My Trainers

I changed gyms and paid for one-on-one hours with a trainer.  I got Jodi.  She’s 25 (sigh) and kind.  She challenges me, but she listens when I describe how my body works.

I’ve written before about having rheumatoid arthritis (click on Rheumatoid Arthritis in the cloud of words down below on the right).  Life can be a challenge some days.

So can an 18-month-old granddaughter.  Someone asked me yesterday if she’s walking.  I said, “No, she runs.”  She’s not chubby anymore, but she is solid.  And sometimes squirmy.

So Jodi helps me strengthen my upper body and core.  And we do cardio stuff.  Ever try an elliptical machine?  I am awed by people who do it for a long time.  An hour?? My goal is to move beyond 5 minutes.

Humility and a sense of humor go to the gym with me.  (There’s a fine line between humor and self-denigration.)  I am grateful for all my body can do.  Jodi pushes me past stopping just because I want to.

I led a writing group at a drop-in center for people who are HIV-positive yesterday.  The prompt was a quote from an article by Nancy Copeland-Payton in Presence (the journal of Spiritual Directors International.)

It’s a roller coaster.  I didn’t buy a ticket, never wanted a ride…the illness will keep recurring and I will die of it.

Who am I…?  I’m no longer the person who used to be in control, who had energy to take care of tasks and other people.  Rather, I’m the one who needs care.  I’m the one who is vulnerable.  This is not an identity I choose.  Buried inside are losses that need to be cried out.  This is a long mourning process.

I finally let go of my control and let myself be vulnerable and cared for by others.  When I learn to receive their care with profound gratitude, I receive the greatest gift.  I realize how much I am loved.  It’s extraordinary.  This love lets me be even more vulnerable.

While we wrote I played a Kenny G CD (they like soft jazz).  As we finished, we listened to the music and rested.

I wrote a whiny page about not liking roller coasters and not wanting to be vulnerable.  They wrote and shared about God’s love and how their disease saved them from drugs and a wasted life and changed them for the better.  I didn’t want to share mine.

The last song we listened to (not planned by me) was Louis Armstrong singing “It’s A Wonderful Life”.  They sang along and smiled when it ended.

Amazing grace, again.

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A Woman’s Place

by singer-songwriter Sara Thomsen

(click here for YouTube link)

I am a woman, and my place is in the home
And my home is the whole wide world
We are world shapers, we are change makers
We are potters spinning clay, we are dreamers of a new day

We are asking questions, we are opening up the door
We are searching, finding answers,
We are wisdom seeking more
Rabbi, singer, teacher, professor, poet, preacher
Driving buses, styling hair
We are everywhere

We are women
We are sweeping the hearth
We are dreaming in the dark
We are weaving at the loom
We are the rhythms of the moon
We are world shapers, we are change makers
We are tenders of the earth, we are women giving birth

We are packing lunches,
We are sewing the clothes you wear
We are sleeping on park benches,
We are kneeling down in prayer
Doctor, dancer, scientist, carpenter and journalist
Telling stories, rocking chairs
We are everywhere

We are women
We are stirring the pot
We are keeping the fire hot
We are holding a child’s hand
We are the rhythms of the land
We are world shapers, we are change makers
We are potters spinning clay, we are dreamers of a new day

We are laughing, crying, we are taking the time to play
We are singing, we are sighing,
We are making our own way
Politician, volunteer, refugee, and engineer
In the streets and on the air
We are everywhere

We are world shapers, we are change makers
We are potters spinning clay, we are dreamers of a new day
We are rule breakers, we are home makers
We are healers of the earth
We are mid-wives at the birth

We are women, and our place is in the home
And our home is the whole wide world

(c) 2006 Sara Thomsen
(from her Everything Changes CD)

Not My Table, Hon

 The most helpful thing I grasped while waitressing was that some tables were my responsibility and some were not.  A waitress gets overwhelmed if she has too many tables, and no one gets good service.

In my life, I have certain things to take care of: my children, my relationships, my work, one or two causes, and myself.

That’s it.  Other things are not my table.

I would go nuts if I tried to take care of everyone, if I tried to make everybody do the right thing.

If I went through my life without ever learning to say, “Sorry that’s not my table, Hon,” I would burn out and be no good to anybody.

I need to have a surly waitress inside myself that I can call on when it seems everybody in the world is waving an empty coffee cup in my direction.

My Inner Waitress looks over at them, keeping her six plates balanced and her feet moving, and says,

“Sorry, Hon, not my table.”

(That story is by Susan Shaw and quoted in a book I’m reading, The Power of Pause by Terry Hershey.)

My friends and I talk about the necessity of “letting go”.  I know about “detaching with love” and “you can’t take care of anyone else if you don’t take care of yourself”.  I get all that.

But at some point I learned:

focusing on my needs is selfish,

if I could just make sure everyone else was okay, then I’d be okay,

and caretaking is noble.

I like having an Inner Waitress.  I am given a set number of tables to serve.  If they don’t fill up, I stop and rest.  If they’re full of messy teenagers, cranky babies, or slightly rude businessmen preoccupied with their phones, then I keep putting one foot in front of the other and do the next right thing.  Hopefully with some grace and a smile.

It’s simple.  God’s the boss.  I’m the server.

Now, which ones are my tables?

Rhinestones on Rubber

Adaline’s mother asked us to shoe-shop while we babysat on Friday.  I think shoes hinder walking for beginners.  Grandpa was excited. Grandpa likes to shop.

Before shopping, Adaline (and Grandpa) napped, she devoured a carton of peach/squash YoBaby yogurt (Grandpa had coffee), and we changed her diaper. We remembered the diaper bag and brought the pink and white cart cover (see what that is here). We headed off to WendoverWorld, the area with every chain store imaginable.

Old Navy, Target, Kohl’s or Babies-R-Us?

We picked Kohl’s.  I pushed the stroller up and down the aisles while Grandpa wandered. We found him in the cramped shoe department in the back corner.  One pair in her size were not pink. They were clunky, purple-flowered, non-prissy sandals perfect for hiking mountains and fording streams (think Teva or Keen).  We saw dark pink maryjanes with a white flower on the toe and white sneakers with a big pink Nike swoosh on the side (Just Do It?).  Where were the little red Keds?  Grandpa wanted to buy black and white and pink (fake) Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars with rhinestones on the rubber toe-bumper.

Obsession with everything pink and princess is the focus of Peggy Orenstein’s new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter.  (One of the best book titles ever!).  Halfway through the book, I decided to boycott pink.  (Click here for more about why.)

I shop in the boys’ department to find non-pink or non-lavender or non-pastel.  I found a pair of army-green cargo pants made out of sweatshirt material at Walmart.  Not so flattering (short legs and a rather bulky butt), but you know they’re comfortable.

Adaline’s mother loved to dig in the dirt and splash in mud puddles when she was little.  She is a zookeeper and is in many kinds of dirt all day.  She understands the value of exploration and that a bath fixes many a mess.  She was a bit irritated the first time she picked up Adaline with dirt under her fingernails.  We suggested cutting them.

Frilly dresses and rhinestones (won’t she pull them off and eat them?) have a place.  They make for some precious pictures, after all.  Jeans and t-shirts and little red Keds make more sense for exploring Grandpa’s backyard.  (Where can I buy little red Keds?)

We bought the pink maryjanes with a big white flower on the toes and the clunky purple sandals that she’ll probably never be able to walk in.

Those rhinestone-studded Chuck Taylors were really cute…

Life Percolated

I can’t drink real coffee anymore.  I guess.

I’ve percolated a lot of life through my insides.

So much stuffed down there, so much acid.

 

I see the old-timey coffee pots on the gas stoves

in their little kitchens in the Project:

Irene

Betty

and in the bigger kitchens in houses

in Munhall and West Mifflin and Duquesne:

Mary

Margie

Julie

Millie.

So much love, so many women.

 

I just wanted a beer.

There were too many of them

and I didn’t know how to be in their world,

in their houses, in their lives.

Lots of food and always coffee.

 

But mom and dad’s–

cold

decaf

“Turn off the light”

not enough food.

Here I fit in, but I didn’t want to.

 

I wanted to know

how to live

like a grownup,

how to mother,

how to wife,

how to make real coffee in a percolator instead of decaf

in a Mr. Coffee that’s reheated later in the microwave because

we sure can’t pour that cold shit down the drain.

 

35–

I started to learn

from other women who had to learn once upon a time, too:

how to make real coffee in a Mr. Coffee

and that sugar can make feelings bearable

after I learned I had feelings

like anger and joy and fear and love.

But those women thought I was okay.

And they helped me see I could be funny and silly.

 

57–

I don’t drink real coffee anymore.

A while back it made my stomach really hurt

and my doctor described a bleeding ulcer’s risks

and I said OK.  Damn it.  No more coffee.

So then I tried decaf.

It didn’t taste good, any kind.

 

So I tried green tea.

It’s good for me.

Weak-looking,

but strong enough to be good enough.

 

Like me.

 

 

We Share This Universe

Our awesome responsibility to ourselves, to our children, and to the future is to create ourselves in the image of goodness, because the future depends on the nobility of our imaginings.
—Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

The world we live in depends on the responsible contributions each of us makes.

And this world is just as good as are the many talents we commit ourselves to developing and offering.

None of us is without obligation to offer our best to our family, friends, or strangers, if our hope is to live in a good world.

The world can only be as good as each of us makes it.

Individually and collectively our power to mold the outer circumstances of our lives is profound.

Our personal responses to one another and our reactions to events that touch us combine with the actions of others to create a changed environment that affects us.

No action, no thought goes unnoticed, unfelt, in this interdependent system of humanity.

We share this universe.

We are the force behind all that the universe offers.

Whether I acknowledge the depth of my contribution is irrelevant.

It is still profound and making an impact every moment and eternally.

 

from the book: The Promise of a New Day

by Karen Casey and Martha Vanceburg

 

Broken Body, Healing Spirit

Have you seen the commercial for a rheumatoid arthritis drug that talks about the life you have and the life you want to live?  It is shrewd marketing.  Inject this powerful drug and you can do anything.

The hidden cost of chronic illness, because pain and fatigue are invisible, is that I pretend to be living the life I want to live rather than being honest about the life I am living.  As Mary C. Earle writes in her book, Broken Body, Healing Spirit, there are sometimes two people living inside me and one is a liar.

What fear or perceived defect do you hide from the world?

Have you had the flu or bad allergies and gone to work anyway?  Do you have back pain?  Grief?  Migraines?  Fatigue?  Paralyzing anxiety?  Fear of what others will think?  Are you in recovery from addiction?  Or unsettled by the signs and symptoms of getting older?

Substitute your secret for “illness” as you read this quote from Broken Body, Healing Spirit (italics mine):

…a body that has been overwhelmed by illness is also a body where life dwells.  Disruptive, distressing, and acutely confusing, illness calls us to a deepening awareness of the wonder of the body, an awareness that we did not bring ourselves into being, and that it is through our embodied life that we encounter the presence of God…

Through illness, the embodied nature of our lives grabs our attention, and forces us to befriend the very flesh we thought betrayed us.  The body that we had taken for granted turns out to be a rich and varied text, full of layers of meaning and symbol.

Always, it comes back to powerlessness vs. control.  And I most want to control what I fear.  Until I have faith and trust, I will be afraid.  And I will miss a lot of fun stuff.

My husband has a big, yellow BMW motorcycle.  He rode it cross-country and back, alone.  He wants me to ride with him.  Once, I said yes; we rode around the neighborhood on quiet residential streets with no real traffic.   I trust my husband.  I know he would never deliberately hurt me.  All I could see from that rear perch was my body shattered into painful pieces.

New experiences are fun and invigorating for me–teaching a class, being in Paris alone for 5 days, going on a week-long silent retreat.  For Mike, riding the motorcycle is a form of meditation.  For me, it is like white-water rafting or parachuting.

I’ve lived with chronic illness for over 20 years.  Rarely have I said “I can’t”.  I can usually find adaptations and compromises that let me do most anything.  I want to be the free spirit that sees a lovely day and says “Let’s ride!”

I think it could be a prayer–“Your will, not mine be done.”

Amma Says…

(Amma is my grandmother name.  Click here for why.)

1.  Practice good manners, even if you feel nagged.  It will matter one day.

2.  Accept and revel in the love we all have for you.  It is rare and will carry you long after we are gone.

3.  Take vitamins and calcium as you grow.  It’s one of those delayed gratification things.

4.  Be brave.  Your mom can teach you the difference between brave and reckless.  I tried to tell her, but she had to learn on her own.  You will, too, I’m sure.

5.  Try many things—foods, people, styles, words, animals, smells, places.  You will find beauty and wisdom in odd places, I believe.

6.  Enjoy your hair, when you have some.  (Look at your baby pictures.)  Be grateful for what you have, no matter what color it is.

7.  Be kind.  The energy you send out to the world will come back to you in mysterious ways.

8.  Don’t be afraid of questions.  That’s how you learn that not all questions have answers.

9.  Be still long enough to feel the Presence of something bigger than you.  I promise that Presence will always be with you.  Your responsibility is to notice.

10.  Let the inner child in you live forever.  Fun and laughter are essential.  I forgot how to play.  Please don’t do that.

Above all, know that I love you and that our Spirits will always be connected.

Where’d It Go?

My granddaughter is learning about “Where’d it go?”.  Yesterday she was on my husband’s lap and he showed her the cross he wears on a chain inside his shirt.  She, 10 months old and teething, wanted to put it in her mouth.  So he dropped it back inside his shirt.  She pulled the neck of the shirt and looked down inside.  There it was!

That’s how I feel about my week.  Where’d it go?

I had plans and goals for this week, mapped out on a nice chart given to me by Elaine, a spiritual coach.  It breaks each day into 3-hour blocks. You fill in one to-do for each block.  The hope is to get that one to-do completed in each 3-hour block.

None of my blocks got checked off.  We had snow and ice that I wouldn’t drive on.  My inner child had a “snow-day” mentality. We babysat Wednesday and Friday and I (choose to) get nothing done if Adaline is here.

I learned recently there are three possible responses to stress/anxiety.  I knew about “fight or flight.  The third response is “freeze”.

I need to plan for a class I start teaching on January 19.  I’m out of my comfort zone with this project, which I volunteered for.  I’m afraid of not doing well.

In my family of origin we dealt with distress or fear by shutting down emotionally and getting lost in something to read.  We are all good readers, but not very good with feelings.

I read a great book this week.  I didn’t work on my class.

Now I’m more anxious than before and writing this instead of working on my class!

Help me!

Who Says?

No dessert until you eat your vegetables.

No playing until you finish your chores.

Those messages, that mindset, are planted deep in my psyche and have the power to paralyze me.

I got some stuff delivered from Lands End recently.  Internally, I heard “Don’t open the box of new stuff until you finish putting away the clean laundry”.  And I didn’t.

Writing for this blog is playtime for me.  So of course I hear “You can’t write for fun until you finish your chores”.  And I don’t.

I feel guilty when my husband makes a comment about the dishes in the sink while I’m sitting and reading the paper.

No fun until you meet expectations.  Who says??

I’m not very good at silly and spontaneous.  No wonder.  I remember a therapist asked me years ago what I did for fun.  I didn’t have an answer.  I thought that was awfully sad.

My husband and I rode the bus downtown on New Year’s Eve, went in the View to get my glasses adjusted, ate lunch at Fincastle’s Diner (we had fried pickles–OMG–and Jaybird came over and sang “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” to me!), then we rode the bus home.

That may not sound like a big deal to you, especially if you live someplace where everyone takes public transportation.  Here, that was kind of adventurous.  I don’t think Mike ever got over being surprised I went with him.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less concerned with what other people think.  And I take delight (sometimes)  in NOT following all the rules.

“Do not be too moral.  You may cheat yourself out of too much life.  Aim above morality.  Be not simply good; be good for something.”  (a quote from Henry David Thoreau)

You should…  Who says?

You must…  Who says?

No, you can’t…  Who says?