Reflections: where we come from, where we are, and where we're going.

Tag Archives: Seasons

Courage Reprised

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Scary ride at Topsfield County Fair (photo by Mark Murphy with Chris Doktor’s fancy camera)

Right now there are autumnal leaves on the ground. So why am I thinking about skiing? It has to do with getting on a scary ride at the fair, and trying to overcome my fears.

Every year (almost) I take one ski lesson, make several runs down the bunny slope, and then go to the “top” of one of the less-scary (aka, green) trails and ski down the side of the mountain with my family. For me, each year, this is an act of courage. As well as a sign of solidarity with my family. I want to do it once each year, just so I can be with them, and face up to something that scares me, too.

Each year, I get a little better. (Until I fall down, of course. Almost guaranteed to happen every year.)

As proof of this annual act, I have a series of photos of me posed part-way up a mountain, next to my daughter and husband. Just before we go down the slope together. Me making pizza wedges with my feet so I don’t go too fast or lose control. Sarah skiing in circles around me, laughing hysterically at my juvenile form, then swooping ahead and then swinging back again to cheer me on. Chris somewhere before or behind, usually shooting embarrassing videos.

Chris and Sarah, of course, are much more accomplished on skis than me. They go to the top of the trails. They enjoy black diamonds. They ski in Colorado with uncle Jeff sometimes, at much greater altitudes. Sarah will get on a snowboard, too, though I’m not sure she’d claim she’s as comfortable ‘boarding as skiing.

Now back to Topsfield County Fair. We made our annual jaunt there. Now that Sarah’s grown up, it’s usually just Chris and I, making the rounds of barns and rides for one sticky, deep-fried afternoon. (For years, it was me with other moms, our kids in strollers, stuck in the Kiddy Ride area.)

This year we went with our friends Mark and Lesley, who are visiting from Ipswich England as part of a Rotary Club cultural exchange. We wanted to share a quintessential American experience with them, and the County Fair embodies everything that is fun, campy and quirky about America.

Photo by Lesley Dolphin

C’mon, admit it! It’s the fair! Deep-fried food of every description. Cute child-made projects by Boy or Girl Scout troops and 4-H clubs, like collections of painted gourds decorated as Olympic teams or ghosts and witches for Halloween. The world’s largest pumpkin: 2,009 pounds! Clydesdales. Racing pigs. Farm machinery with big tires and bigger engines: pulling stuff. Goats, sheep, alpacas, cows, bunnies, guinea pigs, chickens, roosters, ducks, turkeys … and more. Bee-keeping house with honey, wax candles and live hives. Prize-winning flower arrangements, handmade quilts, jars of honey, and pies. The midway, with dart-throwing contests and every other sort of game in which you can lose a lot of money, plus lots of rides with bright lights and loud music.

Anyway, in past years, I’ve gone on rides at the fair with my family, for the same reason that I go skiing with them. To face a fear. To show solidarity.

Does it count as an act of courage, if you’re afraid to do something for sensible reasons, like the concern about gravity, steep slopes and fast downhill speeds, but you do it anyway? Does it count as an act of courage, if you’re afraid the whole time, but do it anyway?

This year I went on the Pharoah’s Fury with Chris and our friend Lesley. It is really a large boat on a swing, and it rocks higher and higher in both directions, while you face into the middle, so that eventually you are pivoted so high that you’re facing a 90 degree drop and staring down into the screaming faces of the people on the other end of the boat. And then it plummets down in the opposite direction, as it completes the swing to the other end of its pendulum motion, and you feel as if you’re falling.

Okay, this ride combines all my nightmares. You know … falling … heights … speedy drops … That sort of thing.

Meanwhile Chris and Lesley, to challenge themselves, let go of the bar and lift their hands to heighten the effect. They keep their eyes open. They’re laughing and whooping in excitement.

Me? Eyes closed. Hands clutch the bar. Moan. Complain. “I hate this. Why did I get on? I hate this. Aaagggghhh. Aaaaarrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!”

Screams. Squint, but open my eyes a few times, to experiment with peeking, because Chris and Lesley say it’s easier with your eyes open than squeezed shut. Stare down into the faces of the people on the other end of the ride. Stare DOWN at them, from my 90 degree vertical-drop position at the very other end of the ride. Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh. Looking isn’t helping. It’s worse!

Fried foods at Topsfield County Fair, photo by Mark Murphy

I scream every time we start the plummet downward. My stomach falls after the rest of me, of course. It can’t keep up.

And I never let go of the bar. Even though Chris and Lesley say it’s more fun — easier — if you let go. Let go! Let go!

Yes, it’s the mantra that I say to myself about so many other parts of life. “Just let it go.”

On this ride, I don’t work up enough courage to let go of the safety bar and throw my hands up in the air. That’s one more step than I can manage.

What did I accomplish? Well, I got on the ride, and didn’t panic enough to get back off again. I said NO to an earlier ride, but I got on this one.

And by the end of the Pharoah’s Fury — which felt like it lasted 35 minutes, if you ask me — by the end of the ride, in between screams, I’m laughing. Laughing!

Okay, so maybe the stomach-drop sensation ride is FUN in a sick-scary sort of way. Me? Laughing?

To laugh, I’ve actually gone through the mental exercise of admitting that I’ve talked myself into a place of greater anxiety than this ride warrants. It’s almost ridiculous. But that’s why I won’t open my eyes or let go, because I’m so afraid.

So let’s ask this question again. What did I accomplish? Well, I opened my eyes. I peeked. It didn’t kill me, though it wasn’t any better. I won’t let go of the bar. Nope. But I can laugh between screams.

Does that count as courage?

Sure, it would be a better story if I’d released the bar, unclenched my hands, flung them into the air and completely immersed myself in the experience of my fear of heights, vertical drops, falling sensations and all of those things. If I’d faced it entirely, without any anxieties or reservations, and then walked off the ride … cured. A new person.

That isn’t quite the whole story. I got off the Pharoah’s Fury, wobbly, but smiling. As if, indeed, the weight of all those fried foods that we’d gobbled down earlier in the afternoon had been left behind. (Which they hadn’t. For the record, I didn’t puke.) As if I’d overcome some part of myself that was hunkered down in a dark corner, hands over eyes, back turned to the light, unwilling to uncurl and take a chance.

Scary ride, but my eyes are open, and Lesley’s arms are flung wide. (Photo by MArk Murphy)

Yes, I held on tight. Yes, I complained, “I hate this.” Yes, I screamed. Yes, I kept my eyes closed most of the time. Yes, it’s true. I did those things.

But I also got on the ride. In the end seat, where the ride is the most extreme. I stayed in the seat. I opened my eyes a few times, to check it all out. Between screams and rounds of “I hate this,” I actually relaxed enough to laugh. To admit that it was fun to be scared. Glad I’d done it.

That’s a lot for this year. (Does that count as my going-to-the-mountain moment? Can I skip the ski slope?)

For me, going on Pharoah’s Fury is about like going to the top of a ski trail on skis. To go down a mountain with my family. Would I do it myself, for my own satisfaction? No. Would I do it to keep someone I love company, and try it, even if it’s not “my thing?” Yes.

Is that courage? I don’t know. But when I laughed, as the ride dropped into its swing toward earth, it felt like something new was happening inside. And I didn’t need a new pair of underwear when I got off the ride, by the way!

Rock Wrangling

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Moving boulders? A classic New England tradition …

It’s like a gift, this day of serene blue sky, warm afternoon sunlight, crisp air and gold-crimson colors appearing in the edges of green foliage. A perfect autumn moment.

I just want to be in awe of it for a little bit. I spend so much time indoors on a computer, reading books, in a class, working with clients or otherwise staying busy, that I need “excuses” to get outside.

So what’s a good reason to go outside? Well, some people garden. Can’t say that’s my strength. Others run a few miles, cycle a few miles more, kayak or walk or just get outdoors to exercise. Pick apples. Go fishing.

What coaxed me outside the past few days?

  • A bonfire in the evening, enjoyed in the company of my husband and a friend or two. With dinner and drinks.
  • Reviewing renovations to the house and plans for the yard.
  • Walks downtown for hot beverages at Zumi’s and a seat along the river.
  • Best of all, our weekend rock-pushing escapade.

Attaching boulder to rear appendage of tractor

Huh? Rock-pushing? Were we suddenly trying to re-enact Greek-mythology? Recreating the eternal act of pushing a boulder up a hill, over and over, as a punishment in the underworld, like the king of ye olden classical days, Sisyphus?

Er, no. Just because I’m in divinity school doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly decided to live out the myths and stories of many religions. Nope. This was more along the lines of continuing the good old New England tradition of harvesting rocks from your field.

A few years ago, a neighbor of ours dug a large granite boulder out of his yard. It may once have served as a front step for his home, but didn’t work in that way anymore. We wisely (or foolishly) accepted his offer to take the boulder. So it was dropped off by a bobcat at the far end of our driveway. And there it sat, summer and winter, year after year, awaiting a purpose and a place in our small yard.

More recently, Chris’s colleague Matt acquired a tractor that can lift and move large landscape features. He was sure it could handle re-positioning the granite boulder. And he enjoys opportunities to use his machine (of course).

Boulder carried up Summer Street

So this past weekend, it was guys’ day with big machines in the backyard. They tried lifting it in the tractor’s bucket, but the boulder is just too big. Our friend Matt pushed it with the bucket about halfway down the drive, but that didn’t solve how to get it around the corner, up the street to the intersection of Summer and North Main Streets, where it was supposed to perch at the corner of our house.

After much problem-solving and the arrival of our other friend Just, the guys used chains to attach the boulder to the back end of the tractor, which is actually stronger. (It practically tipped the entire tractor when attached to the front bucket.) They had to tip the boulder up enough with the bucket end to wedge wooden blocks under it, lifting it off the ground, so they could run  chains beneath the rock. After extended experiments, the three determined guys found a way to wrap and secure it so that the tractor could lift the boulder about 6 inches off the ground. Then Matt hauled it carefully up the street, and nudged it into place.

It was like watching tractor ballet, for goodness sake!

Boulder arrives at Summer & North Main.

Between building bonfires and rock-wrestling with the help of a motorized wheeled vehicle with a lots of appendages and a powerful engine, it was like … well, yes, I’m going to just lay down a stereotype here … it seemed like “guy Nirvana.”

And you know what? I put down the textbooks, stopped outlining my paper on the story of Joseph as told in both Genesis and the Qur’an, and stepped outdoors. I was out there with the three guys, snapping photos, watching traffic, and participating from a helpful (aka, safe) distance.

By the end of the rock wrangling, we were all grinning from ear to ear. What a crazy way to spend a few hours out in the autumn sunlight! It’s a novel pastime, that’s for sure

Can’t say I expect to ever have another afternoon quite like it. But if you get the chance to move a boulder or two in your life … you just gotta do it, don’t you think?

Nudging a boulder with a frontloader bucket. Or whatever it’s called …

New Things, New Year: Encountering Other Faiths

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On one of the first days of Rosh Hashanah, which is THE (or one of many, depends on whom you ask) Jewish New Year, I tried something new. Part of this graduate school time is to work and study and play among people of many faiths. Develop chances to visit, to dip my toe, into other experiences.

Along the way, perhaps to better understand and embrace different traditions as something akin to my own cultural identity … connected, related … though not the same. I’m learning to make that distinction.

Yes, we can share many facets of history, belief and experience in common. Yet we don’t have to be one homogenized, same-everything confluence of cultures. The days of the immigrant melting pot, when we shed our pasts, changed our names, and tried to be like everyone else (usually in a white American-European-Protestant-Christian context) are over. In the past several decades, it has become increasingly safer for people to claim their roots, their ethnicity, their language, their religion, their race, their gender identity, their individuality. That should be okay.

Does this sound idealistic? Yes. Possible? Yes. Easy to do? No? A work in progress? Always.

We should be able to live side by side, yet be different from each other. Coexist in a pluralized society that respects and wrestles together with constructing a civilization that accommodates and welcomes diversity in many forms.

As part of this journey, I want to de-mythologize other faiths. Remove the stereotypes, biases and assumptions that I have internalized, or at least carried with me as an unconscious filter.

One of the forms of education I am receiving is to recognize other religions, practices and beliefs as different, but not as something that occurs “outside” a spectrum of societal patterns. Not “apart” from what we define as culture and civilization. Not “other” or “alien.” Not wrong, bad or in any way unacceptable.

One way that I’m grappling with this goal is to take classes. To study other religions through their history, art, development in different nations and languages, their connection to governments and politics, and through a glimpse into their sacred revelation. To understand each religion in its role as part of our broader American (Western) tradition, as well as its presence in other parts of the world. To this end, I’m taking two classes on Islam. It makes me look differently, already, at world events and the media coverage of them, political rhetoric, and our responses to them.

On the other hand, it’s best to get to know diversity up close. To form relationships with people who identify themselves in association with a variety of race, ethnicity, nationality, religious tradition, gender association, cultural affiliation and other characteristics. To make friends. To get to know each other, and put a face on “differences.” To study and learn together. Ask each other questions. Share each others’ traditions. I can do so with my classmates. We all learn and share with each other, and it’s safe to ask questions and explore diversity in this setting.

Back to the “new thing” I experienced.

Yesterday I attended a Rosh Hashanah New Year’s service. It was an improvisational service led by one of the students, Jeremy. It included many readings and songs in Hebrew. Jeremy’s voice rose, rich and redolent, to the rafters. His face shone with happiness to share this time with us.

We participated in some responsive readings in English. We recited a statement of faith (This rarely happens in the  annual Jewish tradition, since this is a religion of practice versus creed, unlike Christianity, but much like Islam. In fact, it may only happen in this service each year.) We remembered the departed. We considered and let go of our trespasses from the past year, since this is a time of letting go and starting anew.

Side note: My friend Miriam, however, celebrated somewhat differently. Among other rituals she and her children participated in Tashlick, which is the act of releasing crumbs or pieces of bread in a moving body of water. Naming regrets or transgressions, and letting them go. Setting new intentions for what you can do right, better and with more integrity in the coming year.

At the end of the worship service Jeremy sounded the shofar. This is a ram’s horn. It makes a blatting cry. It resounded through the chapel. We all listened to its echoes fade.

I cannot say I understood or connected with all aspects of the service. The parts in English resonated with me. They’re akin to my own statements of faith, and align with my beliefs. I felt bound in community.

Here’s the frustrating part. Admittedly, I was restless, listening to long passages in a language I don’t understand, regardless of how beautiful they were.  I felt, right then, like a little kid attending a classical orchestral concert, with no education or appreciation for what I’m listening to, and a tendency for my mind to wander, even while I try to pay attention and let it all soak in. * sigh *

A fellow student Lauren explained that much of the language (Hebrew, so I didn’t understand some of it, though we were provided with translations) of the service is a metaphor from archery. The intention is to recognize where we have “missed the mark” and improve our “aim” through our actions and intentions, so we will be “on target” in the coming year.

Another student, a Muslim peer, also attended the Rosh Hashanah service.  Like me, she’s trying to learn. To expand her understanding on an experiential level. She asked permission to record Jeremy’s recitation. I haven’t asked her why she wanted to record it, although I suspect that the Hebrew chants echo with the art and practice of oral recitation of the Qur’an.

The echoes fell silent. The year has begun. It is a sweet time, these High Holidays, in the Jewish year. We dipped apples in honey. Left the room, a little lighter in spirit, and perhaps a little wiser … or more foolish and opened-up … than we’d arrived.

Partings

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Today Sarah joins her college classmates and sets off by plane for Greece. She’ll study nursing in Thessaloniki for three months. Probably visit other cities, and even other countries, while she’s there. She’s considering more travel around Europe after the semester ends.

Why not? She’s young. Relatively footloose and commitment-free. When is there a better time?

And what can substitute for life experience, when it comes to education? Books and professors are great. They give us context. Theories. Even practical ideas that we can apply in the real world.

Yet lessons often come the other way, too. Firsthand. In person. As realities that we handle and experience. Eventually, to make space in our minds and hearts for greater understanding, we must touch, see, think about and feel events, cultures, people and ideas for ourselves. We cannot fully appreciate the similarities and differences that make the world so complex — sometimes beautifully so, other times tragically so — unless we take the chance to engage it.

She’s traveling to the second-largest city in Greece, steeped in history of many cultures, ethnicities and faiths. For instance, some of its inhabitants appear in the sacred text of the New Testament in letters from the Apostle Paul; she’ll walk some of the sacred sites I’m studying in books. She’ll reside in and explore ancient ground that was holy, thousands of years before Christianity was ever born, populated by Greek deities and temples. She will live in the multicultural realities of a city that was once a bustling part of the Byzantine empire, became a sanctuary for Jews outcast from Spain for a period of about 400 years. It joined the Greek nation in the early 20th century, burned in 1917, was largely rebuilt, and was home to thousands of refugees in the wake of a ‘population exchange treaty’ between Greece and Turkey in 1923. It remains a vibrant and diversely-populated place. For more detailed information, visit www.greecetravel.com/thessaloniki/introduction.html

We’ll stay here in Boston. Say good-bye and watch her walk across a threshold. It’s a coming of age moment, as she launches herself into the world, to learn lessons from her college classrooms and other lessons on the streets or in the cafes, shops, and other hangouts around the city.

I expect, as we say good-bye, that she will continue to experience her own partings. She’s leaving behind her high school self. Her friends are all already on their college campuses. Or finding jobs and moving away from home. Or serving in the military. Beginning the next phase of their young adult lives. Sarah, too, will let go of childhood and start anew.

When she walks through the security gate and later through customs, she will be walking into a new world. And a new part of her life.

And here? Though we aren’t flying away, but staying home, we’re also beginning the “next step” in our family life. Whatever that might mean … whatever shape it takes … big house, empty rooms, long work or school days, late nights, early mornings … two of us trying to make chances to connect. Finding purpose in our adult lives, now that we have started Sarah on the path to her own life apart from us. And always, the way parents do, thinking about both of our daughters.

Somewhere, Jessie fits into this transition. We’ve said good-bye before. Farewell to Jessie was different. This day, as Sarah waves and joins her classmates, this is the good-bye you’re supposed to say to a child. It means you’re doing what you should, helping your child take steps toward adulthood and independence.

After all, it’s not permanent. It’s not forever.

Yet we also realize … the young woman who comes home again after her adventures… she will be Sarah. But she will be a new, changed, more mature and experienced Sarah.

Sure, I thought I was ready to let her go. Stoic. I knew, cognitively, what this separation meant. I talked myself through it. Rallied around its importance and symbolism. Believe it’s good and right for her to do. But there’s a difference between knowing something and feeling it. It’s easy to know something with your head, but much tougher to live through it with your heart.

So I thought it would be easy enough to get ready and say farewell, because this departure has been happening in stages for several months. Years, even.

Yet we’re all on edge. Trying to be gentle with each other, but equally prickly and moody and temperamental. Right now, we often say or do the wrong thing, as often as we make the right choices, to help each other through this good-bye.

My husband I will be different, too. All of us – humans — change. Nobody is static, fixed to one moment in time and space, unable to transition. Life and consciousness itself is a response to stimuli. All humans, even when we feel stuck, are somehow in flux, moving, transforming.

We’ll all get through it. And blossom on the other side of the transition. Yet that doesn’t make the moment of parting any easier. In order to hold the love, you must also hold the pain.

Apples, Corn and Dogs

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Just paying attention. Autumn in New England rustles just outside my door.

About 10 days ago, I saw the first pale leaves flutter down and skitter along the sidewalk. Swirl upward again in circles. Come to rest.

Pumpkin seeds to be baked.

Now small splashes of color burst from the green canopy of trees. Auburn. Amber. Gilt. Fire. Fall sets the horizon alight with her bright palette, in our part of the natural world.

Local orchards are thronged with tourists enjoying an idyllic weekend: filling bags with apples and other fruit. Visiting geese and farm animals. Taking the hay ride out to the low-hanging trees. Plucking among the many choices of crisp, ripe apples. Splurging on cider and donuts, debating about recipes and ingredients for pies or cobbler.

Local farms come to life at harvest season. They’ve set up their corn mazes! Labyrinths wind through taller-than-head-height stalks; these puzzling trails beckon to adventurous folk. Get lost in fields of green and gold! Find your way out again. It’s even more fun, and a little alarming, in the dark.

Early Jack O Lanterns

Our daughter Sarah and her friend brought home hefty pumpkins to carve. Admired curling stems. Cut off the lids. Scooped out the insides. Carved faces. Baked the seeds. Just to pass some time and connect with the season.

Farmers’ markets continue to hum with activity. Jams and honey line the shelves. Shares from Appleton Farms bristle with crops. Yet the countdown is coming; soon the barns will be quiet and the staff busy planning for next year.

Just now, though? The vaulted sky is bright blue. Branches arch overhead with changing hues from green to crimson. Orange gourds dot sloping verdant lawns.

And a neighbor drives past with the family dog. The dog’s head hangs out the passenger window, ears blowing back, tongue lolling to one side, gulping in the fresh air, grinning a canine grin.

That describes how I feel today. Drinking it all in. Enjoying this moment in time.

Stress: The Good Kind

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I’m so busy I almost can’t breathe. I’ve added every deadline, book, project or homework assignment, class time, phone call, advisory meeting, and other school task to my calendar to keep up with it all. Getting home at midnight one day a week, and between 8-9 pm the other nights. On campus in Cambridge all day, either in classrooms, library or quiet work spaces.

And then there’s family life; that’s being “scheduled,” too, so that I can grab some time with Sarah while she’s home again before going off to her semester abroad in four more days. (I saw her Monday night between 10pm-midnight, when we picked her up at the airport, so far.) Or to make a date with my husband Chris while we’re both awake. Mostly I maintain contact with them via texts. * sigh *

Work life fits tidily into chunks of the day when I can plug in my computer. Sometimes on the train, or in the library. As emails exchanged between classes. Or on the weekdays when I’m staying on the North Shore.

Field education hasn’t started yet. That starts next week. (I’ve already had the interviews). I’ll be apprenticed or interning, so to speak, at a UCC church on the North Shore to gain professional experience in a parish other than my own home faith community. This works both as part of the educational experience at Harvard, but also toward my “discernment” process for ordination by my denomination (UCC/Congregational).

All in all, it’s a whirlwind time. I dream about school. I’m reading books about Christianity and Islam and pastoral counseling and philosophy and language, instead of suspense and science fiction novels. I pack a lunch and dinner. Carry a to-go mug for hot coffee, as well as a water bottle. Have external pockets with  easily accessible student ID, T-passes and commuter rail ticket. Wear sensible walking shoes for the hike from train station to subway station, from subway to classroom, class to library.

In a way, this rhythm is familiar. I used to make the commute in and out of Boston to an office. Rise and go before the sun came up. Come home after it set. Rarely saw the sky, except through the office windows of executives in the buildings of the large financial corporation where I once worked. Made well-intentioned goals to get outside for lunch, walk instead of eat, but usually found that I needed every work hour to complete a project, so that I could make it home to pick up children from extended hours at daycare.

Even further back, I used to work full time, then attend classes at night. Took two courses a semester, for several years, to earn a Bachelors degree with Honors from UMass / Boston. Chris was deep in studies to pass his exams for licensing as an architect. So I’d work on my thesis until 2am, and walk home across the Boston Common at odd hours of the night, to our apartment in the city.

It seems like I’ve always been juggling a lot. All of us have been.

It’s happening to Chris now. He rises at 3-4am to start his work day. Volunteers, works, and makes time for his family when we can be here to connect. Fits in a bike ride now and then.

It’s happening to our daughter Sarah as she juggles saying good-bye to the few friends who haven’t left for college already, or makes trips to see them on campus in Boston. Then packs for her own adventures through Northeastern University’s international program next week.

Yes, it’s stressful. But I want to acknowledge that this is stress we choose, and in which we willingly participate. It leads to something more. Opportunity. Open doors. Education. Vocational shift. Personal transformation. Survival. Hope. Healing. Tangible change. Something we want. There’s incentive to take on this busy schedule, instead of remaining within the status quo.

This form of stress contrasts with situations that are out of our control. Circumstances that cause stress to which we also respond, not because we want to, but because we must. I have lived inside that pressure cooker, too.

In fact, I don’t have to describe much of it to you. Many of you knew us during those times.

Living inside a hospital as the levels of acuity increased over time. First, a shared hospital room with other cancer patients and their parents. Having roommates for weeks at a time throughout the cancer journey. Transfer into private rooms on the oncology unit, which might sound like a privilege, but was too often a bad sign. It was usually due to severity of infection, contagious complications, or more life-threatening conditions (beyond cancer, as if that wasn’t enough). Later, months of life on the transplant unit, inside a single room with changeable mood lights in the ceiling as a second-best attempt at environmental stimulation instead of being allowed to live in the larger world. Life reduced to one room, inside a HEPA-filtered unit with its own air and water circulation, and airlocks to control the environment and separate it from the rest of the hospital (though strangely, you could escape to the Prouty Garden if you traveled …  you couldn’t share the elevator, wore a mask through the halls, and didn’t touch anything).

Finally, the most critical level of care. ICU. Where they have two medical rounds a day, and I woke up for each shift of consultations, regardless of the time of day or night, because events moved so quickly that even 24 hours wasn’t enough time to assess things; we only slept about 2 hours a night. Where the lights are always on, and the number of tubes and machines attached to the patients multiplies.

Through it all, Jessie just stymied everyone. If you looked at the reams of paper, she shouldn’t have appeared as perky as she did. She shouldn’t have transitioned once off the ventilator, sat up within hours to play Hangman with her primary nurses on the ICU team, and lured us all once more into hopefulness. But hey, that’s how she lived through every hour she was allowed to be awake. And even consciousness was taken away, at the end, because she needed to be sedated to stay on a ventilator. But she broke through the drugs from time to time, to try to whisper to us, to kick her feet, to squeeze our hands, to cry, to listen to books, to be part of this world and connect with us.

We have endured that other kind of stress. It escalated inexorably for years. Then months. Then weeks. Then hours. Final moments.

That accumulated stress seeped deep into muscles, bones, minds and spirits. It took years to work its way to the surface, and be released again. We’re still letting go of it, I’m sure.

So I acknowledge that these stressful circumstances may be different in every family, caused by different issues, but that many of us live with them. Unemployment. Mental health issues. Diagnoses of chronic or terminal conditions. Economic instability. Uncertainty about shelter or food: basic necessities. Lack of access to other resources. Addiction. Violence. Crime. Death or endings of many kinds. Loss. Isolation from community. Caregiving for a loved one with an extreme condition.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m seeking this vocation: pastoral care. Stress is a universal experience. With many causes. We all share it at some time or another, in one form or another.

And I believe — I hope — we all have chances to experience a different kind of stress. The “good kind.”

Although my calendar is busy —  my phone vibrates often, my computer pings with reminders and alerts and alarms to keep my use of time focused, my backpack is quite hefty with gear and books, and I’m always moving —  I don’t mind. There are other sorts of alarms and appointments, meetings and conferences, phone calls and consultations, that lead to different outcomes.

Right now, this stress leads to transformation. So I celebrate it.

Puddles: To Leap or Not to Leap

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Sometimes on dark days, when lightning and thunder crash overhead, when rain drenches, we need a reminder that there’s an arching sky above that heavy roll of clouds. And above this mass of grey storm, the heavens are blue blending into purple fading into black.

It’s there, waiting its turn: the light and the blue sky. There’s always a sun burning on one side of the globe or another, and our planet wheeling around it. And beyond our nearest star sprawls an infinity of stellar bodies, sending back light that is already thousands of years old, piercing the veil of darkness on clear nights.

It feels heavy, this weather. Punishing, almost. Torrential. We travel in layers and under cover. We dive for shelter, we crave something warm in our hands.

And yet, our earth needs this renewal. We know this, too. It’s essential.

And of course, stormy days are not unexpected. They’re natural. Hopefully we’re prepared for the turn in weather, not surprised by it … we have waterprfoof gear.  Umbrellas. Boots. Slickers.

I remember being the one who loved to jump into puddles. First one in. Not just as a kid. As a grownup, too.

As a freshman in college, I’d take off my shoes and run barefoot through puddles. I was a young woman on an undergraduate college campus. Didn’t care about social conventions. Walked to class surrounded by friends who were equally inebriated with the sheer joy of life, independence and possibilities. Once one of us tried it — jumping in puddles – we all did it. Laughing under umbrellas, soaking wet, snared between childhood and adulthood.

Mostly now, I admit it, I’m glad to stay warm and dry. Happy to be on the inside, looking out at the rain and lightning.

And yet I wear high waterproof boots that are good for sloshing through deep currents. I’ve used them to wade into the ocean’s tide or the river when walking dogs with friends. They’re excellent for puddle-jumping, too.

Sometimes it’s worth being ready to step into the water. To go through the puddle instead of around it. To make a splash. After all, every day is its own blessing … it’s wise to savor each.

So we can choose to look up. To gaze up beyond the low-slung horizon of  clouds toward the assurance of bright starlit heavens. Or peer down at the ground and the promise of a nearby puddle.

Either way, take this gift of time for what it is. I wish all of us the courage and wisdom to find joy on days like this one. Whether it’s the contentment of being dry with a steaming cup in your palms and the percussive rhythm of rain pounding the roof and the window … the spiritual certainty that our earth is being quenched … the assurance  that the sun is there beyond those clouds, waiting to return … or the elemental joy of stepping outside into the storm and wading through the puddles.

Balance Between Labor and Rest

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Hopefully we each found a way to savor the past liberties of summer. In a way, I think of it as a yoga exercise that includes contraction and release. To pause. To rest from our work and worries on Labor Day weekend. If not for a whole long weekend, then for a day or even a few hours.

I reviewed my own summer checklist. Manged to include a few more wishes over this weekend, as a way of assuring some rest and relaxation:

  • Cooked a few meals using fresh crops from Appleton (which their newsletter reminds us has several weeks remaining, so that part of the green season is still in full swing): pesto from fresh basil, kale chips made and seasoned in our oven, green salad and quinoa with veggies in it, tomato-salad, fresh ears of corn.
  • Date night(s) with husband: cooking, talking, sipping wine, and watching a good sci-fi show plus some political humor on the Colbert Report and Jon Stewart Show.
  • Kayaking on the river: walked two blocks down the street, put in along the river bank, and timed our outing for high tide so it was a lazy and scenic paddle.
  • Potluck dinner in the twilight with friends: in the backyard in the flicker of candlelight until the biting insects … no-see’ums, midgies or gnats choose your preference … took the romance out of the outdoors, and we moved inside to talk.
  • Chai tea with a friend at Zumi’s.
  • Ate a kiddie-sized ice cream cone at White Farms. Anyone who has eaten there knows you probably don’t need more, although it’s tempting.
  • Read a book on my personal back-logged fiction list: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

Other folks accomplished interesting things, including:

  • Hiked in the White Mountains, summitted several peaks
  • Camped on a lake
  • Visited Maine or New Hampshire
  • Sailed
  • Jumped horses at a nearby event
  • Boated on the river
  • Went fishing
  • Biked locally
  • Visited the beach
  • Picked apples at Russell Orchard
  • Hiked through the Audubon

Of course, we also probably all did more back-to-school or back-to-regular-life errands. Groceries. Clothes. Backpacks. Supplies. Computers and phones.

As I once mentioned, finding this equilibrium between responsibilities and pleasures is similar to performing a yoga exercise. By tensing each muscle group, then releasing it, you create overall relaxation. As you deliberately focus on each area of the body, you also realize you may have knots and pent-up tension in places you didn’t notice. By tightening or clenching each muscle area, then relaxing, you can feel the tension slip away.

Labor Day … and other mornings, mid-days, evenings and weekends … can be a chance to do the same thing. It’s never too late. In fact, this should be a year-round practice, not just a summer ritual. Check those wish lists. Take stock of postponed sets of chores and pastimes. Focus on the areas of life that are often overlooked. Pay attention to them. Maybe give them a workout, get them sweaty and active, and then let them relax again. We’ll see where muscles … or aspects of our lives … need more work and play. And come to a greater awareness of where and when to restore balance.

If These Walls Could Talk

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What stories would they tell?

Our daughter’s friend Shelly, who has been living with us since the spring, just moved along to college! She packed up her life in 9 hours. She’s taking some things to her mom’s place in Haverhill and others to her college residence near Boston.

Outside in the twilight, skyping by phone from Ipswich to Italy for a long distance BFF college good-bye between Shelly and Sarah.

She wanted us to see how tidy it all looked: boxes, bins and suitcases, zippered and capped, stuffed with her paraphernalia, organized into different piles depending on their destination. Then she carried down load after load of belongings. Filled a truck. She’s gone and the room is empty. Last night the street outside was filled with final hugs and reluctant good-byes.

We remain behind, as our children leave. Empty nesters? Us?

Well, there’s one empty room in our house, anyway. It has been home to several girls. It’s the same bright blue room that was once Jessie’s. (Jessie chose its colors back in 2005, when we were just moving in, right before she relapsed with leukemia for the first time.) Later it was the bedroom for two beloved Rotary exchange student host-daughters: Tina Danila from Belgium and Chicca Tizzoni from Italy. In between, it has often served as a guest room for family and friends.

Now it’s plain. Bare of any evidence of its latest occupant. Shelly’s “personality” drove away in a borrowed pickup truck … it used to be spilling off her corkboard covered in favorite mementos, a bright striped bedspread, the sprawl of her adolescent clothes and shoes and books. Now there’s silence where her music played and her voice rose and fell.

It’s a room that has known a series of comings and goings. Even when Jessie was alive, she only stayed there part of the time, because much of her life was also spent inside the hospital. We always had a suitcase handy, and the room was often the recipient of random bags stuffed with the evidence of her re-entry to home life, bringing along the detritus of hospital stays (craft projects, medical items, etc).

Over time, we have moved Jessie’s memorabilia to other parts of the house, and allowed the blue room to be a blank canvas for more recent occupants. So when they move out, it’s quite sparse.

Sarah’s room, on the other hand, is only temporarily empty of her presence. It remains filled with her “stuff.” She’s coming and going all the time. She’ll be back next week with suitcases and souvenirs from her cultural exchange in Italy. A week later, she’ll pack up and head out to her first semester in college.

In many ways, Sarah’s room won’t change drastically. We expect her to come and go for years, back home on many holidays and school breaks, using the house as her operating base, even when she’s always on the go. She can safely leave behind her overflow of gear and childhood belongings, and take only what she needs for a dorm room and college life.

For a glorious few months this summer, Sarah’s and Shelly’s friends, along with our exchange student Chicca, filled our house with their clutter, debris, noise and life. We loved it.

They made messes. Built bonfires in the back yard. Slept over in sleeping bags, in small groupings, unable to let go of each other. Generated odors from gym shoes and wet swimming gear. Cooked food for each other. Burned some of it. Moved furniture. Used computers. Ate all the snacks we put into the cupboards. Made noise late at night and early in the morning with their comings and goings. Played a concert of sounds in the house with slammed doors, shouts, chuckles, thumping footsteps on the stairs and in the hall.

They filled the house. And it’s meant to be this lively. To contain this much commotion. It’s spacious and old enough to welcome all of their activity, and not be more scarred for the experience.

I admit it. It’s lonely without all of them, even if it’s nice to have some privacy again.

Chris and I will stay here, while the girls are launched to their different destinations. Oh, the abrupt contrast between all those 18-year-olds, some so tall they had to duck to walk between rooms, filling up the space with their summer busy-ness before setting off for new adventures, and the current quiet.

The house feels too big now. In other ways, it feels as if our own lives are shrinking. Getting a little more hollow. Requiring less space … a smaller footprint.

Maybe that’s not true, but it’s part of how we experience the transition. It’s a natural and honest feeling from parents letting go.

Our house as painted by Miranda Updike in 2006.

In our town, our house is 130 years younger than the oldest homes. In other words, it was built c. 1770, but the oldest-standing residences in town go back to the 1640s.

Anyway, even if it’s only 230 years old, it’s seen a lot of life. Generations have been born, married, left home, returned and grown old within its walls.

Wherever you look, the house is full of stories of centuries of town life. It’s been a single home, it’s been wartime apartments, it’s been worker housing, it’s been multiple units with separate entrances of shared spaces, it’s been a combined doctor’s office and home, and probably seen many other configurations along the way.

It had two additions added in the early 1800s, so there are three chimneys and a total of nine hearths. The remnants of others, such as the large kitchen hearth, were largely removed during later construction along the back of the house, but nine fireplaces is plenty. Lots of cooking and warming of cold hands and feet must have taken place at these hearths.

Though its bones are solid, and were once built square and true, they have long since settled. Floors rise and fall, and some are thin enough to buckle or pitch with changes in the seasons. Walls tilt. Ceilings slope. Doors creak and latch with old cast iron hardware, but swing open mysteriously of their own accord (we often tease that Jessie is visiting, but then again, we mean it, too).

Every room and story has different details, as they have been altered over time for different uses. Soft or hardwood floors, plaster or panel walls, plaster or strap and tile ceilings, wooden trim (or not). Fireplaces are much-changed: none their original size, since all were made shallower. Chimneys lean, bricks curve unnaturally, and a few are missing.

When you leave the light on in the basement, you can see it shine up through cracks between the wide ancient wooden boards on the first floor. Some stairs lead to nowhere, or turn aside abruptly. Wallpapered rooms are still tucked up under the attic eaves, probably the former too-hot, too-cold territory of servants, household workers, or poor relatives (just guessing). Some doors don’t have a purpose anymore. Closets and cupboards were tucked into odd niches around the leftover space of the chimneys. Some rooms have been kitchens, later converted back into bedrooms or other spaces, but they retain leftover sinks, wiring or stove holes.

Despite centuries of use, we don’t think our house is haunted. Unless you consider Jessie’s visits to be that, and it doesn’t feel that way to us. She’s a lively, active presence, not a ghostly one. We never detected any other activities or presences before hers.

Like every other generation who has lived here, we have put the house to work and made it as useful as possible to us. Once upon a time, some of the rooms were used as classrooms and medical staging areas for Jessie, since she couldn’t always attend school. Some rooms have been (or remain) offices. This year, we added an accessory apartment downstairs, by restoring a wall that had been removed in the kitchen with some better plumbing and restoration of kitchen fixtures (granted through approval by the zoning board of appeals — ZBA — as a permissible use). We have a friend completing work on it. Eventually it will produce some rental income to help with college expenses.

Since our needs have changed, the house is changing with us. Sarah will continue to come and go. When she’s home, maybe her friends will land here, too. So the noise and activity level will continue to ebb and flow for a few more years. But in many ways, a long-term change in our lifestyle is setting in.

We’re (almost) empty-nesters. Aaaahhhhh!

Phew. At least we have friends from England coming to stay in October. They’ll roost in Jessie’s blue room. They’ve stayed here before, contributing their adventures to the collection of intangible experiences that fill our house.

Our family stories are being added to centuries of life that have animated this swaybacked antique house. We’re part of its old bones and skin. We’re part of its memory.

And it is part of ours.

Doing It All

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Does this sound familiar to you?

You’re in the middle of a significant event. Everyone is quiet, listening intently. The entire space is hushed, leaning forward, catching the impressive, weighty, world-changing reflections of an august speaker. And then you hear a little one call out, unimpressed by all the pomp and circumstance, the most important words in her world, “Mama!”

Yesterday was an event called convocation. The new Dean of our school spoke to the incoming class. The professors processed in their caps, gowns  and colors. We listened to flute and trumpet. And a moving message from the Dean himself about the role of religion and spirituality in today’s conflicted world.

Students and faculty attended. Family attended. And as it turns out, very young children came along.

This is a small college on a large campus. It’s built around community. And that’s more obvious than ever, when students or staff bring their babies and toddlers to the formal events.

The child calling out? She put the entire experience into perspective again. It would be easy to take ourselves too seriously. Indeed, the Dean poked fun at Harvard’s view of itself as the oldest college in America, and teased all of us because he graduated from a British college that is over 600 years old. Much of his reflection (and his gift as a writer and teacher) is to humanize, with individual detail, larger issues. As a little one in her parent’s arms did for us, last night.

I believe the faculty on this campus understands that most of us are pulled in many directions, and fulfilling many roles in life. They are, too, although there’s probably an idyllic and abstract tendency among some of the them who live almost exclusively inside the academic bubble of the Harvard community. Contrarily, many gifted faculty also travel all over the world and work outside academia, too, and bring their real-world expertise back into the classroom.

I’ve been on campus all week, with n0n-stop orientation and info sessions. I’ve been so busy with these events, that I didn’t read the text on my cell phone, from my daughter in Italy. Or the one from my husband. I postponed replying to emails from clients. I couldn’t talk to friends. Yet I’m needed in all those parts of my life, too. Next week, when the schedule starts to settle down, I hope I’ll find more balance.

For now, I’m part of a small class of students with diverse backgrounds. Their average age is 26 … much younger than me. But I’ve met a handful of people in my position … returning after decades of life in the working world, with settled homes and families and careers, now going back to school for some reason. People from several nations, and all over the country, with all sorts of goals for their degrees.

It’s my experience (after a few days of orientation, so take it for what it’s worth) that the college welcomes us as complex people with multiple roles in our lives. Yes, I’m a full-time college student again. I’m also working and available to clients. I’m a mom with a college student who will need support from time to time. I’m a spouse who’d like to be present in my relationship. I’m a volunteer for several organizations. I’m a friend with connections to tend.

Andover Hall

So I was a member of the audience listening to HDS’s Dean, David Hempton, speak. Trying to catch every word, as we gathered outdoors under the tent on a bright August evening, at the close of summer and coming of fall, with Andover Hall in the background. He offered his first words addressing the school as our new dean.

And then a classmate’s child cried out, “Mama!” No one paused to frown and criticize. There wasn’t a gasp of outrage. A patient father went off to get a red plastic wagon. A mother (and student) escorted her young daughter inside, probably to the bathroom. In the rear, a baby gurgled.

Education in the context of life. The dean’s words at the front of the tent. The baby’s call for “Mama” in the back. I think they “get it” about life and equilibrium. I hope so. It’s why I believe I’m called toward this vocation. You can’t really separate these parts of self: mind, body and spirit.