ThinkLady

Bare trees

Dear December 2011  --

I’m just coming off a week-long staycation and the peace it brought to my life is yet another reminder of the joy found in simple rest. I’m thankful for the opportunity you brought to dawdle a bit with family and friends, to ponder endings and beginnings.

With ThinkMan on staycation too, our little family made art, read books, lounged, watched movies, talked, went out to eat, took a day trip to the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, a wildly beautiful place, and in general did what we wanted when we wanted. Callie and I stayed up late every night and slept late every day and got our days and nights completely turned around. It was heavenly.

Now, it’s back to reality, a reality that after our tranquil pause seems to have fewer edges, a reality that turns my mind to the meaning of work, a reality that finds me thinking on being 55, closing in on 56 and the years to come.

It’s 2012 now; in 2016 I will be 60; in 2018, 62 and eligible for early retirement, unless that too changes in this constantly shifting world. I remember thinking when I was in my 20s how any year after 2000 sounded so far away, so futuristic, so beyond imagining, and here I am, my oh my, living the future, contemplating what retirement might be like.

Post-50 life evolves differently mentally, physically, spiritually, and in our society it is not a particularly easy process. We are forced to compete for a living with energetic, lively, saavy 20- and 30-somethings at the start of their careers. They are beautiful in their enthusiasm and zest, and in some work environments, the integration of generations is smooth and gracious. In others, well, let’s just say the situation is one that does no generation any favors.

If the experience and wisdom that comes with working for 30+ years were indeed valued or honored in our society, the paradigm for the less-than-ideal situations might be different, but increasingly such is not the case. Well-documented deleterious effects of ageism are sadly alive and well in the job marketplace, leaving many in the 50+ crowd scrambling for jobs or out of work, and vast swaths of younger adults reinventing the wheel, sailing into storms without the benefit of sage guidance. Profit, celebrity and image reign as monarchs, experience and wisdom are deemed unfashionable, dowdy, and too expensive – and indeed the overall message is post-50, you best get out of the way. 

The question then becomes, get out of the way where? For unless one is a white-middle-aged or older male CEO, in which case your worth is hundreds of times that of the common person – the job prospects and the pay for those post-50 is on the decrease, at times astronomically. I’ve seen it happen over and over with family and friends and I’ve experienced it first-hand. It’s an achingly brutal and cruel process for a so-called civilized society, but then there are dark niches and corners aplenty in these modern times that are not gracious.

All the more reason, December, why I am grateful for you – you bring a flow and pattern to our lives, a language I understand more clearly with each passing year, a ceremonial and metaphorical housecleaning in a world we have not one iota of control over. You break down the reality of things – it’s like seeing the forest bold and tall, tree trunks darkly outlined against the sky, all their leaves gone. You bring serenity and clarity, the wisdom to know what might still be changed, and what must be accepted, and just as the trees let go of their leaves year after year, I’ve come to realize, during your visits, this is part of what I too will do the rest of my life – let go.

Time marches faster and faster, often whizzing by at a dizzying pace. I realize there are some things on my bucket list that I will probably never do. I realize I cannot save the world. I realize I am insignificant, not in a demeaning way, but in a natural way that always has been and always will be.

In making peace with this, and with my aging body and mind, I gasp from time to time. This is not an easy process, and yet I realize it is the same process every animal, human and non-human, faces in one way or another.

Can I do it gracefully, with meaning, with graciousness? I ask myself this often; I am sure I am not always successful at it. I prioritize the things that are most important: Family and friends; laughter and joy; days spent in the garden feeling the essence of life in the dark earth crumbling between my fingers, days in the sun, rain, snow; and days of listening to the world around me. I say goodbye to those things (or try to) that are not important, that are not necessary or that do not fulfill.

Success looks and feels different. It is often tiny, magical, intimate, anonymous. It is doing meaningful things with whatever time I have left -- or doing nothing at all but enjoying a winter’s day -- the thousands of hues of browns, maroons and greys in a landscape, the thin pale blue of sky, the slight yellow of sun filtering through bare trees warming my skin.

When someone laughs, I know in the deepest marrow of my bones that these fragments of joy are what life is all about – that the modern world we live in is not black or white or good or bad -- it just is – a distraction -- and it too, with all of its luxuries, amenities, and cruel indignities - shall pass. When it does, whatever humanity lives on may yet learn again what life is all about – may return to that ancient way of knowing -- of just being.

December, you are always welcome at my hearth. I’m looking forward to being with you again in a few months. I know you’ll be here before we know it.

With gratitude --

ThinkLady

Technorati Tags: change,ageism,time,life,family,friends,resilience

Laughing all the way

Sometimes you’re going along in life -- traveling at that furiously hectic pace we often decry but seem helpless to moderate -- when something brings the craziness to a crashing halt and changes the very fabric of reality. These larger-than-life events are landmarks on the map of life, plot points of no return, moments that mark the end of one way of being in the world and the beginning of another. For my family and me such a moment happened last weekend with the unexpected death of my aunt, Judi Crowder.

Aunt Judi was an amazing woman, one of the most compassionate and generous people ever to walk on this earth, a humanitarian in the truest sense of the word, and a devoted mother, wife, sister, grandmother, aunt, friend and most dedicated special education teacher. Take a look at the Judi Crowder Memorial page on Facebook, and you get a sense of what she meant to so many.

What you will read time and time again boils down to selflessness. Even while telling people loudly and with great fanfare that it’s “all about me,” she lived a life that was so very often exactly the opposite. She chose a career path few take, working with profoundly impaired and handicapped children, rarely passed up an opportunity to offer an encouraging word to the discouraged, and frequently reached out to those in need to meet their needs, often anonymously, with no ceremony or fanfare. She counseled, she listened, she advised often, even when it was inconvenient to do so, when the easier thing to do would have been to just walk away, not answer, respond or return the call.

She loved so many unsung souls deeply and passionately, regardless of color, race, creed, orientation, doctrine, or state of cleanliness -- the stinky, the dirty, the tired, the poor, the different, those who most often are ignored in our society. To those hopelessly lost in webs of darkness, she made no distinction about whether the dark morass they were engulfed in was what some might characterize a “moral choice;” she just embraced them as only she could in a great big Judi hug that reduced the suffering of life to a crazy, funny, silly-assed dance filled with laughter.

Oh, how Aunt Judi knew and understood the healing and freedom that comes when people are given the space to be silly and laugh! In another life she might have been a stand-up comedienne – that’s how funny she was. She could transform anything we were doing into side-splitting, wet-your-pants, doubled-over, laugh-until-your-stomach-hurt hilarity. And the thing is, she made having fun so effortless and easy, you didn’t even know she was running the show until she left the room, and then you realized the magic left the room too, and you couldn’t wait for her to come back.

Aunt Judi was of course very human – and she made no bones about her flaws – but she’d come to terms with who she was, made peace with it. She was comfortable in her skin in a way few are, and that gave her the clarity to be tougher than nine-inch nails when needed, unflinchingly examine her shadow side, and acknowledge moments of despair. She often creatively cursed the unfairness of a world mad with power, celebrity, greed and selfishness. 

Aunt Judi had absolutely no use for pretentiousness or egoistic fools, and could see through bullshit faster than anyone I know. If a lucky soul ran into Judi in the midst of an episode of narcissism, you could count on her to cure them of their illusions of self-importance. She whittled people down size in such a way that they never really knew what happened – they just went away with a better of understanding of how to be in the world. Conversely, those engaged in actively helping others, she lifted up, encouraged, rallied to their side, often slipping them a check to help their work.

And speaking of ego, people often say they don’t care what people think of them, but then if you just listen and watch awhile, it’s pretty clear they don’t really mean it. Aunt Judi was one of those very rare people who really and truly didn’t care what you thought of her, or whether you liked her. That made her a force of nature that couldn’t be manipulated. She used that power for one purpose – to help the kids she worked with – and God help you if you got in her way.

Aunt Judi was an advocate like no other. I have no doubt that every principal she ever worked with paradoxically admired, respected and avoided her. In her quest to ease the way for her kids and their families, she was simply undeniable. Resistance to Judi was like trying to resist the Borg of Star Trek fame – futile – and telling her “no” wasn’t the end of a battle, it was the start of a war, guaranteed to end in metaphorical death-by-Judi -- a deeply painful and drawn-out process where you might, not-so-quietly, be hassled and reduced to a quivering mass. Better to say yes -- the inevitable outcome anyway -- and be done with it.

Aunt Judi did all this without any illusions as to the general shittiness of life or thinking her efforts would somehow change things. She “got” the Universe, its randomness, human insignificance, our capacity for violence and cruelty, our general lack of consciousness about our planet and the lives of all species on it. She knew all that and I think consciously decided to just try and live the change she wanted to see.

At an instinctual level she knew that suffering punctuated with joy was the reality of life, that joy can be found in the smallest of things, in music, color, art, nature, animal friends, laughter, dancing. She saw light in the most unexpected of places and in the darkest of times. And she knew that if we have the will, wisdom and courage to stop and see that joy, to grab and hold it close in our hearts, those flashes of frivolity and bliss would carry us through the suffering.

“Listen honey,” she would say, “Life is shitty, so we might as well drink wine, dance and laugh every moment we can.” And this is how our Aunt Judi lived.

I see her limping from the ankle she broke that never healed quite right, appearing at my door for a visit carrying a “cheap” bottle of wine in one hand – rosé was her favorite, and cheap because with characteristic self-deprecation she would tell you up front she didn’t know a damn thing about wine and didn’t care to. She chose her wines based on the price or because the label appealed to her. She was practical and honest that way. In her other hand she’d have a bag of goodies for the kids, some small and always fun gift that she’d later spend time exploring with the kids, making them feel as though they were the center of the world, because at that moment, in Judi’s world, they were the center.

And that too was another of her gifts – she knew how to make you the center of her world, to make anyone feel special. On every visit, she’d come through my door, her arms open wide, ready to hug and be hugged. She’d fold me in her arms, kiss me multiple times, tell me how good it was to see me, how much she loved me, and then -- eyes bright and full of mischief -- she’d hand over the bottle of wine and suggest we have a glass now because, “Life is short and it’s never too early for wine.”

Life is indeed short. Aunt Judi’s life was too short.

Today I cannot comprehend a world where Aunt Judi does not limp into my living room with cheap rosé, or imagine how the next family gathering will function without her boisterous hilarity, her legendary chicken and dumplings, her affinity for the down-and-out, sad and lonely, her ability to talk about anything and everything, the radical way she had of making lemonade out of lemons, of making every single, dreary thing fun – and of making all of it seem like the most natural thing to do in the world.

So today and all the days hereafter, to keep her close in my heart, I’m going to strive to live life as Aunt Judi did – generously, selflessly doing the dance of life. Somehow I just know if I do, she’ll be there, limping along right beside me, helping me find the funny side of everything and laughing all along the way.

Judith Ann Crowder 1944 – 2011

* * *

When you’re down and troubled,

And you need a helping hand,

And nothing, nothing is going right.

Close your eyes and think of me,

And soon I will be there,

To brighten up even your darkest nights.

You just call out my name,

And you know wherever I am,

I'll come running,

To see you again.

Winter, spring, summer or fall,

All you have to do is call,

And I'll be there, yeah, yeah, yeah,

You've got a friend.

~ Carole King

Technorati Tags: family,hope,joy,life,love,compassion

When you’re down

 

Dream of what we can do, not of what we cannot.

Dreaming gives us hope, and rational hope shines a light on fear,

helping us think and respond rather than react.

And when and if all seems lost,

remember that even when we and those we love pass away,

the Universe in her infinite wisdom never allows darkness to go unanswered.

 

Technorati Tags: Dreams,hope,inspiration

Snowpocalypse 2011

White-out. Way-cold. Big-ass drifts. Blizzard! Howling wind. Face-slapping wind. Stinging wind with one step out the door. Single digit temps. Below zero wind chills. New meaning to bone-chilling.

Prior to this, we’d had almost no snow here in Oklahoma this winter. In fact, things were decidedly balmy, as in 70+ degrees last week. At least now we’ve had a spat of real winter, and we get the benefit of moisture which we desperately need. I think most people took heed, stocked up and stayed home. Thank goodness! I worried about the farmers and ranchers and others whose jobs demand they get out, but so far most folks seem to be making the best of a dicey situation.

A few realizations:

It’s never too early to go to the store and stock up on essentials. The weather folks were predicting this storm by Thursday and Friday of last week. The storm hit Monday night and in the wee hours of Tuesday morning. People had a full three-four days of warning. We went and stocked up Saturday when things were still sane. Still, we heard some folks waited until the last minute, and sure enough, there were reports of stores being out of essentials.

You will use more milk. Hot chocolate, cookies and milk, biscuits and gravy, cheese sauce, creamy soups. Blizzards require comfort food. Comfort food requires milk. Stock up!

During a blizzard, there is probably no place outside your house where wood will not get covered in snow. We are lucky to have a wood-burning fireplace. We thought we’d be clever and move the wood pile around to the protected southern side of the house, which has a rather nice and expansive overhang. Forty-five mph wind and blinding snow doesn’t care where you put the wood – they will find it and pile on. So much for our cleverness. Still, it was better than if we’d left the wood in the old spot where there are now two-to-three foot drifts.

Thinking you’ll have time to do things such as snuggling up by the fireplace and reading a good book is probably a fantasy. I don’t know why this is but when you work from home as a rule (I do), and you’re also trying to cook a little, play with your kid or kids a little, or you have visiting parents and you want to be with them some too (my mom), somehow time evaporates even faster than snow on a warm roof once the sun comes out.

Drinking early is advisable. You’re not going anywhere in this kind of weather. Might as well make it interesting. Whether working at home or lounging languidly in front of the fireplace, spike your hot apple cider with wine all day long. Thereafter everything you do is brilliant.

*** Note: This doesn’t mean full-throttled glasses of wine with a splash of cider. Rather full-throttled cider with a splash of wine. Just don’t want anyone going around sayin’ I’m advising you to turn into a boozer.

Technorati Tags: snow,home,blizzard,preparedness

Cleaning closets

Ever feel like a failure? Or wonder why, no matter how hard you may try, certain relationships or projects just don’t work? Or why success is so often narrowly defined in this society by a string of degrees, acronyms, what boards one serves on, or the dollar amount of one’s salary?

If you do – don’t feel guilty. Many of us swirl in that place often and wonder how to extract ourselves, discontinue the pattern, the old tapes running in our heads that tell us what we are not, rather than what we are, that tell us what we cannot do rather than what we can.

I have no easy answers to this swirling place of doubt, misery and self-pity. It is a human place, borne of our frailty and imperfection. It is also a teacher, a necessary place, a house of fears we must enter in order to learn and grow and become less vulnerable to the chaos of the roiling Universe.

I have learned that running away is not an option.

Run and the Universe will bite you in the ass, hard, and you’ll come to realize one day you’ve limited your options. Every door you open is a closet stacked high with your unexamined life, accumulated baggage piling up high and in danger of toppling and crushing your spirit.

Your big fat, bristling ego slams the door shut with a loud, “Harumph!” refusing to deal with your frailties, mistakes and rationalizations because it’s very existence feels threatened. This too is human. And so it is that you run ... again ... and the cycle continues.

The thing is, the longer you wait to sort through the closets, the more rotten the baggage becomes.

Many years ago a wise woman taught me this, and one day when I was on the ropes and so tired and felt like my life was ending before it even began properly, I gave in.

I softened for a moment and opened the closets. I took a deep breath and began the seemingly monstrous and unending task of sorting through my baggage, my old tapes, my putrefying pile of tattered relationships, hopes and dreams. This I will tell you is very hard work and truth be told, it never ends.

Each time I go to this house now, and sort through another closet, I’ve learned that although the process is painful, it is much like thinning the plants in your garden. You do so in order to give the remaining plants room to grow. The plant whose life you end is not really ended and certainly not wasted. You either eat it, compost it, or replant it elsewhere, but in any eventuality, its energy returns once again to the field of life.

Likewise sorting through and thinning your baggage is not undoing your mistakes or failures, or killing your dreams and hopes.

It’s simply learning to be with them, to turn them over and over until they unlock, and click into place. When they do, another defense falls, I melt a little more, lose a little more of myself to find a little more of myself.

In the blink of an eye, in this house full of closets, shadows and paradoxes, the baggage shifts, the back wall of the closet falls away, and like the mystical wardrobe in C.S. Lewis’ timeless novel, “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” suddenly I see there is a world beyond the shadowy closet. In this world full of light, color, swirls of radiance, hope and dreams shine bright. The dreams are often different than the ones I started with years ago, but they remain the stuff that makes life worth living, the seeds of hope planted. A circle of warm light surrounds me here in the midst of a dark world of pain, and there is peace, perfect peace.

I cannot stay in the circle forever. Like the closet of shadows, the circle is only one place in my journey, a place to be for awhile. Both places and others as well, exist to make me, you, who we are.

Do not be afraid of the shadows, of becoming nothing, of melting away, or of light, darkness and the grey in between. Nothing holds gifts beyond measure.

***

“Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called ‘the love of your fate’ (Amor fati). Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, ‘This is what I need.’

It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment -- not discouragement -- you will find the strength is there. Any disaster that you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!

This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow. Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true.

Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.” -- Joseph Campbell