Go Lean

Jan 10, 2007 | This Life

So, it’s January 10. How are all you dear readers out there doing with your resolutions? Sticking to your resolve or have you caved in? I know some of you didn’t bother or have sworn off the practice—but even you have to admit there is something about the turning over of years that inspires a change in our old ways of thinking. I mean, it’s a new year… we’re supposed to set out to be different, some how changed by the calendar date. Or do people resolve to repeat their past year over? (and isn’t that still a resolution?)

I couldn’t help but snap a photo of this plateau in my dining room yesterday as I walked by. Of course, the Christmas stuff is still waiting to be put away. I’m feeling rather proud of myself that it’s all gathered in one spot, truthfully. And even more so that I put it out in the first place! It’s probably going to sit there for another week. But what got me, was the Go Lean box. It’s the whole spirit of January wrapped up in one phrase, one box of good for you crunch. Nothing epitomizes the New Year’s resolution like the strong urge to lose weight. That this box, holding my tree lights no less, is still sitting in my dining room surrounded by the decorative paraphernalia of Christmas should give you some idea of how my resolutions are coming this year.

I will admit that I have poundage to shed. Much, actually. And before you start screaming that I look fine, I will agree with you. It’s my Physician who disagrees. And she has one little word that tends to end the argument in her favor: diabetes. I’m trying to avoid my 60% odds of getting it. This is good right? So, I thought it would be a perfectly adequate goal to try to drop a half-pound a week. Ok, so. It appears that I’m a real slacker here, because I gained precisely that amount last week. And as I’m getting off the scale the thought occurs to me: maybe I should have had a different goal. See, if I’d just resolved to GAIN weight I’d be off to a roaring start.

It is from this epiphany that I have started sleeping in my gym clothes. I figure that counts as getting dressed. And maybe it will inspire me. God help IZ if I decide to start sleeping in my Runners too! While I can’t drop (ooh, bad pun) the weight loss goal, I have decided to “Go Lean” on my resolutions this year.

In fact, that IS my resolution. IZ joked in a comment a week or so back that maybe 2007 should be the year of “No House Guests”. But this “Go Lean” resolution began back when I left my internship and graduated. I promised my family that I would take time off to consider my options. That I would sit quietly (ha ha ha ha!) and let the Universe speak to me. In effect, my life would get “lean”—no more volunteer work, no more hosting every play-date, no more over extending myself. No directees, no committees, no nothing! For a year. A whole year. 365 days that began December 8. Go ahead, ask me how many days I have left!

I didn’t realize when I made that commitment, how hard it would be to keep it. I continue to suggest that since I made this promise under duress, I shouldn’t be held to it. All I get is that “Blue Steel” look from IZ. He’s not budging!

If you can’t back out, then… in for a penny in for a pound. IZ’s comment spurred some pretty heated debates around here. We’ve decided to close our “bed and breakfast” for 2007—as we really need a break from hosting over-night house guests.  He’s one to say “No House Guests” when every time I hear him on the phone with his friends in Marin and Seattle he’s saying, “OH! Come out, NO PROBLEM… we have TONS of room for you.” Uh huh. But, he’s resolute that he can keep this impulse of his under control.

Why stop with house guests? Why not go lean on all sorts of things? So, we’ve begun to pare down as much as possible. In some regards we were bone thin to begin with—groceries come to mind. However, there is room for movement with areas like travel and entertainment. We’ve purposed to eat more meals at home. (so far so good! We’ve not eaten out in a month! Costco hotdogs don’t count!) We’ve also decided to “vacation” at home and the surrounding areas this year. Instead of boarding jets to fly away we are taking gardening vacations in our back yard and painting excursions on our second floor. We’re attempting to “go lean” on packaging: buying fresh ingredients sans plastic containers and thrifting as much as possible.

Sometimes, less is more. And in this case, less means more time with my family, more energy to face the work ahead of us on this house and yard, more time to just BE. And I can’t think of a better thing to resolve than to seek paradise in my own backyard.

Holding Pattern

Jan 9, 2007 | This Life

Well, it’s nearly midnight and this day has been weirdly productive. Which is odd because lately I’ve been in a funk. I know! You couldn’t tell from the past couple of posts I’ve written, could you? 😀 (And thank you to those of you who have been brave enough to walk this journey with me. Brave, brave souls to enter my mire.) In fact, in such a funk that I spent my hour of Spiritual Direction on Monday in tears.  Crying wasn’t cathartic as much as repetitive. I know this dreariness all too well.

What I came away with was that I am mourning my patterns. My old paths are so well traveled that I could traverse them without much care. I’m relieved to be done with some of these things; yet, I’m pattern-less at the moment. Because of it, I’m feeling ever so shapeless. Without form. And without form, without structure I’ve not been getting much done.  Unless you count writing angst filled blog posts.

Yet, I’m not ready to replace the old patterns.  It would be too easy to jump into something new, just for the sake of filling the gaps.  Rebound jobs, careers, degrees sound about as pointless as rebound relationships.

Not all change is bad.  But even good change is hard work.  And we miss our old ways because they were easy.  They don’t require of us what the newness does.   Auto-pilot and status quo can begin to feel like equilibrium…. Maybe it is sometimes.  Then the newness breaks in and we feel shorn of our old ways, naked in paradise looking for cover.  We don’t get to avoid this.  I choose not to avoid this.

Transitions are holy ground.  They are the space in which the Universe strips us of our old patterns and equips us for a whole new reality. If we are too eager for this new life, if we rush those transitions, then we risk being ill prepared for the change we face.

I don’t have to like being where I am.  I do have to face it. So, I’m holding.  Just holding. It’s a pattern of sorts, I guess.  I’m hoping that in the silence of being still, in the unproductiveness of not doing, the Universe will take my formless being and shape my life once again.

But today was productive.  What that means, specifically will have to wait for another post.  Because, you know… I need to pace myself as I exit this funk and walk into the proverbial sunlight (as there is NO FREAKIN SUNLIGHT to be found in Oregon recently).

So, maybe the tears were cathartic afterall.

Under

Jan 8, 2007 | This Life

Boy Wonder broke down in tears tonight over his bedtime. Well, not exactly over his bedtime, but over his inability to be heard. He fights sleep, always has, and that’s not going to change. The difference between babyhood and 10 is the ability to articulate his dissatisfaction verbally not just vocally. It comes down to syllables, really. Lots and lots of syllables.

He didn’t feel heard. He felt shut down and boy did he let his dad know. The anger and frustration was palpable from the other room. I was spared the tirade by some fit of mercy but I could hear it, and it wasn’t good. Hearing… from a distance is so much easier than in the midst of the heat brought on by fury.

To his father’s credit, the boy was in the wrong tonight. He’d pushed his bedtime too far, pushed us too far, and the time for negotiation had long since passed—even if he was negotiating for time to read. Which, you should know, is always his last attempt at gaining time. If he started there at bedtime, he might get further.

But the fact remains, despite IZ’s patience and cool head the boy was feeling under. And, unlike his mother, he’s going to tell you up front that you’ve pushed his boundaries—never mind that he’s pressing his own in the attempt.

His lament has me thinking, though. What does it really mean to be heard and conversely, what does it really mean to listen?

I’ve spent the greater part of my life doing the latter. People talk to me—and talk, and talk, and talk. Old people in the doctor’s office, little kids in the super market. Strangers on the street will stop me to chat. They tell me their secrets. They tell me their hopes. They tell me they like my hat and then launch into their life story. Most days I have the time to stop. And so I do. People want so desperately to be heard It seems a small gift, a small gesture toward giving back. These are the people I do not know.

The story isn’t much different with those I do know. It’s gotten to the point, though, that I dread play-dates. Inevitably I spend a couple of hours listening to the torrent of emotions and experiences and information the other parents feel driven to share. I come home and IZ always asks, “So, did you talk?” I don’t think people mean for it to be so one-sided, it just happens that way because I can listen. Like the strangers on the street, they too need to be heard. Sometimes, it’s hard to feel heard when you are surrounded by little people. When it’s your job to be the listener that parenthood asks us to be. All these emotions need someplace to go—and I can listen. I can brew you a cup of tea and sit and listen.

Lately, I have felt overwhelmed by the immensity of other people’s words. I guess I’m feeling under, too. I can’t shake this feeling that if I continue to listen to all these voices outside of me, that I might not hear the voice I’m waiting for… and that scares me.

It is silence I am trying to find. Silence of not doing, not being, not moving that can allow the universe a moment to whisper to me. Leaving Graduate school it seems so many people are invested in what I will do next. They are quick to fill in the gaps. Endlessly, I am presented with the viable options other people can see for me. It wasn’t any different in Graduate School. My Old Testament professor wanted me to go on to PhD work in Hebrew Scriptures, my Ethics professor thought the same for her field. My Pastoral counseling professor hunted me down at my job to inform me that I would be wasting God given talent if I didn’t go further in the field. The list goes on and on. All high praise, mind you, but to the one, I don’t know if I was ever asked what I wanted.

Not that I know. I don’t. I don’t know what I’m supposed to doing. I only know who I am becoming. And that person, she is screaming for the Universe to speak up! Get a megaphone, baby, because I can’t hear you. I can’t, I can’t. I SAID I CAN’T HEAR YOU!

And the Universe? She’s one for sultry whispers in the night. She prefers quiet chats to brazen dialog. She’s not interested in holding my hand in the process. And I’m having a hard time hearing her over the din. Maybe she’s tired of not being heard, too. Maybe all the voices shouting at her have got her feeling under.

But I can’t shut other people up. I don’t even know if I want to do that. I’m always going to stop and listen to the old men tell me tales of wars gone by as we wait to be poked and prodded by our eager phlebotomists. It is soothing for both of us. Even if I can’t hear the Universe in the process, at least someone is being heard.

Epiphany

Jan 6, 2007 | This Life

Margaret posted a few days back about the death of a high school student at her school. This is not the first time, it sadly won’t be the last time she will face this; each time she writes on the subject I am taken back to the deaths of my own classmates.

It’s an odd to be remembering the dead on Epiphany. This holy day that marks the arrival of Light and Truth that the Christ child represents. Wise men kneeling, bringing gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh. And I’m thinking of Jesse.

The whole town mourned when you died, Jesse love. We loved you. We loved you so much. You belonged to us in ways that you could not imagine. In ways that do not wane with the passage of time and cannot be stolen from us by the loss of memory. You who could do no wrong, left a gapping whole in our hearts and in memories that will not come to pass. It seems wrong that we have gone on without you.

On this Epiphany day, when light and truth seems so far away, I cast out to a future that did not happen. Who would you have become if the sea had not lured you? Where would you be if the sand had not swallowed you?

But I cannot imagine you bald, or graying, divorced or father of three. I can only see you smiling at me, Jesse— you sporting your Cheshire grin, caught for spying and proud of it! I can only see you laughing at me—me, gangly at 14, leaning against the chain fence mocking your backhand. Did you know I admired your ease in the world, an ease I still haven’t found? I can only hear you sounding loud on that trumpet of yours. I didn’t like your jazz or your tennis shorts or your incessant interest in listening to my piano lessons in secret, but I loved you.

Wise men bringing gifts of frankincense, gold, and myrrh. The shining forth of the Universe, bright rays of light blinding us with hope. Today, when we celebrate this arrival of hope in the form of humankind I am stunned by the memory of you.

Night

Jan 4, 2007 | This Life

Sunlight, However Fleeting

Jan 3, 2007 | This Life

So… for a brief moment the sun came out today. Just as it was departing for another hemisphere, Boy Wonder came bursting through the front door with a huge package for me.

It appears, my Epiphany gifts have arrived from the lovely Ms. Kathryn. As usual, her timing is impeccable. I had the presence of mind to race upstairs just as the sun was setting and snap a few shots with the remaining sunlight. This is remarkable, considering I was holding a latte bowl with piping hot mocha goodness that IZ had just made… I usually stop thinking altogether while drinking. Isn’t that why people drink?

Nothing is staged, of course, remember: dashing up stairs to beat the sunset.

What’s this? That’s right, a latte bowl. Which is going to look lovely and be well used in my play space (assuming I ever clean it…) Does my darling Kathryn know me or what?

And then, because we’ve been joking about it for ages she sent me this:

Sadly, I ran out of light before I could photograph the box itself… chock full of starlight peppermints and crushed up church bulletins. The juxtaposition of those made me laugh. Thank you dear one—gushy correspondence is swiftly on its way!

Sunlight, however fleeting, does something for the soul. As does a well-timed gift from a thoughtful friend.