Thursday, October 20, 2011

Just fine, thanks.


Just Fine
10/15/2011

This morning, I watched the sun rise over the McDowell mountains as I tried to cram a few minutes of meditation in before another long day. I was still planning to get a Spanish lesson in and then get to work before the first meeting despite the fact that I’d only gotten two hours of sleep. I wrote through the night, one of two articles which I had, only hours earlier, committed to write. The relentless drone in my head of the endless list of things to do was intense, but not, unfortunately, unusual. There I am again, my plate so full that savoring anything was out of the question. It was then that I made a radical decision.  Wait for it....

No, it was not a decision to increase my anti-anxiety medication, although that might have merit.  Nor was it a decision to beg Sandra's forgiveness for more projects, more plans (that will come later). Reflecting on the gentle advice of an old friend to practice tenderness towards myself as much as others, I decided to relax.

This radical notion crossed my mind, and then moved in and started unpacking: What if I really am fine, just as I am? What if I ceased my relentless efforts at self- improvement? My nails are chipped and dry, desperately in need of a manicure; eyes bloodshot; 20 extra pounds not well-distributed but all gathered together on what my son fondly calls my "giant belly”; and I am still smoking despite 20 years of quitting.  I am overly enthusiastic and overly involved; there are so many issues about which I care deeply and I often fail to prioritize them well, or to recognize my limits. I can be self-centered, prone to navel-gazing, so absorbed in my own thoughts that I fail to notice my effect on others.  Other times, I disappear so deeply into my mind that I fail to notice  others at all. I can be judgmental and snarky, intellectually arrogant, and intolerant of what I deem unkind, fearful, or just plain stupid. I am disabled, exhausted and in pain most of the time.  But sitting there, watching the mountains absorb the first rays of light, I had the unlikely idea that I might be just fine.

In my defense, I do have a few good qualities; many of which are just a reappraisal of my long list of faults. I am brave and determined and refuse to give up, regardless of how high the stack of odds against me. I am wise in many ways.  I am a gifted empath; I connect deeply with others and intuit more than what they can verbalize at that moment.  I am funny, irreverent, and try to see every situation, no matter how painful, with lightness and perspective.  I am honest, even when I really want to be quiet. I live up to my ideals of integrity, compassion, and kindness. I love my family and friends deeply enough to recognize that whatever modicum of grace I achieve is a reflection of their light. I am the mountain, absorbing their rays.

What would it mean to practice radical self-acceptance?  I could be Atlas, gently setting the world down, walking away.  Is it the lack of sleep? The effects of meditation? Some sort of brief psychotic state? Isn't it irresponsible to stop trying to be better?  Wouldn't I just be lazy? Would I be a useless waste of space, a quitter? Would everything fall apart if I stopped holding it together with my self-criticism, contempt for all of my shortcomings?  Who would I be if I stopped striving to meet my own expectations of who I should be?

To be honest, I have no idea who I’d be if I stopped trying to be perfect.  But it is increasingly clear to me that being perfect, or attempting to be, only moves me further away from myself. The things that I love; sunrises in the desert, the smells of campfire and incense, deep connection with people who rarely choose to connect with others (two of the four friends I love most in the world are on the autistic spectrum- this says much about me but nothing about them), the smell of puppy breath and babies heads; these are not things that have anything to do with how productive I am at work, how clean my house is, or how well I present my façade to the world.  

Six years ago, that I came to a professional event in a powerchair wearing pants with an elastic waistband would have been unthinkable. Two months ago I would have locked myself up rather than allow myself out with raggedy fingernails and eyebrows weeks overdue for waxing.  I usually require myself to sneak around to smoke, it is certainly not the image I want to project to my colleagues. Today I just pull up to an ashtray, light up, and wave to colleagues as they hurry by; the next meeting, the next phone call, whatever it is that they believe they have to do. I have decided that, contrary to contemporary public mores, smoking does not indicate that I am a bad person. Contrary to my personal opinion before today, not being groomed like a showdog is no reason to stay home.

Perfect? No. I am no longer interested. In fact the idea has become distinctly boring. I would rather find out what it is like to be me.  Consider this my official notice:

I am putting the world down.  I am choosing to be free.

It’s sundown now. Behind the mountains the sky is orange, then gold, then an unexpected chartreuse. There are bats, dozens of them. Flying around, as if they are frantic, as if they are looking for something, looking for the light.  I forgot that I am afraid of bats. I learned as a child that if they make contact, I would have to get rabies shots. I learned that they are dangerous; the world is dangerous. I am forgetting everything I learned to be afraid of. Just as my body is unlearning how to move, my mind is unlearning fear.

Late last night, or early this morning, I came out to this same balcony, looking for peace from my relentless thoughts. I rolled out in my chair, equipped with my ubiquitous laptop, a bottle of water, and cigarettes. I expected to be alone, as it was the wee hours when other people presumably sleep. Instead I found a woman crying, proclaiming her love to a man who looked like he himself might be asleep. I’m sure that they expected to be alone too, but I needed to be under the dark canvas of stars, a tiny, insignificant speck in the universe, finding my place. I tried to take an unobtrusive spot in a far corner, where I could write and they could continue whatever drama was unfolding. I wrote, she cried, he tried to stay awake. Then she called her mother:  “I’M ENGAGED!” After a brief conversation, she reported to her sleepy paramour that her mother was very happy for them, that she knew they would have a lifetime of happiness.

A lifetime of happiness. The start of a new dream; statistically unlikely but every one of us believes at some time that we will beat the odds. Weddings make me cry because the hope and faith expressed so ardently, so honestly at the time, is so wildly implausible. I used to joke with an old friend that the only appropriate toast at weddings would be to raise your glass to “As long as it lasts.” With all that we know, all of the gruesome statistics, inevitable disappointments, and profound suffering that life offers down the road, people still turn towards each other and promise to beat the odds. It is the triumph of connection over logic, faith over fear.

There is a Pow-Wow occurring nearby on the reservation. In the distance I hear chanting, rhythmic stomping, clanging bells on the boots of the dancers. An ancient ritual, the embodiment of resilience, from a people who refused to disappear. Manifest destiny. Greed and ignorance besting life as it had been known. Indigenous people, the original nations, herded into camps, wrapping their children in smallpox blankets to ward off the inevitable. The improbability of survival. The will to live, to believe, to overcome. The miracle of survival, the faith that made it possible, and the dancing that continues, in gratitude and celebration. Human beings are wired for surviving the impossible. Dance, pray, live…LIVE.

It’s written in our DNA, the will to keep going when the world itself is no longer recognizable.

Just before the last molecule of light descended behind the mountains, the bats all disappeared. Just like that: They were everywhere, and then they were gone. How do bats know, that it is the very last moment? Where do they go? I guess that is the way it is with all of us. We are here for the sunrise, or the sunset, or the time in between. Then, without warning, a primal instinct kicks in and we disappear; an hour, or a day, sometimes a lifetime. We are here, against every odd, willing ourselves into the unknown.

Who I think I am, my infantile grasping at how I want things to be, it is all so unnecessary, so futile, so strange. I am a star, shooting across the night sky. That I can convince myself otherwise is a peculiar human arrogance. This is my instant on this strange little planet. This is the body I got, the opportunity of many lifetimes. This, right now, is the only “me” that exists. This is my instance; I resolve not to waste one more second on everything that doesn’t matter. Tenderness, acceptance, faith—the only way through, the only true things.

I am putting down the weight of the world now; the weight of all of my expectations, the burden of how I think things should be.  I am choosing freedom.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Perfecto!


Perfecto!
10/13/2011

I have been cranky lately. My body isn’t working, I’m in pain, and I’m spending too much time at my job and too little with my family. Even though I warned my mother not to read my blog because it would be too sad for her, I have found that when I write, somehow the light creeps in. My writing is probably not more than my mother can handle. I am contemplating that perhaps even the darkest parts of this arduous journey in this difficult body are not more than I can handle.  Perhaps.

Being the person that I am, I cannot stop myself from taking more on.  More responsibility, more causes to fight for, more projects, more plans, more, more, more. I understand that I am not unique in this. Many people bite off more than they can chew. The disease of the 21st century woman with an education, a family, a career (or two) and a sense of obligation to the world. We can do it all (and should)!  I can do it all (and it has to be perfect)!

I am not just a professor, I am also a division chairperson. I am not just a professor and division chairperson, I am also a psychotherapist in private practice. I am not just a professor, chairperson, and psychotherapist, I am a mother of two small children, a devoted partner, a loyal friend, a sister, a daughter. In the midst of all of this, I am ardently studying Spanish to catch up with my almost 2-year old daughter, and feel guilty that I am not also brushing up my French because my son’s new teacher is from Provence and he has the opportunity to learn another language.  My bountiful crops of home-grown, organic produce taunt me from my imagination: A garden Christina? You can’t even manage a garden?

It gets worse. I have joined a health/lifestyle game where I have committed $100 to be obliged to a) exercise daily b) reduce my smoking c) record everything I eat in an online journal d) eat 5 “sanctioned” meals daily, at pre-determined times, and e) communicate daily with the other players.  In this “game” you earn points, and the person with the most points at the end wins $500.  I am an achiever. I am used to being perfect at wherever I direct my substantial will.

This is my third round of the game. In each one, I have lost significant sums of cash and pride but very little weight. But when the next round starts, my frontal lobe shuts down and I convince myself again, that I can be perfect, and take home the prize to prove it. I re-join. I pony up. And I immediately fall behind. It just kills me that I can’t get “perfect” days like the other players, all of whom have left me in the dust. Three times now.  Three times, nowhere near perfect.

Cleaning is one of the areas in which I cannot forgive myself for being less than perfect. Sandra’s birthdays are another. I torture myself with ideas about how to make her birthdays perfect.  I collect gifts for 11 months, so there will be enough, so I will be enough. Sandra has nothing to do with it, it’s about me, and needing her to know, at least for one day each year, that she is perfectly loved.

Today is Sandra’s birthday. Tomorrow I will start the 2 weeks of the year in which her next perfect birthday will not loom over me. Then I will start to plan again. 

I laid out her gifts, bought throughout the year, things that she loved when she saw them wherever they were before they lived in my “birthday box.” I laid out our fiesta plates, pulled out the birthday hats, tried to make the kitchen perfect. Our housekeeper and her sister, Luciana’s nanny, arrived early, to make chilequiles and a big cake of flan. These women, and their daughters, have become family to us.  The kitchen filled with people, laughter, conversations in Spanish that only Luciana really understood, incredible food, and delicious smells. Luciana was on fire, she so loves to entertain her second family with sheer adorable-ness. Rudy was so excited about his favorite mom’s birthday that he popped her balloon and hid under the table for most of the morning. The family we always wanted. Right here, in our kitchen, on the perfect day.

Hilda and I went to work creating space in the bedroom; creating peace.  We cleaned and put away EVERYTHING, just as Sandra likes it.  We talked of God, Christianity (hers), Buddhism (mine), and love and acceptance (both).  When my body gives out, I come back to writing. Rested, I go back to creating peace for Sandra.

I am reminded that everything is already perfect. Wobbly legs, clutter, extra weight that is not going anywhere, spinal lesions, aging bodies, children who pop the decorations…All perfect.

And then this, in my email inbox, my weekly thought from Buddhist nun Pema Chodron:

Perfect, with room for improvement

Zen Master Suzuki Roshi once looked out at his students and said, “All of you are perfect just as you are and you could use a little improvement.” That’s how it is. You don’t start from the view of “I’m fundamentally messed up and I’m bad, therefore I have to get myself into shape.” Rather, the basic situation is good, it’s sound and healthy and noble, and there’s work that we need to do, because we have ancient habits which we’ve been strengthening for a long time, and it’s going to take a while to unwind them.

Perfect.




Laughing with the Woo


Laughing with the Woo
10/11/2011

I have quite a few friends who have deep beliefs in metaphysics, new-agey spirituality. Quite a few. I am married to one.  I am a resister. Not because I don’t believe, and certainly not because I haven’t had many experiences that validate aspects of their belief systems. It is not the concepts that make me want to run screaming from the room, it is the language.

Being a person who loves words, I often run headlong into the limits of language.  Angels, archangels, evil spirits, lost souls, spirit-guides, God…. I’m totally cool with however other people want to express their experiences; but when they apply their language to my experiences, I have to stifle a reflexive gag.  My mother has observed numerous times (out loud) that I have a compulsive need to rebel. This, indeed, is true.  But truth is always bigger than language, and we only move further away from truth by trying to fit it into our words.

I have been to many healers. Miscarriages, pain, chronic illness: These things send even the most cynical to whomever markets a hope of doing something about the things for which nothing can be done. Many of these healers have been genuinely gifted. I have experienced healing on many levels in my work with them. I am moved and grateful and awed. Until they speak.  I have to close my ears so the experience is not limited, confused, and trivialized by the words that others choose to imprison experience.

Being a person trained as a scientist, I equally often run headlong into things that cannot exist, because they cannot be measured, quantified, or reliably reproduced.  Admittedly also a little on the snarky side, I have come to call these ephemeral experiences and beliefs the “Woo.” I’m not denying the existence of the Woo; in fact, I am participating. This is how I participate. By making up language to describe without limiting, without a grave tone of self-righteousness. The Woo has my edges; not mocking, but laughing. Not laughing at, but with, the Woo.

The Woo has caught on. It lends itself to great little jokes.  “Woo-hoo” I respond in texts when a friend tells me about a sign, a happening, an experience of healing or enlightenment.  “Boo-woo:” I am sad, life is not conforming to my expectations.

Recently, I am boo-wooing considerably. I have discovered that a person I was very close to was using the Woo for his own gain, at the expense of those who trusted and loved him.  BF, who was equally violated by said individual, and only recently coming to believe that there are forces that move us far beyond what we can explain, cried out with indignation and earnest anguish; “He’s misusing the Woo!” Her vulnerable, newborn faith was being violated, and it was a total outrage.

We feel “woobused.” We accuse him of being a “woobuser.” It makes our disbelief, hurt, and anger more palatable.  Early on in the discovery of his betrayals, when he was still invoking the Woo to get us to buy in to his schemes, I texted BF with this thought: “The Woo cannot save you from your own free will.”

As with all situations that reveal their true nature, each layer of illusion peeled away and the next was darker and more hurtful. Just yesterday the cracks in the illusion of my relationship with him broke wide open. I was confused, terrified, filled with self-doubt. How could this be true? There must be another way to interpret this information.  Am I losing my mind?

So I meditated. A lot. At the end of it, I felt calm. I breathed in acceptance and breathed out judgment. In- compassion; out- anger. In and out. In and out. I found a quiet place in my soul and went to sleep. I dreamt in symbols: Self-protection, strength, integrity.  I woke up and meditated some more.  Compassion. Non-judgment. Detachment.  All the while I felt like there was something, someone, trying to get through. Finally I said to the Woo, I don’t believe in you (a Master Woo, if you will), and your message is not clear. If you want to tell me something, it’s gonna have to be a lot bigger than this.

Not one hour later, we were going through our daily morning chaos. “Rudy, where are your shoes? Has anyone gotten the baby up? What do you want for breakfast? Where the hell is my brace?”  Rudy, my little sage, says quietly, “there’s smoke in the baby’s room.” I glance over and, not seeing or smelling anything, bark back: “Have you found your shoes? Get out of there and get your socks and shoes! You are probably smelling my incense.”

“Mommy,” he insists, there is smoke.” I go to investigate. The room is filled with what looks like smoke, and it is now billowing into the kitchen. Sandra grabs the baby while I call 9-1-1.  “My house is filled with smoke, but the smoke alarms are not going off, and it doesn’t smell like smoke,” I frantically convey to the operator, feeling like a lunatic. “Get out of the house,” she responds calmly, “we’ll be there in one minute.”  No sooner than I had gotten the dog in the van, the kids outside and away from the house, and Sandra had pulled the cars out of the driveway, a fire engine came screaming down our street. Then another. And another. Six total. Six fire engines with lights blazing. A veritable army of fire-fighters, with masks and hatchets and very tall ladders charged into, on top of, and surrounded the house.  Front porches filled with curious neighbors. I do the same. It’s the 2011 equivalent of a block party.

“Did you turn on the furnace?” It’s still 90 degrees! “What about the swamp coolers?” Haven’t used them in years- they are no match for the hottest summer on record, in the hottest city on earth. “Can we access the attic or will we have to go through the roof?” Uh-oh.  

“Ummm,” I manage to squeak out, eyeing the fire fighter on the roof with the giant hatchet, “there are inside access areas, but we had insulation blown in and I understand they are impassable.”  “Not a problem,” a very large fire fighter says, “Where?” I show him the biggest of two tiny openings in the ceiling. He hoists himself in, tearing hundreds of dollars of insulation out and dumping it through the hole behind him. Not that I care at the moment, I am so profoundly grateful that we have an army of help.  He combs the attic: Nothing. They check every outlet: Nothing. All the breakers: Nothing. They investigate every single inch: Nothing. No fire, nothing smoldering, nothing to be afraid of. I am quaking, inside and out.

“Am I crazy?” I asked. “Did you see the smoke?” Yes, when they came in the house, it had appeared full of smoke. It was difficult to see through. But the “smoke” was gone now. They had never seen anything like it. A 3-alarm fire with no alarm, and no fire.

No fire? I smell smoke now.  “That’s us,” a fire-fighter replies. “We like the smell. It stays in our clothes. Most people don’t.”  I too, like the smell of fire. It’s comforting. Just like this mass of heavily uniformed people moving through my house, making sure we are safe. The only woman in the group asks if we have a vacuum, because they’ve made a mess in the room with the attic door. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the one woman in this heroic gang clean up after them. “It’s in the laundry room, but please don’t....” Before I can save her, she yells to a colleague, “it’s in the laundry room, clean it up.” I might be in love.

While he cleans, I hang out with 6 guys just standing around in my living room, remarking on how much they like the house. We talk about its generous size and small footprint, the original house and the seamless addition. The architecture and the arched doorway. I am definitely in love. With all of them; brave, selfless, smoky and neat. With my house, not burned to the ground. With my family, all safe and returning to life as we know it.  And yes, with the Woo, who managed to get my attention.

Point taken Woo: Things are not as they seem. Just because you think you know something (like fire creates smoke, for instance), doesn’t make it reality. We are really in no position to judge anything: Frail, limited little creatures spinning on a disintegrating planet in an expanding universe. “Reality” is merely our arrogant interpretations of our limited scopes of knowledge.  

Our wounds are of our own making. We made up a story and somebody else changed the storyline. People are not who they seem. We are not whom we seem. All of it- an illusion, all of it a story. Sitting on the patio when everyone was gone, I saw, as if for the first time, my laughing Buddha watching me from across the pool. Laughing so hard his whole body jiggled. I finally got it, why Buddha laughs. This is funny.  We are hilarious. This world- our theatre, these humans- the stars of our own shows, the dramas we co-create and believe in fervently.

Nothing, nothing, is true. Reality changes when we change our minds. Friend, foe, total stranger- how many interpretations do we cycle through, believing in each one with full conviction? The Woo got me this time, a sign so big that it drew a literal crowd.  Woo- 1; Christina- 0. I lay down my arms. Actually, I was laughing so hard that I dropped them. The Woo wins again.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Mile High Club


Mile High Club/ Boot Camp for Gimps
09/30/2011

Yesterday I got on an airplane. This might seem newsworthy if, for instance, I have a phobia of flying, or if I had never flown before.  Neither of these scenarios is true.  Flight phobias confuse me.  First of all, the chances of a plane crash are impossibly small.  It is more risky to walk out of your front door (in my neighborhood anyway.) Secondly, as the daughter of a Belgian immigrant, I have been flying for as long as I can remember.  I was flying even back in the days when, much to my adolescent delight, one could smoke cigarettes on the long flight from Washington D.C. to Brussels.  In addition, death by plane crash has always seemed to me a far more appealing alternative than a long, slow demise by disease that robs you of life slowly, one excruciating day at a time. I flew from D.C. to Phoenix days after the attacks of 9/11/2001- without fear. I've always been a good flyer, and have reveled in coast-to-coast flights that allow me a few sacred hours to catch up on celebrity gossip, sleep, and be catered to with junk-food snacks and bad coffee between naps.

I haven't flown for years now, because I have been too uncertain that my body would be able.  The idea of being pushed around in a wheelchair by an underpaid stranger; negotiating security when taking off or putting on my own shoes can be literally impossible at the times when my left foot acts and feels like a floppy brick; and hauling luggage around when the weight of my own body exhausts me, it all just seemed like too much to manage.  A friend of mine, a retired flight attendant, travel aficionado, and person with advanced MS, told me that he believed he had one last international flight left in him. At least twenty years younger than him and less disabled, I was awed and humbled by his faith in his ability to travel, at least one more time.  My dreams of traveling to Costa Rica, Italy, and Peru had been long dismissed, collateral damage but seemingly less important than the day-to- day to losses. Even flying domestically, to visit family within a few hours by plane, seemed out of reach. I didn't want to verify one more thing I could no longer do. I voluntarily gave up air travel rather than face my unbearable fear that if I tried to fly, I would learn that I could no longer move freely throughout the world.

So why did I get on a plane yesterday, to visit my sister in Indiana?  There are so many levels of reasons that I can't even begin.  How I got on the plane, and ended up here, sitting in my sister's guest room, overwhelmed with gratitude and hope, is more important.  It started with me sitting on the kitchen floor, unable to shove floppy brick foot into my sneaker, and crying because I was terrified and homesick already.  My son gathered everyone into a "hug sandwich" for me, and then raced off to draw a family portrait to comfort me on my trip.  Sandra wrestled the floppy brick into my shoe, produced a box of tissues, and marched me to the car.  "You can do it," she insisted.  "What if I can't? What if there is no one to push me to the gate? What if I can't stop kicking the seat in front of me when my leg spasms start? What if I am unable to move when it is time to disembark?" What if my last shred of independence is demonstrated to be irrevocably lost and my world shrinks down to the size of our living room?

She pulled up to curbside check-in and started unloading my bags to the curb.  WTF?? Curb-side check-in? What is this, boot camp for gimps? I was a terrified child and she was dropping me off on the side of the street?  "Tough love," she stated, as she kissed me and got back in the car. "You can do this.  Buh-bye!"

Shell-shocked, I managed to pull my jaw off of the floor, wipe my nose with the full-size tissue box she'd cleverly placed at the top of my carry-on, and get my attitude on.  "F- that, I better figure out how to get on that damn plane because apparently I'm on my own here." She's an evil genius, that Sandra, because she knows that if my righteous determination kicks in, my fear will get its ass kicked.  Deep breath.  No room for self-doubt.  Sandra laid down the gauntlet and I would prevail.  Show time.

Made it past security with an intimate caress by the TSA employee assigned especially for me; paid $50 for magazines, candy, and a bottle of water; fastened my seat belt and woke up in Indiana. HAH. I made it.  Nothing tragic, humiliating, or even vaguely unpleasant occurred (unless you consider 50 bucks for essentially nothing unpleasant, but in relative terms, who cares?). I made it.  I can travel. I did travel. By myself. I am still a grown- up, with the ability to go where I want to go. It felt like enlightenment.  An enormous burden lifted.  Light into darkness. Grace.

It's autumn here, in the middle of the country.  I've sent pictures home to prove it.  When I left Phoenix, it was 105 degrees (late September folks, for those of you who think the warmth sounds delightful).  My kids have never seen the brilliant palette of autumn. I love the Fall.  It's my favorite season.  The air smells of discovery; that the world is transforming daily is impossible to ignore. The Earth feels like an adolescent, bursting with energy and big, implausible, hopelessly romantic ideas.

Fall partly demands our sharp attention so adamantly because it does not last very long.    Summer days go on without end, and it is difficult to believe you will ever see those precocious little crocuses peek out when the streets have been lined with grimy snow for months.  But autumn; blink and it's gone.  One happy day you point out the first red leaf, but don't get distracted, because the next time you look the trees are bare and the leaves crumble to brown dust in your wake. No where is this more true than Phoenix, where I have planted no fewer than 3 giant trees that promise to accept 80-90 degrees as appropriate evolution weather. Somewhere in November, I shout to the kids-  "Look guys, the leaves are changing color!" Out of kindness, they give a perfunctory glance upwards.  "Yep," says Rudy, "it's almost my birthday.  Now about that cat...."

I love autumn because it stands tribute to impermanence.  Autumn spreads her peacock tail and dazzled us, then slips out the back while Winter charges in uninvited and announces himself. 

This Fall in particular is special because my sister, who hates change and has invested tremendous parts of herself to turn a boring old suburban house into a stunning garden and birding venue, will be moving.  Her new home is a funky old thing, in a funky-fabulous neighborhood in the heart of town, between the beautiful IU campus and the shockingly fabulous downtown boutiques. I, who adore funky, idiosyncratic, historic old homes, think her new place is dreamy. It is a challenge and a promise I'd pursue in a heartbeat.  But I've always been a little on the impulsive side, and my sis is a planner. But who can plan for love? A person, a place, a house, something that moves you- these things cannot be conveniently scheduled, and if they were they would lose their fairy dust.  Love, like all the important experiences of being human, happens to us and we adapt.  We are often surprised at how little resistance there is, once we agree to evolve. People, places, events...We have no control, and that is why they move us so deeply.  We are forced to face impermanence, regardless of our 'plans.' We are stimulated and terrified, soothed and released from the structures we construct and then rail against.  We are free. How scary, and exhilarating our freedom tastes.  Where do we go, what do we need to know, who is going to guide us?

"Life is a classroom.  We are both student and teacher. Each day is a test. And each day we receive a passing or failing grade in one particular subject: Grace."

When I first read this (on a bottle of body wash, I swear- inspiration is so random,) I balked.  I reflected on what I believe are the daily tests: Integrity, truthfulness, compassion.  Then I thought about Sandra, dropping me off at the curb, trusting where I felt only doubt.  And me, summoning the will to move through my fear, accepting uncertainty and pushing forward anyway, come what may.  My sister, leaving the comfort of home to create more space for time's inevitable march. The leaves crunching under my feet, the trees naked with the promise of another Spring. 

Grace is neither a gift nor a quality.  It is neither the moment when our boundaries disappear, nor the countless moments that we long to be better than we are. Grace is available in every single moment, the abundance that exists even when we fail to notice.  Grace is the proverbially water and we are the fish, so immersed that we think it is something that must be found. Hunger and satiety.  Diagnosis and cure.  Everything lost and the light that illuminates the empty spaces. The only test that ever really matters:  Did you recognize Grace in her many guises? Did you embrace it, learn it, share it? Did you reach into the dark and foreboding spaces and emerge, hands dripping with light?