Because when it’s one of the last sunny, mild days before predicted snow later in the week, and you have an hour before your next meeting, you just have to slip out to a Coney Island, sit at the counter, enjoy a great salad, and listen to the chatter around you.
“There must be a storm,” I called to my companion over the rising wind. “They are all coming into the harbor, where it’s safe.”
Caught up in the blur of a month of thankfulness, and finally breaking down to listen to ‘Eat Pray Love’ on my commutes, mixed with a dose of full moon magic, and a dream about boats in a harbor that I just can’t shake, I have started to ponder the concepts of prayer and manifestation. I agree with many of the concepts of spirituality expressed by Elizabeth Gilbert in her book, and I also feel that, like her, I suffered catastrophic destruction of relationships that forced me to face certain concepts.
I was forced to face my own weaknesses, faults, and failures. I am not the best at maintaining personal relationships, I know this. I struggle to keep up friendships and to show people that I love just how much I love them.
It forced me to accept that people will break your heart in the most crushing ways, and disappoint you time and time again; and that people will show you transformational kindness and staunch support, love and joy, in equal yet entirely unpredictable measures. There will be those who break you, and those who stand by you holding you up, and those who do both. Most times, I didn’t accurately predict who would be whom. And I didn’t expect that it would be so difficult for me to accept help when it was offered.
I had to accept my starting point, and what a paltry, indefensible position it was. No help for it; I had to build, brick by brick, from there, and the only way to do that was from a place of grace, and forgiveness, for my own failings and for the hurt, disappointment, and abandonment I felt inflicted on me by others. I had to put everything behind me to move forward, and by and large, I feel I’ve done that. I am still a work in progress at forgiving and letting the past be the past, but I know the critical importance of it, and I work on it every day.
I had to forgive myself, too.
It forced me to accept that during all of the events of the past several years, I was not alone, and that although I chose the hardest, most exhausting paths to climb, there was a pattern to the events of my life, and grace, and that grace came from some other, higher source than my own limited self. Every time I fell down and said, I can’t get up, something forced me up. Though heavily we bled, still on we crawled. (Coldplay)
Like Gilbert, I have viewed prayer with skepticism. Actually, until the last year or so, I’ve been so uneasy with the concept of personal happiness that I actually felt more comfortable when I was unhappy, because then I didn’t have to fear the other shoe was about to drop. I suppose, for some reason, I never felt that I had earned happiness, peace, and contentment. When you don’t believe you deserve things, you don’t pray for them, and also, like Gilbert, I felt that praying for things was incredibly inappropriate. Why would God (whatever your concept of God is) care what I wanted, or needed, in the grand scheme of the universe? How can you look at the utter chaos and tragedy, the mass destruction constantly occurring on unthinkable scales throughout the world, and feel like God can care about my personal sadness, my needs?
I don’t have the answer to those questions.
But one thought resonates with me. It is David Lynchian, from reading one of his books on Transcendental Meditation. He is a bit cagey about a lot of the elements of TM, likely because it’s a “pay for play” program, but he reiterates time and again that meditation (prayer, we can call it) is not just a selfish endeavor. If we are to be viewed as a whole entity, if even one small dust mote in that entirety is happy, and at peace, it can spread, it can vibrate like a tuning fork. I think Madeline L’Engle writes about this too, sort of, in her Wrinkle in Time trilogy – the little farandolae who choose to sing with the universe rather than swirl ragefully, the tiny star that glows against the creeping darkness engulfing a planet.
I know these are grandiose concepts to justify prayer, and I know it’s likely melodramatic, but this is the way that I’m slowly becoming a bit more comfortable with the idea of a conversation with my God, and the possibility that perhaps it is okay for me to pray. To start, though, I’ve tried to approach this through the concept of work on myself, and manifestation. I don’t want to ask for things – I don’t want to ask God to bring me someone to love, or material fulfillment, or ultimate wisdom. I don’t even want to ask for things to be easier. I just want to have clarity about what I’m working towards, to view the future as an unknowable work in progress with nothing to fear, rather than a dreary unfolding of days spent alone, buying cat food and wine. I want to be happy in the present moment, be happy with what I have and the person that I am. Honestly, until I can accomplish those things, until I can dream my own life, I don’t know that there’s any point in me asking for anything else or having anything or anyone new in my life. I’ll just be repeating the same old patterns. So maybe that’s my prayer these days, maybe that’s my first step.
And you know, it seems to be working. I am much happier than I’ve been in years.
With a fire, and bread dough rising.
I am practicing my fire-building skills, but I think I am going to need more wood for the winter. I also need to start thinking about a snow removal company. My badass homesteading skills do not extend to snowblowers.
It is sleeting outside, and there is another polar vortex (the first of the season! aww) bearing down on us early next week. I have chili in the crockpot. I should have been doing a Turkey Trot today but the time change, and the hours of darkness, have diminished my mojo. Today, all I want to do is hang out by the fire, make things, and watch the play of weather outside of the den windows.
I’m trying a simple five-ingredient French bread recipe, to cautiously dip my toe back into breadmaking. I love the idea of homemade bread but I’ve never been successful at it. I’ve tried a starter, but my sourdough is never sour. Finally I gave up, until I heard this on NPR a few weeks ago. I waitlisted the book at the library, but it fired up my desire to bake, so we’ll see how it goes.
Sarge is helping relax today. We wish you all a happy, relaxing Saturday to sharpen your saw, as they say at Miss L’s school. xo
I am home from several days in the Happiest Place on Earth, and you know what? It was happy. Despite the crowds, and the exorbitant outlays of cash for souvenirs and toys, Harry Potter wand & robe, autograph book to stalk princesses, and $10 hot dogs (well, it had bacon on it) – it was happy. I felt as though for a brief few days, my concerns and troubles were left at the gates, and I lived in the moment in the park, only concerned with when our next FastPass started and whether we could handle a 40 minute wait for a ride or a princess autograph. Miss L had a great time. GB & I fell back into our normal mother – father rhythm and for a few days, it was sort of just the three of us again, which was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant, fleeting as it is.
Emmett & Sarge were livid that we’d been gone so long, and have spent the last day following me around closely to ensure that I don’t plan on leaving again anytime soon. The time changed while we were away, and we came home to bare branches and spindly November light. The days are short and darker now, and soon, the outside chores left undone will have to stay undone. I still have things to finish, but tonight I built a fire (a successful fire) and I have a striped cat lounging protectively at my elbow and dinner is in the oven and the darkness is pressing on the glass.
My shin splints are gradually getting better, although I am still feeling the tenderness during the first mile of my runs, and babying them a bit. Definitely an improvement over a few weeks ago. I’ve gotten serious about my training and am back on the track towards my 20-mile a week goal, but being patient and increasing only a mile or a mile and a half a week (last week I logged 12.9). I will likely try to do three or four shorter runs during the week and a day of cross-training (think squats, one-legged squats, lunges, core training, the elliptical) mixed with a long run on the weekend. There are a dearth of half-marathons in the deep winter months in Michigan, but I will be shooting for a March half at the Ann Arbor marathon and if all goes well, maybe a full marathon next fall at the Sleeping Bear. In the meantime, my next event is our traditional A2 Turkey Trot. My Crossfit friends are doing the Iron Turkey (a 5k and a 10k back to back) but based on my conservative approach to my training and shins, I’m sticking with the 10k, which will still be a challenge, I’m sure.
I love this Turkey Trot, by the way. There’s always a steel drum band at the first turn, and whenever I hear them singing ‘Turkeys Do the Conga” it makes me laugh.
I’m trying to build my tolerance for a lot of treadmill running, since the winter is predicted to be as bad as last year, and that means a lot of snow, ice, and subzero temps. I’m a cold weather runner by nature, but there was no way there could be safe, healthy outside running for a majority of last winter. The snowfall was record breaking and paths, roads, and sidewalks were generally drifted, barely cleared, or ice-covered. This is in marked contrast to a couple of years ago, when we ran outside all winter long, thanks to mild temps and limited snow.
It’s discouraging how much my running speed and endurance have decreased, thanks to that long snowy winter and an injury-prone summer. I went out for my first over-4 mile run a couple of weekends ago, and found a great new place to run (Island Lake in Brighton, MI). I don’t usually look at my watch during long runs, except to note miles if I need to turn around at a certain spot, and instead try to find a comfortable, easy pace that I can keep up without walking. It was a spectacular bright fall morning, cold and golden, and for three quarters of the run I had that great feeling of my body as an engine, disconnected from my mind and my thoughts. This to me is the ideal running state, when my body does what I’ve trained it to do without fuss and my mind is free to wander – I’m not focused on muscles or breath or discomfort or distance. I paced myself slowly and consistently, but when I got back to the trailhead I was optimistic that I’d turned in a pretty good time. I checked my watch and gah!!!!! Yes, I’d made it without walking, feeling very comfortable and easy, but I’d run on average a whole minute slower per mile than last year’s training pace (so about two minutes per mile slower than my target race pace). GAH.
I know I’ll get it back if I keep applying myself consistently, training smart and with dedication, but that’s why running will break your heart, right there. 🙂
In the meantime, we are off to Disney. Pray for me, o fellow Introverts.
My dad’s loathing of crowds is notorious in our family. One of my favorite grievances from childhood, which I dwell on with regular morbid enjoyment to punish him, is the memory of taking a boat ferry to Mackinac Island on a lovely summer day…only to be confronted with an island full of tourists. My dad struggled gamely for a few minutes, we bought ice cream cones, I was enjoying a butter pecan in a waffle cone, and then bam. The huge influx of humanity evaporated his patience and just like that, I was being told to THROW AWAY THE WAFFLE CONE so we could get back on the ferry to the mainland.
As I get older, my attitude toward crowds is very similar. I still can’t imagine throwing away a perfectly good ice cream cone to escape them, but I find that large crowds really detract from my enjoyment of anything, and unfortunately, we experienced that this past weekend.
We are taking Miss L to Disney over Halloween weekend as a surprise, and although I know she’ll love it, I was starting to feel a little sad that she wouldn’t get the traditional Midwest trick or treating experience – the cold air, the fallen leaves, a sky full of stars, the crushing bummer of having to wear a coat over your costume. So I bought tix to the Halloween Walk at Greenfield Village.
Greenfield Village is pretty awesome, but in my mind I always confuse it with Crossroads Village, which we frequented as children, and which is a little more rough-hewn, so to speak, than Greenfield Village. I was imagining more dusty tracks and rough edges and maybe a chill coming over the fields, a more genuine experience.
Pros:
Cons:
It was PROHIBITIVELY crowded and by the end of it (a winding mile walk is a lot for little six year old legs) we’d lost her mask and been dangerously close to being trampled several times. There was a vague promise on the website of the ‘Headless Horseman galloping out of the fields’ but this was just shtick as he merely stood near a fence and bantered with the crowds.
Miss L was polite about the experience, but non-committal about wanting to do it again, and by the end of the night, we were both very happy to take our donuts home and get under a blanket on the couch. She was tuckered out from the crowds and the walking; I was a little bummed out about the crowds and the overall slick, unenthusiastic nature of the proceedings. I love autumn and I love Halloween, and I feel like people are so desperate for an authentic, historic, mystical, autumnal experience that they will stand in long lines for mass produced entertainment, crowded hayrides and pumpkin patches entirely devoid of sincerity, to achieve it. Go walk in the woods, for Pete’s sake, or visit a real farm, or just spend an afternoon raking.
The whole crowd experience, and Miss L’s lack of enthusiasm about it, and my own perilously squeezed patience with the masses, has made me more than a little apprehensive about Disney this coming weekend…We shall see.
1. Lunch with a Loved One. Miss L’s new school has been such a better fit for us and we couldn’t be happier with her teacher, her pre-care and after-care, and the overall environment. It’s a Leader in Me Lighthouse School that operates on the Covey principles, and the kids and staff take it seriously. (I overheard Miss L playing with her stuffed ponies recently, and she was rewarding one of them for ‘being a leader of himself’.) This week was Book Fair and Lunch with a Loved One, and Miss L got over her fear of mascot ‘Spot’.
2. My last big presentation was Wednesday and the room was full of people. In a bit of a departure, I decided that I wasn’t going to rehearse or practice my already familiar slides. If my biggest flaw is nerves, I reasoned, I had to just say ‘I don’t give a fuck what any of these people think of me’ and stand up and do it. Now, I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone else, and it probably will never work again, but this time, it DID. I wasn’t nervous at all, no tremors in my voice, no quavers. I’m the first one to realize when I stink, but this time I was pleased with myself.
3. GB & I were discussing the mechanics of safely watching the partial eclipse and he reminded me that there is a welder’s helmet in the garage. One of the benefits of having a house still full of my ex-husband’s stuff (I know, it’s weird, I think he’s working on it) is having access to items like that. I watched for a little while but ultimately realized how slowly the whole process went and even with the welder’s helmet it was still pretty painful to look at. Still, I do like the interaction that my ex-husband and I have at times. We laughed about the welder’s helmet and it’s nice to make each other laugh. Even though it didn’t work out between us, it reminds me of why we were friends in the first place, long before marriage and Miss L.
4. I didn’t get to run much this week, and I feel a little anxious about that, but sometimes you have to choose companionship over fitness, so instead of using my free lunch hour on Friday to exercise, I went out to lunch. My running buddy M and our colleague MC Granola and I don’t eat out together very much, but we have a few Ann Arbor places that we love, and are very compatible in our food choices and conversation and music. We listen to the rap channel on satellite radio and hit Casey’s, or Chela’s, or, as on Friday, Monahan’s Seafood (see above – M graciously photographed me with the lobster). Monahan’s is a seafood counter in the Kerrytown market, there are daily specials or the standard salmon burgers or crispy fish sandwiches. Everything is fresh, beautiful, amazing, you order over the counter and there’s only limited seating, so we take our food out into the adjoining courtyard. On Friday the weather was mild and autumnal, almost chilly but not quite; the sparrows fluttered around us for crumbs and the gardens were turning orange and brown, fading hydrangeas and ivy on the mossy brick walls. The Kerrytown Chime sent clear round notes floating across the Historic District, and when we were done, we wandered over to Zingerman’s for coffee. We lingered on the corner then, talking idly with our coffees, and letting Ann Arbor bustle around us, bell notes and leaves falling around us in the mild breeze, unwilling to say goodbye; and then we drifted apart, calling goodbyes, the moment broken and dissipating, time always moving.
Faithful readers of my blog (hi mom) will know that I like to pretend I am a homesteader even though I live in the suburbs. It makes my yardwork seem more interesting.
This morning Miss L & I woke up and I made her some pancakes. I got all crafty and added a dash of cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice and she thought they were fine until I TOLD her I had added these things, and then her enthusiasm markedly decreased. (You should have seen her reaction to the green tomato sauce the other night…”WHAT’S THAT?!”)
The weather here in Michigan is blustery and autumnal and we spent the morning homesteading.
We cut back the rest of the tomatoes and the peony bushes, and the front yard hostas which had gone yellow and wet-papery. I took cuttings of my coleus (yes I know how that sounds) and decided to try overwintering my Boston ferns, which are now trimmed back and living in the garage until spring. We drained the hose and hung it up in the garage; I trimmed bushes and we filled birdfeeders and stacked some firewood and I pondered what to do with the compost bin and the woodpile. The woodpile needs to be relocated closer to the back door, but I was having a crisis of confidence. Last night, whilst Miss L and I ate Oreos and watched a Harry Potter marathon, I tried to build a fire and failed. I thought, what’s the point of bringing the woodpile closer to the house if I can’t build a fire? Then Miss L went happily off to her dad’s house and I had tea and toast with honey creme and I tried again with the fire. This time, it worked splendidly and I’m pleased to say that it is still going in the woodstove. Emmett is crashed out in front of it looking blissful and I am proud.
I still think about packing it in – telling the Legal Dept that I am leaving to be a homesteader, selling my house in the ‘burbs, taking whatever equity i have plus my small savings, and buying a tiny fixer-upper on a lot of land up north near my folks. I would learn how to keep bees and have a half-acre garden and maybe some chickens…it’s a nice little dream. I have always had reclusive tendencies and I think now that I am divorced, I’m just ready to be out in the open with the fact that I like being alone better than I like being with most other people, and if left to my own devices, I could seriously disconnect from society in a way that I would probably regret later. Part of me feels anxious about this, and I have moments of, ‘I’m going to be alone for the rest of my life! I’d better start Internet dating! I can feel my skin losing elasticity with every passing moment!!’ I’m in that murky grey area where the thought of being a single old lady whose shopping cart is full of wine and cat food is terrifying, yet the prospect of dating anyone – going out on dates – is completely unappealing.
So, Miss L needs her great school and I need my job and friends, and I need to be forced outside of myself on a regular basis, and I just need to keep reminding myself that everything happens for a reason. I don’t have to figure it all out now and anyway, hey, I can build a fire while I’m waiting
throwback thursday to 2009’s orchard trip.
I like my job just fine, and am extremely grateful to have it, but after passing the midpoint of what I am considering to be the Bataan Death March of presentations (which started in June with the two big ones, followed by the disastrous executive committee presentation of a few weeks ago) I am ready to go be a crazy hermit in the woods with chickens. I might starve, but at least I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone…
The one yesterday went better than the executive committee shit show, but still not well. I had to speak to an auditorium full of people, wearing a mic, and I was shaking so hard that I couldn’t use the laser pointer. I don’t really know what to do at this point except resign myself to the fact that I can prepare (I practiced so much for this presentation that I dreamed about it) and know everything by heart, have meticulously prepared slides and narrative, and still stand there as terrified as I have ever been in my life. There’s nothing for it. If they keep asking, I have to keep doing it, it’s part of my job, but it takes me a long time to gear up and a long time to ramp down, I leave the presentations drenched in cold sweat, dehydrated, and with a sick headache that lasts for the rest of the day. I have another one next week that may be as big as the one yesterday, and I just have to get through it, as much as I would prefer not to. The worst part is knowing that my problem is all in my head and that if I could just get a grip on myself, I would do a great job. But I just can’t and when it’s done, I go be by myself for awhile and laugh a little, shakily, and try to console myself by thinking there is something character building about continuing to try to do my best. It’s disheartening, you know, to put so much effort into something, doggedly, and continue to knock your own self back down. I feel like Charlie Brown on the pitcher’s mound.
So today, still in an emotional recovery mode, I had the chance to take a teleconference meeting from home and I did it. In the old days, I never took opportunities like this – I was always afraid it would reflect poorly on me and jeopardize my employment. Now, if I get a chance to do something from home and have a leisurely breakfast with my daughter, and walk her to school on a mild, damp autumn morning, I do it, for better or worse. It doesn’t feel stressful anymore – it feels like a treat, and even if it means I am more mediocre employee, it makes me a happier human being and mother.
I brought in a sack full of green tomatoes, and am thinking about trying a green tomato pasta sauce for dinner tonight. The world outside the windows is full of wet leaves pasted to sidewalks and turning lawns yellow. The trees are almost at peak here in Michigan and from now until Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite time of year.
My dad made me the most beautiful farmhouse table and my mom painted it the most perfect shade of driftwood grey; now we just have to figure out a way to get it out of his workshop and into my house!
Emmett, feeling sweet and artsy and pensive for a change.
Leader in Me workshop at Miss L’s school to write our family mission statement and get acquainted with the Covey ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective Schools’ program.
Sometimes even sitting in traffic can have its upside.
Our annual orchard trip, picking the perfect pumpkins and spending time with our family.
Happy Sunday! xo
Six Ten 