to ask difficult questions and find new answers, new situations, new vistas … seems to be common in people between 30-60 years old.

I’ve been asked, often, what sparked this idea to return to school? To shift focus to a whole new path, a spiritual journey, that’s quite different from my background? What inspired me to try school again? How do I know this is what I want to do? What will I do when I get my degree? How do I feel about going back to school? How does my family respond to this decision?

The common theme, behind many of those questions, is that familiar, internal restlessness. The urge to change, to move, to do something different, seems to happen inside the hearts and minds of many friends and peers. I’ve been told several firsthand accounts about men or women who are not satisfied by their own careers or choices anymore. Usually the words that surface are, “I need a do something different with my life.”

In our middle years, now that we have grown up (hah), started or raised our families, accumulated decades of work experience, and checked a few items off our “life lists,” I guess many of us are re-assessing. (Not all of us. But a lot of people.) We realize, maybe because we feel an uncomfortable, this-doesn’t-fit-anymore sensation, that we want something else. More. Different. Meaningful. Fulfilling. Interesting.

The solution may vary for each of us. Sometimes it might need a thoughtful plan of action. Or require an impulsive decision.

Perhaps it leads to a change in jobs. Or a long-term break and retreat. Travel. Sabbatical. Taking up special causes or humanitarian service; joining a club or a church or service project. Adding new layers of extracurricular activity to lives that have been narrowly focused. Learning a new sport, skill or pastime. Exercising. Maybe returning, like me, to post-graduate studies to earn certification or earn another degree. Relocation of home or work.

Maybe it’s letting go. Maybe it’s doing something new in addition to what’s already part of your life.

My husband Chris would tell you, that my decision was a long time coming. That this choice seemed inevitable, from his perspective. Obvious to some who know me well. Yet it caught me by surprise and seemed like a fully-formed idea by the time I realized that I wanted to go back to school and seek a new vocational path. Maybe it’s been growing inside for a long time, but it blossomed into vivid detail by the time I felt and saw it.

Meanwhile, why did I write that list of teachers at the start of this post? Because you don’t have to go to graduate school to find teachers. They’re all around us.

Once you start paying attention, you’ll be amazed by how many mentors, coaches, instructors and guides cross your path on any given day. How many lessons have been offered.

Inevitably, you have also been a mentor and role model for someone else in the past day. We all have the opportunity to be students in this life. And we all have the chance, the privilege, to be teachers, too.

Jul24

Ten Dollar Words, or When to Use ‘Em

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Ever heard of a “ten dollar word?” That’s a multi-syllabic, lots-of-consonants-and-vowels, extra-alphabet-flaunting, does-the-same-job-as-a-much-shorter-word kind of word.

Why use a “ten dollar word” when a simpler one will do? Our old friend Roland, a master carpenter from Rockport, used to ask that question. It’s a good question.

As a writer, I usually aim for more accessible language. Okay, admittedly, I’m long-winded. Verbose. I use a lot of words, often too many. But I still try to choose words that make my meaning clear and relevant to as many people as possible.

Here’s one of my favorite examples of a “ten dollar word.” Certain professionals are very fond of the term “utilize.” Yet it means the same thing as “use.” Whenever I catch someone dropping the word “utilize” in the sentence, and I’m editing, I usually change it to “use.” Easier to read. Means the same thing.

Imagine filling paragraphs with fancy words instead of straightforward ones. Check out a legal contract of some kind, and betcha you’ll find plenty of similar examples. Utilize.

Yes, there’s a time and place for beautiful or precise language. For flowery or more specific terms. English, and many other languages, are richer because of their complexity, their subtlety, their nuances.

Plus I love words. I collect them the way some people collect stones or coins. I like to understand them, even if I don’t have a daily use for them. So I sympathize with the tendency to play with them and apply them.

Yet I also appreciate the power of direct, to-the-point speech.

Which brings me to my next example. I’m registering for classes at Harvard. And my new word for the day? Straight out of course descriptions at Harvard.

Praxis.

(Note: to be grammatically correct, foreign words are shown in italics. Hence the italics here. It’s not for emphasis, just clarity. Hmmm, if I applied the editorial guideline correctly.)

Back to praxis. Okay, maybe some of you professionals, such as attorneys and doctors out there, make common use of this word. I’m sure it has usefulness. Just as I’m sure my vocabulary will soon be peppered with  Greek and Latin terms that didn’t seem relevant three days ago.

Praxis. What is this word? Well, I wanted to know, because I found it in several course descriptions, during pre-registration. But I couldn’t make sense of it.

Praxis. Maybe if I say it, or write it, enough times, it will sink in.

Praxis. Praxis. Praxis. Not yet.

So I’ve Googled it. That’s officially a verb, by the way. Googled. (Hah, yeah, I used “googled” in a sentence.)

And yes, this journal includes a confession from a soon-to-be graduate student about my current lack of academic rigor. I looked up the definition of “praxis” online. Praxis.

Below is an unauthorized description of its meaning, straight from Wikipedia. (In some realms of academia, at least, Wikipedia is considered a somewhat terrible — not authoritatively authenticated — source of information, since anyone can put up anything, and spread misinformation as well as information.) By the way, you can’t refer to Wikipedia in academic papers, for instance. And soon I’ll be at school, restricted to citing primary sources and doing my research through formal databases in the library. (Phew, thank goodness for places like EBSCO, which is a database publisher in my own hometown of Ipswich.)

Now, in this blog, I confess that I lazily clicked on praxis links provided by Google. Leading to Wikipedia, that reprehensible network of collaboratively-collected information (which I love, by the way, as a jumping-off point for research). Wikipedia says, “Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted, practiced, embodied, or realized. It may also refer to the act of engaging, applying, exercising, realizing, or practizing ideas …”

There’s more. Wikipedia continues, “Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of man: theoria, poiesis and praxis … corresponded to … three types of knowledge: theoretical, to which the end goal was truth; poietical, to which the end goal was production; and practical, to which the end goal was action.”

Well, okay. Praxis seems to be the implementation of ideas. Putting concepts into practice.

Praxis. Practice.

Got it. I think … I hope …  Er.

Praxis. So, that’s one word in several course descriptions that I can now interpret. Just a few dozen more to go, and I may be able to make an educated decision about which classes to take.

Another confession: I’m exaggerating. Teasing. Most of the class titles are very engaging. Only a few are off-putting and so out-there that I can’t understand them. Many titles are short and straightforward.

Some are even attention-getting. They entice me. Even if you don’t know what these classes are about, you want to find out more. To be honest, in order to be somewhat risqué, I selected a small subset from among many mundane, workable academic class titles available at Harvard. So this is a misrepresentation, but it makes the point:

  • The Shock of the New
  • Prophecy, Ecstasy, and Dreams in Early Christian History
  • Crusades, Plagues and Hospitals
  • Body and Flesh
  • The Body and its Moral Cultivation
  • The Deep: Purity, Danger, and Metamorphosis
  • Eye Contact, Ethics and Interbeing
  • Ritualization, Play, and Transitional Phenomena

Some professors know how to make the study of religions sound appealing, even sexy, or at least alarming and different. And once you dig deeper, the content of the classes sounds challenging, but accessible.

Another confession: I’m not signed up for any of the classes above. The ones that excited me were … more provocative? More chaste? Or simply going in a different direction? Hmmm, I’ll never tell.

On the other hand, some of those Harvard professors want me to work for it. Their course titles are difficult to parse. Layered with slippery words. Hard to understand. And no, I won’t put up a list of the more inaccessible titles. Too scary. (Again, teasing here.)

Undaunted, I click on the course description, and try to interpret what the class might be teaching, by reading its context. But that’s not so easy, either. A few instructors write so circuitously, going in circles around the subject, that I only understand some of what’s being said. The main themes elude me. My brain gets tired, just trying to decipher what I might be studying, if I was persuaded to enroll, if only I could interpret the description.

Yikes. Um.

For instance, try this word: complementarity. (This time, I italicized for dramatic emphasis, not for editorial clarity.)

It’s part of a class description that sounds tantalizing, if I could just translate the gist of the class description. I think the course covers sexual identity, maybe in the context of religious history and concepts of self, but I’m not entirely sure.

Back to Google, back to Wikipedia. (Naughty me.) Maybe this entry helps us. “The complementarity principle states that some objects have multiple properties that appear to be contradictory. Sometimes it is possible to switch back and forth between different views of an object to observe these properties, but in principle, it is impossible to view both at the same time, despite their simultaneous coexistence in reality.”

Okay, Wikipedia’s examples of complementarity are physics-based: electrons perceived as either wave or particle. But you get the idea. Complementarity, as applied to gender, might mean man/woman. Both? Neither? Transgender? Bisexual? Variations in gender identity or roles. Something along those lines.

Well, that’s two new words in one day, just from reading class overviews. I cannot figure out how to casually drop either “praxis” or “complementarity” into my daily conversations, but maybe I’ll find a way.

Imagine what a whole semester will do to my brain! Every sentence will be filled with “ten dollar words.”

To me as an incoming student, it seems that when a professor assembles a course description and title, she or he is attempting to market or appeal to students. Inviting me into the professor’s slice of the universe, to become engaged by very specific areas of passion and expertise.

And maybe some students are immersed in the same linguistic ocean as the professor, swimming in adjectives and nouns and verbs that aren’t typical of the everyday reality, but some of us are coming from a more “street smart” sort of background.

Of course, I’m going to Harvard to learn about and dive into ideas and thoughts and knowledge not available for free (yet) on the corner of Main and High. But on the other hand, I’d like the street signage, the course titles and descriptions, to get me there. Give me good directions, so I know what my destination is. Maybe even act like a neon sign and lure me in?

Will I eventually arrive at the intersection of “Praxis Lane” and “Complementarity Avenue”? Can’t tell yet.

(Aside: The subject of accessible, affordable education for more people is a whole different topic for another day. Don’t get me started. Ew, that reminds me, time to call the financial aid office again today.)

I’m looking forward to classes. To new ideas. To new languages, even. Part of my challenge will even be to minor in a different religion, in addition to becoming more knowledgeable about the scholarship and practices within my own faith tradition. All of this is very exciting!

Some of my favorite “ten dollar words” were a gift in high school. I  remember the slogan that my American History teacher Mr. Davis, posted on his wall. It was ironic, as you’ll see.

Mr. Davis’s high school poster: Eschew Obfuscation.

Wordle: eschew_obfuscationWhat?

If you’re a vocabulary geek like me, you may already be chuckling. If you don’t know those words, you can learn two more vocabulary terms today.

  • Eschew is a verb that essentially means: avoid, forgo or prevent.
  • Obfuscation is a noun or state of being: perplex, muddle, or confuse.

Basically, Mr. Davis’s poster uses “ten dollar words”  to tell us to “prevent confusion.” Or to accomplish its alternative. “Seek clarity.”

Though I try not to remember too much about those years in Ohio, Mr. Davis and his poster stuck with me. A few of my soon-to-be professors might want to read that high school wisdom: eschew obfuscation. But then again, if they did, they might be teaching at Zanesville High School in Ohio instead of Harvard University in Massachusetts.

I’m putting that pair of “ten dollar words” in my pocket, and bringing them along to Harvard this fall. Eschew obfuscation. Seek clarity.

Jul23

Closure

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I wish that life didn’t include breakage. Relationships, hearts, bones. I wish we could all stay whole and hale, stable and intact.

Yet that’s a futile wish. A child’s magical thinking. Really, we need to bump into things, react, learn, grow from such stimulation, to evolve as a species and as individuals.

In so many ways, we are born to break, aren’t we? We are designed to recover, too. As little ones, we have an open fontanel, so that we can lose balance, bump our heads over and over, and get up and keep going. Although we have a cognitive memory of pain, our bodies cannot actually feel its intensity when we recall events.

But that doesn’t make it easy to be hurt, does it? And it’s one thing to sport a bruise on your arm, or wear a cast until a bone mends. It’s another to endure emotional pain or intellectual hurt on a much deeper level.

Ultimately, in this reflection, I’m focused more on emotional breakage, as opposed to physical wounds. Whether insight arises from growing up inside a family with a parent who struggled with addiction and then achieved sobriety, working on my own complex family connections to a living husband and daughter, mourning Jessie, wrestling via conversations with girlfriends about strained partnerships and parenting roles, remaining quiet when someone asks for news about a family with whom I don’t share intimacy, listening secondhand to narrations from divorced parents working out finances for education of their kids, or becoming privy to someone applying for a new job or ending a career, it becomes clear that we are all, always, navigating this journey of changed relationships. And that not all bonds survive.

When we mourn, what we feel is the ache of what should be there. What’s missing. The body we can’t touch anymore, or words we want to say aloud, with no one to hear them. It throbs: the absence of some part of ourselves. Or the emptiness once occupied by another person.

When I speak of this breakage and loss, I don’t just mean death. Oh, that comes first and most easily to mind. My daughter Jessie. Or my dear friend Rebecca. Other women in my life such as Liz, Pam, and Gloria. My father. Chris’s mother. Our neighbor Sue. The children we have watched in life, who have gone ahead, too many to name here, and too devastating to try at the moment.

They have truly died. Whether it was sudden or after a long journey, they have moved past where I can reach them (for now). Some passed away as a natural part of life’s cycle. Some left us much too soon.

Other relationships in our lives are broken, or altered, yet continue. Friendships that may have changed gradually or quite dramatically. Marriages or partnerships that have ended. Work connections that shift. Affiliations through different organizations that have tapered off, or run their allotted time. Acquaintances that simply faded.

Sometimes these are natural and inevitable partings. Other times, they are caused by a breech of intimacy.

In any case, many of our broken or ended relationships must be conducted real-time, since those involved are alive, and may often see each other in the same community, even after the relationship has ended or changed. Although we aren’t connected in the same way anymore, we have shared a past that was important and real, perhaps deeply emotional or as intimate as any family bond.

As wise companions have reminded me, the end of such a relationships is its own death. It requires grieving. Time. And comes at a cost. And yet, such a relationship is also characterized by the difficult aspect of going on.

Hopefully, most of these connections can continue with some acknowledgement for past ties. With recognition for what has come before, what was real and true when it was part of our lives. With respect for each other, with care for another’s dignity and tenderness for another’s vulnerabilities.

I have witnessed many families, former lovers, or past colleagues who successfully, with a lot of work and patience, and some bumps along the way, negotiate the ways in which they continue to remain in each others’ lives and must continue to navigate enforced connections, perhaps due to shared custody, shared investments or ownership, or contractual obligations. They can do so with humor, with kindness, with tolerance and respect for each other.

Other times, perhaps too much trust or safety has been compromised, and different boundaries are required. Perhaps distance, or utter non-communication, is the only possible result.

Most of the time, though, we stay in each others’ circle of connections. So when we encounter each other, as we must do? Sometimes it’s okay. It’s friendly, but distant. Or perhaps it passes with silence and a nod, or the barest greeting.

Contrarily, sometimes we can’t manage a polite social courtesy, because the hurt goes too deep to pretend in public. We look away, cross to the other side of the road, or hold back the words that want to tumble out or the hand that wants to span the distance, and make contact again.

Contact? Contact might not be a polite hello and a distant smile, a turning-away before any more can be expected of either of us. It might not be frosty and remote. It might not be sad and aloof. It might be up-close and too-much. Maybe what’s underneath the casual encounter comes, instead, as a slap in the face. A desperate hug. A shout. A whisper. A sob. Maybe if it was allowed to be admitted, it would be expressed as anger or resentment, or a slow inhalation and the soft question, “Why?”

When we don’t have business contracts, court rulings and enduring family commitments to bind us, to force a negotiation that gives us some rules and habits for how to stay connected, we can be left with a more casual reminder of what came before, and all that’s missing between us. We are reduced to random social encounters,  small interactions when passing by, that don’t come with the promise of reconciliation or resolution. And don’t have obligations associated with them. Such moments don’t support closure. These sightings and interactions may actually keep an old wound open instead.

How do we go on? Sometimes we can create opportunities to make amends, or to achieve a sense of resolution. Sometimes we have to work hard to gain such chances. Other times, they just won’t happen, because that’s not the nature of the separation or the moving on. Or because we don’t have the capacity or courage to take the risk. I have certainly failed to resolve some of the relationships that ended in my own life.

Sometimes we have tried to find closure in private. Or remotely. By text or call. By email or letter. In therapy sessions. With words that aren’t shared reciprocally, each party listening and responding, but are delivered one way. Or as a flurry of exchanges that, nevertheless, talk over each other and don’t achieve any sort of two-way communication.

Sometimes we have knocked on the door. Sat with a neutral party to negotiate terms or help achieve communication. Offered the words. Reached out. Risked ourselves.

Maybe we await what isn’t coming. There is only silence, and the expectation of an explanation, or an apology. Perhaps you never receive an adequate reply.

Although it may not be directly applicable to all situations, to all broken relationships, the wisdom of Step 9 (Making Amends) in the 12 Step process can be a good resource. And it is preceded by 8 other steps, so it isn’t sudden; the groundwork (for you) must already have been laid.

Whole professions are built around healing hurt — and building the foundation for new beginnings –  from such breakage: counselors, attorneys, pastors, mentors, coaches, mediators and medical caregivers.

Oh, I don’t speak lightly of the work that goes into maintaining or mending a relationship. Nor do I pretend to know, firsthand, the toil of trying to navigate a broken connection that must continue to function on legal and logistical levels, if not emotional ones. Yet each of us has experienced some aspect of this territory.

Humans exist in a state of change and flux; this includes endings, shifts, and partings. Changes in connection. They come as part of living in community with other people.

Where relationships cannot continue, and if it is possible, we are called to make amends and do our best to create some closure.  Or allow others to ask it of us. It will benefit ourselves, as well as others.

Along the way, part of healing is to forgive not just someone else, but yourself, too.

Jul22

From Nothing, Something

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We, humans, are meaning-makers. (Okay, I borrowed this phrase … meaning-making … from a seminar title on my roster of classes at Harvard. But it feels, today, exactly true.) We read and interpret signs seen in our environment, whether rural or urban, outward or internal.

We impose emotion, logic, and purpose onto observations that might otherwise seem simple, random … predictable but elemental at their core … occurrences not moved by intention, but simply by innate laws of physics or nature of being.

Humans are storytellers: pattern-finding creatures. We discover rhythm and significance in every billow of wind, bluster of clouds, curl of sea, rise of flame, furrow of soil, concavity of stone. We see it in the dappled knuckles of tree roots or the dusty tornado of discarded paper and old city dirt whisked into storm shapes by blasts of air on an urban street. We read it in the spiral of our own fingerprints on a foggy surface, the span of our own toe and heel prints in the sand.

Perhaps not everything is ordered or ordained. Perhaps not everything is intentional or layered with deeper truths. I leave you to draw this conclusion in the context of your own belief systems.

Yet it is part of our human nature to find tales and explanations all around us. For instance, as people raised in a time of science that looks below the surface, we know that even when everything seems still, on a cellular level, particles are always in motion. Nothing is quite what it seems.

Everything around us and inside us is apt for our harvest of tales, of interpretation. One friend, Miranda Updike, reflected on the empty corner where the towering elm has been removed from Ipswich’s landscape. It had long shaped her childhood home, and been a character in her father’s writing. After it was gone, and we sat at Zumi’s mourning it, she said, “The absence of the tree is loud.”

Even the lack of something, its own passage, can be a story.

The poetess Mary Oliver contemplates this nature in humans: our drive for connection with our world. She narrates it in her poetry.

At first, we see only bits and pieces. Shards and remnants. The raw cut-down stump of an ancient elm. Or uglier things. The doggy-bag abandoned on the corner lawn, refuse in its sweaty folds. The bullet hole in a stained glass window. The canted spin of a too-small rusty bicycle, tossed to one side. The torn inner section of a week-old Sunday newspaper, its news already irrelevant.

Then, as we walk, collecting such detritus in our pockets, but also in our minds and hearts, this age-old magic happens. Something else, something more emerges. We find a line of meaning in it. A pattern.

Breakage

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.
Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

– Mary Oliver

Jul20

Molting

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I started this journal by admitting that I’d woven feathers into my hair. At the time, it was a celebration of taking chances and investing in the next step toward personal and professional development.

The day I got feathers, I’d just returned from taking the GRE (graduate school exam), a necessary precursor to my application for admission to Harvard. It was a big risk. I’d studied. Crammed.

Ultimately, I performed reasonably well on the language portion, but although I tried to catch up on math concepts that I hadn’t used for about 30 years, only 14% of all Americans who took the GRE did worse than me. (Did you follow that sentence, and its bit of math … tricky, huh?) Luckily, I’m not pursuing a degree that relies heavily on numbers, phew!

Anyway, the GRE wasn’t the most important part of my application. Essays and recommendations were probably more important. But taking a standardized test for the first time was a big deal (to me). Sweat. Performance anxiety. Sleepless nights. Hours of study. It meant I was serious about this whole process. And I was being measured against a lot of other people who also have graduate school dreams and vocational aspirations … you get the idea.

So I’ve had these feathers since December. And for those who are curious, but haven’t had the chance to ask, you can shampoo feathers. You can brush and style them, if you want. When you get your hair cut, the feathers come out, and after the cut, they’re knotted back into place. They’re attached by a knot, but they basically stay in for a lo-o-o-o-o-o-nnnngggg time.

See, I had about 12 or so feathers when I started out. All kinds of colors. Over the course of several months (seven, but who’s counting?), they fell out a little at a time.

The last one drifted to the ground, and I didn’t even see it happen. I washed my hair this morning, and didn’t find any more plumes. Sigh. The feathers are gone. This phase is over, it seems.

The feathers were … what, a symbolic act? An external recognition of an exciting accomplishment (surviving hours in a cubicle answering questions on a computer, knowing I was bombing on the math, because my 16-digit answers didn’t fit into the 2-digit blank answer box)? A sheer giddy indulgence?

All of the above.

Their slow shedding has been, in a way, a metaphorical measurement of the many steps that have passed since I sat down to take the GRE. 43 drafts of an essay later, I completed the entire application process. Filed it online. Waited until mid-March for acceptance. Waited longer, through rounds of debate about how we’d pay for graduate school and Sarah’s college at the same time, to decide if I’d accept a spot in the 3-year, full-time MDIV program at Harvard’s Divinity School. Stayed below the radar screen a lot of the time, because this summer and this autumn are so focused on Sarah’s transition to Northeastern to study nursing, that I often forget that I have my own forms to complete, loans to secure, classes to choose and many other administrative steps to finish, also.

The final feather disappeared on the same day that I opened my new student email account, submitted my bio and picture, and looked at the list of classes available for registration. I’m still bad at math, by the way. But I can count to zero (no feathers).

Now my head is a blank canvas again; it awaits a new cut, and perhaps more decoration. Maybe I’ll re-plume. Maybe not.

Meanwhile, the first burst of feathers fulfilled its role … it served as a talisman, while I dared to dive into the unknown depths of a new adventure.

How do we outwardly mark milestones? With jewelry like class rings or engagement diamonds, perhaps. With a tattoo, permanent or temporary. A piercing. A badge or pin. A uniform or new type of clothing. Head gear. A name tag. Some grooming of hair, nails or skin, such as a haircut, mani/pedi, facial or other makeover.  A change in external style.

Other landmarks are never visible. We often don’t wear insignia to show where we have been, what we have endured and overcome, where we are going next.

Ultimately, you can’t look at a person and read their entire story based only on an outward appearance. But sometimes, it’s fun to provide a clue about what’s going on inside.

Feathers, for instance.

 

 

 

Jul19

Thresholds

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I read another post by Jane, the mom of twins whose family is now 2 weeks into their cancer journey. She described the raging steroid-induced appetite and cravings of her 4-year-old daughter. (I remember those vividly.) And the restrictions against many fresh foods, such as thin-skinned summer fruits like berries, some of her daughter’s favorites, which might contain bacteria that’s dangerous to the suppressed immune system of a child on chemotherapy, though not for healthy digestive systems.

Then she narrates walking through the store for a few meal items. Seeing fresh summer peaches. Juicy. Ripe. Now grocery-shopping moves her to tears.

Jane remembers before and after. Wants dinner with the four members of her family, safe and home again. An armload of fresh fruit for everyone. Not living with cancer.

For her family, like so many of us, there’s a “before” and “after.” A dividing line between what was normal, and what’s real now.

We all have those thresholds. An excerpt from a humorous novel recommended by the NY Times, Wife 22, says, “…she was always out in front of me. I had yet to cross all the thresholds she had crossed …”

Often we don’t even know we’ve stepped across through these gateways, until it’s already happened. Too late. You can look back over your shoulder. Remember. But what came before? It’s gone. Over. Done. In the past.

Something’s changed forever. Your world is different. You must learn a new vocabulary and language. Find your equilibrium in a place that seems to have different laws of physics, as if gravity has shifted, or the spectrum of light isn’t the same, or something out-of-whack now defines your perception.

Yet you will get used to it. Accept and cope with the “new normal.”

Other times this dividing line can feel like a border. You come and go. You cross back and forth between worlds. Visit the old reality. Then show your passpart at customs, and come back to the place where you’re now a member and resident (with all the rights and privileges, or lack, that comes in this new and an altered state of being, of living, of surviving).

Across the span of life, we’ll encounter many of these before-and-after dividing lines. They mark our rites of passage, like portals in great city walls. They let us in and out. They stand as testament to our coming and going. They represent old and new, past and future, then and now.

We can also label what we leave behind, and where we next arrived, as good or bad, right or wrong.

Some milestones are difficult, but natural. Even joyful. Necessary for our growth as individuals or communities. Generations share similar rhythms and cycles. Like choosing a partner. Having children. Sending adult children out into the world. Graduating from school. Earning your first paycheck. Opening your own bank account. Having your first home away from your family. Taking out a loan. Paying off a debt. Burying someone you love. Casting your first vote. Going to your first foreign country. Many of these experiences can be perceived as before-and-after moments.

Others situations aren’t expected or natural. They could be catastrophic events such as violent crime, terrorism, war, natural disasters like hurricanes, fires or floods, onset of disease, famine, drought, sudden loss of job and home, or other conditions over which we might not have control. They alter our worlds.

For us? Life before-cancer probably seemed better than after-cancer. For a while, anyway, I must have felt like Jane in the grocery store, staring at the peaches and remembering summer from a year ago, before cancer. Mourning. Comparing before and after. Wishing to go back to before-cancer.

But if this is the new reality in which you live, can you categorize all of it as bad and wrong? At first, you probably do.

After a while, though, you make a transition. You tend to accept and adjust. The “new normal” becomes more complex. Layered and nuanced. Not so easily defined as awful and terrible.

Rather, you’re simply experiencing life as you must live it now. Your “new normal,” the sometimes-unwelcome reality, must be learned, mapped and navigated. Hopefully there’s another dividing line, a border on the far side of the journey, that can be marked after-after. Like after-life-with-cancer.

But all the time between border crossings? As we trek between the threshholds that mark our lives? The time and space and distance between those milestones is when we do most of our daily living and being.

Along the way, you begin to find the goodness in every day. It’s not an innate skill, it’s a lesson you learn to keep your internal balance. You find light and hope. The raw jokes. The simple games. The deep conversations. The amazing spirit. The unexpected companionship.

Sure, in cases like cancer or diabetes or other illnesses, or conditions like unemployment, addiction, bankruptcy, survival of assault so many other unimaginable situations, it would be nice if you never had to go there. If you didn’t step through the gate or over certain dividing lines. But that’s virtually impossible.

All of us have thresholds that define our lives. That mark the territory of before and after. The person on far side of the border is different than the one who hasn’t yet crossed over.

Maybe the aisle of the grocery store is when Jane realized, again, that she’d crossed the line between before and after. I have my own places where I have stood, and known that life was different forever. So do you.

Some of them move me to tears. Sorrow. Others make me smile.