LIFE IS WAITING FOR YOU

 

I am you and you are me.

We are alone, but not alone. 

We are trapped by time, but also infinite.

Made of flesh but also stars.

This is a quote from Reasons to Stay Alive (2015) by British author Matt Haig (b.1975).  The book is part memoir, part mental health critique, part depression handbook.  The thought in the first line--no more than seven one-syllable words--is unifying and certain.  

I think of God's promise:  "I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you." John 14:18-20.   Poetically, the first two lines also echo Walt Whitman:  

I celebrate myself and sing myself, 

And what I assume you shall assume, 

For every atom belonging to me as good as belongs to you. 

  

Haig underwent a crisis of depression as a young man, as many do at any age, a time when bodies seem heavy, and thoughts mired.  We learned much about these feelings during the worst of the long pandemic, if not before.  It is a mood we fear for those we love and they for us.  For many it stems from grief.  Here is what he says to those so struggling:  

You are on another planet.  

No one understands what you are going through. 

 But actually, they do. 

 You don't think they do because the only reference point is yourself.  

You have never felt this way before, 

and the shock of the descent is traumatizing you, 

but others have been here. 

 You are in a dark, dark land with a population of millions.   

The description of depression as descent into "a dark, dark land" is nevertheless hopeful because we are "in a dark, dark land with a population of millions," others who understand, who have been there, who--like the author of these lines--have survived, and we will too. 

James Baldwin said, "You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."  Yes, we might read any of the great writers or poets or we might read the Psalms. 

When I am sad my first comfort is always the Lord who shares my feelings with me and lifts me up and out--helps, saves, comforts and defends me.  He has been in this land with the population of millions.  He was, after all, crucified; and thought he was forsaken.  When we are down, life continues on its parallel course, waiting for us to rejoin.  Often what helps is concentrating on something transcendent:  a face we love, special words, the moon and the night sky.  Certain things for each of us, lift our heart.  In the face of what could be despair, to be calm is revolutionary. 

Peonies

One day is bad, but the next is better.  One week or even year is bad, but the next is better.  Beauty cleans the mind of hurts, even of devastations.  The beauty of God's creation, the trees, the stars, the ocean, art, music, literature, those who love us, the children we know . . . . The beauty of confession and forgiveness.  The beauty of hearing (or saying) "I'm so sorry.  I won't do it again."  Haig says, "Made of flesh but also stars."  That's us!

In peace, let us pray to the Lord.  Amen. 

 

 

CURATING YOUR LIFE

 

Late Summer Collage

Do you like the idea of curating your life?  I know I do.  Little bits at a time.  Someone I know makes what she calls "Shelfies," items meaningful to her that she rotates on shelves.  You know, a photograph, a memento, a candle or two.  We all do that.  On shelves by my computer, I keep a crocheted Mother's Day card that I like, a small jar of sea glass, a deer antler I found in our meadow, and other bits and bobs. 

The essence of curating is one more and one less, adding and subtracting.  For my dad's last years, he chose a small apartment with only 2 closets.  If he brought home a new shirt, he had to give one away.  One more of anything required one less of something.  A coffeemaker and a microwave, a recliner and a couch, a bed and a dresser, no more no less.  Think Marie Kondo without worrying about the joy part.  The joy was his late-life modest independence.  For us the joy might be a smaller footprint, less consumerism.  

Picasso, "Green Still Life," 1914

Some famous still-lifes begin with a collection of curated objects.  Picasso's own bits and bobs are in this one--a bit of a pear, a compote, part of a table runner, a vessel of some sort, the letters JOU with which a number of French words begin and, with WWI on the horizon, the startling inclusion of a hand wrapped around a grenade.  Picasso must have arranged things endlessly, adding and subtracting to get the right heights and shapes, dots and lines and orbs, the everyday with the symbol of looming war in the foreground.  Or maybe with his genius the arrangement was intuitive and instant.     

We can also seek a kind of one more, one less in a spiritual or mindful sense.  
At the beach I want to add more time bike riding and less time reading the news on my phone.  That's pretty much true every day of my life--more time doing X, Y or Z and less time with the daily news feed.  More contentment, less depression.

I came across a list someone made of their one more/one less choices.  Things like one less plastic water bottle, one less bag at the grocery store, one less hour of technology; one more smile for a stranger, one more deep breath, one more healthy choice.  I also began thinking of my own, as part of my mindfulness practice.  Looking for ways to start building a better life for myself and for others.  I think the idea of one more, one less makes a good writing prompt, it's so adaptable.  Sharing just a few. . . 

One less wasted hour, one less careless word.  One more creative project, one more thoughtful word.  Less time indoors.  More time gardening or walking, looking at the night sky or swinging in a hammock. . . .  Less time stressing.  More time with the children in the family, more time reading or writing for pleasure, more time at prayer. . . .  Less time making small talk, being sarcastic or not listening.  More time making real conversation, making food for friends, making love, making things better.  One less glass of wine, one more glass of water.  One less opinion, one more accommodation.  Less negative, more positive.  Like positive aging or positive self-acceptance, positive relationships, positive eating, you name it. 

Positive Thinking by Pooh

The prompt itself is making me feel positive!  What do you want more of?  What do you want less of?  What good things will we put on our shelfies?  What needs a bit of curating?  I'm enjoying this exercise.  Here's hoping you do too.                                           Nina Naomi

 

MOSTLY HAPPY

Late summer, just a few days left in August.  For many it's been a difficult time.  We've had fires and mudslides and homes toppling into high waters. People rescued, yet death tolls climbing.  Day after day, temperatures over 110 degrees.  Much sadness.  

Ukrainians are still fighting for their homeland. The former president has 91 felony charges against him and, as a lawyer, I've read every indictment.  I'm hoping he won't be the Republican nominee.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been outed as a grifter.  Maybe some others too.  I've gone to two funerals this week, one a young man only thirty.  Friends with cancer get good news and bad.  And who knows what will happen tomorrow.

And yet . . . we're mostly happy, aren't we? I wake every morning feeling lucky.  My gratitude list is long.  This close to fall, in North Carolina the mornings are lovely.  You can sit outdoors with coffee or tea. In the hotter afternoons you can find lakes and rivers and pools, or somewhere air conditioned.

Fresh air always lifts our mood.  Being outdoors never makes us feel worse.  When we're outside we remember what is eternal. Part of each day might be slow, or mindless, or even bad.  But being outdoors helps, winter or summer.  It's the easiest place to be mindful and find God; to be present in our lives in a non-judgmental way no matter what we are thinking.  The birds and squirrels teach us to pay attention.  The treetops teach us to listen for the breeze.  The heat, to appreciate the buzz of insects.  The rain to lift our senses and breathe.   We learn to clasp our own one precious life.

We could savor these days.  Children are back in school doing what they do best, socializing and learning.  We are working at home or elsewhere, unpaid or paid.  Or taking a last vacation over Labor Day. If our health is a concern, we are handling it.  At the end of each day, we shut down and know that we love and are loved.  Mindfully, we wake without letting our worries greet us.  We know the things that cause us pain, chapter and verse.  Why dwell on them?  We let them pass through our mind and move on.  We don't ignore difficulties, our own or others', but they do not define us.  We do our best.  We belong to God.

                                                                 Nina Naomi

THE WONDER OF SILENCE

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote "Silence is the universal refuge.  The sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment."  It's where we go to lick our wounds and savor our achievements. Pablo Picasso said, "Without great solitude no serious work is possible."   

Like many of us, my mind can be too noisy.  Sometimes something huge--war and famine and flood. Way beyond my ability to solve. Tragedies that will outlive me, that I must give to God. But also, small things--home repairs, my dirty house, my unweeded garden, stuff. The constant buzz of worries, big and small.  It all needs a bit of silence.

So many people have profound things to say about silence and solitude.  You can look them up if you want. It's calming to see how many of us ponder the benefits of a bit of quiet. Most everyone notes the difference between solitude and loneliness, silence and boredom, hearing and listening. 

Silence has its own dimension.  Author Guy Finley (1949- ) says, "It only seems that there is something more important for you to do than to just quietly be yourself." What a lovely idea.  This is something we each can do:  quietly be ourselves.  And isn't it true that silence draws people together?  Only people at home with one another can be silent together. When we think of a comforting silence it is often in the presence of a soulmate. 

Some things we can only do alone.  When I turned 50, I asked my father, "How long will I want to ride the waves?" He didn't know. Now I think it's when I can no longer push myself up from a belly flop on the shore.  Like when we ride the waves, which we do alone even when someone else is near, our best companions could be our solitary selves.  Surely true when we read or write, pray or meditate, learn a new piece, practice our art.  Just us and whomever we invite, like God.  

I've not yet traveled alone (except for business), but read about that, about the freedom to please only ourselves and the sense of achievement we feel when traveling alone.  Sometimes we feel pleasantly apart even when others are there. 

Solitude also gives us time to grieve when that's our lot. The silence to lean into our grief and hear its message. To let our suffering ebb and flow and dim on its own. That unwanted new person we need to be--someone who has lost a child or spouse, or our security or peace of mind--solitude helps that person survive and grow.  In silence we pay attention.  Our situation may change for good or ill, but however it changes, we become better at life in that world.

Look how wordlessly nature changes.  Yes, we hear the wind, the leaves rustling, the branches creaking, the water flowing.  We feel their force.  But the story they create, they do without a word.  Look again at the quote by Thoreau.  How easily we could say instead, "Nature is the universal refuge . . . a balm to every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment."  It's important that there are times when nature and silence are interchangeable.  

Khaled Hosseini in The Kite Runner says it well:  

"Quiet is peace.  Tranquility.  Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.  Silence is pushing the off button.  Shutting it down.  All of it."  Times there are when nothing else will do.  Shhh . . .                             

 

   

THE FUN OF HAIKU

 

by de Yoyo Ich

Remember learning Haiku in school?  So much easier to master than a sonnet.  A sonnet is 14 lines of iambic pentameter (10 syllables per line, unaccent/accent) with a formulaic rhyme scheme.  English majors know this by heart.  Shakespeare and Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote in sonnet form.  My husband wrote me a sonnet when we were both in college.  I found it just this week amongst treasures I've saved over the years. Ah, what hard work and young love it shows. Such yearning intimacy within the boundaries of three quatrains and a couplet.  We were both glad to read it again.  

But for something creative and masterable, no form surpasses Haiku.  Just 3 lines, 17 syllables.  Line 1 with 5 syllables, Line 2 with 7, and Line 3 with 5 again.  A masterpiece of compact symmetry that can be traced back as far as 9th century Japan.  Basho Matsuo (1644-1694) is one of the masters.

An old silent pond. . .
A frog jumps into the pond,
Splash! Silence again.
           

or

In the twilight rain
these brilliant-hued hibiscus,
A lovely sunset. 

I have been tempted lately to try my hand.  Maybe you will be too. For those into mindfulness, it seems like a way to meditate, think, and become centered when time is short.  Experts in mindfulness who I have been reading have said that.  Here are a few haiku I have enjoyed writing.

  Cloudless

Because she acted,

No more lies could break her heart.

Together once more. 

 Thoughts

What is your pleasure

When your memories are idling?

What color comfort?

Loyalty

One day when I was

Trusting the one that I love

The deep took my breath. 

 Carpe Diem

Early morning sun-

Setting face to the west,

Dusk came in my mind.

Then this one just because I like the picture that inspired me.  

 Saturday

Her balance is fine,

Winter, Summer, Spring and Fall.

All Life and no Work.

 

 

MOMENTS OF PEACE AND SOLITUDE

 

Silent Shadows by NN

• Being held close in an embrace
• Watching the sunset
• Turning off the reading light and snuggling down to sleep
• Pulling into your drive after a road trip
• Journaling in a quiet house
• Watching snow fall 
• Lighting a new candle, vanilla for me
• Hearing the creek after a deep and steady rain
• Settling into a hot bath, no rush
• Making a good decision
• Opening some doors, closing others
• Watching a hummingbird dart
• Lying on the cool side of the pillow
• When the cicadas sing at night
• When the shore birds dance in the morning

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

A writing prompt:     Where are you from? 

I am from an old house in a Midwestern town, a house with a front and back stairway and peacock blue wool carpeting with walls painted to match.  My mother, Nina Naomi, decaled a large flowering magnolia up the side wall of the open front stairway.  Having grown up living in the flat over her parents' hardware store--three kids, an unemployed uncle and two parents--she was enchanted with the large old home.  It was built in 1904, the same year as the St. Louis World's Fair.  We were told this often.  The house, it seemed, had a credential.  

Parlor doors, sculpted heat vents with pull-down metal covers, and butler's pantry.  To the passing world it appeared all ship-shape, white with dark shutters and a large front verandah.  But inside the flooring was softwood and impossible to refinish; it disappeared under a sander.  At the top, the stifling third-floor attic where we played, barely able to breathe, also had a softwood floor.  At the bottom an underground dirt basement held a coal bin and a furnace that shot fiery hot embers upward.   Tending that furnace was heavy labor, but not a job for me.  My job was to cross the dirt on wooden planks into a small, floored area where the washer sat and there, I would hang the clothes in winter--a favorite chore because the acoustics were great for belting out show tunes.  With the furnace so close everything dried stiff and quickly.  

The back hallway sat an inch or two higher than the rest of the downstairs because my dad tiled it repeatedly, one layer over another as adhesive continued to seep.  I believe my father put vinyl tile over the softwood in my brother's room as well.  This was even more disastrous, shimmering unevenly like a thin sheen of water over sand.  He also covered a natural brick chimney in the kitchen with white plastic brick facsimile for no reason I can imagine; the plastic puckered with drippings of dried yellow glue at the mismatched seams.  The house came with the parlor doors nailed perpetually open I think, but perhaps that was one of my father's home maintenance decisions too.  On the butler's pantry counters he (or my mother) stuck marbleized contact paper but ran out before the front edge was even.   No girl could have loved her home more than I did.  I floated around and up and down the stairs with romantic music playing in my head.

My room had rose wool carpeting years old but not totally threadbare, ripped out of that upstairs flat when my grandfather sold their hardware store after his heart attack.  Nap worn away, it lent no cushion to the floor under it.  Our parents' room had a used Axminister flowered carpet also salvaged from the flat. 

My bed was a white canopy.  Next to it sat a painted platform rocker where the unemployed uncle had once rocked his years away, springs and cushions and pegs but no nails.  Over a hundred years old, it still rocks sturdily upstairs in a very different house now.

I decorated my room with purple satin throw pillows and tiny flowered wallpaper.  It was hot in summer and cold in winter, very cold.  No heat came out of the vent in my bedroom, and it was beyond our means to call in a professional for any repair.  I shivered all winter, dressing in my parents' room where the vent worked.  The walls were smudged with coal dust and with smoke from the fireplaces.  We kept them burning on weekends to help warm the house.  But when the ash cooled the birds flew in, perhaps themselves to escape the cold, baby birds, grown birds, always a trauma what to do with the birds.  Then in summer swallows circled the house nightly and settled noisily along the brick insides of the chimneys.  We'd watch them fly in but never saw them leave.  It was a chaotic house, and the birds were part of that.  

In summer a window fan worked hard to cool the nights, but daytimes were stuffy, shades drawn against the sun and floor fans circulating the heavy air.  Then the wool carpeting took on a humid depth and the walls closed in.  My brother and I lay about.  

The kitchen was large and outdated even then, with clumsy carpentry work and hand-made plywood counters linoleumed in a 50's style.   The table we ate on had black crisscrossed stripes on a white porcelain enameled top.  The leaves slid under the table.  We never used a cloth and mostly had casseroles of mix and match food groups for dinner.  My mother would name them:  Mama's Mississippi Beef Bone Stew, Grandma Viola's lima bean and tomato soup casserole, and so on.  She would come into a cold kitchen after a full day's work and begin assembling.  Canned cling peaches were a staple dessert.   Burgers and dogs on the grill were a treat.  We never ate fresh fish unless my grandfather caught it.  Then it was fried in cornmeal, like I still do now when my husband has a good morning casting into the surf.  For a night out we might go to Steak 'n Shake and eat in the car.  I am from all of this.  

Because my parents smoked and the single toilet had no exhaust fan and a stuck window, the closet-sized room smelled stale and sour, unpleasant even in recollection.  Like a nursing home when urine-soaked sheets in laundry bins line the hallways, plus all the acrid chemical odors of the tobacco contaminants.  My father would then overlay this with a spritz of air freshener as he left the room to me in the morning.  The wash basin and clawfoot tub were in an adjacent room and smelled like my mother's makeup.  That was fine.  In the makeup cabinet was a jar of Vaseline that I would dab on my lips, eyebrows and eyelashes; the last swipe, when I was a little girl, went on my black patent Mary Jane's for shine.  I am from this too.

And a yard with a tree house, tire swing, and beds of pink peonies nodding, with white spirea by the back door and Pfitzers by the front. Grass grew sparsely and dirt packed hard.  My mother was not a gardener and never planted a thing.  She spent summers studying, lying in the sun with tea and a cigarette, taking notes and learning enough to earn a Master's degree and then a Ph.D.   My father built the tree house, then years later built another for our two children.  He went to night school to earn a Bachelor's degree.  My brother and I went to free Y camps or Bible School, summer school, or played in the neighborhood, ranging far.  My mother was a teacher but my father, before night school paid off, had one of those jobs that was from time to time humiliating.

My mother said she was the product of PFB, which she said stood for a Poor Family Background.  I don't know where she got that because there are many meanings of PFB that I found--from Please Find Below to a chronic inflammatory disorder--but not that one.  She didn't say it in a disparaging way, but rather like she expected to be contradicted (which she wasn't) or like it was better than the opposite.  

I am from a time when much was good, and much was not and as a child I didn't think about the latter.  We were poor enough not to think of white privilege--a term decades from use--with no consciousness raised until after the 60's bled out.   Then began the work-in-progress.  

This is the heart of where I'm from and I could write and write about it.  The landscape, the people and the traditions that make us who we are. 

                                           Thanking you for reading, Nina Naomi

FINDING COMPASSION FOR YOURSELF

"So Seductive," by Nina Naomi

Many of us carry something we feel guilty about:  maybe a broken promise to someone, maybe a broken promise to ourselves; maybe a serious mistake that hurt someone; maybe a short temper or rudeness.  So many things cause us not to be our best selves:  pride, flattery, exhaustion, financial stress, alcohol, the way we were raised.  The list is long. 

The continuum of guilt can be wide and reach deep.  And if the past, or present, has worsened our self-esteem, we may have trouble treating ourselves the way we would treat someone else under the same circumstances.  When we're really down on ourselves we might ask, "How can I have compassion for myself when I (fill in the blank)." 

I've been learning that there's an answer to this. One way to have compassion for ourselves, is to start with compassion for others.  When we show up for others and encourage them, we learn how to use the same skills with ourselves. When we listen, one person at a time, to children, parents, our sister or brother, friends, the checker, the cab driver, a neighbor, someone walking their dog, strangers even, we not only give them a lift, but some of that compassion reflects back to you and to me.  

Another way is to allow ourselves to be vulnerable.  When we tell someone what's troubling us, as we receive their compassion for our wounds, we learn from them how to treat ourselves similarly.  If someone offers us grace, we can mirror that behavior to ourselves.  We can say when we make a mistake (even a big one), "I am sorry.  I will make amends.  This could have happened to anyone."  

Some of these wonderful ideas come from following Annie Grace, an author I've mentioned who wrote This Naked Mind.  Since we live mostly in our own heads, our minds are full of thoughts of what we have done or left undone, big and small.  We know that there are ways we could change for the better.  But we might forget that change is supported more by kindness than by criticism.  Criticism defeats us.  

The work of Annie Grace reminds us, particularly with regard to addictive substances, that self-blame is simply "not applicable."  With nicotine, pain and sleep medications, alcohol and other drugs--i.e., things that cause daily or long-term dependence--what happens to our brains and bodies is a scientific certainty.  The substance creates a desire for itself.  Willpower and self-criticism are pretty useless against scientific certainties.  

Instead, self-compassion and knowledge are better methods for change, for all of life really. Learning enough to change our subconscious beliefs that something harmful is necessary for our well-being.  Not being told this.  Actually learning it, why we have done or left undone something that we question. 

Once we challenge our subconscious beliefs about whatever might be keeping us back, our feelings change and our actions follow; no blame to stymie us, no willpower to desert us.  Then we can build momentum and applaud our smallest successes.  No good thing is wasted.  I want to do more of that.     

"LIFE IS HARD BUT SO VERY BEAUTIFUL," ABRAHAM LINCOLN

 

I run across sayings that I love almost anywhere.  Maybe you do too.  Ideas arising out of thoughtfulness or close observation or a fine mind.  One of my favorites is by Socrates:  "Beware the Barrenness of a Busy Life" (Post 7/29/23).     

Maybe some of these will resonate with you.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.  

Creating the future is one reason young people go to college. My oldest grandchild is creating a future where he will be a civil engineer.  We find our life-partner, perhaps have children, buy homes, choose careers and save money all to create our futures.  It's even why we plant gardens I suppose, or tulip bulbs in the fall.  That way we have created our spring.  By gathering wood, I have created a fireside winter.  Almost everything we do or fail to do creates our future. Such responsible persons are we! 

"You can't use up creativity.  The more you use the more you have."  Maya Angelou (1928-2014) 

Haven't you found this to be true?  Unlike willpower, which depletes, creativity thrives on itself.  I like that this was said by Maya Angelou, poet, singer, memoirist, civil rights activist. Reading about her life is like reading biographies of multiple people, all that she did, from becoming a mother at age 17 to being the first black female streetcar conductor in San Francisco to reciting her poetry at a presidential inauguration.  

Maya Angelou also said, "Success is liking yourself."  What could be more important? How topsy-turvy that inner critic can make us. Liking yourself makes life a fine thing. How different this is than saying that success is having money or a big house or power and prestige.   

She also believed that "Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space."  "Invite one to stay," she said. Sometimes our fears give rise to courage and courage births hope. There is always something to hope for, even if it is, at last, God's strength and mercy. 

Keep quiet more often and see what happens.

  

So much of what's worthwhile requires quiet:  meditation, our thoughts, prayer, empathy, planning, forgiving (which happens first in the mind), focus, concentration. An unknown writer has said, "What if your fairy Godmother is the wisest, smartest version of yourself, whispering from the future: Stop treating yourself as an afterthought.  Say the truth you are carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure."  Well, we'd have to be quiet to hear her, wouldn't we?  

Nothing is missing.  You are already whole.

Illustration, 
Meera Lee Patel

A lovely reminder.  Surely this is how God thinks of us.  How God made us.  And of course, it is true of the person sitting next to us on the bus, on the park bench, in our workplace or schoolroom.  Or the person in the migrant boat or across the border.  Like we, they are whole.  How then must we behave? 

"Life is hard but so very beautiful."  Abraham Lincoln 

Lincoln was touched by many griefs, including the loss of his and his wife's children.  Today (and then), some people's lives are so hard that the beauty seems hidden from them, smothered perhaps.  Buried under two jobs and not enough family time. Or supplanted by a hunger for food and safety.   Or subsumed by war or flood or fire.  Or, in Lincoln's time, by the cruelty of enslavement. 

A version of this quotation is on a flowery outdoor wall mural in my hometown attributed to a local writer, although many have said something similar. This writer became aware of life's hardships when they became her own.  

Not so for many, those who have long seen both the difficulty and beauty, who haven't needed hardship to befall them personally to recognize this.  Who have always known that life's intensity flows in both directions.  Some days are hard, beyond-belief-hard.  And all days are hard for someone.  But the morning sun rises and the evening sun sets--always beautiful.  

                                                                             Nina Naomi