Listening

The past 3 months, I have been listening for you, Da.
Sitting on the Zen porch when the weather allows
Walking long, quiet roads
Swinging on a porch swing and watching birds.

I have been having a lot of hard conversations with you and with myself.
I have been having them with my family.
I have been in a struggle and not sure how to fit together so many pieces
Some missing
Some misshapen
Some stuck in my hand
Some lodged in my heart.











What would you say to me?
Other than ask me more questions
When I am seeking answers
Because the answers are mine.
I know.
I know.
I remember.

And what would you ask me?

You would ask me:
What is my true goal
Are the choices I have to make to attain that goal sound
Is there a chance it could fall apart
Is there a chance it could be a very good thing
Are you helping to make the world a better place
What is your gut telling you













And by the fourth question, I would be crying
I would be waiting for you to let me know if my answers were right
And you might let me know.
You might.
It would be in your eyes
And the set of your mouth
The way you exhale
And how your fingers touched as your hands came together.

I have made so many decisions
So many hard choices since you have been gone.
And this time of my life feels so uncertain
The world so fraught with change
So still and so ever evolving
I just feel I need you again
Nodding.
Listening.
Asking.

I know I can hear you
By listening to what you placed in my heart.
And when I listen
I become emotional.
I know I can hear you
By listening to what you placed in my character.
And when I listen
I become so certain.
I know I can hear you
By listening to what you placed in my mind.
And when I listen
I become my most reasonable.




My Dear Ol' Da.
I hear you.

Beauty in 5 minutes

I was just drying off from my shower. Naked. Glancing at myself in the mirror. Hearing the familiar voice start up in my head about what I am not doing or what I am over doing. Or it may have been the lament of "Time" this go round. How years, gravity, and wear and tear...

Ev, my 8 year old, walks in. 
I was surprised and caught in the headlights. 
White blinding light of: Now what? Cover up? Stand, revealed? A mix of the two maybe with a dangled towel here and there? 
She was just looking in my eyes at first, talking to me. Then her eyes started roving. She stared at my belly button region that raged a war, time and again. Her hand went to her own extremely tight and etched gymnast abdomen. My hand went to mine.
"This is where you guys lived, nice and cozy."
She giggled.
"You are soft." was her reply.
"In some ways. But that is good for a hug. In other ways I am hard." and I mocked yelled at her, reminding her of how tough I can be. Breaking the intensity with a laugh as always.
Unabashedly she kept looking and I went about my getting ready.
"If you are too muscley- your hugs wouldn't be good." she decided.
"Well, a hug has all that love to help keep it soft, too."
"Yeah".
My thighs were wiggling into pants. She watched.
I gathered all the back flesh I could into the front of my bra with what remains of my breasts. She watched.
"Why do you even wear that?"
"It gives me some shape up top. Most people wear them to support their breasts."
"Why bother wearing it at all? For you? I wouldn't bother."
"Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I do."
She kept standing there. I was basically clothed, but my openness and vulnerability, even with my own child, had reached it's max. 
I asked why she didn't run along and play. 
She shrugged. 
I didn't know how to end the scene. I don't know why I thought it needed an ending other than my discomfort and feeling of being on a very vulnerable limb of exposure, openness, and responsibility to show myself as a real body with no shame or disparaging remarks, all the while not putting down a body toned, tight, and different than my own. No doubt the body she will have.
So, I just said, "And that is me getting dressed."
And she said, "You are beautiful."
She left happy. 
I was left winded.

What's Isn't Wrong?

I glanced in a mirror yesterday and made a face unintentionally, unkindly, at my reflection. I then fixed my hair.
My middle child, catching this, barked at me,
"You always do that when you look in a mirror. Stop fixing stuff. You're fine. Just see that you're fine!"
(She has always been my mentor.)
I made a promise to myself that I would do just that... which lasted until the next mirror/facetime/snapchat/surprise selfie mode when opening my camera.

This morning I was listening to my first dharma talk of the new year which fell in line with my struggle in some capacity. It certainly gave me a mantra that is useful for many with whom I work and love:

What
Isn't
Wrong

So simple and so arresting.
I shared it with my mindful co-workers as they share the job of guiding a group of children who mainly see what is stacked against them every day.

My middle child was on the floor in the tame throes of some tame injustice this morning when I asked her,
"Evie, what's not wrong?"
Her body became still and her head whipped around towards me. She responded,
"What's NOT wrong?"
"Yes."
"Ummmm...I know where the cats are now and my blanket is very fluffy."
"Hm. Nice."

She lay there a few minutes more, and then got up and made herself comfy on her favorite couch.

I can't promise myself that I won't stop fixing things when caught in a mirror. I can only ask myself to be kind to myself. I am not naive enough to think that this question will always be helpful.

I can only remind myself that, for the most part, when one asks the question, What Isn't Wrong, the list will run longer than that of What Is Wrong. And, if you are one for lists, it is one that will bring lightness into the self, rather than the dread and dragging down of a list of things that aren't right and aren't good.

Let go of that which doesn't serve you.
Drop the hot rocks that burn.
Don't hold them to hurl or use at another time as only you continue to burn.

What's not wrong on this New Year Day?

Sweatshirt Tears

I was on my yoga mat, following along with my yoga channel.
I was directed to go in a child's pose (gladly) and breathe deeply.
My face became lost in my sweatshirt, many sizes too big, as I curled in on myself.
Of course it was a Mount Holyoke sweatshirt.
And it was my father's Mount Holyoke Sweatshirt.

He wore it in the chilly months whenever he exercised. And as I was in this tunnel of grey, breathing deeply, resting shaking muscles, I had a flash.

Spring sky, dappled light, as he walked down the Esplanade.

Standing at the toaster, waiting for his breakfast, and tapping the butter knife in a song.

Sitting on the porch, watching the birds, with the newspaper folded on his knee.

Trying to give my mother a hug, sweat still pouring down his face, her batting him away.

Rocking in his rocker, a few minutes more before going to take his shower.

Sleeve rolled up for his post-stroke, weekly blood draws.

Standing in the kitchen, face beaming, asking me,
"Do you love me, or what?"
"I love you, Dear Ol' Dad."
"OK. I will take my walk now, Kitty Kat."

As I saw him perfectly, as if yesterday, walking down the driveway, I was afraid to inhale knowing it would only give me the air to cry.

And there I cried, in the privacy of his sweatshirt, in the joy of all I remember, and the sadness of why his sweatshirt is now mine.

What is 100%?

Help me with this... (because I have learned to ask for help)
What is 100%?
When it comes to giving 100% or being at 100% or doing it 100%, is that just a saying?
Does it exist?

I have written before about not being able to give 100% as a teacher once I attempted to be a 100% parent. Now, though, I wonder what this 100% business is and if it even exists.

In my children's lives, I never expect 100% on tests or first place in an event.
I do root for at least a 90% in their happiness.
Because can you be 100% happy?
And is it that 100% the ultimate?
The outlying goal?
A beacon in the long swim of it all?
Is it something of value that we need to even think about?

I was talking to a wonderful friend about being at 100% a while ago, and it has floated around and around in my mind needing a complete think through.

To be honest, we weren't even talking about 100%, probably, but about something maybe just as out of reach for a human- we were talking about being as good as "before".
As I listened to her concerns, I began to think inside of myself about whatever "before" could be for me. (And you could think about what "before" may be for you, as she knew what it was for her...)

My before is gone.
It left with entering my 40s.
It left with a prescription.
It left with a flux of chemicals and juices and what have you in the human body.

Then I thought...wait...do I want my before back?
Because even though it came with tighter thighs, it did not come with the deeper breaths I take now.
Before came with the ability to see a menu in any light and at any distance from my face, and it didn't come with the clarity I like to think I have now.
It came with lightning quick reflexes and reactions, and it didn't come with walking away and steeping in thoughts until ready.

Stepping away from the idea of 100%, I ask the question: What is good enough? And what could be the answer since we all have to answer that individually and for ourselves?

In China, I heard at different times from English speaking Chinese, "Is good enough". It made me smile remembering a Buddhist Monk say it once in a talk. It was the theme of his talk about letting go of assumed perfection. It has since become a refrain of my family. As I took in the different cities in China, the words took on a deeper meaning to me.
There is, where I am, an American tendency for the perfect home, the perfect body, the perfect lifestyle. What that looked like, in the China I saw, was completely different. The outside of a home might have looked run down, but the inside was polished wood and meaningful furniture and art. Restaurants might have been too hot and the plates and bowls mismatched, but the food was expertly cooked and delicious.

So what mattered more?
The outside or the inside?
The look or the feel?

I wonder if giving our best selves, almost all the time, can be agreed upon.
And seeing as I just smartened up the outside of my house, I wonder if my inside of the house can remain a bit disheveled as long as it is still a comfy place to enter.

I would like to think that entering a classroom, open to learning and open to the struggle of learning, might be the enough for both student and teacher.
Might be the better?
Maybe it is the honesty of saying, "I am going to get in here, have at it, and see what comes out from the passion to try this thing."
Maybe that can be translated into some value we can all embrace.
We don't have to be like before.
We have to be like now, and we have to be all in with the now and the who we are at this point in our lives.

And, we have to give everyone a break.

Yin-Yang

I love thinking back to the cards I wrote my husband on our earliest anniversaries. Excitement about the life we would have, the mention of babies as they came along, the wishes for more of our dreams to come true, the declarations of undying love.

Aww.

But seriously, folks- It is so sweet.

I love to see myself as a Big Eye teddy bear looking at the journey ahead and the thoughts and dreams that would lead us down the yellow brick road...
To more love and happiness?
To "making it" whatever that may be at whatever time?
To old age?

I am not sure anymore what it was since my perspective is completely different. I definitely understand now that life is the living and not the destination.

Destinations exists, I suppose, in scattered moments throughout our day- snapshots of contentment on a porch watching a cat and a hummingbird, spooning a crying child as they fall asleep needing only you, or revelations in a car ride that was all about the reaction in that moment for the rest of their life....

Other than that, destination marks an end, and I am not there yet.

In living married life now, 16 years in, 19 years deep in our relationship, I find myself summing up our partnership in his anniversary card as:

You do the research, I'll make sure there are snacks and underwear.

We are going on the biggest trip of our lives ever, and we are taking the kids to China. I am completely overwhelmed, yet this is where my husband excels. He had us download this and he ordered that and he took out all the stops and found every bell and whistle that my Scottish mindset would never allow. I completely let go of the reigns (?!) and let him lead the charge on this overwhelming and exciting vacation.

Our shopping has been very different.

He bought sim cards (sims cards? Simz?)!
I bought granola bars.
He bought face masks?!
I bought 47,000 pair of underwear for everyone.
He bought a Panda hugs for each of us!
I have flushable wipes and mini toilet paper.
Upgraded our seats where possible!
Tide-to-go pens.
He bought VPN somesuch whatitswhat?!
Grabbed some dramamine.
Visas!
Goldfish crackers.
WeChat!
Sunscreen.

It is totally the yin and yang. How appropriate for this trip! and for our life journey.

"(陰陽 yīnyáng "dark–bright") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another."

Living with someone and loving someone can often bring up the question of "Why can't you just..." and you fill in the blank for yourself:

get up 

relax

do this

try that

let it go

come along

leave it

hurry up

However, there is always the flip side

lie down

be alert

do that

try this

gather it up

stay behind

persist

slow down

Which is of equal, yet different, value.

In our day to day life, I am mostly holding the reigns and planning side by side with Rob, and our yin-yang serves us.

Me: We need to move here!

Rob: (research, paperwork, execution)

Me: This is the car!

Rob: (research, paperwork, execution)

Me: These are their presents!

Rob: OK. Add this.

Me: They are going to this camp!

Rob: But it doesn't have sailing and horseback riding.

Me: Stay out if it!

Rob: (shrugs)

Me: You are taking me out!

Rob: (turns around and gets back in the car with me)

Me: These are our new sheets!

Rob: (sleeps)

Me: Paint it this color!

Rob: (sleeps. Then paints it that color.)

Me: We are picnicing today in a new field in Somewhere, Massachusetts! 

Rob: (sleeps)

Me: (stares at him)

Rob: (sleeps....one eye opens)

Me: (stares at him)

Rob: (sleeps)

Me: (unleashes children)

Rob: Get me a pepsi!

I know that when it comes to the big, overwhelming stuff,  Rob will lead the charge and make it run smoothly. And when we get there and he opens up his suitcase, hungry and needing a shower, I am going to be there holding all the undies and waiting to hand out the snacks.

Rob

Rob, this one is for you.

To the dad who always buys what I refuse (when I probably shouldn't refuse.)

To the dad who will take on the sweaty bodies for hugs and leans on the hottest of days.

To the comfiest chair on the planet.

To the man who is giving his children the world.

To the dad who won't let the traditions end, knowing their importance.

To the husband who can always take a joke.

To the greatest source of safety in their world.

To the parent with all the patience and so much knowledge to impart.

To the man who steadily and strategically worked his way to a dream for us all.

To the dad they can't stand to be without.

We thank you.

Happy Father's Day.