The Mystery of Being Here

     The Poetry God is dead.  That's how the others, who'd known him longer, referred to Mark - as The Poetry God.  That appellation was, I'm sure, partly teasing, partly self assigned (as he was often the only male participant at meetings), partly in honor of his amazing capacity to create art as poetry.
     I didn't know him well, had only encountered Mark at workshops, meetings and readings since I joined the writer's group.  No one seems to know the what, or how, or why of his death - only that he died in his forties, that he'd battled depression, that he'd struggled with physical health problems, that he'd been isolating, and he'd turned down an invitation to teach at a recent workshop.  None of that may have to do with his death.  But it's part of Mark's story, of his being here.
     Though I didn't know him well, my impression was that Mark was quirky, earthy, sensitive, shy, incredibly talented as a writer, amazingly knowledgeable and well read, an excellent teacher and a willing editor when someone asked for help.  He once deconstructed one of my poems, seeing images I didn't know were there, praising my use of metaphor, the images I'd chosen - helping me understand my work in ways I hadn't before.  I know I'm not the only one Mark assisted in this way, and that each one must surely have felt the gratitude I did for The Poetry God's help.
     John O'Donohue, the Irish poet and Catholic scholar, wrote that we must, "Awaken to the mystery of being here and enter the quiet immensity of [y]our own presence."  These are words I struggle with for myself - since I don't want to be in the mystery of being here - I wish instead to know why I'm here.  I struggle too with accepting my immense presence - with understanding myself as the gift others see me to be.  
     Yet today, in thinking about Mark, in recalling the gift of himself he offered to me, the gift he gave to others by being here and being himself, I feel a shift in the struggle, a realignment toward awakening, a move to acceptance.  I'm reminded that, not only don't I have to know why I'm here, I cannot know it.  I am here, as Mark was here, in the immensity of his presence.  What matters is the waking up, the entering into, the risking while we're here.
     The Poetry God is dead.  Long live The Poetry God. 

and all shall be well

All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.  

Julian of Norwich

  The last few days have been ones of forced rest, soaks in Epsom salts, mandatory ice packs to the quads and glutes, ibuprofen every four hours, and an emphasis on hydration - all the result of the muscles from waist to knees becoming overstrained as I tried for two days, and failed in the end, to master physical crisis management skills.  Bottom line - a phrase I really dislike, particularly out of it's correct context, but it does serve here - my body simply isn't capable, nor is my brain either interested in or focused on instructing my body how to accomplish these skills of physically managing an out-of-control client.  

   I understood when I took this job that physical management of clients was part of it.  And it truly never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be able to do it - until my ankle sprain.  But even then, it was only the "take down" moves that I worried about.  Turns out those I was able to do - it was the complexities and brute strength requirements that weren't happening.

   My two days of down time, of needed self care, were the gift of this experience.   Too tight muscles and painful joints from waist to knees forced me to extremes of self soothing, allowed long hours for self reflection and consideration.  During this time I kept thinking yoga would help, IF I could get into a posture without getting stuck.  And that thinking led to remembering the last time I was part of a yoga 'class' - and how one of the teachers would end class with that Julian of Norwich quote above.  There we'd all be, occupying the geography of our individual mats, stretched out and breathing through, and Vince's voice reminding us that all would be well.

   No matter how much discomfort I'd be in during those times, no matter how tired I felt, the comfort of those words, the sound of his voice and the breathing of others in the room, the peace that seemed engrained in Vince's voice, always guided me to a place inside that truly was well.  

   Again over the last two days, revisiting my own "wellness" despite my somatic pains and strains, understanding that all of this is no more than another lesson life has offered, reflecting on the entirety of the experience - and without self punishment (hooray for me), and doing the next right thing for my own healing, soothing, and comfort - well, yes, all manner of things will be well - including me.

Report from Third Shift: Want - versus - Need

   Suzy refuses to go to bed, insisting instead on making noise, writing furiously in her journal, and whispering sotto voce about our failures as counselors, as care providers, as women, as human beings.   And the more we try not to engage with her behaviors, to behave consistently and calmly, not to get caught up in the misty grey cloud of fear and anger Suzy is spewing out all around her - the more visibly frustrated she becomes.  What she wants - to get rid of her uncomfortable and seemingly unbearable feelings - isn't what she needs.  She HATES all of it.  In this moment she particularly hates me and my co-worker.  And even though Suzy can't see it - I hate it too, particularly hate my powerlessness to do more than I can do.

   Of all the nights to have to simultaneously notice my reactions and my emotions vis-a-vis one of the girls' acting out behaviors, of all the nights to need to monitor my boundaries - a night of too little sleep during the day and, consequently too much worry about retaking  the physical crisis managment training later in the week.  Yet I can't do what Suzy's doing - can't project my anger onto someone else, spew my own mist of fear into the air.  All I can do is teeter along the path between wanting to behave like Suzy, like the child who still lives in me and wants to be parented, and needing to behave as the caring adult that both Suzy and my own inner little girl need me to be.

   This being a grown up sure ain't what we think it's gonna be when we're kids.
  
  

Rapture - Not

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are only princesses waiting for us to act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence something that wants our love.

Rainer Maria Rilke

   Two a.m. on the morning after the promised Rapture didn't come.  Even though we joked about the possibilities inherent in watching the righteous rise up bodily as we sat on our porches sipping gin & tonic and smoking, there must have been some small part of me that believed this might just be the time.  I must have believed, even just a miniscule amount - because I find myself rather glad to still be here, as if maybe I was afraid that there wouldn't be any more chances to do what I'm here to do (whatever that is), any more learning opportunities.  Hmmmmmmm.

   I'm thinking of the Nelson Mandela quote, that "our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light . . . that most frightens us."  That sure is what the Rilke (above) reminds me.  Even at two a.m., at work, all the girls asleep, and me struggling for the right words to express what I think I am here, in this job at this hour, to learn and to offer - I can get a glimpse of how afraid I am of feeling my power to maintain and hold a safe environment for both the sleeping girls and the awake me.  Is this making any sense?

   See, I've tended to think that power is only strength, is comprised of doing, that power means big and bold action.  It does frighten me to be learning that acting from my limitations, my vulnerabilities, from where I'm AT without trying to be anyone or anywhere else, really constitutes the authentic power of being me.  Learning that just being authentically me is enough, is more than enough, is really, even . . . wait for it . . . important to me and to those I encounter - well, what a lesson.

   Guess that's why I feel a little relief that the world didn't end yesterday.  This learning to love and accept myself, to love the fearful and trepidatious in me - it's taking a while.  Today I'm grateful for the opportunities to keep on learning.  And though I don't know, sitting here at two a.m. after checking on the sleeping girls, how my learning might benefit anyone else, I have a sense that the learning itself is what I'm meant to love.

Nothing to Hang On To

The bad news is you're falling through the air, nothing to hang on to,

 no parachute.  The good news is, there's no ground.

-       Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

Yes, it feels like falling, what’s happening in my life these days.  Yet I realize that it was I who stepped off the cliff into this new job.  It involves working with adolescent girls who’ve been victims of trauma for all or most of their young lives, girls who’ve been shunted and shuffled through the “system” of foster care that may have lacked any real caring, that often has been unkind, and certainly been inconsistent and unsafe. 

The feeling of falling comes from the questions floating around and inside of me.  How will I respond to the triggers of my own emotions as I observe these girls’ struggles?  What will I do with my anxieties when, as will surely happen, one of the girls tests my capacity to care by acting out, perhaps violently?  How will I take care of my own needs during an eight-hour shift in a place where trauma and its effects color the environment?  Such questions make me long for a parachute, something to slow the descent so I can take time considering these questions.

It feels like falling as well because I did fall, during training in physical restraint and take-down – skills I must have to work in this place, and which I will need to use to keep the girls, and myself and others, safe.  In the fall I sprained my fifty-nine year old ankle – there certainly was ground under me then, on which my foot twisted and bent wrongly.  Since then new questions have arisen.  Will I be able to, at my age, use these skills without getting hurt again, or hurting one of the girls?  Am I too old to even be attempting this work?  WHAT was I thinking in accepting this job?

It seems that all there is to hang on to is what’s inside of me.  And throughout my life I’ve not trusted what’s there – even as I’ve gained experience and knowledge, pursued education and worked on healing my own traumatic wounds.  Throughout I’ve wanted, even believed I’ve needed, something or someone else to grasp on to for safety – in order to believe I was o.k. 

     Experience tells me that I've got what I need to hang on to even as it all feels scary and unsafe in this free fall.  And if I could ask each of you, in person, who have supported and encouraged me over the past several years as I've learned and risked and changed I know you'd reinforce my "enough-ness", tell me to trust, to keep on risking.  And you'd tell me to how fortunate these girls will be to have me working with them.  And you'd be correct.

     Hmmmmmmm - something to consider - that won't add to the anxiousness - as I fall. 

Thunder Saturday

Today is Thunder Over Louisville - our annual kick-off of Kentucky Derby Festival and an awesome display of pyrotechnics, synched to music - put on in our fair city.  I am not attending this year, but in the few years I've gone it's been an energizing, pride-filled experience of what Louisville can do, how a half million people can behave in celebration (without the "public drunk" behavior that often occurs at such large events).  The full hour of fireworks places one firmly in the body, in the sensory experience of explosion of sound and color that overwhelms, that draws (at least from me) screams of approval, dancing in abandon with a half million others - an experience of joyous joining together.

Then we all walk to our cars, or catch the bus to get to them.  People are tired - some having camped out the night before - some having been there all day with children, too close to the folks next to them - and ready to go home.  It's after 10 pm and some carry children, nearly empty coolers, lawn chairs.  But still most are courteous, or at least civil, even in the knowledge that it may be after midnight before they get home.

I've found it to be a changing experience - one in which there's a glimpse of what we could do all the time, with a little joy in experiencing our neighbors, with a modicum of civility toward each other, with cooperation in our endeavors and our creative impulses.  And I've often wondered if others have seen it the same way, if there aren't more like me - who feel to bring back to daily life and daily actions more light than we had before.

I feel this experience in the same way I feel the  Zen Buddhist Proverb - "Before enlightenment - chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment - chop wood, carry water."    Before changing experiences we do what we gotta do.  After, we still gotta do the daily thing.  But maybe it doesn't feel like such a chore.  I don't know.

What I do know is that we need the glimpses of what's possible - be it through mountaintop enlightenment - or be it through screaming and dancing with a half million others to light and sound.  Maybe that's all we get in this daily world of chop wood and carry water - glimpses.  Maybe it doesn't feel like enough, at times.  Maybe it can be.

.     - 

Put it on a Post-it

When I can't locate my emotional compass, when what seems to have taken over is lethargy and ennui, when all I want to do is wear sweats, eat chips, and watch every episode of 'West Wing' from all seven seasons, it's as if I've been locked in a solitary cell to serve out a life sentence.  Yeah, sentenced to life, that's what it feels like, with no possibility of parole.


Of course I want to blame this on external events - on being surrounded by death lately, on a too-long car ride two days in a row to and from the memorial service for the first relative of my generation, on the sinus drainage that wakes me up at night, and especially on the need for continuing to search for and secure a job so the rent will continue to get paid.  All this stuff is real, and each has contributed to a wearing on body and soul recently - even though I've truly made every good faith effort to provide self-care, to watch for signs of overwhelm.  


When I feel this way I think there's something wrong:  with me, with my attitude, and I fear letting people know.  They won't want to be around me, I think, will think of me as a downer, a buzz-kill, as too broken to deal with.  And it's in writing it out this way, in telling you (whoever you are out there) that I see the error of my thinking.


It's in confining myself to NOT sharing the sadness I've felt about the recent (and more distant) losses, in not discussing my fear of having to settle for a job that will only provide money and nothing else, in not allowing myself to bitch (even a little) about feeling worn out by seasonal allergies that I place myself in prison.  It's in admitting that I've a right to shut down and watch all the damn 'West Wing's' I want for a while that I accept that sometimes life is just hard, and each of us needs a break at those times.


It's trite but it's true - where there's life, there's hope.  And as much as I've often wondered why I survived a heart attack, an alcoholic marriage, a childhood that wounded - the only truth I get in wondering is that I did survive them.  That's the hope.  And I not only don't have to, but truly can't answer the why questions - for those are God questions.   

Of all places and times and situations that teach me, teach all of us, it seems that those that feel the worst are those from which the most important lessons are learned.  Maybe I ought'a write myself a reminder of that, put it  on a post-it and stick it to my bathroom mirror.