Fits and Start

They say that most people quit their blogging sooner rather than later and so it has been a goal of mine since I began these blogs to never quit. I'm not a quitter. A slow bloomer, a slow and steady wins the race, a never say die, certainly that I am. But a quitter? Never.

I  know there is another pace of life. There are those who are driven and push through despite their health needs or  family needs or personal desires for something other, but I cannot keep that pace.

It used to be I would quote this quote that I thought most profound. It goes like this: "There's no such word as the word 'can't'; either you don't know how or you don't want to, and usually it's the latter.

Then in 1991 I got to 'can't'. Full stop. I had so many toxic relationships in my life I couldn't breathe or move or feel any joy or happiness. I'd begun to measure my life in terms of 'doing' instead of 'being'. I needed to be me.

Unfortunately being me wasn't an option because I was serving the needs of so many people who had absolutely empty buckets. No, let me put that another way. Their buckets had holes in them that meant what ever was poured into them quickly leaked out.

I went to this soothsayer in the early eighties when I was taking everyone's advise but my own and she said something about how I was in the middle of a prairie and the wagon was broken and I was completely reconstructing my life.

Now I don't much believe in soothsayers and I only went to that one because this supposedly good Christian pastor friend of mine went to him and said even his mother, who was a Bible Study Fellowship leader, went to her, so I figured it was spiritually safe.

I discarded the past life stuff and re-framed it into her picking up on what was deeper in me I hadn't discovered, but two things stood out. The one I want to share is the one about taking my part a life. I actually just surrendered to God. Following the Holy Spirit, which I was really lousy at when I started to identify the process, I did what I was lead to do.

Last week,  lo and behold, I picked up a book that had seemed revolutionary to me, at one time, about women who please men and the men who take advantage of them and it was like some distant irrelevant foreign language that I was so beyond I couldn't remember what it felt like to be in that place when I first read it.

It's been thirty years since I started that process. I've had moments when I was intensely into the change and moments when, because I was just trying to survive, I was doing it unconsciously . But continue I did.

It doesn't matter what culture or society we live in, we need to keep the internal journey progressing. We need to open ourselves up to that process. Distracted as we may be by the logistics and execution of daily life, we need to keep evolving spiritually and emotionally.
That's all for today, I guess. Make more of the day than presents itself to be made.
Love,
Deborah

Under the Tree

It's only been an hour since she invited me in. "Come under the tree Deborah!"

We have not played with each other since August and she went off to kindergarten. Before that we were almost daily friends from the time she was a baby.

My unspoken hesitations were numerous and well reasoned. I knew they all needed to remain unspoken. This was an invitation born of whimsy, and whimsy was/is the strongest bond between us.

Pulling up the ottoman as close as I could I sat, and then lowered my aging body to the edges of branches that smelled of fresh forest.

The ever favoured monkey pillows were carefully laid underneath. She lay waiting for me. "Come on Deborah, you can do it!"

I lay on my side putting my face fully underneath.

It was , as she had promised, magical. Lights and decorations look more beautiful and iridescent from the underside of the boughs.

"Oh there's the magenta one you told me about , "I exclaimed in genuine awe. It was like looking through the mist of Christmas promise. And there was amber, although she would call it yellow, and blue, and green, and then duplicates of each near her side.

You will be busy the next few weeks. Remember to lay down under the Christmas tree. It will show the reason for the season, the other dimension to which Jesus referred. The bigger picture for which Jesus was born.
Love,
Deborah

Winter Views

If you live in the Southern Hemisphere, this is not well timed. But if you are in the Northern half then the trees are finishing their defoliation and everywhere is.... the winter view....

I don't notice how the view disappears in summer until suddenly the water, the neighbor's yard, vast expanses are viewable in more panoramic ways than the lush green of Spring and Summer prevents.

Since winter is historically a great time for reflection and drawing in and thinking quiet warm thoughts = well, after the holidays= it's good to draw the parallel further and wonder what is underneath our industry, our busyness, our 'foliage'.

And how can I write such a profound thought that requires some seated and surrendered contemplation on a day when I am dashing faster than the hours and minutes can pass?

Irony....yet still great Truth...
Love,
Deborah

Thanksgiving

What a weird Thanksgiving. I'm housesitting in the place I've always referred to as 'my dream house' and have done so enough to not think of it that way anymore. My children are all busy elsewhere and so I'm really kind of alone. And the winds and storms are rolling in with a ferocity that is wearying.

And I am in transition...again...oh my......

Today I looked up a particular set of retirement locations and thought about the glory of living on a fixed income.

Oh wow...this must still be part of that feeling tired thing...that exhaustion I was going through a couple of weeks ago.

Just as weirdly, an odd experience has pulled me out of going to an emotional circle around the drain.

I put on my winter coat and.....oh....my....gosh.....!!! I can zip it all the way up comfortably. I can feel space around my middle when I wear it.   I can wear it when I'm driving and feel comfortable. I can reach for the parking brake release and not have to make sure I'm not sitting on my coat.!!!!

Since last Spring I've been talking about this twenty five pounds I was losing this year and = stunned silence and a moment of pause= I did it.

Dozens of little changes to which I attributed other causes are now clearly because I lost weight!!!!

So I said to friend in knitting, I'm so encouraged I'm going to do more...and she said....
"Why don't you just do the same?"
Is that not the most astoundingly simple good advice? SO that's my goal for this year, to keep doing what I'm doing and lose twenty five more pounds. I'm so excited. What a great way to move into the holiday season.
Thank you ,Thank you ,Thank you, God for the results from many small changes. Ii have learned that small changes make a BIG difference! And so it goes......
Happy Thanksgiving.
Love,
Deborah

The End of Exhaustion

It didn't get better. Exhaustion set in on Thursday and by Saturday I was rejoicing that I could move from the couch where I listened to NPR's "Car Talk" and   "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" to the red Ikea chair in the den/crafts room with the big TV and watch "It Happened to Jane" with Doris Day and Jack Lemmon. My muscles simply were not feeling in any way replenished. My spirit felt as if it was held hostage by some supernatural force of the Universe like electromagnetics or maybe the Sun's rays. All I could do was submit and surrender, watch movies from the library, listen to "Prairie Home Companion" and knit, slowly, slower than I ever had. My hands ached from the inside.

I had become worried the day before when I suspected I would 'snap out of it'. No such luck. Had I wrecked myself beyond all measure I wondered?

I had an event to host that I was sponsoring on Sunday and all I could day as Saturday afternoon turned into Saturday evening was pray that on Sunday there would be enough of me on the inside of myself that I could drive the car seven miles into town and fake it for two hours.

Much to my surprise I slept between fitful wakings, returning to sleep right away after I changed position. And without benefit of alarm I rose at 7 and moved about with ease and some lightness in my Spirit. I was able to shower and and prep myself in feminine ways, and moreso, wanted to add the bits of colour and curl that tell the world I have a double xx DNA.

When I returned I could still function without immediately dropping into a dead heap on the couch once more.

Monday was the holiday and I slept until ten against my better judgement. I realized there was something fresh in my Spirit. Perhaps God had allowed me to lay fallow in the only way I would allow that to happen, with everything I had on my plate. As the afternoon wore on, I began to realize I was not going to push it to do chores in a rush that plagued my vision with chaos. I was going to journal. Thus I did for hours, and in between I made a list of what kind of lifestyle I would have to live if I was going to proceed with greater caution and be more measured in my choices of the use of time and talents. I went through my daily schedule, a new one again, changed by a client's variations in their schedule and wrote out a consistant pattern of self care.

And then I reread the entire journal I had in my hand. There are only a few pages left and it has, oddly enough, taken three years to fill it all. I have not been a prolific writer  in said journal. But I did record the highlights that were too important to pass by in time and history unremarkably.

I discovered this last three years had been a time of intense purging of old tired energy that kept the new vision and desires for my life as I responded to God's calling from growing into maturity.

Like 1991 when I had lost my faith for twelve weeks for the first time in my life only to arise one more feeling more fully restored and faith filled than ever, God had pressed me against concentric circles of busyness and had his way with my Spirit. Today, I began in new ways that are more life affirming than ever I have had and will lead to the fulfillment of every called task I have left unfinished or undone.

Sometimes you just have to let God have his way with your Spirit by his Spirit and submit and surrender. Therein is the Joy.
Love,
Deborah

Exhausted

Today I am tired. So tired I looked up 'healing exhaustion' on the lovely old interweb. I can't stay awake and  the sleep I experience on the couch from which I cannot rise is deep and the dreams are elusive in their meaning.

I've just come off a fourteen day stretch and today a client cancelled giving me an unexpected day off. Thinking I would get lots more done, I fixed myself a lovely bowl of cream of rice with raisins and brown sugar, a pat of butter and a splash of skim milk. I'd already prepared a pot of decaf coffee and sat down with a hot cup enjoying every sip and slurp of both.

Then I walked to the couch and fell asleep again. Hard deep sleep where I woke fitfully only to say to myself I was too tired to move. Hours later I rose and fixed myself a treat of French toast, a variation on an egg sandwich for lunch. Afterwards I sat down on the couch with my daily clipboard and wrote a few notes. Soon enough I had, after googling exhaustion, arranged the pillows so my head once more could drift off 'for just a bit' I told myself.

Now several hours later I have that fatigue still that makes me worry I have something fatal when really I know I just haven't had a chance to sleep properly for more than a week.
Most of the world is as exhausted as I am right now. We learn to push past it, to ignore it, to function despite it. A colleague of mine has written a song proclaiming most of the world's problems could be solved in the majority of people just took a nap or got more sleep.

The sum total of what I've gotten done so far is some strategic 'think' time and a call to the hardware store to find out if I need graphite spray for the front door. ...Oh...and this blog entry.

I'm going to remember today and somehow not do this to myself again. But most likely, in the pursuit of that which keeps the lights on and the car filled with gas, I will in a couple of months again push myself to the point of exhaustion. Not good. Terrible way to treat my body. Conumdrum to parents and executives and the working poor and slaves around the world.

Hmmmmmmm......what to do, what to do....
Love,
Deborah

Comfort Food

I did this really exciting daring thing, for me, this past Sunday. Our worship fellowship -- I hesitate to call it a church since we're really an espresso bar/meeting hall that sets up chairs on Sundays for worship-- holds an open mic on the fourth Sunday of every month. For the last couple of times I haven't had anything to share, but I had this idea brewing. Anyway, I had this really exciting week of fun activities this past week, some kids over to make cookies and a meal --two separate occasions-- and a Raffi concert with two of my little friends and a client Mom who drove us and had lunch with us,--and we got to meet him and talk with him one on one afterwards-- and then a chance to play the piano again for a hymn sing for memory care residents at an extended care residency and a blowout concert with several different choirs at the Total Experience Gospel Choir anniversary concert ....

And I really wanted to share that. Plus... I've been thinking a deep thought about how I switch into dating mode again. I've really been thinking a lot about wanting to be partnered with someone.Or do I? or can I? And how do you get to marriage?...again?

And I've been thinking about how old I am, and how time has passed and how I miss my kids all the time.

So, suddenly, this idea I had in the back of my mind for ever such the longest time, to try stand up came pressing forward. I had someone put my name on the list, and I got up, and with only a trail of where I wanted to start and where I wanted to end up, did my thing for five minutes.

AND IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!  How do I know it was successful? Well, for one thing, they laughed, and I felt totally relaxed and it worked and two ladies came up afterwards and asked if we could be friends.

Ever since then I have chastised myself ever so quietly in the back of my heart about being inappropriate and ostracizing myself from some church circles because of things I said.  I know those thoughts and feelings are not coming from God.

Nonetheless, they make me want to run back to my comfort zone of being likeable and affable and not putting myself out there in ways that make others look at me in condemning ways.

There are times for comfort food; times of fellowship and board games, times of rainy day movie watching marathons, times of returning to home, wherever that may be and doing sentimental cultural eating.

We can make our lives like eating comfort food too. But most of the time I believe that we are, even in the most desperate of times, meant to be adventurers.

Right now I am trying to carve out a dependable extension to my earlier life's path. But in that, I have discovered, I am only able to do so when I lean into adventure full force.

Make sure there is adventure in your day today. The Love of Adventure is the only way to find comfort in an uncertain world.
Love,
Deborah