Loving the List

People who know me well know that I don't like to be too busy. And by "too busy" I mean "having more than two things to do in the foreseeable future."  (I never said that my definition was a reasonable one . . . )

Enter the list.

I love a good list. Preferably one written with a decent pen--actually, two pens, each a different color, for emphasis.  My lists vary, depending upon season and need.  Knee deep in summer, I still find the need to put things down on paper, even if I don't feel the need to change my clothes or brush my hair.  The list to the left is one I put together earlier this week.  It's not my finest work.  You'll notice my penmanship is a bit sloppy and the space between lines is not ideal.  But it'll do, pig.  It'll do.

Not all of my lists end up on paper.  In fact, some of the most important listings I compile happen strictly in my head.  And it is there, amidst the ever-greying matter, where the list's true powers become most evident.  Be warned, though.  Lists, like just about everything else in life, can be used for good or evil.  We've all fallen into the monkey-mind trap of reviewing only the crap, the darkness, the bad stuff, even though it does not one whit of good for us or for the world.

So I've been trying like heck these days to compile only those mental lists that Glenda the Good Witch would approve of.

Here's a portion of this morning's life-saving list that I uttered to myself, mid-walk:

•Awesome family

•Cicadas (song and empty shells)

•Bird song

•Porch parties

•Bare feet

•Hammocks

•Upcoming vacations

•Scrabble, maybe Snatch It

•Funny friends 

•Moran's Tap Room

Nice list, but life-saving? Really?

Yeah, pretty much.  

Creating and rehearsing a mental list of good things provides a powerful antidote to all that hard stuff out there.  A list of good things can admirably duke it out with just about every ugly above-the-fold headline out there.   In the midst of everything that feels so hard and hopeless in life these days, there are these shining little gewgaws--moments and mementos--that can fill us with fresh air.

So, go make yourself a good list and start feeling better.  And don't be too judgy.  Just compile it, in true "brainstorm" fashion.  Then, rinse and repeat.  And, for a few minutes, be that crazy person who's talking to herself, letting the happy things tumble quietly out of your mouth, all the little moments, the names of awesome people, the perfect tomato you ate yesterday, the way the morning light paints the treetops.  

Frankly, the world could use your joyful exhalations,  your little life-giving lists tickling the leaves and alighting upon the wings of a passing cardinal.   We could all benefit from something good going viral.

Summer Lovin'

Unkempt but happy.

As much as summer is a season of watermelon and corn, cicadas and swimming pools, for me, it also seems to be a time of accumulated wounds--scabbed-over cuts,  achy muscles and purpled bruises that, if viewed from a certain perspective, aren't so much a sign of clumsiness as they are evidence of a life lived right there in the midst of things.

. . . at least that's what I'm telling myself.

As I type this, I count at least 11 scratches from a midweek encounter with a pesky buckthorn.  If you aren't familiar with buckthorn, imagine Christ's crown of thorns and go from there.  This invasive species (which Brexited from Europe in the 1800s)  has 3-inch-long, needle-like thorns and is a popular choice for hedges between neighboring properties, which might explain why Jeremy and Jody have pretty much quit stopping over to borrow a cup of sugar, which is too bad because we really like Jeremy and Jody.

I've also got a nice bruise--now waning--that stretches across my left shin, and a strange scrape across my nostril, neither of which I can tie to a particular incident.  Like I said, I've been living in the midst of things. . . .

I have tried to take steps towards a better me, though.  For instance, I've been on a two-bath-a-day schedule lately, something for which I'm pretty sure others are grateful.  As a 54-year-old pudgy woman in the midst of a pretty significant heat wave, both inside and out, it just isn't possible to get by with one bath a day.   That said, other areas of hygiene have gone a bit neglected.

Many mornings before heading out for my walk, I don't bother to change out of the ratty t-shirt I'd slept in (the one with a faded message and a handful of moth holes near the waist).  And my unbrushed hair--think "matted dog"--pretty much finishes the look.  That might explain why people I encounter on these walks often hold out a handful of change and a granola bar as I pass.

Thing is, I don't really care.  I don't care about the scratches or the moth-eaten tees, the rumpled 'do or the slow drip of sweat wending its way downward.  Well, maybe the sweat.  For me, one of summer's most endearing qualities is its ability to impose itself upon me.  Like some months-long sweat-lodge ceremony, summer inundates me with its heat and its promise, its fever dreams and strange views.

And, at least through July, I'm game for it.  Because, soon enough, I'll be expected to be an adult again, a respectably-groomed, reasonably professional person who rushes from one air-conditioned environment into another, eschewing Mother Nature's views while I earn a decent paycheck, one that--eventually--will buy me another two-month pass, come next June.

Of Shwarma and Fireflies

Cattails and sunset at Sheridan Lutheran Church.

Last night, I swam in a field of fireflies.  Twice, actually.  Once, behind Sheridan Lutheran Church, in a lovely swath of land that this church has set aside to. . . let it be.  How is that for an act of faith? Trusting that the land and all of its creatures have something to offer, something that is deep and moving, and maybe even holy?  For a moment, I thought about transferring my church membership, so that I could just keep walking along the path, running my fingers across the cattails and counting fireflies in the woods.

I was there with my friend Mary Anne and a couple dozen strangers of all ages, firefly-counting volunteers.  Don't tell Mary Anne,  but as I was driving home, I wasn't always quite sure of where I was.  Things looked different, unrecognizable, kind of disorienting, but not in a disturbing way.  At one point, I couldn't believe I was on Normal Boulevard, certain it was A Street or somewhere else altogether.  It could have been because I was actually awake after 9, and driving at night.  Or maybe it was the bioluminescent, lingering effects of the hours before, the residue of an evening spent in loveliness.

Later, in my sleep, I again was surrounded by the flickering, gentle glow of fireflies.  In my dream,  I felt light and swift, like a satellite humming through tiny, twinkling galaxies.

My fullness had started earlier in the day, though, when Allison came home and joined Mark and me on our bed, where we'd been eating up our books between catnaps.  Like my dream self, Allison seemed light and happy.  She stretched out between us, recounting her day at work and then slipping into a bit of a comedy routine, exchanging word play with Mark, her favorite sidekick in these situations.  I lay there, a happy audience of one.

She'd come home to have dinner with the family--a feast at Sultan's Kite that was, as always, delicious and fun.  Amid platefuls of shwarma and tziki, rice and hummus, this family I love so deeply chatted and laughed and smiled its way through our meal together.

I think I was up past 10:30 last night not to prove a point (that I CAN stay up past the sun!) but because my heart needed that much time to find space for all of the good things that filled it up. Atop my cool sheets, I'm pretty sure I was glowing a bit, like my firefly brethren, sending out happy signals to this universe that I was here and happy to be counted.

Repair Cafe Now Open for Business

As much as it pains me to say nice things about him, I have to offer my thanks to my friend Dennis Buckley, editor of the Neighborhood Extra, that little slice of days-gone-by journalism tucked into our Saturday papers.  On page N 4 of yesterday's insert was the headline that is now happily stuck in my craw:  Repair Cafe open Sunday.

In the midst of so many dire things happening to us--cancer and terror and alligators and and and and and--it is good to remember the Repair Cafe, that magical place out back where people and things come together to patch up the holes, grease up the chains, replace the missing spokes of our lives.

Lately, I'd forgotten about the Repair Cafe, in part, because I'd developed a mild case of Prepositional Disorder.   The language of suffering, it turns out, leans heavily on the preposition "to."  As in, unbearable things happening to this country, to my mother, to my friends and family.  If you want to feel hopeless, go with to.  That tiny preposition packs a terrific punch in its ability to elicit both finger pointing and paralysis.  What can we possibly do, after all, when everything is happening to us?

Enter the Repair Cafe, the perfect yin to all these messy yangs.

Peeking into the window of someone's Repair Cafe yesterday, I was reminded of the under-reported acts of courage and kindness that people display in the face of tremendous challenges.  Brushing aside the cobwebs, I saw kindness quietly applied to a friend's ache, an undistracted ear lent to another, a handful of nuts and bolts offered freely.  And an awful lot of grit.  Through that window, I saw people reconfiguring and repairing their lives, tapping hope and strength where despair could so easily have been.

Even late last night, when heat and thirst awoke me,  I noticed a warm light coming from the small building, and I smiled, knowing someone inside was hard at work on her life, determined to write it for herself instead of having it written for her.

I fell asleep hard, then, my head filled with wild dreams of riding my bike into the wind, a chorus of birds cheering me on.


The Peace of Wild Things
By Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

This Time Warp Called "Living"

More and more, there are moments in my days in which I am certain I am living in two different time zones.  Not "Pacific" and "Central",  but "Yesterday" and "Today."  It's disorienting, to say the least.  And yet, I'm pretty sure this strange fence-walking sensation is just another indicator of being alive.

Take yesterday, mid afternoon.  Thanks to my occasional inability to read for details, I'd misinterpreted a text from my sister and concluded that a 30-ish year-old woman from my mom's place had died.  In the past several weeks, I've grown rather fond of Katie, who is pushy and enthusiastic in a refreshing kind of way.  The photo above is of her crashing my mom's recent birthday party--silly party hat and all--and I would have had it no other way.

So I spent the past 15 hours thinking this funny young woman who loves cartoon characters and pink things and ukeleles (you can see the pink neck of hers in the photo) had pulled away from the shores.  This morning, post walk, I finally read my sister's follow-up email clarifying that Katie is, in fact, still alive and kicking.

I do not regret the Katie-centered prayers I released on this morning's walk around the park.  Whatever her condition, she could use them. As could everyone, including my mom.

How many times in the last few months have I missed the mom that I am sitting right next to?  The classy, slightly aloof one who is resilient and smart, funny and observant?  The one who has a lifelong habit of not complaining, who once called me a few days after having a heart attack to mention it in passing.

"How are you, Jane?  Yes, we had a great time on the boat, but I am glad to be back home from the hospital.  Oh, I'd forgotten to tell you?"

This flood of flashbacks that comes with walking alongside someone who is working on her last chapter?  It is a strange and wonderful, confusing and discombobulating thing.

Always the middling fence walker, these days I'm trying to find the right mix of remembering and being present.  Of loving this very moment right in front of me while also missing the one from a family dinner in 1978 or fearing the ones that are yet to come.

You'll forgive me, then, if I keep pulling out the pocket calendar, trying to locate myself on this timeline that stretches both before and in front of me.  You'll forgive me if I keep thumbing through old photos, looking for how it is I got here, and who it is that has walked alongside me.

Dear NRA, I'm Hoping You Can Help. No, Seriously.

Humor me.

Let's say that there's an organization out there that really, really wants to protect people's rights to own guns.  And let's say that, in its fervor to protect those rights, this organization continually turns to a common storyline, one that says sick people--not guns--are the problem.

The argument--people who maliciously kill other people are, indeed, unwell--no doubt makes sense even to those people who deplore guns.  So, what would happen if we held this organization to its line of thinking?

It seems to me that we'd then have a starting point towards real change, regardless of our stance on guns.

If everyone could agree that, often, mental illness is a significant factor present in people doing horrific, violent things, then it follows that we could at least ask the gun industry to be willing to put some money into advocating for better mental health.  After all, if we can "fix" the people who might do these things, then guns could lose at least some of their bad rap.

Address mental illness.  Witness fewer gun deaths.  Win, win.

Hey, it's a place to start.  I mean, why wouldn't  the organization be more than willing to put some dollars behind the claim?  And not just a few dollars, but a whole bunch of them. Because, after all, they've got a whole bunch.  According to CNN, these folks pulled in over $350 million in membership  fees and contributions in 2013. Besides, their members and leaders must be tired of making the same old "bad people kill people" claim over and over and over again.  Wouldn't it be nice if they could focus on other things?  Spend more of their money elsewhere?

So--and, again, humor me--what if each of us--the gun lovers and the peaceniks and everyone in between--wrote to this organization and asked it to help improve the gun's reputation by addressing the sick people who are sullying that reputation?  Suggest that it create a foundation to improve the mental health of the citizens of this country using, say,  5 percent of its annual intake (that'd be about $17.5 million, using 2013 figures)? And to keep putting that money into the cause every year thereafter.

You'd think a Constitution-loving, God-Bless-Americans kind of group would be happy to help make Americans happier, especially if it meant that this object of their affection wouldn't have to take so much heat.

Seems like a good place to start, if you ask me. . . .

Wayne LaPierre / The National Rifle Association
11250 Waples Mill Rd.
Fairfax, VA
22030

Mourning Has Broken

Fifty people.  Beloved sons and daughters.  Beloved children of God.

Can we at least agree that something is broken?  That we are not well?

Because, if we can't come together today on this point, then we most certainly won't come together tomorrow in finding meaningful ways to fix things.  First, we grieve.  It is there where we find each other.

For today, then, let's put aside the punditry, the politics, the positing.   For today, let's look for no explanations, no solutions.  Let's just look for each other and then hold on, tight.  Because life is precious and wild, fleeting and hard.

And we are a broken people, missing our brothers and sisters.

Poetry Unplugged

Yesterday, I read a whole book of Mary Oliver poems in one sitting.  Which, given the potency of poetry, is the literary equivalent of, say, going through the Valentino's buffet line three or four times. Bad idea. Where on earth was I expected to tuck away all those jewels, each a rich slice of dessert resting neatly atop the other?

When it was all done, when I lay down the book, spent and dizzy, my brain distended from too much too much, I went back through it, immediately, to find the beautiful lines that already were leaving me.

"Every day I see or I hear something that more or less kills me with delight. . . "

There was a time in my life when I dismissed poetry as some obscure, froo-froo silliness produced by pinched people sitting lonely and alone in their dens, as raindrops lick the windows in front of them.

There was also a time in my life when I thought Space Food Sticks were delicious.

At 54, I've come to realize that poetry is like nuclear energy--its components too small to see and yet mysterious and powerful beyond comprehension.  Like a chicken stock that has been cooked down to almost nothing and now holds all the flavors of everything that has ever passed through it, poems don't require length to make their point.  Their strength is evidence of the poet's selectivity.

". . . as one who knows enough already or knows enough to be perfectly content not knowing. . . "

The not knowing?  That is my favorite part.  I just hadn't been old enough to realize it.

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down into the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields

which I have been doing all day.

Tell me what else should I have done?

Doesn't every thing die at last and too soon?

Tell me what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life."

   

 excerpted from The Summer Day by Mary Oliver