Change takes place in a moment of choice. There are no strings attached but the ones we hold in our own hands. What takes time and work is the willingness to let go of the strings.

FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

“Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.  Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.”  Samuel Ullman

SYMPHONY OF SILENCE

Sitting in the morning quiet of my office, I realize what a rich word silence is. Silence isn’t the absence of sound. Silence creates a space for a symphony of sounds: 

The wind wiggling the large magnolia leaves, freeing the tree of last years leftovers.
The tick of the clock.
The whir of the ceiling fan.
The creak of the window sill.
Birds landing lightly in the leaves and skittering away with a giant whoosh.
My dogs breathy sighs.
Birdsong bringing the day to life.
The faintest flicker of the candle’s flame.
The train blowing a whistle full of blues into the dawn.
It’s a wonder I can hear myself think in all this noise!
That’s exactly it. Silence is wonder.

Usually, the dictionary definitions disappoint. They glide across a word rather than sinking into it, like landing in layers of deep downy quilts. But in this case, Webster almost captures the essence of wonder: “rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience.” Silence opens up room to pay rapt attention. It invites our curiosity to step outside the chatter and the clatter of an idle mind into the awesomely mysterious womb of the universe just inside our imagination. Silence awakens my senses and I feel the breeze brushes past me like cool silk on clean skin moving over me like mist on water. Stories begin to stir. I can hear myself think.

SCARS

Our scars hold the wisdom gained from experience. They enhance our beauty and show the courage of our spirit. I am reminded of my strength.

MEMORIES

The myth of who we were, 

where does it go when the photos fade,

and the tapestries go thread bare,

while the story well runs dry?

What part of us endures 

when we go where memory can not follow?

SHAME

  Working with young people that have suffered deep trauma, often in isolation and without a supportive network of resources can be heartbreaking. It’s especially hard when I know that there is treatment. What’s even harder to communicate is that there is a loving, healing presence in every one of us who loves us even when we see ourselves as totally unlovable. I know I cannot fix but I hope my eyes reflect that presence and my actions in those critical moments are unconditional in their love.

I know a boy who was set to burning.

His secrets caught fire and the silence raged out of control.

Consumed by the thoughts of the many,

he was lost to the presence of The One

Cowbird Attraction

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I found a site called Cowbird around mid-February. It’s a small community of writers. It’s been an amazing, healing, validating experience. The quality of the writing is quite good but the thing that inspires me and moves me the most is the courage people show in making themselves vulnerable to the group. The sharing comes from a deep place where we are all broken. There’s no “if you think you’ve got it bad wait until you hear this.” There’s a tenderness and respect for everyone who shares. It’s not a confessional site. People don’t respond with advice or judgments.  They show their support by “loving” your post and by continuing to share about their own life. The site accommodates sound and pictures which really enriches the experience and the writers are from all over the world. Another amazing and humbling thing. They write in English as if it was their native tongue which is quite challenging when it comes to poetry, metaphors and imagery.

It’s rare that I let a day go by without getting on the site. The way it is set up you develop an audience by people indicating they would like to know when you post a story. In the same way you become a member of someone else’s audience when you are interested or inspired by their stories. The circle continues to grow. You really do get to know one another by seeing each person’s daily life evolve as they share stories of the present, past or hopes for the future. 

The global perspective is awesome.  For example, the papers were reporting a story about the Occupy people being removed from a park in London. At the same time one of the Cowbirder’s, who lives within sight of what was happening, was posting about what she was seeing.  It validates all that we have in common as humans inhabiting the same planet as we tell our stories and share feelings we all identify with. It also shows us how varied our global cultures are by bringing a wide variety of perspectives to each story shared. Where else could you hear the insides of a tree groan its story, or the sound of ancient working water wheels in Syria or the sound of a child’s laughter on another continent?

It’s not addictive but it is enticing. The feeling of a site visit is similar to going to coffee with friends. There’s an intimacy involved that is so very different from the urgent, thoughtless spewing of too much information we often get from the internet’s social media (although there is a place and benefits from sites like Facebook).

I don’t want to stop my blogging though. It is also fulfilling. It asks me to dig a little deeper, expand my perspective and loosen my control. It seems the old adage of a place for everything is quite true even in this digital age.

My Own Thoughts

   Lately I've been steeped in the thoughts of others, especially regarding my spiritual journey. My two years at Andover Seminary, while not resulting in an M.Div., were seminal in breaking wide open the God box. I found there's a place for me, rather I should say I found there's room for me. Place reflects stability,  a sense of the unchanging. The study of God is broad and deep but it is not static.
    We're all on one big scavenger hunt with our lists in hand and when we collect everything on the list we hope we will get the grand prize. We will find GOD. Perhaps we already have found The One because the fact that we are searching is a manifestation that it already exists in our imagination or we wouldn't be looking. Everyone is in the haystack digging around for the needle but each seeker has a unique vision of the needle. So perhaps The One is really The Many.
   Studying the early church was frustrating due to my own narrow mindedness, ignorance and fear. I had no understanding of the cultural context in which it existed. What I saw as an attempt by the early church fathers to limit God by putting him into a finite man-made box was God revealing itself to people in the language of their particular historical and social setting. They were a diverse bunch and they too each had their own unique vision of the needle. The formation of Christianity as we look back on it from the twenty-first century was hardly the harmonious gathering of like-minded people we are encouraged to be today. It was steeped in the same political controversies and heresies that we are still muddling through. And just as today, these controversies are not so much about God as they are expressions of the tensions of transition, political and otherwise. Change is at the heart of the divine nature. God refuses to be trussed up and displayed in a carnival side-show.
   The more I read, listen, look, and pay attention to the details, the bigger God gets. This is fine with me because, quite frankly, I want a great big God, a God so big there's no hope of having a complete understanding. Just managing my little slice of the universe is quite demanding enough for me. But I have noticed that this Great Big Deity occasionally curls up inside me for one-on-one time. I don't know how it happens. I just know those are my most precious moments. I doubt if it's just my own voice speaking to me because I often hear what I don't want to hear. This presence often confuses with me with someone who is much more courageous, compassionate and talented than I am. But oddly when I'm called to be more than I believe I am, I rise to the occasion.
   

Suicide's Gift

    Gus is a big, soft sack of white feathers or so he seems when his furry 100 lb.-body is curled up at my feet. He’s my most cherished companion, comforter, jester and teacher.  Over the years I’ve come to respect the wisdom of his way of being in the world.  

There was a time when the tree of my life with its gnarled trunk nicked with lessons and loss and its deep rings reflecting a resilience of spirit just evaporated and with it my identity. Gone. The landscape of my memories was clear-cut and unfamiliar. My 23-year-old son committed suicide. 

   What was left of me was unidentifiable remains, disembodied pieces that had fallen off the whole. I could only sense life, nothing fully formed, just a petrie dish kind of sensation. The journey to becoming an integral part of existence again seemed far beyond my capabilities.  But there was Gus, so gentle ands so present. He was totally dependent on me to meet his needs - being fed, being walked and kept safe. He reminded me that life’s basic responsibilities were still there.  If I didn’t feed Gus, he barked and acted out. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t punishing me. It wasn’t a judgment, just the natural consequence of not being fed. If I didn’t walk him, well, I knew the consequences. He wasn’t telling me to stuff my grief and sadness, that he came first. He was just reminding me that for every action there’s a reaction. Slowly, I felt a sense of balance return. I was still deeply sad and at times overwhelmed but I knew I could meet life’s basic needs. Routine could be a life saver. My canine angel was showing me that not everything is personal, not all cause and effect is a judgment. Life happened to me not because of me. 

   Gus also taught me a universal language that allows all life to communicate. It was a language without words that I had dismissed as foolish, irrational and childish many years before. It was the language of instinct and intuition. It seems I’d known it all along. 

I knew just what Gus was telling me when he circled and growled rather than barking a greeting and approaching to be petted. I knew what he meant when he placed himself between me and a stranger with his tail perfectly still and straight. And he was always right. Gus helped me recover a gift of birth - to listen to what isn’t said and trust what isn’t seen. He’s the unconditional love that kept me safe until I learned to laugh again, to hope again and to see life as a circle of events that unites us even in our grief. He was my son’s final gift to me and I am grateful.

Valentine

   What a gift to be married to a man who makes me feel loved 365 days a year. We don’t need cards or gifts to show it. The romance in our lives has not disappeared. It just looks different as we move through our sixties. We certainly don’t take our love for granted, far from it. We acknowledge it and show it to one another daily. We also acknowledge the special days but with a hug or a kiss. The “need” to surprise, to WOW, to outdo isn’t there anymore nor is the guilt-driven expectation to satisfy at all costs. Love and intimacy are finally expressions of the heart.

   Each time Al does the laundry, goes grocery shopping, brings me coffee, vacuums the house, always without being asked, he is saying more emphatically than any card could say, I love you, Katie. Although Al knew I had Multiple Sclerosis when we married, neither of us imagined that I would get so weak that I’d be unable to do those routine chores that he’s taken on with tenderness and humor.

   My most cherished gift from Al is the lesson of receiving. Through the distorted lens of pride and ego, I saw strength and independence as admirable character traits. Unfortunately, I defined strength as willpower and independence as needing no one. Al patiently let me know that when I refused his help he felt rejected. It was as if I was saying “You have nothing I need or want.” Rather than arguing or chastising, he asked if I liked giving to others. When I answered yes, he asked why, then, would I not want others to have that same experience. Always giving ran the well dry after a while and “clogged up the universe” because without receivers, givers could’t exist. It was the most important AHA moment I’ve had. So simple and direct. I got it. Giving isn’t a competitive sport with winners and losers. It’s a mutual exchange of compassion and understanding.

   Over the years, it’s our weaknesses, our flaws and missteps that have led to a love that doesn’t need cards and gifts. I had never known a solid love where acceptance and respect were the foundation. It’s a love I hope to grow old sharing.

Grandfather's Ashes

   It is April.  I stand on the front porch of his farmhouse, built simple and solid as my grandfather’s nature.  Grandfather, the hinge on which our family swung, was a simple weave of dignity and duty, abundant in the ordinary. I remember how he stood straight as a steeple in the sun-bleached, denim dawn and at sunset, how his scent would crack the evening air like fresh dug dirt. He was a farmer who knew what the land asked of him and in return it held the memory of all that made him whole. 

   It was here, in the fragrance of cedar and cigars, I heard the rooftop rooster spin the stories of the wind and I learned to wonder at the size and shape of the weather. It was here, in the kitchen that his stove-hot words of whiskey wisdom were soothed as we hummed the rich, smooth harmonies of poetry and prayer. It was here, he would tip the tables of time with his stories then gently roll our questions to a boil and set our dreams to simmer in our sleep.   

   And it was here I remember a spring when there were no flowers, when the sun slept through the day and the windows wept. It was here, in the hand-rubbed mahogany of a four poster garden where the seeds of my family tree were sown, here, that his whiskey washed my innocence away. It was here I learned the sound of truth was silence.

   It is April.  I stand outside his farmhouse. I anoint the soil of the past with his ashes and I forgive him for the sin he never understood.

   I love my life. I was just reading a blog from a woman teaching yoga and practicing a positive way of being in the world. Her post reflects so much of what I've learned over the years about being responsible for my life and in that comes freedom and happiness. The key is infinite supply. As the blogger puts it, "once I opened the floodgates to There is enough for everyone, I started to believe it, teach it, and experience it daily."  
   When asked how to achieve this attitude or maintain it when things go dark, she references how she teaches yoga to special needs kids.  She asks them two questions:
     1. What do you love about yourself?
     2. What are you grateful for?
She is amazed because these children, many of them facing severe limitations such as blindness and autism, are always ready with their answers. Yet in a room full of healthy adults she can hear nothing but "crickets chirping and tumble weeds blowing." What secret do these amazing little souls have? What secrets have we adults forgotten? Her students provided a list of things that remind us how to stay positive, how to get in touch with "enough."

• Make a Joy List.  Post it somewhere where you can see it.
• Create mantras for yourself. We do this in my yoga class, as well. Create a phrase or a word and repeat it as often as needed to replace another mantra that no longer serves you, such as “My life sucks” “I am fat” “I am broke,” etc.
• Laugh when you fall. Develop a sense of humor. Especially about yourself.
• Be kind.
• Be grateful for what you have right now AND for what is on it’s way. Say “thank you” in advance.
• Forgive yourself for not being perfect. No such thing. 
• Find things to be in awe of.
• Sing out loud, 
• Write poems, even if only in your head.
• Dance.
• If you don’t have anything nice to say....
• Tell someone that you love them right now.
• Take more pictures.
• Watch Modern Family.

   How often I've forgotten what those amazing children know instinctively; not only is there enough for everyone, I am enough. 

   Life experience is a patient and wise teacher. It's lessons are tailor-made just for us. These lessons are meant to show us we are capable, worthy and lovable. Instead, we get comfortable living in the problem and deny we ever knew the solution. Today I can say with confidence I am living in the solution and Eden isn't a biblical metaphor for some make-believe place. It's as real and as close as the floor under my feet.

   

Titillation

I sipped you,
sampled you,
but never  tongued your texture,
swallowed you whole.
I was afraid I'd like it too much
and there wouldn't be enough of you
to last a lifetime.

“Write Where You’re At.” John Updike

     Where I’m at always seems to sit in the shadow of where I’ve been.  My past has been the unwelcome guest who refuses to take my polite attempts at showing him the door. It’s unclear if he is socially clumsy and unaware or just dense and unable to take a hint. For many years, journaling freed me by providing context to my understanding of the seemingly unrelated events that stippled my memory. Now, the past is quick sand. I’m stuck, sinking slowly into what is no longer there. I’ve been through therapy, in-patient treatment, out-patient treatment, acceptance and denial but I haven’t addressed my past directly. The time has come to say what I mean, mean what I say and not say it mean. 

Mr. Past, it’s time for you to go. You’re no longer helping me. You’ve become a crutch that keeps me dependent, a daily reminder that from my earliest years I struggled to stand up for myself for fear of the consequences. Whatever was true then, I am no longer that frightened, ashamed child who was taught by frightened, ashamed adults that the world is a dangerous, dark forest where might makes right and bullies are brave. The fears are now right-sized and powerless, occasional projections of misplaced insecurities. I’m ready to “live as if I was dying and today was the last day, I’m going sky diving and singing all the way.”

So, Mr. Past, thank you. When my journey seemed nothing more than a carnival tour of shattered images and distorted mirrors, you shined a light on the talents and the skills hiding deep inside me. When all I heard was silence, you showed me the sweet spot where the divine lives wrapped in hope. I see now that I can do so many things right because I did so many things wrong. 

My dear Past, I see now that I’m the one who’s held you as a hostage, an old, gray ghost of gloom and doom when, in truth, you have always been a wise guide, bold and beautiful who made me strong enough to send roots down deep into the earth, brave enough to bloom where I’m planted and confident enough to explore the hard to reach places.  As I move on, I will look for your light and be grateful for the time we spend together.

Elizabeth Gilbert: A new way to think about creativity

Cemetery Song

Since you left this earth

on the burst of a bullet

I sing my sorrow to a stone

and wonder

will I know you when forever comes?

True Intimacy is Mutual Vulnerability

Childhood abuse is traumatic. It crept through me like ivy on brick. Inevitably its tiny tentacles fused to the mortar of my being. Overtime it damaged just about anything it touched leaving little or nothing to hold me together. When left alone too long, it leaves skeleton-like marks where its tendrils have been stuck causing a rot that is nearly impossible to remove. Although the process would be painstaking, I knew that if I was patient and persistent that just like brick can be cleaned of the ivy, I could become whole. In the case of ivy, the key was that the leafy top layer must be dead awhile before it comes off easily allowing the stubborn layer of new under growth still deeply embedded in the wall to be scrubbed away. In the case of my abuse, the key was that I needed to remove myself from my abusers. I needed to step away from family situations before my wounds could be cleaned out and scab over.

   That top leafy layer can be deceptively easy to remove once you’re ready to address the problem. Like removing the dead ivy vines, the first stages in acknowledging abuse were unwieldy. They left me physically exhausted with some surface cuts and scratches but I also felt a certain sense of pride and accomplishment. I finally have a feeling of self-worth. Self-worth is a pretty heady feeling after years of being everyone’s reflection. It's given me the courage and motivation to scrub away that stubborn layer of undergrowth. For the first time I feel capable and worthy of a fresh, clean environment. 
   The choice to uproot myself from the soil I grew up in took one moment in time. It wasn't hard at all. Behaving my way into that change is quite another thing.

Enough

In those slow motion moments
right before waking,
that deep-as-death, bottomless hole
yawns wide within her and
in those moments 
she knows
she will never be enough


   Years of therapy, years of sobriety, and still my instinctual response to being in the world is I'm missing something that everyone else has. I'm a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle complete but for that one piece. Waking each morning with that awareness was enough to send me into my day handicapped, a poser who couldn't let anyone close enough to see the flaws. Every activity, every interaction required a different mask. It was an exhausting way to live.
   Today, feeling inadequate is still instinctual but I know it is my own choice. I've learned that "enough" is a judgment I make about myself, not one that I let others make. At times I have been overwhelmed, confused, uncomfortable and frightened by my FEELINGS, certain that I was facing failure or rejection. At the center of every situation was a fear of loss. Not only was I not enough but I would never have enough. Now, as I look back at those challenges, I lived through every one of them and all that I feared never happened. My experience tells me that I am as capable as I need to be, as capable as I believe myself to be. One of the gifts of getting older is the wisdom that comes with each life experience and the added benefit of having the time to reflect on it. Wisdom has shown me that feelings aren't facts, they can be changed with a thought. Wisdom says believe the facts not the feelings and the fact is that I have been, that I am and that I always will be enough.


I woke with the breath of a believer
in all that is being better than all that was.

I Should, I Can, I Will

  It’s always been so easy to give up on my writing by thinking that whatever I had to say had already been said by someone else far better than I could say it. But if that was true, we would not still be writing about topics as old as humankind such as murder, jealousy, bigotry, courage, love, parenthood and all the emotions they invoke. The uniqueness of a story’s plot may hold our interest but what makes it meaningful is that our stories connect us to each other. It’s humanity's common ground regardless of our particular circumstances. Our narratives are mirrors, operating instructions, ancestral memories, cautionary tales. As the brilliance of a diamond is reflected in its numerous facets, the universal truths of our existence are reflected in the many lenses of our individual perspectives.  Each telling unfolds a new layer of self. It creates a safe space to intimately share the experience of the other in the imaginary world on the page.

   To withhold my story is not an act of humility. It's selfish. I believe that each of us has a responsibility to add our story to the human record. What ever way we are drawn to tell it, be it as a writer, an artist, a teacher, a parent, a friend, we can be certain that we have also been given the talent and ability to share it. With each story we are reborn, a little wiser, more compassionate, more courageous more inspired. I may not feel comfortable putting myself out there to be judged, critiqued, ignored or laughed at, but that’s my ego. My heart knows that the reason I write is to reach out to others with my life experience and to let them know they are not alone.

Forgiveness

I stumbled under the weight of my anger oh God

and in that brief moment, You stopped being enough.  

I chose to live in the fiction of my wounds.  

Now I’m back at the fire’s edge, 

uncomfortable with its beauty, 

fearful of my desire to return to the flames.  

Fragile as ash I come to you Father, 

seeking the eternal yes of your forgiveness.  

Remove the bitter taste of sin from my tongue and let me be a place where flowers grow.

   I've been away from the blog for awhile but not because I've given up on writing. I actually wrote and submitted something. It was like removing the albatross from my neck. In years past, I would always set myself up for failure. I couldn't submit just anywhere. If it wasn't a "prestigious" journal or site, being accepted wouldn't mean anything. Of course I did't think I was good enough to be accepted by an established journal so I put myself between a rock and a hard place because I had an inflated, insecure ego calling the shots. It was easier just to wiggle away. 
   One of my favorite blogs is NPR's On Being. As I was reading it last week, I noticed that they took submissions. I wrote a piece about my journey to trusting my own talent and I submitted it with a poem. It was fun! I've got no anxiety about being accepted. The whole exercise was about believing in myself. It was about keeping things right-sized and packing up my ego-based fears and putting them in a box outside. It worked. I did what I have never allowed myself to do. Now I can go back to writing for fun. The page is a magic carpet ride again.

   I've missed posting. Self-discipline has never been a strong suit for me but there's a new me emerging. It's not too late to become the person I imagined myself to be. I've seen myself as a writer. I've seen myself as dependable. I've seen myself behaving what I believe. The discipline of blogging has actually helped me in all three areas. I can count on myself to show up on the page. My creativity is returning and sparking my imagination. I've embraced my inner critic as annoying but well-meaning and I've taken rules, competition and comparison off the table when I write. 
   I've just finished Burn This Book, an anthology of writers on why they write. The reasons were not so unique or lofty as I always imagine. Like me, they are people who write because they love it, they feel the need to write, they have a story that they must tell, they want to understand themselves and their world, they want to make a difference. It was helpful to remove authors from the ivory tower where I've put them. 

Fresh Starts

Life is grace. Sleep is forgiveness. The night absolves. Darkness wipes the slate clean, not spotless to be sure, but clean enough for another day’s chalking.”
― Frederick Buechner, The Alphabet of Grace

New Neighbors

I am really enjoying the creative opportunities that this blog is providing. I'm using the blog as a practice of discipline. I'm using it to reignite my creative embers before they turn to ash and I'm challenging myself to learn new skills to stay relevant as the world expands beyond what I currently know. But the best part is becoming a part of a new community made up of an eclectic group of imaginative neighbors who have inspired me to leap, tumble, sky-walk and spin with the abandon of a six-year old. I recently stopped by Summer Pierre's home at www.summerpierre.com where I found the post to the left. It reminded me that the blank page is not the only place a writer meets the magic of unlimited possibility. It also reminded me that I would sell my little six-year old soul for a Black Cow, two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice-cream in a frosty mug of Hire's root beer. 

My Father's Eyes

It's not much but it's a start. It's words on a page. The start of a story. It's a start.
  
I don’t know how my father’s eyes looked, if they were light brown or speckled with bits of black. I do know when they filled with wanting my innocence. I know when they were crystal balls that held my future. I know he smelled of old spice and beer and that he played catch in the street with me after a long day at work, still in his crisp white collar and cuffs and I know that his laugh was genuine when I caught the grounders he sent right to me feet. I know he wanted to find some part of himself every time he lost himself in me.  And so I believed that I carried the answers to his unasked questions. I was the Treasure Island that held the missing pieces of his soul.  

I’ve spent my entire life looking for those pieces so I could rid myself of what would make him whole, so he wouldn’t come looking to me anymore.  If only I could give him what he wanted, what he needed then he would stop hurting, we would stop hurting. I know he spent everyday at morning mass because he hoped that the penance and the prayers could obliterate the sins. I know I stopped going to mass because I knew they couldn’t.

The Devil Is In The Details

There’s been a group of characters in my head for about ten years, patiently waiting to tell their story. I’m not sure why they’ve chosen me, the poster child for procrastinators, but it appears their persistence has worn me down. Their voices are louder, more insistent. They won’t be put off anymore by my “aw shucks” shuffle of false humility and claims that I’m too old, I don’t have time, I don’t know how. They’re totally insensitive to my fears. What I hear ringing in my ears is their chorus of “Just Do It.” Coincidence? I think not. A good friend told me years ago that sometimes we speak for our own good and we say what we most need to hear. “Start, one letter at a time, one word at a time, Just Do It.” So...

   The characters have already let me know that I work for them or at least I’m going to represent them. I don’t want to let myself down again and stop before I’ve started. I’m terrified of losing control. (Hello Inner Critic and I see you’ve brought my self-doubt with you.) I don’t notice details, the little things that make a character unique, that anchor them in a particular place and time. And how can I tell a good story without details???

   One of my favorite authors, Robert McCammon not only takes an interest in detail but uses words like a master artist uses color. In Boy’s Life, http://books.simonandschuster.com/Boy's-Life/Robert-McCammon/9781442349223you don’t just see a rug, you see through the “yellow lamplight” an “Indian rug red as Cochise’s blood.” You hear the “space heater rumbling.” You notice that his “shelves go on for miles and miles” piled high with “stacks of hundreds of comic books - Green Lantern, Batman, Aquaman and dozens of issues of Boy’s Life magazine.” He doesn’t just have an old Civil War relic, he has a “Civil War button that fell from a butternut uniform when the storm swept Shiloh.” When you leave those two opening paragraphs, you know this boy well enough to get him the perfect birthday present. You also can imagine just where it will go in his room. The reader has been treated to a lush, seven course feast rich with language that won’t be soon forgotten. I don’t want to be Robert McCammon. I just long to use language with the skill and artistry that he does.      

   I do notice, I just notice differently. I may draw a blank when asked to describe what the Seventh Day Adventist at my door was wearing but I can tell you that she had experienced enough doors slamming in her face that her eyes avoided mine. I can tell you that she used the literature she carried to keep me at a distance and I can tell you that her voice softened when I asked her in. I may not be able to describe the details of a room so vividly that you can feel the stitching on a quilt or smell the scent of dying roses but I can capture the fear in a room, the longing in a touch and the truth in a tangle of words. I know how it feels to weave words into a collage of images that opens yesterday into today and beyond.

   Robert McCammon is a breadcrumb on my journey, a reminder of all that’s possible when I let go and trust my talent. I think it’s time to stop writing about writing and write.

Just Do It

Inner Critic

Writers have been familiar with the phrase “Just Do It” long before it was branded by NIKE. Just Do It; one letter at a time, one word at a time; Just Do It; face that blank little sheet of paper that holds every fear, every criticism, every failure I’ve perceived since childhood magnified by a loud speaker and playing on an infinite loop. All writer’s must start the same way. They Just Do It. If that isn’t hard enough, once they’ve formed that first letter, most writers must face their inner critic. It’s relentless and finds fault with every word, every thought, every moment wasted on such a futile effort. Good writers learn to ignore or silence that critic which gives me hope.

   But wait. I’m all start and no finish or so says my constant companion, the ugly little troll that is my inner critic. When my pen touches the paper, my personal history starts to break through like rough roots rising against the ground. The monster of self-doubt threatens to swallow me whole if I continue. For the better part of sixty years I’ve run to safety in a place built on lies of omission where I’ve reinvented a self that has no demons. So after sixty years of avoidance, with my doubt stuffed in my back pocket for now, I’m going to trust my talent and Just Do It.

   It’s time to gather all the pieces of myself I’ve carelessly scattered in the lives from my past. It’s time to face my fears and reclaim what makes me whole. After all, how alive am I if I cannot answer “Here” when life calls out my name, if I cannot stand before my world clothed in the cloth I was cut from?

The Price of Ownership

I write to remember. I write to grow roots where I’m planted. I write to grow wings and soar above all that I know. Since I learned to form letters, the page has always been my best friend. I could trust it with my secrets and my fears, with my dreams and disappointments. It was my only safe place, the one place I could take chances without risk of ridicule. On the page there were no rules. There was nothing I could’t do.

   I’ve never lost my love of language but I think I have been a bit of a Peter Pan about writing and the page has been my Neverland. The child in me has hoarded the gift of writing. I’ve been unwilling to share and like all captured things, words become hollow when they are hidden away and not allowed to grow and change in the minds of others. As I’ve grown older, the gift freely given by what I can only call a Higher Power, has become a burden. 

   The page was a safe place, because it welcomed me, comforted me, encouraged me. It freed me from the dark, twisted tangle of a forest that my home had become. My hidden journals were the only things I felt were mine and so I felt I had to protect them. Whatever I wrote was now tinged by fear, a fear of loss. As time progressed, a child’s loneliness became an adult’s resentment. My fear had made me selfish. It had turned a gift into a possession. I no longer approached that clean white space as a magic place where anything could happen. Anticipation turned into procrastination. I’d lost the need to call out who I was. 

   Writing has become a serious business. No longer do I quickly abandon what doesn’t work in the spontaneity of the moment. What doesn’t work is now a failure followed by retreats into shame and self-doubt. The price of ownership has taken a heavy toll.

Healing by Paying Attention

When I’m hurt I so often forget to pay attention to the little details that lead to healing. I miss the kind word of a friend, the sharing of wisdom when actively listening to the pain of another, a song, a bumper sticker or any number of other "signs" that become background noise in my daily routines. After reading my post about the effects of being brought up Catholic, I realized the chip on my shoulder may no longer feel like a boulder, but it hasn't become pebble sized either. I'm walking along a muddy ditch of resentment, angry that I keep getting my new shoes dirty. My days are spent trying to avoid the mud rather than crossing to the freshly swept, beautifully landscaped side of the street where mud does not exist.

Wishing Wells, Waterfalls and Wings

     With age comes awareness and a major awareness of mine has been that the easier, softer way to live is to go with the flow. Since I spend much of my day living in my head, awarenesses usually take root as a mental process. The next step is giving my thoughts a voice. This is the messy part, moving from the drawing board to the dry runs. It is where the I meets the Other. It is relational. Not a strong point for me. I'm not a multi-tasker by nature and relationships require the ability to listen deeply by giving full and undivided attention, followed by reflection, interpretation, feedback and clarification. Once through the loop is challenging enough but the key to success is refinement through repetition. Rarely do I hear during the clarification step, "That's exactly what I meant. You've got it now!" So around I go again only this isn't a case of practice makes perfect. Each relationship experience is unique. It has a different lesson to teach. It doesn't lend itself to a streamlined efficiency. What awareness is teaching me is that my process is my life's rhythm.  It's my own flow that I need to go with. Who knew? All these years I thought "Go with the flow" meant moving in harmony with the majority, moving with the herd. I was never comfortable in the herd but move too far towards the edge, outside the herd's protection, well then you are just prime for the picking.  The image that comes to mind is trying to walk in a large crowd exiting a sporting event or a concert or a church service lasting longer than the allotted 30 minutes on a game Sunday. Everyone is moving in the same direction but lose your footing and you are herd fodder. If you stay seated until the aisles have cleared, it's steady as you go.
     One of the great benefits of Blogging - showing up on the page and finding yourself in the middle of an AHA moment. Think I'll go with my flow, honor the moment and get cozy with that Inner Presence. A little reflection time might reduce further blather and seed my imagination.  To Be Continued...

God - Wall, Window or Fresh Air

     As a child, I knew my name, I knew my address, I knew my age, I could spell "ice cream" and I knew that I was a Catholic. Catholics went to heaven. Non-Catholics did not. God loved Catholics. God wanted to love non-Catholics but he could only love them if they became Catholics. God had a son named Jesus. Jesus was an only child. Jesus always obeyed his father and he never did anything wrong. He was kind of human but he was perfect, something humans could never be. His father sent him to save humans because we were sinners and did a lot of very bad things. If Jesus didn't suffer and die, humans couldn't go to heaven. Occasionally I forgot my address, sometimes I even forgot how to spell my last name or how old I was. Two things I never forgot were how to spell "ice cream" and what it meant to be a Catholic.
        From the universal Catholic Church point of view ours was a messy family. My mother was a German Lutheran who didn't see the point to hopping on the heaven train if she had to leave her grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews behind. Her youngest brother's wife, my favorite aunt, was Jewish. We never even talked about that. My brother married his high school sweetheart. None of the Catholic part of the family attended because it would have been a sin to attend the marriage of a catholic to a non-catholic. Apparently turning your back on a family member wasn't considered one of the bad things that kept you out of heaven but it was one my earliest memories of being confused and frightened. 
     I'm not sure if where I've been is as important as where I am on a spiritual journey but I've never looked back without a chip on my shoulder. I say I'm past it. I nobly proclaim forgiveness and understanding yet I still struggle to let go. The older I get the less I know, the more I doubt and the more I feel it's ok to sense a presence greater than myself within me that I can't explain. I'm more interested in keeping the connection than I am in understanding it. Today God is the fresh air, institutionalized religion is the wall and people are the windows. For now that's enough.