"The Next Noel" (poem) by Lynn Ungar

I don’t know what a noel is,
Except that it’s something
That angels say, and the first time
They said it, was to shepherds
Who were out laying in fields.
But the next noel, couldn’t it
Have been to anyone –
The barkeep handing drinks
Or the woman easing off her shoes
As she comes in the door?
Behold! The angel says, as in
Pay attention! Look what is happening!
And then, I bring you tidings
Of great joy. I don’t know
Who got the second noel.
Maybe the wise men. Maybe not.
But if there was a first noel,
They might have just kept coming –
Angels popping up where you least
Expect them, demanding that you take notice,
Insisting, through every battered age,
That you listen to tidings of great joy.

Quote - Larry Levis - "My Story in a Late Style of Fire"

"It is so American, fire. So like us.

Its desolation. And its eventual, brief triumph."

Quote - Gaston Bachelard - The Psychoanalysis of Fire

"Fire is the ultra-living element. It is intimate and it is universal. It lives in our heart. It lives in the sky. It rises from the depths of the substance and offers itself with the warmth of love. Or it can go back down into the substance and hide there, latent and pent-up, like hate and vengeance. Among all phenomena, it is really the only one to which there can be so definitely attributed the opposing values of good and evil. It shines in Paradise. It burns in Hell. It is gentleness and torture. It is cookery and it is apocalypse."

"An Avowal" (poem) by Denise Levertov

As swimmers dare
to lie face to the sky
and water bears them,
as hawks rest upon air
and air sustains them,
so would I learn to attain
freefall, and float
into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,
knowing no effort earns
that all-surrounding grace.

This poem is from Oblique Prayers, copyright ©1984 by Denise Levertov, and also appears in Levertov’s The Stream and the Sapphire: Selected Poems on Religious Themes. 

Circle of Life

I did a good job in the past couple years reaching back, reaching out, to key people in my past. I didn't realize how much that also meant re-opening closed chapters in my life, and finding there, not cringing regret and harsh recriminations for all the ways I failed to be my best self, but memories of the ways I tried to stretch in different directions. 

Being a parent, I've learned, provides many magical moments to confront past selves. Music is a doorway to the past; Umea has discovered Simon & Garfunkle, Kenny Rogers. She does not seem to mind my reminiscences of the past selves who loved the songs she's falling in love with. (And I realize I may be especially blessed with a kid who is not (yet?) focused on pushing away to differentiate herself.)

And clothes, too. When she steals a sweatshirt that's 20+ years old, I am remembering who bought it for me, or who I dated when I wore it first. How can she want to wear the same item? A rhyming across time. 

We went shoe shopping, and as she tried on Birkenstocks, I texted my best friend in high school, since in my memory, we walked everywhere in Birkenstocks. She said yes, her son, too, asked for his first pair of Birkenstocks the summer before, and yes, how strange and right and resonant. 

This also, of course, is true of books. Certainly when she was little, I crammed her little brain with my favorite childhood books -- Anne of Green Gables, first and foremost. And now she shares a few of my favorites in adulthood -- Miracle Life of Edgar Mint, most miraculously. 

I think you could have these same moments of resonance if you were really good about sharing your inner life with a close friend. (I'm thinking of a podcast [This American Life, Plan B, Act Two], where a young woman described trying to "download" her past into a new friend's brain - making her mixed-tapes of important songs, narrating past relationship stories onto tapes, providing a list of favorite books...)

But having kids, who are exploring themselves, partly through exploring what they have in common -- or not -- with their parents, is an especially organic unfolding of moments and moments and moments where the past opens up and offers a chance to see and feel how much I have in common with past selves -- or not.

And pairing that with friends who loved me when I was those past selves takes things deeper. It's partly triangulation -- do their memories, or their continued love, confirm my experience? My existence? Do I, can I, still love who they loved? Who they love? Are those the same? (Oh god, what is time? What is life? What is perspective across time?)

And I remember, I try to remember, there is nothing to be done. There is everything to feel, and accept, and learn. And celebrate. And feel gratitude. So much gratitude for this miracle of life unfolding -- out and in.

When all seems dark, what can you do to let the light in?

Breathe.

Feel grateful for blessings.

Move. Stretch. Feel grounded and stretch to the sky.

Meditate on the miracle of a spark of my perspective and life in the vastness of the universe.

Reach out to wisdom from others.

Slow down. Notice that you can only live moment by moment. (Nothing to be done, nothing else, nothing other. One moment only.)

Go deeper.

Shine. 

 

What's your burden?

The question today at church. And an offer: Can you lay it down for a minute? 10 minutes? An hour? For days or weeks or months at a time?

Today, I'm thinking about cholesterol and eating - all the ways I feel out of control when confronted by cookies, chocolate, hawaiian rolls...

What does it really mean to be addicted to sugar, to gluten?

A Kenny Loggins self-help book from the late 1990s said (oh lord, wisdom from Kenny Loggins? Sure. Why not? Take it where you can get it!): "Where there is no hole, there's nothing to fill."

What hole am I filling with sweets? With butter?

I'm picturing a gingerbread house, pre-construction, and me sealing up the seams with frosting. 

I suspect more play will help. More yoga. More tennis. Maybe learning pickle ball? Snowshoeing? And puzzles. (So grateful for a puzzle exchange at church! I brought back about 10, leaving with 5...)

And if that doesn't help, I'll have to go deeper. Pretty sure I'm doing everything I can, eating all I can, not to do that. 

Blue Christmas

 Now it's December, and I'm still struggling with dark spirits.

Atheist Christmas Carol

Me to the season: Don't forget, I love, I love you.

I am sadness and joy and stress and resilience. All are part of the tapestry of my experience. So be it. So may it be. 

Prayer to myself: May I be brave. May I welcome the connection and light that waits for me if I open the door to them. 

Thanksgiving Eve

Today, everything feels like too much. Too many things to do. Too hard. Too much energy needed to overcome the inertia of despondent now. 

Tomorrow, there will be music and singing and cooking and cleaning and laughing and friends and games. All will be well. All manner of things will be well.

Today, there are meetings to get through. Plates to spin. Tasks to knock out. Discussions to contribute to (show up! be present! bring value!). 

I've had an Insight mediation app on my phone for a few months now. Most mornings I listen to affirmations as I make my way toward my desk. Most mornings, I feel grounded afterward. Rooted in my body, confident and at ease in myself. 

Today, the woman's voice was talking to someone else, and I was just eavesdropping. Nothing she said was for me. 

• "I am enough?" Not even close. 
• "I trust the process of life?" Not today, I don't. 
• "I am grateful for every experience that shaped who I am?" For all the good it's done. 
• "I am grateful for all my blessings?" What are they, again?

Work has been full and stressful lately. Lots of brain power, emotional intelligence, organizational skills, task switching, energy expended. I'm depleted. 

I skipped out on a church meeting to watch Dark Skies with the fam. I've done puzzles. So. Many. Puzzles. I've escaped into Stacey Abrams mysteries. I've done yoga. Tennis. Walks with the dogs.

I'm doing all the right things. Trying for good habits. 

Today, it all feels for naught. Darkness is heavy in my chest. My shoulders curl over my quaking heart.

These feelings too will pass. Tomorrow will be a better day. 

"Look up" has been on repeat in my head - as I went to sleep - as I woke up several times in the night - this morning. Yes, Joy. Thank you. I can be grateful even for this. 

Fall shining

It's been a whirlwind fall. I've been co-teaching a class at UNM, which is so fun but soaks up all my "free time." Teaching requires a presence and an awareness of the moment that leads to richer experience. This practice carries over into the rest of my life, primed to find deeper meaning. 

Rich but exhausting. 

It's been a sweet few months with the kiddos. There's been tennis and running. Puzzles. Coffee. More delights from Ross Gay. 

Lunches with friends, tea with a new friend, coffee with an old friend. 

Life is sweet sweet sweet, and I am trying not to hang on or expect anything to continue. Just notice. Feel grateful. Shine shine shine on all I see.

What I Can Do (poem) by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

So I can’t save the world – can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around every frightened child,
can’t foster peace among nations, can’t bring love to all who feel unlovable.

So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle with my insufficiency.
I practice walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love, I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth, about trust. I want to invite compassion
into every interaction.

One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big, I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear: to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May, knowing freeze is possible
and opening anyway.

To take love seriously. To give love wildly.
To race up to the world as if I were a puppy, adoring and unjaded,
stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference, of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open. To love as if it matters,

as if the world depends on it.

Balance, Longing, and Gratitude

I am working on a small service for Wednesday evening. This is a 30-minute online Vespers, a time for poetry, song, and reflection. My theme is balance. I'm blending Dorianne Laux's Balance, the excerpt below from Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens of Titan, in which he writes of lovely and fanciful creatures called harmoniums that have found their own balance in the deep caves of Mercury, and David Whyte's essay on Longing in his (gorgeous, strange, brilliant) book Consolations.

And for the song, of course, Life Is Better with You by Michael Franti. I'm rocking this one!

Excerpt from Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

The planet Mercury sings like a crystal goblet.
It sings all the time.
One side of Mercury faces the Sun.
That side has always faced the Sun. That side is a sea of white-hot dust.
The other side faces the nothingness of space eternal.
That side has always faced the nothingness of space eternal. That side is a forest of giant blue-white crystals, aching cold.
It is the tension between the hot hemisphere of day-without-end and the cold hemisphere of night-without-end that makes Mercury sing.
…
There are creatures in the deep caves of Mercury.
The song their planet sings is important to them, for the creatures are nourished by vibrations. ...
The creatures cling to the singing walls of their caves.
In that way, they eat the song of Mercury.
…
The creatures in the caves are translucent. When they cling to the walls, light from the phosphorescent walls comes right through them. The yellow light from the walls, however, is turned, when passed through the bodies of the creatures, to a vivid aquamarine.
Nature is a wonderful thing.
...
Each creature has four feeble suction cups – one at each of its corners. These cups enable it to creep, something like a measuring worm, and to cling, and to feel out the places where the song of Mercury is best.
Having found a place that promises a good meal, the creatures lay themselves against the wall like wet wallpaper.
…
They do not reach maturity, then deteriorate and die. They reach maturity and stay in full bloom, so to speak, for as long as Mercury cares to sing.
There is no way in which one creature can harm another, and no motive for one’s harming another.
Hunger, envy, ambition, fear, indignation, religion, and sexual lust are irrelevant and unknown.
The creatures have only one sense: touch.
They have weak powers of telepathy. ... They have only two possible messages.
The first is an automatic response to the second, and the second is an automatic response to the first.
The first is, ”Here I am, here I am, here I am.”
The second is, ”So glad you are, so glad you are, so glad you are.”

Prioritizing Me

I'm keeping an intention to fold in physical activities high in my consciousness. It still hasn't turned into action much, but the realization that fun = moving my body is still motivating me to figure it out.

The latest scheme is to try for some family bike rides when it cools down a little. I think we're going to "borrow" my 80-year-old mother's Schwinn for Beckett (a much more appropriate age for biking!) so that we will all have decent-ish bikes. Umea's is a second-hand store find. Actually, I think Eric's is, too. And mine is the bike I bought in grad school, which I still adore. 

The other goal is to play tennis Monday evenings. 

And soon I'll be able to get back to yoga at lunch 2 times a week. 

I've done fairly well going for one long-ish run on the weekends. 

One of the fun things at camp was playing "ga ga ball," which I hear is taking the nation by storm, following the pickle ball revolution. My son was surprised but pleased that his mom did pretty well - for a beginner! It was a reminder that I'm kinda athletic. Felt like being little and playing baseball and kickball and all kinds of other things - and being pretty good at most of them just by being fairly coordinated. 

Although ABQ does not have gaga ball pits, it is embracing pickleball. Many of my older friends are enamored. Once the City opens the registration for pickle ball lessons, I'll sign up to learn that. Then I need to find a partner to play with!

All of this requires carving out time in the week for something that I actually find fun, even though my kids don't. The past 14 years have been trying to find things to do as a family. Now... it's probably ok to strike out on my own again and leave them to their screens and their friends. 

Church Camp

We just got back from a week-long UU kids camp. I've been wanting to go for years; we hear a lot during the year about "camp magic" -- a place where generally reluctant UU kids actually want to go every year. 

There are no "families" at camp, even though most (but not all!) adult "counselors" are parents. Some were, but their kiddos are now adults. 

Like most camps, there are campers 3rd grade through 8th grade. Then there are Counselors-in-Training (CITs). Because people continue to want to come back, there are also "Young Adult Mentors" (YAMs). 

My 14-year-old leaned into the no families rule -- generally not making eye contact but not actively avoiding me. 

My 10-year-old declared the rule stupid and refused to follow it, but even so, he did not seek me out much, although bedtime was still important. Lots of singing! Which worked out well for his roommate, who was more homesick than most. 

So I was left as just myself - an adult among kids - parental but not a parent. At camp but not a camper. I found myself SO SELF-CONSCIOUS! Walking the delicate tightrope of asking questions but not be prying, being silent but not withdrawn, being present but not centering myself. I was the only adult who had not been to camp before, so I found myself empathizing with the new kids, who were also the quiet kids, on the edge of every game, sitting alone during meals. What is more tortuous than being a new kid? Turns out... being a new adult. The responsibility to do something about both my own discomfort and theirs made the discomfort urgent. So I went about gathering the loners into community. And by day 3, the CITs had been admonished enough that there were many helpers in this quest. 

And by day 5, there were no outliers. There were certainly still moments of discomfort and shyness and awkwardness that all kids - and all people - have. But camp magic worked. Many became one. And had fun. And accepted our infinite, unique quirkiness. 

I think all camps do this, some better than others. Some more intentionally than others. Our UU camp was very intentional, teaching the skill of inclusion and practicing the courage to show up. So vulnerable and so beautiful. 

The call to worship today at church:

Let's not go building new walls around our hearts

We have already enough that keeps us from each other

Enough that keeps us from ourselves.

For this hour we practice showing up with a willingness to see, to be seen

To remember ourselves, whole, and still becoming better

To believe it is ok to not be ok

That we are loved, even when we feel unlovable

That we belong, even when the ground comes out from under us

To be for each other a surprising generosity, a sudden

sweetness, a sign of hope the start of a new day.

Together, we can be this brave.

The welcoming song:

I pray for you; you pray for me. I love you; I need you to survive. 

I won't harm you with words from my mouth. I love you; I need you to survive. 

Groundedness

Umea asked me if I was ever fun. An old friend asked me what I did for fun. A new friend told me how he fills his days with joy now that he is retired. 

I have a new answer: tennis. To be more specific, tennis lessons. Turns out, I do not like playing matches, but boy do I love drilling! I've been doing it for several summers now, and this year, I seemed to come into my own. 

And the other things I fantasized about when picturing my retirement were similarly active - riding my bike, going for hikes, running. Turns out that what's fun is moving my body. 

How ironic when what I prioritize is being in my head. 

 It's so easy to get lost in there. 

When we talk about grounding ourselves, we so often mean in our bodies. Moving our breath from shallow to deep. Settling our weight into our hips. 

The metaphor for grounding to me has always been the rootedness of a tree - slow growth outward to grasp the earth and hold on, hold onto more and more as you grow. But today, listening to a meditation about courage, the metaphor the woman used was lighting, and I realized lighting grounds, too. A flash of electricity that connects sky to earth with violence and awesome beauty. There and then gone. A strike. 

I had asked some people at a party on 4th of July when they felt grounded in who they were. My friend's mother said - "Oh, very early. I was lucky to have people who mentored me toward leadership." This matches what I knew of her but was not the answer I was hoping to hear. But today, after telling that story, my friend said, "Sure, she felt grounded early, but she never felt free." She could never jump into a new situation, travel to Europe by herself. She was rooted to her spot in the world but didn't see much of it as a result. 

And so I now have 2 metaphors for groundedness that give me more freedom, more hope that whatever I am feeling is what I am supposed to be feeling - connecting to the here and now, digging deep and wide - and branching out (oops, still tree metaphor!) because I feel safe in who I am and so can leap into something new, strike out in a new direction and see what there is to see. 

For today, this feels revelatory. And enough. 

Meditation for Anxiety

As you breathe, feel how your anxiety is the high strung vibration of too much too fast, and how as you breathe out, you can deepen that tone, bring the high whine from your head and your face and your throat into a low vibrato in your core, like a tiger's roar, pushing you forward into movement from the icy block of your stuckness and fear. 

Dissatisfactions

I'm struggling this week with feeling out of balance on multiple tightropes. (Warning: much whining ensues.) 

Work feels so overwhelming that I don't have time to get organized enough to delegate work to others and free up time to work on what needs to be done. I am canceling meetings so that I can meet with others. I am working on the weekend so that I can actually put in time on tasks that take concentration. It's ... exhausting. And feels like there's no end and no solution and no way to continue. 

Exercise feels like there's never enough and no motivation to do more. I had been running with some ladies training for a marathon, but a few weekend trips away left me behind the wagon. Now I'm dragging myself 3 miles before it gets too hot by 8 am. Thankfully, yoga at work twice a week seems to be holding (and holding me steady), but while that is a GREAT deal and good value, it's still too much money. But I know investing in myself and my balance is worth a whole lot more. 

My relationship feels distant. My partner's been not feeling well for a couple weeks, which has left our schedules out of sync and our energies missing each other. And I have been hiding. Turning inward and then wondering why I feel so alone. 

My daughter continues to struggle with cutting. She seems joyful and yet emerges from multiple nights with visible scars of her anxiety. I do not know how to help her, and she seems wrapped in teen solipsism that leaves any solutions years beyond her reach or consideration. 

My son is addicted to a video game with shooting and death at its center. He rolls his eyes at us when we express worry and actively resists any attempt at redirecting his time and attention to other things. We have some leads about how to keep making other activities more viable, easier to choose, and yet the effort to keep them in front of him is relentless. 

My mother is far away in Michigan, and the physical distance is only one symptom of how far away she feels. My oldest sister went to my niece's wedding shower and wedding and did not give her a gift. I'm struggling with how to feel about that and whether there's anything I should do with my feelings. I'm angry and disappointed and feel protective of my niece and righteous about what my sister should have done. 

But there are blessings, too. This Friday I'm meeting up with one of my favorite work people who is in town. Next weekend, my neighborhood friend growing up is visiting from California. The next night is my 30th high school reunion. Then I spend a week at church camp. Then go to Navajo Lake with my old boss who has become the summer grandpappy for our family. 

And today I'm headed to a friend's house for wine. Tonight I'm meeting up with high school friends who were all thespians together.

There are many blessings. And maybe a little of this is an introvert feeling overwhelmed at living out loud in front of so many people. 

But maybe it's also that I am hiding from myself and what I should be doing to make my life what I want it to be. And it's hard to hide with so many people asking questions and loving me into showing up. 

Remembering the Future (prayer) by Theresa I. Soto

Can we develop the skill of remembering the future?
Can we commit to build the community that will extend
into a time that we only know by memory because it
will outlast us?
Memorize the compass points of the day
yet to come: the truth, the love, the fire, the endless yes
of the horizon.
Shake the scales from your imagination:
Reach. Stretch. Rise.
There is no more time for pretending
that everything can be all right without your care, without
your attention. You can mourn, grief being more real at times
than the promise of the sunrise. More real than the piece
of the moon, that by inconstant silver turns, disappears.
And yet. While we may mourn changes, losses, deceptions,
and betrayals, beneath the ash we find the ember. We
weep and then, as we have learned from labor movements,
we organize. Remember the day toward which we gather,
the tomorrow toward which we advance. It is with
your actions today that you engage that muscle memory,
that sense of smell, the ragged velvet feel of a day that
you have never lived. It is also your day. Remember it well.

Continuity of Experience

47 seems to be a year of reconnecting with my past. This summer will be my 30th high school reunion. 30 years. I dove into the rabbit hole of my high school year books and cybersleuthing to find those whom I remembered and cared about. Some have died. I'm reaching out to set up a Zoom reunion with my fellow Thespian officers from my junior year. 

And a poet I loved once passed away this summer. I re-entered a closed chapter of my life at his memorial. So strange to be remembered. And cared about by people who have kept me in amber as a twenty-something fun person in their memories. 

Umea had just asked me about my past - how often had I done drugs, was I ever cool, was I fun? I tried to explain to her that if you live long enough, you have eras in your life. Your own experience of yourself is continuous, but you are constantly changing, growing, pruning, shedding parts of yourself and what you used to care more about, what you used to do more of. And it's not just life and time that spurs these changes. Every person brings out more of this or that in you, the alchemy of connection or repulsion. You learn from it all. Learn about life but also yourself. What you like. Who you like. Why.

I drank a bottle of wine this week with a friend made during that poetry era. I liked who she loves. She sees the steamroller in me and knows it can make paths for those I value - like poets, like community-makers and storytellers. 

I dine tonight with my oldest friend, who came to every birthday since my 2nd ever through high school. We drifted apart in college but reconnected when we both ended up in Seattle after the turn to the new millennium. And stayed in touch through her saying goodbye to her father in a prison hospital. We grew life at the same time, gave life within a month of each other. We had girls, then, later, boys. We have lived our lives in parallel. Not the same. Not even together. But coming together every so often to witness, to share, to commiserate, to wonder and take turns feeling lost and confused.

And after finding pictures of our parents enjoying games and drinks, I sent them to my childhood neighbor friends. In some ways, those are my strongest memories. Because they were my first memories? Because they were so full of love and fun and joy? All of that. 

And this blog is filled with me realizing again and again that I don't remember if I don't write it down. And weeks and months and years pass, and the continuity of my experience means I don't learn, don't note the passing of time and lessons and love and joy. So, here is one. I am so grateful. I am so full right now of the bigness and strangeness of life. 

"Finding Your Own North Star" - Martha Beck

 Martha Beck - we carry 2 different selves in our heads, some speaking more loudly than others.

• Social self - learn from our families and cultures about what's "good" and what we "should" want. But also provides the skills that carry us toward our goals.
• Essential self - get from your genes. our inner child. helps you to know what you "really" want (even if no one else benefits).