Tag: inspiration

Enjoy This Time

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“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what matters.” – Margaret Peters

I recently ran into a neighbor whose kids are age 12 and 14 while out walking. As we chatted about the trials of pandemic parenting , the topic of the parenting advice that I’ve heard so often: “enjoy this time, it goes so fast” came up. She confessed that she had recently had said to her mom in tears, “Did I enjoy it enough?”

Of all the advice that I’ve been given throughout my parenting journey so far, that theme of enjoying kids while they are really young has been the most prevalent which makes me think its important. But it’s also the most puzzling because it’s often said so wistfully as if there is a little residual regret. Which makes me think it’s wisdom that’s hard to follow. That makes a lot of sense to me, because while I love being a parent, I’ve found difficult to enjoy this time of early childhood, if we are talking about the Oxford Dictionary definition of to luxuriate, revel or bask in.

At first it’s hard to enjoy because of the sleep deprivation that comes with an infant. And now that I’ve seemed to have gotten past that phase with both kids, I’d say it’s hard because it’s both incredibly busy and repetitive. There are big emotions that cannot yet be regulated and a lot of missed communication with little people just learning to talk. It’s a lot of work.

Of course, parenting is also incredibly rewarding. The amount of change to witness is stunning. These little people are growing and learning at a lightning speed. They want and need so much attention but it’s all absorbed and exhibited pretty quickly in their growth. Reading together, singing together, playing with the farm set out in the backyard, there is so much simple sweetness. The problems my kids have at age 1 ½ and 5 ½ are small and they are solvable.

Trying to understand this hard to follow wisdom, I think of my former hobby of mountain climbing. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself while on a mountain. It is a big and hard thing to take on. I’ve felt the same doubt with climbing that I think is being communicated with the parenting advice – did I take in enough of the experience while I was up there?

Here’s what I’ve realized. That climbing mountains and raising young kids have a lot in common. There is a lot of tough endurance involved.  It’s easier if you are in good health but it’s never easy. There are some moments where you are so tired that all the obstacles appear too great and you feel that you can’t keep going. And it all becomes worthwhile if about once an hour, you take a break and raise your head to look at the view.

My neighbor told me that her mom replied to her tearful query, “The fact that you’re crying shows that you did.” Which sounds so wise to me as well. We do our best as we go through it, enjoy it as much as we can and give ourselves some grace for the moments we didn’t.

Believing In Myself

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“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

After five years of trying to get something published in a traditional magazine or newspaper and sending out 99 query letters, I finally received a “yes” yesterday. You know what I find harder than writing? Believing in myself. Believing that I have something worth saying. Because sending out 99 query letters has very little to do with writing and everything to do with believing in myself or at the very least believing that it is something I am called to do. If you do the math of 99 letters over five years, it becomes clear it is something that I do periodically. I have a full-time job and I also have 2 young children, one of whom was born in the middle of those five years. My attention has wandered, my internal urgency to get this done has flickered, my discipline to research editors and publications has waxed and waned. In the course of those five years, I’ve gotten a couple of maybes and other nibbles and surviving those when they didn’t work out might have been the most difficult of all.

Writing started for me about 8 years ago when I had the inspiration to record my dad’s story. My wonderful father was so good at supporting other people that it was hard to get him to talk about himself. He was 78 years old at the time and in great health so there was no urgency but I got him to sit down with me most Saturdays so that I could ask questions and record his stories. It was so fun and it brought a new intimacy to our relationship. Then about a year into my project, he went out for a neighborhood bike ride one day, hit a car and died. It felt as if the grief for this amazing man was taking up so much room in my heart that there wasn’t enough space for my lungs to breathe. So I started writing out his story as a way to process how much I loved him. I listened to those recordings and was so comforted by his voice and so grateful that I had them. I got a writing coach and the first thing I said to her was, “Listen, I am not a writer but…” She still teases me about that.

In the last few months when I have been blogging regularly, I realize it has given me the opportunity to practice believing that my stories are worthwhile. The regular act of clicking “publish” is building a muscle of submission, both to the faith that it’s safe to put my words out into the world and to the acceptance that I am called to keep writing.

That is what has ultimately led me to be able to submit 99 query letters — knowing that I am compelled to do this by something bigger than myself. Understanding that to be true means it isn’t just belief in myself but belief that the Universe can speak through my words when I bow to that ultimate power. Even saying that sounds far too grandiose for my sense of what I write and have to say. I don’t believe that me, as a person, has anything to unique to add to all the words in the world. However, I have come to see that it is all a work in progress by a force bigger than myself and what I have to do is listen and believe.

Live in Your Hands

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“Ah, how good it feels! The hand of an old friend.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I read a story the other day about an old sage whose last instruction was “Live in your hands.” I find that both cryptic and useful. Cryptic because of all the time I spend meditating to get out of my head but where I usually think I’m trying to land is living from the heart. And it’s useful because I can so easily observe what I do with my hands.

On Sunday, I was home with my kids and we had nowhere we needed to be and no one coming over. On a day like that, my hands cook, clean and soothe. I hold my hot tea in the morning with my hands, I spend a lot of time holding my baby with one hand and cooking or cleaning up with the other. There is also a constant effort to stem the tide of destruction and disaster. My hands put away toys, cap the playdough, sort the puzzle pieces into their appropriate slots, they cut paper, pour paints and wash brushes. And they touch my kids a lot – changing diapers, combing out hair, cleaning the dirt from tiny little nostrils and that small spot on the bridge of the nose next to the eyes. My hands rub backs, hold hands when we go on a walk around the neighborhood, soothe cries with little pats and drum rhythms on little backs. My hands flair out for a good move in a dance party, hold the paper steady for a drawing challenge and fold in for a magic trick my daughter makes up. Then the end of the day comes and my hands apply lotion, help with jammies, smooth out the sheets, turn the pages of bedtime books, fold into prayer pose and flip the light switches off. And finally, I got some time to myself so my hands type on the computer, tap texts out on the phone and brush my own teeth and hair.

I am often frustrated at the end of a day like Sunday that I didn’t get anything done. I love finishing things and on a day home with my kids, it feels like I finish nothing. But living in my hands was a fascinating way to observe where the time goes. The job of parenting at my kids ages of 1 ½ and 5 ½ is so physical, it’s a hands-on job. And spending the day observing that made me appreciate what an honor that is because it won’t always be the case.

Live in your hands. My new favorite observation point. What do you do with yours?

The Art of Packing

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“Great things happen when men and mountains meet.” – William Blake

My daughter was looking in my drawer of kitchen accessories and asked about an open-ended tube I had in there. I explained it was a tube for mountain climbing so that you could fill it with something like hummus or peanut butter and then crimp the end to seal it up. They way you don’t have to carry more than you need. She asked, “Why not take the whole container of hummus?” And that sparked the muscle memory I have of loading a backpack for a 2 or 3 day climb and paring it down to just the essentials.

It seems to for every trip I’ve made an equipment list, packed more than necessary with me for the travel to the mountain and then at the base, sorted through to pack only what I need to feed me, keep me safe and warm and also my share of group gear for the team. It’s an art that I learned from experienced mountain guides and it very much affects how well the climb is going to go. Pack too much and you will wear yourself out on the lower reaches of the mountain getting to the first camp. And if you pack too little you will likely be uncomfortable or even worse, unsafe, on the upper part of the mountain when you need that extra layer or extra battery for your headlamp. If you forget to put in the group gear, you might just be the goat that didn’t bring the tent poles and jeopardized the trip for everyone. Many things can go wrong when packing. On one trip climbing some volcanoes in Mexico, a guy on the trip couldn’t find his Payday bar at a rest break. Then we stopped again at 16,000 feet on the side of the mountain waiting for the lead team to try to get some ice screws attached so we could cross an exposed part of the route and he found it in his boot.

Since I haven’t climbed any mountains since I got had kids, it’s been a least six years since I’ve done the packing but I still hold on to it as such a great metaphor for the journey through life. At some point, it helps if we empty out all that we are carrying in our pack and make sure we are ONLY carrying what feeds us and keeps us safe. If we carry too much baggage, like memories of all the times we’ve failed, it hampers our ability to go far.  And if we carry too little, like not figuring out our patterns of picking unhealthy partners or friends, we expose ourselves to the same dangers again. If we don’t carry our share of the group gear, like concern for the health of the community and planet we live in/on, the whole enterprise could fail. And if we can’t find what we need, sometimes it helps to sit down, take off the pack and find out what is making our metaphorical boot so uncomfortable before we continue on.

I get a chill when I think of how edifying it is each time I try to explain something to my kids. Which is good because my daughter’s next question was, “Why do people climb mountains anyway?”

The Journey of Obedience

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“When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or the life of another.” – Helen Keller

My daughter came home from school yesterday with a story about a kid in her class. She said, “Jimmy almost got kicked out of Hutton Hawks.” Hutton being the name of the school Hawks being the school mascot, it sounds way more serious with both together. I asked what Jimmy did. He drank water in the classroom and spit it out on his desk – twice. I assume that’s a no-go in regular times but in these coronavirus times where the kids are wearing masks, aren’t allowed any food or drink in the classroom and their primary activity is to wash their hands, that’s definitely not going to fly. In these first weeks of in-person Kindergarten, my daughter is fascinated by the behavior of other kids. Like Natalie didn’t do her work and pouted. Also Jimmy ran into the zone on the playground designated for 1st graders. And the big one – Jimmy almost had to go to the principal. (Names changed to protect the young).

This story reminds me of the word obedient. My dad used it frequently when talking about his journey through life. As in “I just knew I had to be obedient to what I saw as the Truth in God.” And slowly my understanding of obedience in the sense of the word that my dad used is developing. For much of my younger life, I thought of it in terms of Jimmy. The need to obey the school rules or else suffer the consequence of not being a Hutton Hawk. But now I see it as more of integrity – the integrity to marry myself and my values with the Divinely inspired path that I’m on. The act of listening to that small God voice within to find my way. The continual search for how to love and serve in my life and work. All of that pretty much boils down to my dad’s definition in my own words, a translation of wisdom between generations.

There is no chance I would have spit water on my desk like Jimmy when I was young. I feared the principal too much not to mention what my parents would have said. But now that I am middle-aged, there aren’t too many authority figures that influence my behavior. Trying to grow, learn and do the right thing have become part of my system and I suppose that’s one of the key parts of growing up. We are held externally accountable until we can develop our own internal accountability. Hopefully Jimmy can figure out obedience until he grows up too.

There is so much in my daughter’s story that is emblematic of how strange this last year has been. We haven’t had much chance to observe people that are strangers to us. Kids, especially those as young as my daughter who haven’t ever been in school, are having to re-learn how to socialize again after a year apart. Teachers are having to enforce COVID rules on top of all the usual school rules. Parents are having to help bridge the gap where all of these things come together. I have so much empathy for all the parties involved – this is hard. So I hope and pray we can use all our skills to listen to each other and obey while we navigate these choppy waters.

Unplugging the Chain Reaction

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“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

Yesterday as I was meditating, my daughter came downstairs and interrupted me. She said she was scared about school. Given that it was only her 3rd Monday since in-person school started, it’s not a surprise. But my meditation time is sacred to me. I’ve found essential in helping me fill my pool of grace for the day so after I held her for a moment, I told her she could snuggle on the couch while I meditated. After a couple quiet minutes, she asked what I was reading. I didn’t answer. After a couple more quiet minutes, she said meditating reminded her about the small greenhouse they made at school. Instead of finding my calm, my whole system was on overdrive. I felt protective over my space and time that have so little of. I felt angry that I’d gotten up early and couldn’t even control my own experience for a few minutes. I couldn’t believe I let her be there in clear violation of the rule to wait until her clock turns yellow and then she made it about her.

And then when I reached that last feeling, the one about her making it all about her, I realized I had just lit up like a string of Christmas lights as my meditation teacher, Deirdre, likes to say. I connected a single experience with a whole chain reaction that had mostly to do with my ex-husband. He was a master of taking something that I wanted to do like hiking and make it all about him. He’d say “Let’s go!” But then he’d say we couldn’t drive to far so he could be back to watch a golf tournament on tv. And then he’d dilly dally getting ready because he couldn’t find his favorite socks. Then we’d finally get into the car and he’d need to stop so he could get a double-tall latte. When we finally get hiking, he’d go about half a mile and say he didn’t want to go much farther because he didn’t want to be sore the next day.

While I assume it’s completely natural for a 5-year-old to make things all about her, it was a tiring for a 30-something man to do the same. But what interested me about yesterday is that nine years after I ended that relationship and many years since lost its hold on my heart and mind space, that something simple could light me up like those proverbial Christmas lights. AND that it could do that while I was meditating to restore inner calm is the ironic icing on the cake.

The only fix I have is to unplug the string. To see the trigger and in recognizing it, steal its power. My daughter and I have been reading Harry Potter. They have an incantation, “riddikulus” that turns something scary into something funny. And maybe in doing that, I can reach a new level of meditation, one where I can do it when everything isn’t calm and quiet but even a little unsettled as well.

The Measure of My Love

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“A heart that loves is always young.” – Greek Proverb

Last Monday my five-year-old daughter handed me a dollar bill, a nickel and a dime and told me she was giving it to me because that’s how much she loves me. I was completely unprepared with a response other than “thank you” and “wow, that’s so kind!” Not to suggest that a response other than “thank you” in that moment was appropriate but it did make me think of telling her that my love doesn’t cost anything and that she should save her money.

At the time, she had $20 so it was about 5% of her liquid assets. Since I was going down that rabbit hole, I wondered if I give her 5% of my liquid assets. (What liquid assets? I don’t have any because I have children!) Isn’t it interesting how tempting it is to quantify? And once quantifying, the next question becomes “Do I have enough love?” When it comes to both love and money when asked any question with the word “enough” in it, the only thing my mind does is look for what it lacks.

When I check in with my heart though, it feels full. And I know because at the end of the day when both of the kids are in bed and I’m turning out the lights for the night, I have this feeling that my whole heart is in this house. And also in this year of having to operate in a pod, it has given me so much appreciation for the family and friends who are such a regular part of my life. And for the ones I haven’t gotten to see, I have gained the perspective of distance to cherish them and our shared history better.

So as my head is doing weights and measures, my heart is busy feeling the tender moments, like the one where my daughter is finding a way to express her love. How often do I let my head tell me what it thinks it knows without checking in with the key part that actually does know?

Once I work my way back to my heart, I find the quality of my life. And that is a feeling of wholeness and wealth which feels like the Truth of where I am and want to operate from. Which is good, because shortly after my daughter gave me $1.15 to show how much she loved me, my mom came over and my daughter gave her a dollar bill and two quarters to show her how much she loves her. 😊

The Advice We Give

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“A friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should.” – unknown

About five years ago when I was about 6 months into the parenting journey, a friend whose kids were high school aged casually threw out this line of advice, “Logic doesn’t work with kids between 2 ½ years old and 4 years old.” I had been around my nieces and my friends’ kids but hadn’t worked with kids well enough to know what that meant so I somehow internalized that line as if there would be a loss of logic when my daughter was 2 ½ years old. Like at age 2 I would be able to say to her “You can’t have that piece of candy because it has too much sugar and that’s not good for your body” but at age 2 ½, I’d no longer have that tool. I know all of you that have kids are laughing and now that I have lived through those years and have a 5 year old and a 1 ½ year old, I giggle too.  Who knows why my friend tacked on that lower age limit instead of saying “kids under 4” but it left me a small sense of loss at the time.

Isn’t that the interesting thing about the advice we give each other? We say something to convey our experience and wisdom and also to help and sometimes it causes panic. I loved this advice column post that Real Life of an MSW blogged about the other day. The person writing in was asking whether they should correct the grammar of a person that they wanted to help who was seeking a job advancement. The answer was brilliant because timing is everything.

It makes me wonder whether we offer advice more for ourselves or for the other person. I remember my very wise dad, who as a retired pastor who counselled and mentored many people, saying “Mostly, I listened” about times he’d get together for coffee with people seeking his advice. That resonates with the trail ethic I’ve learned from hiking — to greet other hikers when I see them but I don’t offer any advice about the path ahead unless I’m asked because I learned early on that my need to provide unsolicited commentary came directly from my ego wanting to prove experience or status.  

Yet we can offer such great comfort and direction to others when we do advice well. Sometime about a year ago when the pandemic was just shutting everything down, a woman who is now a grandmother many times over said to me, “It gets less busy.” I think about that piece of advice a lot in these days of shepherding my little ones back into in-person activities and it gives me the stamina to push through when I’m tired because I know I won’t always have to.

This morning when my 1 ½ year old didn’t want to get dressed, I didn’t even try logic. But I held him and told him that I understood that sometimes we don’t feel like going to work or preschool. Then I buckled him into the car seat with his pj’s on, we changed when we got there and he was fine with it. It felt as if I worked for him like it does me when I get good advice – a softening that comes from a compassionate ear and then an opening into a shift of perspective.

Bottomless Questions

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“Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts at lofty heights.” – Peace Pilgrim

When I awaken every morning, I tiptoe past both the kids closed bedroom doors and walk downstairs with the cat winding her way around my ankles. After I feed her and do a little stretching or yoga, I meditate. I have three or four books that I keep next to my meditation cushion and I read these short meditations as I sip my tea. The thing I like best about this practice is that when I flip to the page for April 20th in the Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo for instance, what is written there is usually something different that whatever is on the top of my mind for the day. It takes me out of my life for a moment to ponder a bigger or deeper theme instead of the logistics of my day.

So today when I opened another of my books, A Year of Daily Joy by Jennifer Louden, I loved that what she proposed, “Try asking bottomless questions – the kind that tantalize and stretch you.” Her examples were “How can I love more?” and “What do I want to create today?”

I sat with this idea for a while, watching the sun start to play on the house across from me, the birds flitting in and out of my plum tree, the feeling of observation starting to warm up my engagement with life and came up with this question “How can I bring curiosity into what I see and do today?”

The feeling of that question matches with my mood when I awaken. Light and open — and curious. My morning routine helps me set the tone for the day so that even long after what I read gets forgotten in the bustle of the day, I am still sustained by the broader horizon that came with my morning moments. I love the idea of posing that bottomless question to intentionally lengthen that note throughout the busy-ness of the day.

Power Stance

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“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” – Lao Tzu

The other day I was texting with a friend who is buying a house and trying to work out the timing of when she can move in to the house. I offered her my help for whatever she needed to make the transition – my garage to store stuff, temporary housing for her dog and two cats, whatever and this was our exchange:

Her: If I think of anything that would be easy for a mother of 2 who barely has time to breathe, I will.

Me: Screw limiting what you ask of me to what is easy. That’s the wrong filter for the nature of our lives, friendship and power as humans. We have been friends for 25 years. I would do anything in my power to help and being asked would give me the extra capacity to go beyond my limitations. You are worth any amount of effort.

Her: Laughed out loud. Point taken, ‘And screw limiting what you ask of me to what is easy. That is the wrong filer…’ You are shifting to hella power stance. That entire text was astonishing in the best way. I love you, friend.

By the end of that exchange, we were both laughing – and I also felt the power. But it made me think about whether I see myself through the filter of not able to do much because I’m busy mom with two kids. I have to admit that I do – especially when I’m considering working out, dating or planning trips with my kids. The last one, limiting the trips with my kids might be sheer self-preservation though.

But looking at these things through the lens on my text, I know I’m dimming my possibilities when it comes to things that are hard. I know that I am downplaying my power to what seems rationally available. Partly because I’m a planner and partly because I’m human. But I know I can do more.

About a year and a half ago, when my son was 4 months old, a friend of a friend came to town because her college aged daughter had been hit by a car that had jumped the curb and struck her while she was running. I had never met the mom who came to care for her daughter but she was sleeping at the hospital or on the floor of her ex-husband’s place so I offered her to come stay in my guest room whenever she wanted. And over time she did and then the daughter came too as she was healing from having the top of her spinal cord fused to her skull, a brain injury as well as a shattered shoulder and arm. And then another son came for a bit as did the girl’s boyfriend. Pretty soon I had 4 people sleeping wherever I could make beds until the sweet girl was well enough to move on to what was next. And that beautiful young woman was a miracle to watch as she was so positive as she not only went to the myriad of doctor appointments and occupational therapy appointments but also processed the trauma of being hit from behind. It was such a wonderous miracle on so many levels! I didn’t know any of these delightful people until they came to live with me for about 3 months and yes, I had a newborn and I four-year-old, was working and also sleep deprived. But none of that matter because I had stepped up to help and God gave me the strength not only to do so but also enjoy it!!

So, I know first hand that there is a helping hand from a Higher Power when I step up. I know that when I stop limiting myself through my own filter of what’s humanly possible, great things can happen. I know there are miracles to be witnessed when I show up with my faith on. Now, I just have to do it!