A Blank Screen

The challenge of an empty page is minor in respect to the vulnerability of the one who decorates and illumines it with words, especially when done in a seemingly insignificant public forum as an obscure blog--but public no less.  Exposure to one's own thoughts on paper or a blank screen is at times, brutal. This is known to anyone who keeps a private journal.  To choose to expose oneself may entail limitations on what is written.  Necessary, this is to spare the reader the excessive detritus of our lives.  To engage in such cluttered prose is unfortunate when our brains cannot adequately engage our bodies to write fast enough to produce on paper (or a screen) the words that come unrelentingly to our minds. In that failure, as it seems, we feel much is lost in what was meant to be written.  Perhaps not.

Still, some things are too precious to allow a type of censure that restricts the honesty of  a moment when joy breaks through.  I had that moment this morning when I returned an item to my daughter's room.  I noticed the "pillow pet" on her bed.  She told me yesterday her dad wasn't too pleased when she cajoled him into buying it.  "Cajoled" was not the word he used when he told me the story.  Seeing the red shaggy eared dog, with little red hearts on his white belly, I couldn't help but think of the heart of this girl of mine.  Tucked between the wall and mattress, there is stuffed blue bear, a brown one, and a tumble of bright blankets.  She sleeps in a cold room in our house, a room that gathers ambient heat, and sometimes I can hardly find her in the tangle of her bed.  But this latest addition to her sleeping environment is its own kind of warmth in the world of a 15 year old that has cold and tearful lessons for her, the kind that erode large pieces of childhood innocence.  These are her earliest, no doubt.

As the youngest of five, this precious one, has known a mother different from that of her older siblings, not intrisically, but stylistically, I suppose.  She is bright and tough in ways that they are not.  She is cautious and reserved to degrees they don't exhibit. Though there are "family resemblances," each child is as unique as each of us, a mother just sees this in ways others do not.  Each child of mine decidedly had a different "mother" in me, more likely invoked by their evolving personalities, which in turn evolved mine. My adventure in parenting is more than 27 years in the making, and it brightens as it mellows, sharp and subliminal at turns. This evolution of souls, theirs and mine, and now that of a young woman in a world that can be achingly cold is a marvel to behold.  I remind myself that we are all "works in progress."   Souls, each and all of us, are evolving in a universe that is purposeful, meaningful and created in love.  This universe renders a stuffed toy to warm a young girl's heart, but it also engenders a moment for a mother to reflect the preciousness of knowing the heart's need of a child, her child.  Her father understands this too.

In raising five children it is often difficult in the "now" of any challenge to ponder the important work it is and the cosmic value that it has, much less the imperative to try to do it well.  When you have the opportunity to ponder--and despite the intensity of any given moment--you do have that eventually, it is an affirmation that you have done reasonably well if you find joy, meaning, and relevance.  At times I get caught up in the many failures, the small regrets, the moments that I let pass without seizing or reflecting.  Of course, being reminded of them by my children can magnify them in my mind, but that keeps me humble.   And humility is the key to joy, and the best way to approach the blank screen.

An Exercise in Exercise

The treadmill; what an incredibly ingenous way to harness the energy of man or beast to power something.  I think particularly of Scrooge's comment regarding the dilemma of care for the penniless and powerless, "are there no poorhouses, are there no treadmills?"  I ponder this as I submit to the tedium of a different sort of the same instrument that requires electricity to function, and powers nothing but my own sense of wanting to respond to my body's need to move. 

The treadmill is torture without the tremendous grace of music in the form of an ipod which sometimes has the uncanny ability to deliver songs in a way that powerfully pulls me out of the drudgery of what I am doing--and the pathetic irony, as well.   My work-out today was blessed in that way. 

So when Gino Vannelli's "Venus Envy" is the first song for the warm-up I can't help but hope that those who believe they dramatically differ from the ideal the song speaks of, feel far less so in hearing their intrinsic worth affirmed by one whose voice is its own Venus of sorts.  From there, Yes' "It'll Be A Good Day" affirms the rightness and goodness of everything, as John Anderson always communicates in his amazingly resonating way--well, at least for me (and his millions of long, long time fans.)  I can't help but assent to his wisdom so many times in my life.

After a few more tunes that challenge my urge to want to just dance, and inspires some moves that would look weird in a public gym, I start to wonder how long I've been at this repetive effort that sometimes seems a metaphor for my life--moving quickly and getting nowhere. 

I generally don't engage the "scan" function on the treadmill which records my time, calories burned, etc, until a few songs anyway because I can't bear how long it takes to feel like I'm accomplishing anything or burning significant calories.   So, I wait til I break a sweat, or I wait for the next song to end.  I decided to do that today, and the next song was Bob Dylan's "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" an 8:37 ballad that has a perfect beat for going 4 miles an hour.  And I can't help but feel that God has a sense of humor, the universe moves in ways we scarcely understand, and we move with it, forward.  I also think about if you take the word ipod and flip the "p" over you have a "g".  Certainly this little purple device I love best of all my possessions is filled with the sacred--in digital form. 

At the end of this song, I hit the "scan" button, and I have finished the 2 miles I wanted to achieve--2.11 miles, actually, in 35 minutes.  And I loved every one of them!

What endures

Despite the pace of the season, the personal challenges it brings this year, there is this sense that I must be about the business for which I am gifted, my writing.  So, back to the blog.  In the midst of dusting a bookshelf so I can place my overflowing books at the very top (not necessarily a wise thing in earthquake prone Alaska) I came across one of the many journals I have started at various times.  Perhaps you know the ones, those that have a few pages that rail against some personal or societal imperfection--generally the former for me--but rarely are sustained.

Similar in appearance is the one I found, but its pages were a blessing so often looked for but not always found this time of year.  I took this on a journey, wrote one page, and then abandoned it.  Finding it today, however, it is clear to me that the orchestration of our lives is hardly random and even less devoid of meaning at any and all times.

As many of you know, my mother died just a few weeks ago.  Deterred at times by my own mourning and the demands of the season we place upon ourselves, understandably and otherwise, I have written nothing of my thoughts of this time of healing.

Perhaps what is written below will suffice for now.  It was written on December 14, 2004 in Iron Mountain, Michigan while at my mother's house:

   The first gift is realizing that all situations, challenges, choices are best faced with an attitude of love.  It seems as though the chaos, the pain of loss, the overwhelming emotional challenge of facing death is best navigated with Love as a companion.  When Love is captain of the voyage through grief, the journey brings even more gifts.  Strength, generosity, patience, hope, and blessed peace.

  To find myself with gratitude without guilt, sorrow sanctified by faith (however fragile) and fear crushed by empowerment is nearly overwhelming, joyful even.  To have the blessed assurance that God's timing is oddly perfect, that good fruits have already been gleaned from a harvest of loss makes my heart sing. 

  Rest in peace, dear daddy, deeper in the heart of the Father of us all.

  And thank-you, for pointing me toward Him and for teaching me to love.


As I breathe back the mist of tears that surface in my eyes, I would like to dedicate this return to blogging to all those with loved ones whose earthly journeys ended this year.  Our shared pain of such loss is so poignant in this time of remembering the abundant grace of Love, whose birth on our planet we celebrate. 

As I navigate my first Christmas as an orphan, I feel lucky to have been adopted by my community of faith, my friends, my family.  The arms of comfort, bewilderment, sorrow and hope that have surrounded me in this time astound me with the affirmation that what endures is Love that is timeless, whole, and sustains us all in endless communion.  The assurance of what I know to be true is the great legacy of two parents whose profound gift to me was a nurtured faith and the ability to express it.

I will honor that all my life.

Distilling

The biggest challenge for me in writing is not at all in not knowing what to say, but in distilling my way of saying it.  This has been so apparent in the crafting of my "reflection" on last weekend's scripture readings, my recent testimony at the AFACT municipal budget forum, and in any attempt to work on the novel I have been writing for several years.  15 lean and clean minutes can be agonizing when the urgency and necessity of what you are saying seems as if it is being wrenched and sifted from your mind, heart and soul in the act of writing it down.  It is more like down and dirty hours for several minutes of spoken words.  Maybe "digestion" is a more accurate term.  Its movement, literally, is not to produce crap, but to sustain life.

The smaller challenge is to take the 15lean and just let it be what it is to be, without editing so much in my head before I type it out on the keyboard.  But I will spare you what sometimes becomes a self-indulgent rant when stream of consciousness goes awry.  Well, maybe not.

Writing makes room for the other, even in the privacy of journal, there is an audience. That could be any one from God to some psychotic voice.  Writing is self speaking to Self, and "other" is illusion.  Of course, in a world of relationship, where our autonomy and independence is prized this does not appear to be so.  What writing seeks is a way to connect on some level with another--another human being, hopefully. The beautiful thoughts that each of us have, regardless of how that are expressed, should be shared in this manner--if only with another one.

A basic yearning and need in human beings is to communicate with others, evident in the the crude grunts of our ancestors to the fascinating connections we make electronically with each other. We now have myriad options to get our words, no matter how mundane, out there.  What a wonderful opportunity and a sacred trust. Perhaps then, when it comes to what we give to the world, we could spend a little more time distilling our words and being careful to remember the true purpose of digestion.

Legit

Of all the legitimate excuses to neglect daily writing (at least on an blog site) the limited access to a keyboard other than the one on my phone is perhaps understandable.  Still, the notebook I brought with me on this two week trip to the land of my birth and early growth still sits in the backpack.  Now, as my vacation winds down and I am left with the necessary task of packing all the goodies of this experience (not just the material ones) I find myself beginning to reclaim the life I live in Alaska.  That life entails not just the day to day details of keeping myself alive and reasonably intact, but is rich in relationship to meaningful work, play and most importantly love of family, friends, the physical environment and of course the self that I have created there.  It is no different from the self that I created here in the quiet and remote places of Wisconsin and Michigan, for my soul knew its earliest yearnings in this land and when I come here again and again the panorama of my life is set before me and I know that I am truly blessed.

Yesterday while driving from the rolling farmlands of central Wisconsin to the more heavily treed knolls of the north, Aron remarked that what was missing from the backdrop of colorful leaves was the omnipresent mountain vistas in Alaska.  Still, he said, Lake Superior is like nothing else, like nothing Alaska offers in all its grandeur and awesomeness.  It brings me joy to hear him say that for the lake is as much a part of who I am as the genes of my ancestors who worked in this land and built lives that would eventually entail my entrance on this physical plane.  That deep connection stirs in me when I stand at the shores of this grand majesty and reflect on the millions of others whose lives are linked in this dark and wild inland sea that is not sea--but so very similar in its expansiveness.  It's unforgiving waters are the graves of many who were caught by its power and its waves are the delight of those who have been fondled in its cool refreshment.  It is the resting place (if such a place can ever be called that) for the ashes of many mortal beloved whose bodies have yielded to the eternal yearnings of the soul.  My brother's are here and hopefully someday mine will be as well.  And so, above all, this place is Holy.

While I yearn to return to the place where my heart took wing and grew in the lush and harsher realm of Alaska, a part of it remains here, with both my ancestors and my progeny.  So my leaving is bittersweet, as all leavings must be.  And the vague tears that form in my eyes and the tightening that gathers like afternoon clouds in my throat are like all things of the heart and the soul--legit.

Not exactly what I had in mind

A part of me feels guilty for having neglected the 15 lean daily here, but then again, I am really accountable to no one but myself.  To say it is a certain amount of busyness that has overtaken my life and prevented me from sitting in front of the computer to write would be a lie, again to myself.  I have sat in front of this computer for too many hours in the last three weeks, posting the mundane details of my life, exchanging discourse with those who both share and oppose my position on various topics.  Never would I say they have been a waste of time.  I do not waste time, I simply use it like everyone else, perhaps not always wisely, but nonetheless time moves no more quickly for me than it does for anyone else.  In a sense, it is all illusion anyway, this passage of a thing we call time.

What matters is this moment, the now of my present thought, the odd crackle of neurons firing in my brain to breathe, to think, to move my fingers across a keyboard to elicit the magic of words, the transmission of thought in language both common and obscure.  This always amazes me, and even when I neglect to record the vagaries and details of this gift I call my life, I still am amazed at my own consciousness and a myriad other things as well.

This consciousness brings a certain amount of joy and peace, a certainty in the rightness of the world as it is sustained moment to moment by the One who holds it all, and always will.   That I cannot elicit any adequate language to even begin to describe this Reality is not at all disconcerting, because I can touch It, be immersed in It, live and move and have my being in It.   And that is enough, for now, and for the 15 lean minutes it took to write this.

Mea Culpa, part deux

Yesterday I posted a picture on my facebook page of my most recent love--a 2010 Chevy Tahoe--a deep red with dark gray interior.  Generally the vehicles that get my pulse racing are not SUVs, but hey, this one is su-weet, and I am a truck lover by nature; and the Tahoe, despite its appearance, is just a truck.

What was not so sweet was the picture of me standing next to it.  I have been loathe to let anyone photograph me, a phenomenon that increasingly reminds me of how much like my mother I am beginning to look, and how she too would avoid cameras for the same reason I am now doing--because of my weight.  It doesn't help that my thin, young, beautiful daughter is in the picture and I find myself with a clearer picture of how my mother might have felt 35 years ago when I was Jasmine's age, and my mother was the same age I am now--or close enough.  It's tempting to blame genetics or the environment in which I was raised, or any number of things I cited in an earlier post with a similar title, but I won't do that.

What I will do is whatever is necessary to improve both my health and appearance.  It shocks me to see this photo, not just because of my weight but also for the fact that I find myself second guessing my decision to let my hair go "au naturel"--another genetic propensity I have for being "prematurely" gray.  In a youth obsessed culture, it seems rather bold and defiant to sport white hair (and it is white!)  What also seems bold and defiant is a decision to mix it up with a little punk color--something I intend to do before I leave for a visit with my family in Michigan and Wisconsin next month.  I'm thinking a color to match that Tahoe would be awesome.

And so it is rather fun to think of my head as a canvas for a palette of color.  If age and experience give me nothing else they have given me a sense of not caring too much about what people think of me, still the fact that this photograph unnerves me is telling.  And so, I apologize to myself for letting my self-esteem suffer because of snapshot taken in a moment when I forgot my appearance and reflected my joy over an automobile.  I apologize to myself for a brief lapse of letting myself believe that a two-dimensional image could even begin to reflect the multi-dimensional human being that I am.   I apologize to God for even the slightest disdain for the marvelous workings of even the mechanisms of biology that made me store fat, and grow once jet black hair that is now nearly pure white.

 I think this is a great metaphor for my life. Black absorbs all light, reflecting nothing back; white reflects all.  When young I was like a sponge, learning and absorbing and taking within my mind, heart and soul, whatever the world would offer.  As my hair lost its pigmentation (it began in my early twenties) I felt as if I was losing my identity and perhaps in desiring to hold onto myself I made myself larger to compensate.  Now it seems all that knowledge, wisdom and experience is something I wish to give back to the world, with it too the shedding of the excess protection I built around a fragile self that could be so easily bruised by this same world.

In the movie "The Ten Commandments" Moses goes up the mountain with a headful of brown hair, and descends with a crown of white.  I have always loved that image, and certainly it is a metaphorical statement of the wisdom of those with hoary heads (but not all are wise!)

Still, like the scars we obtain on the battlefield of life, we are shaped and colored (or uncolored) by our experiences.  As we age we can continue to grasp and cling to the objects, the beliefs, the identities that once formed us, or we can let go.  But not just let go in some resigned way, but intentionally give back what has been given us with joy.  Still, if fate and finances conspire to make that Tahoe mine, I'm gonna hold on baby, and ROCK IT, just like I do this amazing hair!