The Blur...A Disconcerting Miracle

Suddenly, my Andrew Harvey book, with his name authoritatively carved in capital letters across the bottom, turned into “When Harry Met Sally.” Don’t know how that happened. Just looked across the pile on my office coffee table, with its candles and coasters and camera and cashews, remotes and mouse pad and chocolate covered raisins, and there, amidst the twine and tape, (maybe it was the HA) “When Harry Met Sally” suddenly appeared, clear as day, and I thought, What’s that doing there?

Everything has broken down or run out, as if from over-use. My mouse is shot. I pulled the thumbdrive thingy that makes the mouse work without a cord out of its port so that I could plug in the camera, and the insides fell out. Both printers are out of ink. Even the furnace blinked off two times in the past week.

The last few days are a blur of socializing. Now Henry is sick. Rain is predicted and the chance, afterwards, of freezing rain and you might as well say it: just plain ice. Donny is contemplating getting some of the four feet of snow off the roof before the rains come and I’m contemplating getting out to the cabin before the ice.

Mary and I were wanting to get together, to have friend time in that way that normalizes life in these periods when you don’t know what day it is. She’d e-mailed me saying, “I think after the holidays no one is quite themselves.” I replied, “Yikes, is that ever true.”

But neither of us had a quiet house in which to get together. Her husband had the week off of work, and my daughter and grandson the week off of school.

But there was the cabin. So, using the broom handle like a cane, I took myself out there, Mary in the lead with the coffee pot. I hadn’t planned to even attempt it until Donny headed out to feed the birds. Then I said, “Hey, while you’re out there, see if you think I can get to the cabin without slipping, and if you do, turn on the heater, please.”

I’m feeling a little more like myself now but I don’t discount the blur. That there are days on which “When Harry Met Sally” replaces Andrew Harvey, Tuesday feels like Sunday, and normal life is distant, is still a miracle. Disconcerting, but a miracle.

A Christmas Message

Set your compass to what is brilliant in you. Don’t worry about where you’ve been or where you’re going. Just find and follow the brilliance.

Remember the brilliance of the new moon. The brilliance of a star that shines in a clear dark sky. Be clear. It is time. Let yourself shine now with brilliance --. Head in that direction. Follow the star.

Don’t look for the brilliance of a distant guiding light, but follow the brilliance in yourself, the shining part of you.

Walk with brilliance out of the haze.

Snow

I was heading over to my mom's to help her make the meatballs for the annual Christmas spaghetti (she's Italian), when I realized that as long as I had my camera in my bag, I might as well take a few pictures of the snow.

I don't have much to say about it. I just know that for those who don't get this kind of snow it's a bit of a marvel, so I thought I'd share. It's hard to put it in perspective though. Half the world (my friend in Vietnam heard of it), know of the snow collapsing the Metro Dome and as many of the spectacle of the Vikings football players sliding on the ice of Gopher Stadium. All the world knows that Minnesota has had snow.

It's funny to be the focus of attention in this way. Like the photos of the snow, it's the kind of thing where you need to have your visuals stand in contrast. Here's the big fish. Here's the guy's hand holding the big fish. You can't tell a big fish is a big fish unless you take one of those photos like in the movies, where they show the guy who was kidnapped with the current day's date on the newspaper. Okay, that wasn't a photo of him taken last June.

So many things are like that -- comparison providing the defining features.

As Christmas draws near, I imagine what the world would be like without comparison. Would it be less known? More clear? Less harsh. More gentle?

Off the path

When I wrote the poem I posted a week ago, the one that ends on there being no more paths…there were no more paths. That was the reality after all the snow and I was okay with that in my own way. I’m one of those people who get excited about the idea of forging my own path, at least in the sense of going beyond where paths have previously led.

Then I drove by my neighborhood park where there are several paths and trails – a main one that is paved, level, out in the open – and a half dozen or so that zigzag up hills, into ravines, and are narrow enough swaths through the trees that you can get the feel of being alone in the world, and where there hasn’t been a bit of path clearing since the first minor shows.

Suddenly…there out my car window…were paths, and ones that are, at least momentarily, almost manicured. Along the paved path, white walls have arisen on either side – not the lumpy mess of shoveled sidewalks but a clean and compact wall left and right.

I haven’t walked the snow-walled paths yet. I was so surprised when I saw them that I laughed out loud. “Just when I was thinking there are no more paths!” This one was so striking! There it was, the one and only path. The clear path. The clean path. There was really no other choice available, no way without heavy hip boots or snowshoes to get off the beaten path at all.

This still cracks me up because, of course, I wasn’t thinking about metaphorical paths when I started the poem. I was thinking literally of all the paths the snow had obliterated, including the one to my cabin, but especially those at my park.

The malls, I have heard, have pavement heaters, giant things that clear their parking lots so shoppers aren’t inconvenienced, and the maximum number of vehicles can still deliver them to somewhere near the door.

Now I’m perfectly aware that some of the very things that I like to complain about are conveniences that I’m happy to use. Freeways are a great example. When the city streets are still treacherous with parked cars plowed in, plows making second swipes, cars spinning their wheels and gliding through stop signs, pedestrians and children and school buses…the freeways are readied, faster than any other routes, for safe traffic. I’m happy that there are plows. I’m really happy that there are paths through difficult times, however they come.

But I’m also happy with those things that stop it all once in a while – like blizzards – and unplowed paths. And I get thrilled by where writing even the most mediocre poem takes me into the path of my feelings, that thrill at “being alone in the world” that makes me tremble, that “stepping off the path” feeling that makes me feel inspired and curious and happy, and most of all to want more of it. Oh, how I’d like to live in that place! How glad I am that I do now and again.

Longing and Armistice

At this time next week – Christmas morning.

I was looking back yesterday, remembering dissimilar things about the year just passed. How Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize about this time last year, and that it’s been about the same time since they put the street light in that shines it’s bright green and red circles all the way through the woods and into our yard. I wonder what I’ll remember next year about this year.

Maybe I’ll remember the snow.

I spend my time looking out at the cabin. It sounds almost like a joke to not dare walk out there because of frozen shoulder, but it’s the way it is. You don’t realize how much your arms balance and catch you until a time like this and then you become so aware about how all the “parts” of the body work together in mysterious ways.

Donny’s been plowing too much to spend time shoveling a path to the cabin and even with it, I don’t know that I’d make the voyage. It feels like crossing an ocean of snow about now. I asked him if there wasn’t something I could use – something like a push lawnmower that would drop sand ahead of me while I lean on it.

I’m mainly content with looking out at the cabin, but some days I pine for it. My cabin season ended so abruptly I didn’t even clean her out, there’s a few things I wish were here rather than there, and I wish she were all clean and tidy for the next time I get out there.

One of my favorite views of her is through the dining room window where the Christmas tree lights from inside reflect against the outdoor scene. It makes me think of all those songs and movies that croon over being “home for Christmas.” I’m not sure why, but for me, (and it must be true for many as these songs are so popular) the sentiments speak to a longing that’s not necessarily about going back to a childhood home, or returning from one side of the world to another, or even being with family. I’d guess the feelings they arouse are about a yearning for a peaceful place …one in the world but not of it.

In the true story out of WWI (1914), when the soldiers spontaneously called an armistice for Christmas, that longing for home is quelled by a bit of peace and good will in such an extraordinary way. The British soldiers were in trenches filled with water and mud, about 80 yards from the enemy Germans. Here’s one letter from that time:

You need not have pitied us on Christmas day; I have seldom spent a more entertaining one despite the curious conditions. We were in the trenches and the Germans began to make merry on Christmas Eve shouting at us to come out and meet them. They sang songs (very well); our men answered by singingWho were you with last night? and of course, Tipperary (very badly). I was horrified at discovering some of our men had actually gone out imbued more with the idea of seeing the German trenches than anything else; they met halfway and there ensued the giving of cigarettes and receiving of cigars and they arranged (the private soldiers of one army and the private soldiers of the other) a 48 hours armistice. It was all most irregular but the Peninsular and other wars will furnish many such exploits; eventually both sides were induced to their respective trenches but the enemy sang all night and during my watch they played Home Sweet Home and God Save the King at 2.30am. It was rather wonderful: the night was clear, cold and frosty and across to our lines at this unusually miserable hour of need came the sound of such tunes very well played, especially by a man with a cornet who is probably well known. Christmas day was very misty and out came these Germans to wish us “a happy day”; we went out told them we were at war with them and that really they must play the game and pretend to fight; they went back but again attempted to come towards us so we fired over their heads; they fired a shot back to show they understood and the rest of the day passed quietly in this part of the line, but in others a deal of fraternising went on. So there you are; all this talk of hate, all this firing at each other that has raged since the beginning of the war quelled and stayed by the magic of Christmas. Indeed one German said “But you are of the same religion as us and today is the day of peace! It is really a great triumph for the church. It is a great hope for future peace when two great nations hating each other as foes have seldom hated, one side vowing eternal hate and vengeance and setting their venom to music, should on Christmas day and for all that the word implies, lay down their arms, exchange smokes and wish each other happiness.

(from http://www.christmastruce.co.uk/article.html Christmas Truce 1914)

In 2001, Aaron Shepard wrote “The Christmas Truce” for Australia’s “School Magazine” (April). It’s a fictional letter created out of the many actual ones. He ends the letter this way:

“One cannot help imagine what would happen if the spirit shown here were caught by the nations of the world. Of course, disputes must always arise. But what if our leaders were to offer well wishes in place of warnings? Songs in place of slurs? Presents in place of reprisals? Would not all war end at once?
All nations say they want peace. Yet on this Christmas morning, I wonder if we want it quite enough.”

Not here yet?

Is it snow or sky?





And winter isn’t even here yet

This is said in mid-December
after a blizzard
in Minnesota

Things get finished up
and begun
on timetables that do not belong
to seasons not your own

Quick quick slow slow
who is to say
quick or slow
when the snow lies flat around the swing set
and ski jumps the slide and
casts irregular shadows
and lays across the yard some more
with the tree limbs mirrored in it and one star overhead

What is there
that is not yet here
when there are no trails left to walk?

The Blizzards of '91 and 2010

I don’t know what date it is lately until I type it. But I know it’s Saturday, exactly two weeks before Christmas. Mia and I were going to go Christmas shopping today but we got snowed in by the worst blizzard since 1991’s Halloween blizzard. We were talking about it and Mia said that she couldn’t believe we took them out in that.

I said, “Wasn’t it the most fun Halloween ever?”

“Yeah, for us,” she said. “But what about for you?”

If I fretted over it at the time I sure don’t remember it. We weren’t driving. We walked from our house up toward Cherokee Park and there was a feel of such camaraderie from everyone we ran into – as if we are feeling like a bunch of fools and at the same time like hardy mid-westerners.

Today, I haven’t been out. Donny decided to give it a try and got stuck at the end of the driveway going out and coming back both. There’s about three feet of snow outside our door (and everyone else’s) and I think he plowed just about the whole street in whatever little vehicle he has – which has no cab.

Five hours later, I’m so tired from baking that I can hardly make it to my room to sit down, and Donny comes in frozen, saying he’s not sure he’s going to make it downstairs to the shower.

We are at that age where we don’t know our limits until they’re suddenly confronting us. “Okay, can’t take another step.” It sounds dumber when the activity is baking, but nonetheless it’s the fact of the matter.

Like the sky dropping all this snow on us, we don’t know when to quit and it’s not quite as fun as the blizzard of ’91, which was, even though it seems impossible, nearly 20 years ago.

It’s okay though. Mia and Angie helped. It didn’t start out real smooth but the more tired we got and the more things went wrong the more fun it was.

That was really the beauty of the blizzard of ’91 too. It was just plain wrong to get a foot of snow on Halloween. You can get giddy with that kind of thing.

The gift of shared experience

Have been making bread machine bread for a week or so. The first one – Henry said it was the best bread he ever had – then what could I do? He’s also loved decorating and tells me how pretty things look. He’s so excited about Christmas – the tree, the lights, the little fawn that sits on the wine table beside a ceramic tree with a garland of snow. He dances around in his excitement.

I know it’s the season to be jolly, but for some reason that felt like cellular memory as it began, I dug out the writing I did during my dad’s illness and death. I say cellular memory because it was as if my body just did it without me thinking about it. And then some of the first scenes, being as I was re-reading the tales of October and November days in October and November, were eerily the same. Like the nice fall giving way quickly to winter and a bright sunny day that followed when the trees had gone bare from the wind and all the leaves were piled against the curbs and rustled and stirred and followed my car along as I drove.

We had a notebook going during Dad’s final days – one of those where people can sign in like a guest book and write notes. Initially I wanted to record the gifts people brought, thinking I’d do thank you notes, which I never did. Later it became a way to let the other shifts know what had gone on during the day. I typed it up after Dad died because it was so amazing to me – all the people who had visited and the short comments they left. Some of it boring as peas but other parts sweet, and as a whole it became one of those treasures that says more than the individual parts.

It’s like when I was a kid and we’d get Christmas cards by the dozens and tape them over the archway that separated the living room from the hallway. My Uncle Jack and Aunt June always sent one that listed each family member: Jack, June, Judy, Jeff, Jill, Joy, JoEllen, Jan, and Jackie. I memorized that list of names as if it was a ditty. It never left me. My mom, who sees the cousins rarely, will ask, “Which one is that?” and I never hesitate.

There’s things like that in the notebook.

Dad died in 2007 and in 2008 I put the notebook and my journal entries of the same period together. I don’t know if I ever had a real purpose in mind for it. It was likely just part of processing my grief. But I got that call back to it a month or so ago and started thinking of giving it to family for Christmas, and then maybe sharing it as a book. But I began to question who, other than family (if even them) would want to read it.

Anne Lamott wanted to write a funny book about cancer because there wasn’t one when she needed it. You wouldn’t think of a thing like that unless you needed it. I wrote about my life with my dad as it happened because I needed to.

William Stafford has said that his writing style is his plight as a human being. That’s the way it is for some of us.

I don’t know why you’d want to read anything on death and dying before it shows up in your life, or how you could read anything during the experience, which only leaves “after.” Here it is for me, almost four years later, and I don’t know why I’m doing it and keep wanting to put it away, and can’t quite. I can tell it affects my mood and I don’t honestly need a darn thing extra to affect my mood and yet it’s kind of like Henry and the bread. Once you get started you can’t stop.

But again it struck me today, as it did when I was writing The Given Self, that the full immersion into the experience of death and dying (no matter that it comes with meds and bedpans and nebulizers and family fights) is about the closest thing to spiritual experience that I’ve ever come across. It came of thinking of sharing and deciding there’s no way anyone could read something like this compilation while in the midst of the experience.

Hospice workers give you things like short verses of poems, scripture, or prayer. You might be able to read that much, focus that long. There’s no comfort that can be had (at least not for long) from anything that comes apart from the experience. A smile from your loved one is comfort. A moment of peace in your day is comfort. Meds coming on time is comfort. It all feels like emotional overload but there’s so much more going on, such a rich depth of feeling, such profound change.

So it’s after – after – when you want to know what hit you. It’s after, when you feel the let down from that immersion, that fully focused presence of experience. It’s afterwards that you begin the decompression and maybe want some kind of company.

I couldn’t read as I received A Course of Love. Couldn’t hardly read anything else when I first discovered A Course in Miracles either. It’s that total immersion that can let you know that so much more is going on. And in the same way as after a death – that’s when I, at least, needed the companionship, the people with a similar experience to talk it over with, or just some feeling of solidarity of the type that says, “This is what it’s like.”

I don’t know what I’d do without friends and authors and correspondence from people who share their experience. Sharing our experience can be a gift…and I guess you have to trust that somewhere within yourself you’ll know when the time is right to give it.