Tribe.

Last night my daughter graduated from kindergarten. It was kind of a big deal. They had worked on several songs to sing and each student individually accepted their diploma. My daughter was beyond proud. She kept saying "I'm graduating today!" And she was great. They all were. My heart was a puddle, as it usually is with these types of things.

But this is the part that was the most sad: out in the audience the only person that was there for my daughter was me. (Remember my husband has to work in Denver during the week). I watched all the other students with their tribes, did my best to represent my daughter, but in the end, we didn't have a tribe. It was my lone "whoop" when she got her diploma.

The thing is, we DO have a tribe. I have a lot of family and they are all pretty darn great. And they live in pretty darn great places.

So this seems like a good time to make the announcement I've been mentally preparing for.

We are moving to California. We will have my mom, my brother, my sister in law and and my nephew.

Tribe.

Anyone who knows me or has even followed my blog knows that this recent excursion into the mountains has not sat well with me. True, I love the mountains like part of my dna. But this has been a long, cold winter. And I have experienced a deep, soul crushing sort of sadness. No matter what friends I made or comfort I felt here, it's always felt like pushing a square peg in a round hole.

I don't think families are designed to be mom, dad and kid(s) out there doing it all alone. There's supposed to be a village. Families are there to be families! We were so wrong when we moved here, SO FAR away from any family (we are a 2.5 drive from the airport now). The thing is this being wrong? I've known it on some level all along. It never felt right. There was always a very deep sadness, always a sense that we had made the wrong decision. This decision to move to California?

Nothing has ever felt more right.

So now you know. We need to tie up some loose ends, but we will be there soon.

In the words of Joni Mitchell: California, I'm coming home.

The thing I can't give you

You don’t get a brother or sister.

Sorry, but I have cursed and begged enough to tell you

It’s only going to be you.

But you can make lively conversation with the geese at the lake.

They could go on and on for days and you could come running to me

to tell me they will simply not leave you alone.

You can tell secrets to the deer who rattle around this town
like the kids who have cars that drive slow and cool.

But they might not keep them, your secrets.

I’ve seen them gossiping with the squirrels when they

think no one is watching.

You can cry to the trees, who, though they cannot hug you

make the most fantastic listeners.

And the cats, those crazy cats, don’t let them boss you around

or cut your hair or give you lollipops behind my back.

Oh my beautiful child I want to give you the world.

But the world is not mine to give.
It's yours to take.

                

Good morning

My daughter, this morning, asleep by my side.

It was cold outside. There was no work or school.

We snuggled and laughed.

Watched the cats play.

Ate the chocolate cake that we made last night.

I did the dishes while she colored at the table.

The cats lounged in the sun.

I stripped the sheets and did piles of laundry.

Truly, there was no better day.

..

Being seen

I went to this workshop when I was in my 20s. It was a workshop meant to open your heart, to feel life in a bigger way. In a room of a dozen or so strangers we were supposed to walk around the room, meet someone, stop and simply look at each other. Hold the gaze.

I hated it. 

I wasn't ready to be seen. Under the intentional gaze of a stranger I felt vulnerable, small. 

I'd like to repeat that now. Now that I'm older, more wrinkled and more experienced.

I want to see. 

But REALLY see. 

Not pictures on social media, small talk in the office, quick flashes of faces as we march on our lives.

A blog written by someone you think you know.

Where is the connection?

How often do we say "How are you?" and not listen to the answer?

I want to know.

How ARE you?

What brings you to your knees in joy?

When was the last time you wept?

What does freedom look like to you?

What cripples you with fear?

Do you want to be seen?

(are you as scared as me?)

****

Being seen is being vulnerable.

Being vulnerable is being brave. 

Being good.

When I was growing up in Maine my world consisted of a tiny town on the top of the United States. My worldview was pretty small. We didn't travel much. We didn't hike much. I never skied. (ok once, and it sucked). We had woods and those, for me, were magical.

I had a postcard of Colorado. I was fascinated by it. It looked un-real; it was like a mythical place of beauty. But not in a million years did I imagine I would live there. Places like that were exotic. So far away.

And then I got brave. I left home. I questioned religion. I discovered hiking. I discovered that I could run..far. I discovered that I had a strength inside of me that I had never tested. It was exciting. It was a new, rather intoxicating feeling.

When I was 25 I went on a week long trek through the woods, alone. I walked in one person, I walked out another. On that walk I realized that I wanted the challenge of exploring new places. I wanted to leave my comfort zone. So I did. I moved to California. That was the juncture where I left my family and said I was going to do this life thing on my own. And so I went. Nearly penniless but full of hope.

Sometimes it really sucked. Sometimes it was unimaginably great. All of the time it allowed me to challenge myself to exist in new situations.

And then somehow I ended up in Colorado. Festivals, nursing school, new relationships were the draw. Life somehow blew me in that direction.

Then things got real. Good friends. A boyfriend turned husband. A child. Home ownership. Suddenly I was no longer a bird, but a tree with roots sinking deeper and deeper. Sometimes I am still mystified that the awkward girl from northern Maine ended up in that enchanted place that seemed so far away.

And so I've been realizing this, slowly along the journey, that we really do create those realities. We hold the vision, we do the work, and suddenly, the world opens up to us, like a pearl for the taking. Who we are, how we choose to be, our reactions are all a part of us either being brave, or not. I've learned that both are okay. It doesn't take a person to be brave to make them be good. But it is a choice to be good. It is a choice to recognize that who you are in the world matters. It takes a heart full of love and likely sadness to realize that you, yourself, are extremely special and important. It takes hardships and trials to give you the opportunities to let you prove yourself, to yourself. And you do. Or you don't. Either way you still get a choice. You still get to be good.

Not only did I move to Colorado, mostly Denver for many years, but now suddenly I live in the place of that postcard. It is outside my door. The mountains that loom over this valley are why we decided to uproot. We knew they were special and we knew we could experience amazing things near them.

But life got hard here. There were adjustments. I had to uproot my tree that was so nicely settled. My experience was colored by a work environment that didn't allow me to feel valued, and this, coupled with so many other life events, was my struggle. It still is but yet again, I get that choice. I get to be good. I get to believe in myself and I get to be brave.

I went to a women's retreat last week, no women I knew except for the one friend that brought me. Imagine 20 or so amazing women, playing music around a campfire, eating good organic food, telling each other where we are in life, what our intentions are. This. This was what I was searching for. This was what I needed to find. And there I was. Under a full moon surrounded by women who were also brave and good. And I was filled with such gratitude. And I remembered that I get a part in this, in this creating. I remembered that life is full of choices. I remembered that I am good and that I matter.

I believe it is important to surround yourself with people that support you. You support them. Life is not a competition but a dance that we must do with each other. I remember, in this time of adversity, this time of transition, that I get a choice. Though I'm far from perfect, ultimately, I go with goodness. It fits best.

Home.

Moon.

I live in this world with a sensitive heart. This is not some bad thing or some good thing; it's just the way I do life. I can be stolen away with the wise musings of a poem, and I can be stolen away with the sorrows of the world.

My sensible brain and my sensitive heart like to battle it out. They don't always understand that they can co-exist, gently respecting each other's differences. Sometimes I ignore them both.

There are days when you go about life with your head down, and then suddenly you look up and the moon is full and bright and bursting with purpose.

The moon, in it's last fullness, said to me, "You get to do this your way. You only have to be who you are."

And I answered, "Thank you, moon."

I went home with the quiet clarity that I needed. I looked inside and said that it was time to have faith again.

Everything I need is here.

Isn't that amazing?

To the Mom with an Only Child

My daughter has a saying at school, a rather wise saying, that I have made my personal mantra: "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit". We have a beautiful, healthy daughter, one whom I never imagined I could love like this.

But our table has always felt, to me, to be missing one more person. We wanted the second child so badly. Unfortunately it's been four years and running and still we remain a family of three. They've used terms like "secondary infertility", "unexplained infertility", "uterine scarring". All of it equals an insanely difficult, if not impossible, attempt to get pregnant.

I know I'm not alone. While many (dare I say most?) moms are able to conceive more than once, our train appears to have stopped. I'm not here to compare the difficulties with being a mom of one to a mom of many. I think both are hard jobs and though mothering in and of itself is the same, mothering to one (or many) is just different.

To the moms of more than one, I don't think you understand how important that play date is. My child lives in the world of her own. She wants to share her 5 year old brain with us and she does. We play legoes, go on bike rides, play imaginary games (of which there are MANY: ie "you go over there and you're the queen and then you come in and tell me that I'm the princess but I was only just born and when you pick me up I'll say mama and that will be my first word". Stuff like that." The point is her 5 year old brain needs to be matched with a child. They have their own banter. It's something that a 37 year old woman and 39 year old man simply can not understand.

Please never say to a mom of one "when are you going to give her a brother or sister?" Please, never say this. You don't know the story. Maybe we only wanted one. Or maybe the fact that we are unable to give her a brother or sister is the biggest pain of our lives, which, for me, it is. I grew up with a secret language with my siblings, interactions that only we could understand. No one "got us" like we did with each other. And for each new scary place, we had each other. Siblings have each other's backs. And so yes my heart breaks each and every day that we can't give her that. She's going to have to learn to navigate the parent-less world alone or with, we pray, a best friend.

To my friends that keep getting pregnant: this used to be a hard one for me. As childish as it is to admit this, I used to shy away from you once that second baby was on the way. It was ridiculous I know and please don't take it personally. But it felt terribly hard to rejoice in something that I wanted so desperately. I'm not proud of this at ALL. Now, four years later of "trying", we've given up "trying", so it doesn't hurt so much. And for the record I love you AND your kids. I really do. It was just me dealing with my own shit. And well, I'm sorry if I drifted away. That was not a good character trait.

I had a friend reach out to me recently asking me how I felt about being the mom to an only child. She was having her own difficulties conceiving number 2. I was honest: it's hard. Somedays it's REALLY hard. But on the other side, some days it's really EASY. There are things you get to do as a mom to one. Spontaneous trips, cheaper air fare, less chauffeuring, and really, well, a certain closeness that comes as a family of three.

We still pray for a miracle. Having a second is not something I've stopped wanting. But after the invasive tests, the financial burdens of infertility blah blah blah, and ultimately, the very deep and personal heartbreak that is felt at each period, well it was time to throw in the towel. No more tracking periods. No more fertility medications. No more forced sex because "it's that time of the month" (which by the way takes all the fun out of it). Now I just have the singular prayer out into the universe that we will get that miracle, though we have resigned ourselves to the fact that one is okay. We know we are blessed.

I still feel heartache at each period. But then I wash my hands, open the door and thank my lucky stars that I have this beautiful child there to love. I understand that family is not always the thing you imagine from your youth. It's the thing that you get. And in those wise, wise words "you get what you get and you don't throw a fit".

That fact is, you never know what life has in store for you.

Blessed.

It Came Just the Same

This was a year that Ellie believed in Santa Clause. I think it is important to note this event, she's a smart and extremely observant kid. I don't think the belief in Santa will be here long. That being said I have a job as a mother. I have a job to make Christmas as enchanting as possible. I have a job to make her feel the love and magic that is Christmas. This magic comes in my undivided attention, in listening to who this child is becoming, in sharing the enchantment of the season. In truth it gives me no greater joy, but this year was so much harder than I've ever known.

I know it gets one nowhere to write about how stressed they are; we are all stressed. Stress is hard and we all know it. But sometimes stress can be a crippling thing. Some times when you are faced with change upon change upon change the only mantra you find yourself saying is "keep it together". And you try, because you want to feel good again, but that stress is a lingering, permeating sort of thing. You know it's terrible and yucky and yet, there it is. Hovering. Holidays, a new town, new house, new lifestyle, new job, and a palpable, scary loneliness.

To my family and friends, oh my God do I miss you. You have no idea how much I miss you. You have no idea how much I want your familiarity, your loving embrace, your support. You have no idea how scary it often feels to be here in this little town, so far away from everyone I know and love.

In perfect honesty, this move is so much harder than I ever imagined. Ever. It's a whole new beast of change and growth and newness. And yet for as much as I am struggling on a personal level, I have to keep it together. For her, my 5 year old love who trusts me with her world. And for me, the person I sometimes forget needs loving, too.

We live in our choices and today, I live in Salida, Colorado. I look back every single day in complete amazement at how I ended up here. But I did. We did. We can't abandon the adventure before giving it a chance, but sometimes I wonder how it will ever work out.

But it will. It always does, right?

We live in a place that postcards are made from. The beauty is majestic, healing, scary, intense. We arrived, we plotted and we got here.

We are here. And we are okay. Sometimes it just takes a reminding.

"He HADN'T stopped Christmas from coming! IT CAME!Somehow or other, it came just the same!" 

There's a lot to learn from a child. Her enchantment with this world is the thing that makes it shine so bright. Sweet child, I may be the grown up, but I learn from watching you every single day. 

I am grateful, truly.

The Places that Scare You

In life I want to be open. I want to explore possibilities. I want to share my heart and connect with others. I want to be compassionate, kind, loving. This is who I want to be.

Who I am right now is a scared child. I've had so much change thrust into my life that I have lost sight of my own anchor. I'm in a new town. New job. New people. New house. New school for Ellie. New potential for friends but as we all know, true friendships can only be built through time. I miss my family terribly. I miss my friends. I jumped off the proverbial cliff, landed on my feet, but I'm dazed. Is there where I meant to land?

Each day is wracked with questions of self doubt. "Did I do the right thing?" "Am I doing this right?" "Are you sure this is what you want?" "Are you sure this is what is best for your daughter?"

Earlier this week something happened to my body. It was a terrible, horrible thing. I became wracked with unrelenting nausea and vomiting. I spent the night curled next to the toilet, sweaty but also freezing. By morning I had consumed no water (it wouldn't stay down) and to move my head a mere few inches off the pillow not only racked me with nausea, but it gave me the worst, bone throbbing headache. My husband was hours away in Denver and I was alone with my daughter, as I am for much of the working week. I was too sick to get my child ready for school, too sick to drive. I had to keep her home though the mere act of feeding her was all I could muster. It was one of the loneliest, scariest days I've had in a while. I realized I was on my own island. I had no one to call for help when the thing I craved most was to feel nurtured. It was a really hard day.

There have been a lot of hard days. We are still living out of boxes (we do not close on our new house until next month). Without feeling settled I notice how hard it is to be the kind of mom I want to be, how hard it is to treat myself with genuine love. I feel myself withdrawing into winter, into the dark and cold that starts to permeate. And yet, for her, I can not withdraw. She needs me. Now I see that bravery in the face of change has become a wholly different thing now that I am a mother.

The Places that Scare you is a book I'm reading by Pema Chodron right now. She writes "Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

I do not choose fear but acknowledge that fear is ever present. I've left behind my comfort zone in exploration of new experience. I remind myself this is hard to do. I remind myself that I am being brave. Though I can be scared and feel so small among these mountains, these new faces, this new routine, I also stand here as a woman and a mother. I hold the hand of my child and navigate these waters, charting a course that is not yet known. I remind myself, because it needs reminding, that we are here now, and that we are actually doing the thing we were craving for so long. 

I remind myself that it is okay to feel scared and lonely, but that the things we need will unfold. In time. In trust. I know that we will be okay. I can be a brave warrior as I must for the sweet little girl who calls me Mom.

(Little child you have no idea how hard it can feel to be a grown up.)

a letter to the new owner

Sniff, sniff

This is the part

IF I WANTED A BOAT
I would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat, that bounded hard on the waves,
that didn't know starboard from port
and wouldn't learn, that welcomed
dolphins and headed straight for the
whales, that, when rocks were close,
would slide in for a touch or two,
that wouldn't keep land in sight and
went fast, that leaped into the spray.
What kind of life is it always to plan
and do, to promise and finish, to wish
for the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens, if I wanted a boat I would want
a boat I couldn't steer.  --Mary Oliver 

Yesterday we packed, exhausting as it was. We filled the uhaul and our car and headed to the mountains were we will now live. Ellie and I drove the car. She spilled something on her shirt and I had no idea where her clothes were. So she just took off her shirt. I watched her from the rear view mirror, my little child who, without a shirt, looked younger and more baby like then I had seen in some time. Suddenly I was overcome with the bigger picture. Me, mother. Her, child, being led by the hand by her parents. Parents, the ones that are supposed to be wise, the ones that are supposed to have the answers.

We are in the new place now. There are boxes everywhere. But today I am overcome with the enormity of it all. I'm overcome with the loneliness of new surroundings. We moved here to be closer to the mountains, because we both agree, (myself and Mike), that they move us on some level that can not necessarily be articulated with words. But today the gorgeous, majestic mountains outside of my door make me feel small. Scared. Questioning why exactly we are doing this. What chord in our reasonings rang so loud that it said "child, you must go to the mountains.".

This is the part where you have to trust the process. This is the part where your faith gets rocked. This is the part where you simply have to put one foot in front of the other and do what's best for the child.

I'm having a very hard day. I miss my friends. I miss the very bare home that we will, come Friday, relinquish ownership of. I miss the life that I lived there. I miss it all. I miss it so acutely that I don't possibly know how this can get better.

And yet it will. I know that it will.

This is part where you have to trust the process.

Life. There are always multiple ways to get to where you are going.

Wherever you go, there you are

I'm going to miss it here. I know this, deep in my heart, even though we are going through the motions of house selling and moving. This house was never big enough, not once the child came. Still, it holds so much of the dearness in my life. We nestled in here perfectly, built community, built a family. Every day it becomes more and more sparse as we transfer our belongings from one home to another. Every day the echo of an empty home becomes more and more apparent, like the soon to be echoes of a life we once lived.

They say life is supposed to be messy, and you're supposed to go out there and get dirty. Moving to the mountains is something I've always wanted to do. Who wouldn't want to live in the place that enchants you the most? Still, are we doing the right thing? Will the stark contrast of urban living and country homesteading be too much for us? I'm scared, yes. Or maybe I'm simply grieving. Or maybe I'm just being human about everything and owning the one skill that I've never been able to master, the skill of making a true, unwavering decision.

I want to live in the mountains because they make my heart feel as though it is home. But in our call to move onward there is another (rather large) pull to move to California. In California life is beautiful, not in a majestic, mountain sense (although that does exist there), but in a salty, ancient, sun bathed sense. And like all things home, my mother and brother live there. I may be a fully grown woman, but I still want to share the beautiful things that life offers with my mother, with the family of my youth, just as my daughter wants to share the beautiful things she finds with me.

We are moving to the mountains because of a housing opportunity. An opportunity to live a life that we can see ourselves living. I wish the California factor wasn't there, because it makes living with a question mark, as though we are trying it on for size, ready to turn it in if the fit isn't quite right. It gives us an out, but it also gives us more family.

I don't know where life will lead us. But I like that the wheels are in motion. I'm scared and sad and elated and excited. I have no idea if the decisions we are making are the right ones. We are jumping off of the proverbial cliff. We are reminding one another that sometimes we need to close our eyes and just say "wheeeee!!!!!!!!!".

Brave face

Dear life,
It's not always easy is it?
We greet and part, kiss on the cheek,
hand in hand slowly slipping away.
We rise when we must
sometimes wondering how we could possibly handle more.
I've seen so many families
locked in the impossible stare of Grief.
Grief, a bold faced beast.

I've never seen a more beautiful organism
than that of family.
Never a more delicate flower
a more peaceful day
a more turbulent storm.
All we have is each other
until we no longer have that.

Dear heart,
I know you are breaking.
I know you are watching your father die.
Letting go of your mother
and Lord help me
saying goodbye to your daughter.
I can't help but wonder
how can our hearts handle so much?

I am but a small voice, one nurse,
doing my best when my best is no where near good enough.
I can't make people stay.
Sometimes, I can't even make the pain go away.
My heart breaks too.
I have to relive my own losses,
grieve for the losses that I will one day endure.
I see it all in you.
I tell you that you are strong.
And you are because you have no other choice.

I will help you through this, because it is what I have chosen to do,
because I've always known on a grand scale
that our lives are meant to go away.
But sometimes grand scales are hard to see
in ordinary moments.
Even though we know that we must,
letting go is the hardest thing we'll ever do.

It's only in facing the great beast of Grief
that I've ever understood
what "brave face" means.
I will keep wearing mine,
and I will gently remove it where thankfully,
I no longer need to be brave.

On being a hospice nurse

Sometimes it's time to go.

Though I have seen countless people die, there still remains something jarring about the visual of death. It still feels unsettling to see bodies that so recently contained souls I had come to know. I just lost my friend and former patient. (I wrote about her earlier in my blog.) I saw her the day before she died. I put off seeing her, knowing her situation had changed, that she was closer to death. My defense mechanism to stay away and not deal kicked in and I dreaded that last visit. But I made myself go. Death had already starting seizing her and her beautiful smile was diminished by a mouth that wouldn't close, eyes that wouldn't move. Still breathing but barely. I told her goodbye.

I try not to get too emotionally invested in my patients. It's my own defense mechanism to staying sane. But the young ones always get me, always. I like my role of being an educator and nurse to people that are dying, but sometimes it's hard to watch it happen. Slowly and steadily people lose their grip. As a nurse I understand this needs to happen. As a human I sometimes want to help them hold on, keep their grip a little tighter, a little longer.

Once someone dies there is a family that goes on grieving. My friend that just died leaves behind her mom. I love her mom and my heart aches at what her new void has become. She is strong. She knows her daughter is free from a deeply battered body. She knows this and yet at the end of the day her daughter has died. And in the history of the world there are countless mothers that have lost children, but you hope and you pray that it is never you.

Sometimes the sadness of my work builds up. For all the BEAUTIFUL connections I get to make with people, I always have to say goodbye. Saying goodbye to this young friend was hard. Seeing death with such regularity can start to feel immense. I see humans for the transient beings that they are. Our bodies will fail us.

If you are my friend you know that sometimes I go away. Sometimes I don't call you back for a long time. Sometimes life can feel very heavy and sometimes at the end of the day I just want to go home and not talk. Thank you for being my friend even when I "go away". Thank you for being there when I always come back.

Life is hard and messy and sometimes kind of ugly. But it's all we've got. I love it so much I can barely contain it. And I hate saying goodbye.

But that's life.

.

You're going to have to let go

Someday something you love will slip away.

Nothing is forever.

You're going to have to let go.

 I mourn places I've lived,
connections and friends and an idea that life could be a certain way.

The world keeps going around,

and people and notions grow further away.

 I want to hold and contain them.

They are sand through my fingers
and closeness becomes subject to a
moment in time's ever fading memory.

But wanting and missing and craving and mourning

are too jealous for this world.

There's no room for such emotional immaturity.

The world marches forward, only forward

Maybe we march together,

or maybe our roads go in opposite directions, as most eventually do.

Hands don't stretch that far.

You're going to have to let go.

My daughter just turned 5

and I still let her sleep in our bed

and I still pick her up and carry her places like a baby.

Picking her up feels like we're hugging,

her sweet, fresh hair, buried into my neck. Stop.
I want to suspend this moment.

Her long dangly legs, heavier by the day

but still, she's my baby.
And my heart aches at the memories of my baby. My baby. She'll always be my baby.

You're going to have to let go.

My hospice patient can no longer walk on her own

and it pisses her off. "I was so independent" she tells me.

I see an old woman starting her journey to death

with a personality that is jamming her feet in the sand as she is pulled closer to death's door.

She was a dancer. A mother of 4. She was widowed for 20 years. She can take care of herself. She's got a can do attititude

Except now she can't

You're going to have to let go.

I've lived in this house for 6 years.

I've been married, suffered a miscarriage and bore the most

miraculous daughter.

No house of mine has ever contained such memories.

I sit here now, aware of how small this space is and how ready we are.

But that's where she learned to walk.

That's where we learned we lost the baby.

That's where we nearly got divorced but didn't,

That's where I said I love you and really really meant it.

It's all in here, it's energetic memory bouncing off the walls. Our walls.

We're going to have to let go.

The wind comes in and dies.

The ocean kisses the shore then leaves it.

The Earth doesn't stop moving.

But there is no mourning.

The Earth is the wise one. 

It has learned to let go. 

The observer.

Sometimes we don't let our brains stop and think.
Sometimes we let the world stop them from connecting back to the themselves, the brains to their owners, the heart to the soul. The observer gets lost in the business.

I do observe, and sometimes the things that I see need time to settle, or need to be reviewed. My brain functions in my own unique way, carrying it's own form of sadness, strength, solace, numbing abilities and renewal. But that is my brain.

My inner observer does nothing but observe. She watches the beautiful face of my nearly 5 year old whenever she can. She notices how enchanted I become. She notices that the swelling in my heart could never be put into words, that no love could ever be documented, only observed and felt. This love carries with it it's own kind of brain activity, and the observer in me notices how worried a human I can be. And she notices how terrible it feels to worry.

My inner observer sits on death beds. I realize this is a strange observation, but I sit at the bedside of the dying for 12 hour stretches. I observe my own empathy, my own occasional indifference. I observe that my empathy is strongest when the family is there, and the person dying becomes more than just a failing body. I observe a curiosity to know that the dying are really great life stars, going out into the ether, becoming untouchable to us. I observe that often, at the end of the long day of watching death come, my heart and brain want to numb themselves and not reflect.

The observer in me knows that I do not always want to observe. Sometimes I don't want to feel things, and sometimes I observe how adept at numbing my own brain I have become. I have to observe this, and not judge this. The observer is the ONLY aspect that does not judge. She only watches. Neither with love or self pity. She just looks on. Notices. And occasionally her noticing catches the attention of the brain, and the noticing and the brain can align, if only for a few moments.

My observer knows that there is an undertone of melancholy that exists in life, in my life. But I do not observe a resistance or an avoidance to the melancholy that creeps in. My observer knows this is a an important time for my brain and my observer to align. Sometimes there is sadness. Sometimes there is joy that is so rich that it makes me nearly sad. It's like tides in a moon cycle; I can observe how easily affected I am. How my brain finds such solace in music or how, when alone, I can allow myself the space to release through tears. My brain knows that without exercise the delicate balance of keeping it together becomes unraveled, and that through physical activity I can renew myself, again and again.

I find it all good, truly, the sad and the joy. The observing and the avoiding. Light can not know itself without dark. Life is full of so much. My observer watches it all and says it's all okay.

She is the wise one.

Fairydust.

I bought some bright red galoshes. This past week they have taken me through complete wonder: splashing through the Pacific Ocean, hiking through the freshly fallen rain filled redwood forests, kicking through tide pools to search for treasure. This world is fantastic. It is bright and colorful and electric and mysterious. I'm a small visitor to a grand place. Last week I tapped into the feeling of enchantment.

I am in love with this world. Really in love. And like any love, you can't contain it. You can't be jealous or resentful or territorial. You just have to love it. Accept it. Be a part of it.

Being surrounded by such beauty brings epiphanies, or rather, helps you to remember things you deep down know to be true. This is it. This. This now. This typing. This reading. This moment. This is it! Now my brain is sprinkled with these beautiful memories of trolloping through redwood forests, but really, it is nothing but fairy dust anymore. You can't contain beautiful moments. You can't package them up and put them on display (well, you can take pictures, okay). The most gracious thing you can do is to be present, for those moments in the tide pools, the moments in quiet solitude, the moments with your friends and family.

Sometimes I think this life is just fairy dust. Our moments are sprinkled behind us. They are shiny, intangible memories.

My job is to stay enchanted.

Portraits of a beautiful person.

In my job I am blessed to know some amazing people. I meet them in an intimate setting: as their nurse as they navigate their terminal illness to the end. It can create personal heartbreak, yes, knowing that the people you grow so fond of are not long for this world, but it all feels worth it. I meet amazing people that do amazing things. I meet people ready to see the end, people fighting their diagnoses, and people that simply live each day to its fullest, with a unique intention that a terminal illness can bring.

I have been blessed with the honor of knowing a woman named Christi. Christi is very much alive, and during my months as her nurse her optimism has been simply enchanting. She was dealt such a crappy card in this life, but she smiles like no one I've ever seen. She is kind, she is appreciative, and really, I have grown quite fond of her. I have returned to my favorite local hospice agency, so she is no longer my patient; she is now my friend. As her friend she has given me permission to photograph her, not only the beautiful, shining self that she is, but the harder, more sick parts that are very much a part of her reality. She does not hide her cancer, it is a part of her now, just as her pain pump that is constantly infusing medicine into her is a part of her. Just as her colostomy and nephrostomy tubes are a part of her, the cane that she must use because her gait is too unsteady to walk without it. Just as the smile that she gives when she sees you is a part of her. The compliments she always doles out, and the attitude that keeps on looking at the positive; these are a part of her. She is multi-facted. She is beautiful. 

Thank you Christi for letting me take these special photos of you and your mama. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life. Thank you for making my life even more meaningful having known you. You are a special human being.

 

 

 

February

We made it out of February, some more unscathed than others. 

Winter brings out the blackness. The long days, the mornings where every ounce of your being wants to just lay in bed, the bitter cold forcing it's way into your bones. This is February.

I have a friend that is hurting badly, full of a profound grief and glaring introspection. I want it to not hurt so bad for him. I want to take the hurt away.
I have a friend with advanced cancer. She was my hospice patient and now, with a restructuring of my job, she is now my friend. And like all my friends, I love her. And I want to take the hurt away.
We had a nephew that only blessed this world with a week of living.  My sister in law and brother in law are hurting. And I love them and want to take the hurt away.

This has been February.

February, for being the shortest month of the year, feels like the longest. February, in all its coldness and its forced recluse, gives us the opportunity to reach deep inside and pull up the things that need to be dug out. When I lived in Maine (where it is VERY COLD), I called it my black month.

You can't avoid February. It comes every year. Some sensitive types, like myself, feel the pressure of February a bit more than others, but no one can fight off the seasons, the ones of Earth, and the ones of our hearts.

I was gone from my writing in February, lost to my own routines and tightly curled up hurts.

But the sun, the glorious sun, has started shining.
And the sun, the glorious sun, is what gently uncurls the hurts.
Spring is rebirth. And we get the chance to be reborn again and again.

Soon February will be a distant memory. Or maybe, for the people that have experienced tremendous loss, it will be a milestone. An unthinkable time that hopefully will be less traumatic with the healing sun gently easing the pain.

I, myself, give thanks for February, for the dark and the light. And for the Spring where we all get the chance to be new again.

Spring is a gift. The sun always comes back.


FEBRUARY
BY DAR WILLIAMS

I threw your keys in the water, I looked back
They'd frozen halfway down in the ice
They froze up so quickly, the keys and their owners
Even after the anger, it all turned silent
And the everyday turned solitary, so we came to February

First we forgot where we'd planted those bulbs last year
And then we forgot that we'd planted it all
Then we forgot what plants are altogether
And I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting
And the nights were long and cold and scary, can we live through February?

You know I think Christmas was a long red glare
Shot up like a warning, we gave presents without cards
And then the snow, and then the snow came
We were always out shoveling and we dropped to sleep exhausted
Then we wake up, and it's snowing

And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together
You stopped and pointed and you said, "That's a crocus"
And I said, "What's a crocus?", And you said, "It's a flower"
I tried to remember, but I said, "What's a flower?"
You said, "I still love you"

The leaves were turning as we drove to the hardware store
My new lover made me keys to the house
And when we got home, well we just started chopping wood
Because you never know how next year will be
And we'll gather all our arms can carry, I have lost to February

Warts and all

I have secrets. There are aspects of me that I am not proud of at all. (I will probably never tell them to you.)

We are all walking around with untold stories, aspects about ourselves we keep hidden. We have longings that are never shared, acts that perhaps no one knows but ourselves. We are brought up learning right from wrong, and wrong is not acceptable, not when it refers to a moral compass. So we keep undesirable thoughts to ourselves (usually). We drive around in our own emotional vehicles, following the rules of the road (usually). We carry on with our jobs and our lives and our responsibilities. Safely in our vehicles we let ourselves say those things to people that cut us off, that hurt us, that annoy us. We let our own emotional road rage erupt because in our own vehicles, we can safely express things that are not socially acceptable.

We live in a world of status updates and twitter feeds. We cherry pick the aspects of us we want the world to see. We purposely construct one dimensional presentations for the world to know, which begs the question:

how well do we really know each other?

I like to think we have the best of intentions as we carry on on this Earth, but our views of reality are becoming warped with social media. In a world where it is the "extraordinary" that is celebrated, our own "ordinary" is often overlooked. We can't cherry pick the awesome in our own lives. We have to live with our neuroses and wrongdoings and hurt conversations and mistakes. We don't (as a whole) express our own anger and fear and cowardice. These multidimensional qualities become confusing in our world of one dimensional achievements. And confusing can lead to self loathing. And self loathing can lead to sickness. And all of this can lead to road rage: spiritual, physical and emotional.

We might be awesome, but we're not JUST awesome. We might be beautiful, but we have morning breath and bed head. We might be smart, and yet make the most ridiculously stupid decisions.

Can we love ourselves when we are not being extraordinary?

Social media might allow us to "stay connected" to one another, but it doesn't allow us to "be connected" to one another.  Words and pictures are not people. And though there is undoubtedly a form of connection that CAN occur within the confines of technology, I fear for the human connection that is surely suffering under the weight of instant gratification and isolation.

I think it's crucial to remember that we are all multidimensional. We all have something to confess. Somehow we need to remember how to hold on to the reality that we won't always get it right. Sometimes we hurt people. Sometimes we think really mean things. Sometimes we make mistakes.

We are perfectly imperfect. We are human, warts and all.

***********

Check out this great art exhibit. I felt really moved at this concept. If only we could talk so candidly with each other, without having to be anonymous.

Imagine that.

Fancy Nancy

We are all made of stars.

In this life I am surrounded by death.

We all know, in an esoteric way (or maybe in an in-your-face way), that death is ever present; that everything born starts to navigate itself back to the waters of death. Renewal, vibrancy, bold goodbyes and death, such are the seasons of our lives and of our Earth. We know this, and yet our minds do not want to accept this. We fight this and say that things are not fair. And of fairness this may be correct. But life is not born of fairness.

My vocation in life has been in dealing with matters of death. "How can you be surrounded by so much death" people ask me? But in fact, we are all surrounded by death, in varying degrees, of varying intensity. I see people in their last stages of life and there are elements of this that mystify me, that call into being my purpose, and that emphasize my own inner Knowing. This Knowing, the kind that is hard to articulate, is not born and does not die. It guides my own hands and words and actions as I help so many confused and grief stricken people enter their journey away from their bodies.

When I sit with a person that is dying there is a point where I know that they are not in that body. There is a gauntness to the face, a glaze over the eyes, a stiffness in the body. Yet we, as hospice caregivers, often tell people that hearing is the last to go. I believe this to be true.

Just yesterday I sat with an actively dying woman. There was no need for blood pressures or oxygen saturation readings or temperatures. The trajectory of death was in such full effect that it stopped me, busy, million-places-at-once me. I sat at her bedside for a long time and I laid my hands on her chest. I knew she was not in that body, even though I could see her jugular vein faintly beating. I could feel her presence, not the dying presence (for I do not believe that presence dies), but HER. I could feel her watching and listening and I could feel her not being attached to this withered, cachectic frame of bones and skin. It was as though I was touching organic matter, born of the Earth and entering back into the Earth, but that the true Self was still there, boundless and alive.

This woman had lived a long life. She had careers and children and grandchildren. Christmases and trips around the world. Youth and suitors and long flowing hair. She had a past that was rich with memories and experiences.

We will all die, and this fascinates and saddens me. It reminds me that this is a GIFT, this LIFE. We get to feel happy and sad and joyous and full of grief. We get to travel and sing and dance and hug one another. We get to do handstands and crossword puzzles. But my favorite part is we get to walk among each other and feel each others' lights. Connecting. Listening. Emphasizing. Caring. Loving.

What a miracle this is.

I do not live my life under a religious doctorine, and I will never say that one way is the absolute Way. But I will say this. There is a light, inside of my body, around my body, entering and leaving my body, and because I am human I will call it MY light. But when I look at the stars in the evening sky, each one casting its light in the darkness, creating a blanket of wonder and light and beauty....well there is a connection there. I can not articulate it. I can feel it.

This is the day

My heart used to ache on this day. This is the day that my father died. This is the day that I received the horrifying call from my sister that I needed to come home, that dad was dead. This was the day that I somehow managed to get from San Francisco to Maine, by myself, with frequent interruptions of nonstop crying. This is the day that I first learned what grief was: real, intense, there's-no-escaping-this grief. This is the day I lost a parent, one of the most familiar and loving people in my life. This is the day. November 7. It comes every year.

This is my 9th year of recognizing this strange anniversary. It's strange to have "a day" that stands out among your other days, and stranger still to be able to comparatively track your own heart's grief. This used to be a terrible day for me. Grief used to be so palpable, so on edge of my heart that simply noticing it would release a well of tears. But things have changed, and my heart has taken that grief and processed it. Slowly and gently, grief transformed. Slowly and gently grief lost its hold to gratitude. Slowly and gently I arose from underneath those sad waters and I had a healing in my heart, and a better understanding for the immensity of grief and love.

Today is the day that my father took his journey to the other side. It is the day that his soul left his failing body, released to freedom and to a place that all of us will one day visit. I'd love to know where he is. Does he still exist? Is he ever present or he is only alive as energetic memory?  I don't know. But what I do know is that what happens when we LIVE is carried on in so many innumerable ways, pulsing and taking new forms far after we die.

Today I want my sister and brother and mom to know how much I love them. And to dad, if you're still checking in...thanks. You made me a better person. I miss you. I love you. And I am so grateful that YOU were my dad.

- Summer

Being gentle.

I just went through an emotional ringer. At the risk of sounding a bit vulnerable I will tell you that I spent Saturday curled up in a ball on my bed, headphones on, and I cried and cried, just like a baby. I'd let the music take me away, then come up for air. Cry a little more. Come up for air. Cry. And then, after about an hour and a half of being a puddle on my bed, I started drying my eyes. I felt different, lighter. I cried things out that I needed to GET OUT. I needed that space to let myself go there, to that sad, sad well that is somewhat always lurking on the horizon. I wanted to visit that place yesterday, that sad well, because I could feel it all festering out of my body in ways that were not desirable.

One of the wisdoms that I have softly gained through the years is to look at my emotions when they come up. Not to BE the emotion, to WATCH the emotion. And usually from there, if I'm loving myself as I should, I listen to what I need to do. I don't always do this right away. Sometimes it takes some time of noticing undesirable qualities that won't go away. As I laid in my puddle yesterday I could hear the words "be gentle with yourself". It was like someone was whispering it in my ear. And I was.

I remembered, so poignantly, that sometimes crying is the absolute best thing you can do.

After awhile I picked myself up.  I was so grateful that my husband had graciously given me this much needed space to be alone. I went outside and I walked. I felt the sun on my face. I cried a little more but instead of tears from an unnamed grief, they were born of gratitude. I was alive, and moving, and the sun was healing my soul, and life was good and I knew it.

Even though I generally consider myself to be a happy and positive person, there is always a well of grief on the horizon. Maybe it's just because I'm sensitive. Maybe it's empathy for others that are grieving. Maybe it's grief in missing, or maybe it just lurks there for everyone. I do not know. I just know that it's there, even when it's so far out of my view. This is okay.

I'm human. I cry and grieve. I laugh and am joyous. It's not all good and it's not all bad. It's life. You do the best you can.

Stay grateful. Be gentle.

- Summer

I'll light the fire, you put the flowers in the vase that you bought today.

We won't always live here, this little house in our urban neighborhood. One day this furniture that we have rearranged a million times will furnish somewhere else. These hard wood floors, with all their creaks and stains and beauty will one day be trampled by feet that aren't our own. This house has seen a new marriage, a new baby, new jobs, new friends. The living that has taken place in this small (but beautiful) space has been the jewels of the past 6 years of my life. No other 6 year span of time in my 36 years has ever housed such change. The carefree and somewhat naive person I was when I moved in has morphed into a full fledged adult, just as was expected, just as I have welcomed with open arms.

Why am I writing about this? Because someday we will leave, all of this talk will one day turn into action. And someday all of THIS that I take for granted will belong to another, and the terrifying journey of newness will start again. This is what I CRAVE and also what I FEAR the most.

So as I wrestle with demons that never really leave my head, and fists that are never really far from my heart, I'm reminding myself that nothing lasts forever. Not people, not places, not things. And sometimes living gets lost in the desire,
and this is probably the saddest thing of all.

Blazing

The tree in front of my house is blazing red. It's magnificent. To transform like that, from bare bones to a deep, lively green, to that bold red hue...it's elegant. Stunning. And fleeting. Each morning I go outside and find more and more leaves laying on the ground, turning a soft brown, saying goodbye to another perfect season.

I think of my life in chapters. Chapters can be defined by years, by experiences, by seasons. I've had some really swell chapters, really swell. Others were less desirable. All of them have come and gone, blazing like my red-leafed tree.

I feel a sadness as my tree loses more and more of its color. It's a saying goodbye. And it's a simple reminder. What if right now, these very days in which we are going through our normal, everyday motions, what if these are our red blazing moments? As a witness to so many dying peoples' experiences, I see autumn, their leaves unraveling from their bodies, stripped of their rich colors. Soon gone to winter.

I think it's my job in life to be blazing. In my routines, in my friendships, in my every day encounters, I have the option of letting these moments pass me by, unappreciated in their simplicity and in their mundanity. Or I can be bold and red. Not overbearing and intense. Just appreciative. And happy.

Life comes and goes for each and everyone of us. But right now we are all here, and we all get to be totally awesome.

In connecting...

I'm breathing today,
actual breaths in my actual lungs which are actually rising and falling
and this is my own miracle.
There are moments in life when the poignancy of this
sits on your lap with your face between her hands
and the everlasting truth of this ever present moment
is suddenly the shiniest star you've ever seen.

We walk through this world with our heart lights
shining like beacons, ready to love.

The way we touch each other,
with soft skins and smiling faces,
with caretaking and desire
habits and moments taken for granted,
these are the gems of our lives.
My heart, pressed against your heart,
listening and being heard,
pausing for a moment in the completeness of our shared space.

We are powered by connection.
but vulnerable in our humanness,
possessing the knowledge that all warm hearts will one day grow cold
and that love with not always be felt in arms embrace.
Our loving hearts become sad, full of grief and sorrow.
We long for beating hearts.

Outside, the trees continue to whisper,
the blooms open and they close
the tide ebbs and flows
night falls and day rises.

And our hearts, in those poignant moments,
open up to the beating heart of the Earth,
and her continual reminder

that love never dies.

Tug, tug, miss.

Us humans are funny. We are so different from our ancestors. We don't stay and settle roots (though some do, yes). Many humans move, travel, encompassed by our technology and our wanderlust.We grow up and we explore. I have lived in 5 different states since high school, each new journey exciting and completely bursting with promise.

But things happen to us when we move. We lose friendships, possessions, the opportunities to spend time with the people we are leaving. We dive into the new place and we start it over again. We start accumulating new friendships, new possessions, learning about the new culture. Places run their course (or maybe they don't) and the cycle continues anew.

But each time you depart a home, you leave a piece of yourself. A memory, a person, a wish, an accomplishment, a job, a friend, a lover, a heartache. But still we march on, hearts and eyes forward, ever ready to embrace the current newness.

My point is this: in this vast United States I have pieces of my experiences all tied up like heartstrings connecting me from here to there. There are tugs from any given heartstring at any given time. Tug, tug, miss. Tug, tug, miss. That's life I suppose. You get used to the missing at some point.

I just returned from Maine, and see of all my various heartstrings none of them is as strong and thick as that of my home state. As soon as I step foot off the plane the old culture surrounds me. The crisp air, the leaves, the smell of the ocean, the accents. ("Oh geez, we're gonna go on up to Kenny-bunk-port for the summah". I mean how endearing is that accent?!).

My heart hurts from the pulling. Seeing my daughter with her cousins, her second cousins, her aunts, her uncles, her grandmother her great grandmother...it was family togetherness bliss, something that is, unfortunately, a rare occurrence at this place in our lives. She loved and adored it. As a mom it made my body melt on the inside; it was so endearing. My child for whom I have not been able to provide a sibling for, was suddenly surrounded by people that genuinely loved her. It had been three years since I'd been to Maine, my daughter was 1 on her last visit. So this felt very different. This wasn't just my trip anymore. It was hers, too. And she absolutely loved it.

So here we are back in Denver. I'm blessed here, and there is so much that I love. But the pulling is there. Tug, tug, miss. Tug, tug, miss. Tug, tug, miss.

Cousins

Swan Pond, Lyman, Maine

Ah, the mighty Atlantic.

The two Eleanor Graces in my life: my grandmother and my daughter. They love each other.