"it's like this now"

 it's the last day of my very lovely vacation and i just read a beautifully written 'perspective' piece in the new england journal of medicine. the author Grace Yi, has just finished her intern year, full of trauma, death, sorrow, grief, and overwhelm with little room for processing and she goes on a week long buddist silent retreat prior to starting her next year of medical training. she wrestles with the concept that pain is inevitable but suffering is not- that suffering comes from wanting the world to be something other than what it is, from not accepting that some things don't work out, children do die, people who are mean win, things are often unfair. for the author, seeing all of the pain with eyes wide open, she hopes, expands her capacity for caring well for others, for tapping into our shared humanity, and ultimately feeling more alive and united. the silence of the retreat is broken when they are asked to share their mantras, the woman near her who had lost her husband recently said, 'it's now like this'.

i was reading james this week, and annie dillards 'holy the firm' and trying to be quiet and be out of doors - in the green and by the sea and closer to God. i've been trying to sit with sad feelings of a strange stage of life that seems surprisingly scattered with losses- aging, dying parents, children moving out of the house. big shifts in family culture come with those things maybe especially when when the family was rarely defined with a consistent address and only by the 6 of us who often found ourselves in the same room of whatever house we were living in- doing our life together, in very close proximity. so i've been sitting with this.

august is the month we are now in. the month that will mark the 1 year anniversary of my dad dying. the month of my 32 wedding anniversary. the month my 3rd born will go off to college for the first time- leaving us with one at home- we've gone from 6 to 3. poor rose. 

i'm sitting with the anticipated silences. the awaited spaces at tables. the known longings. it's hard. it's now like this. and will be and will continue to be as we will lose more parents, as rose will get ready and leave the nest too. 

for most of my life i've avoided sitting with these things. i've filled up my days with anything that could distract me- we are getting ready to do a home renovation project, that would be the ideal candidate for occupying control, order, to do listing, busyness, obsessiveness. so intentionally on this vacation, i didn't do any of that - i read and walked and ate good food and had good conversations and wrote letters to my kids at camp. i paused and let tears come when they wanted to and talked to girlfriends who are saying goodbye to their babies too. feeling the feelings is hard when the feelings aren't just happy- but i'm learning. 

i'm learning and it's like this now.

 

3 days away

today it was -4 degrees when i left for work. somehow it's still beautiful. there is snow on the ground. the house is warm and so was my office and the light going and coming from work was calm and holding- a closed sky. 

i just returned from 3 days away in newport, RI with mike. one day of decompressing, the body lets go of the stress of it all. one day of being, just being in the moments, walking the ocean trail between the sea and the mansions built a century ago, preferring the view of the waves and rocks. listening to the wind, the pull of the tide on rock and sand. crawling up boulders, past different shades of lichen, far from my typical days. then one day of opening up, dreaming, sharing, remembering older versions of selves. talking about how to hold that, bring it back, keep it in our days. 

so good.

i read an article by tish harrison the day i got back about change in hard times, impossible circumstances, it was also about bearing. it was called 'go slow and repair things'. i've been in a season of hard things at work in a job that i care desperately about. i care so much about it that it wakes me in the middle of the night most nights and i do the best thing i can do, i pray. i pray for people by name. i work with people with disabilities, and with people who care for people with disabilities, who also require care because the job is hard. and in my patients i see my daughter. i hear her voice, her struggle to be understood, her frustration, her hypersensitivity to the world around her, her overwhelm. and i see someones brother, son, sister, aunt. 

i am by nature, a sprinter. my life has been trying to teach me long distance running over and over for decades there is no sprinting in autism.  i like pushing hard and overcoming. i like moving fast and winning. i don't like pain. enduring. pacing. i want to get it over with. but what i'm realizing, again, is that many things require time, long-suffering, going actually slowly, and repair. 

the article was about how we often want big moves, powerful changes to bring about things, quick fixes that get the job done, but so often the actual right moves are slow repairs- small scale shifts, gentle nudges, one person, (or turtle) at a time. we each do our part, or we make what seems like a slight adjustment, we have a conversation, we invite someone, show kindness, respond differently, find the third way. eventually that is how change happens. 

initially i was thinking about this in terms of work- and it's very applicable. but then i began to think about it personally too. what if i held on to day 3 of my trip by going slow and repairing the abandoning of self that can happen.  what if i made small shifts to find those old versions of myself that painted and did collage and wrote? what if i dreamed? what if i looked at the lichen colors and climbed more rocks? 

3 days away gave that space to see more broadly. to remember. to reconnect. to slow down. to look at what might need repair.

a moment in january

 i'm looking out over snowy roof tops in newport RI. it's the end of January, cold as can be and the light is a somber whiny afternoon light, pretty but yellowed, muted. 

it's the end of january and i never sent Christmas cards,  i just now made the new years photo calendar that i make for the grandparents ever year. i delayed because there is one less grandparent. i didn't send the cards because how do you say in a short summary card that you lost someone who was a part of you? it seemed too much. so i didn't send the cards, and in the calendar my dad's photo is the only picture in May- his birth month. i never imagined shutterfly would play a role in my grieving process. 

but maybe it's not just losing my dad that kept me quiet this year, from sending out the end of the year card. maybe it's the kids all being grown or near grown and having their own selves to speak from. how can i wrap them up in where they are studying or what sport team they play on. i see their big beautiful selves as so layered and unique and their own, that i don't dare speak for them or try to sum them up quickly. really what comes to mind is awe. how these four people are my absolute favorites, i can't put it into words and maybe i shouldn't. and maybe i don't know where i'd begin to sum up any of it.

this is a strange season in life. i'm past the middle of my own and straddling the generations. i still have kids at home but am losing them as they become adults which is the whole point after all. my parents are having needs and then i'm losing them in death which is to be expected. yet somehow, i wasn't expecting this season of loss in my 50's. 

the thing is it's not all bad. but i'm finding that i need to adjust to a new normal.  a new way of being with my older parents and help them as they experience decline and loss. a new way of being with my kids as they leave home and become adults outside of my home starting their own lives, adventures, separate and appropriately independent. it's so exciting and i'm so overwhelmed with gratitude. 

and i'm left with with a season of looking at me differently. who am i when i'm not the mom of kids at home? what shift in identity is that? what opportunities are waiting? what newness? what is waiting to be birthed? 

the light has gone and a quiet calm has settled over the bald trees and roofs. i watched as the amber faded to rose and then this blue- dusty grey. the lights are coming on in the houses, soon a star will be seen. i think i will send a new year card- maybe this year, no words, only pictures, this year, they will tell their own story.