ADVENT

Only five more nights 'till Christmas Eve.  Every year seems to be different than the last.  Last year I was laid up post-surgery.  Missed Advent, concerts, shopping, cooking . . . you name it, I missed it.  This year we decorated our tree early, started our gift selecting on time and I even got the Christmas pages of my collage book up-to-date.  A fire, music, a grandchild and collaging makes for the most relaxing hour.  Homework done, she sketches while I cut and paste.  We share gummies while we work.  That's simple living! I love it.

 

I remember when I was practicing law full-time I'd call my mom, a retired history teacher, and she'd be enjoying an afternoon sit-down, wrapping gifts and baking her famous lace cookies.  I couldn't imagine that kind of leisure.  For awhile I didn't even envy it; it seemed decadent somehow, not a productive use of time. I'd be driving home from the office and she and my dad had eaten already. She'd spent the whole day without an adrenaline surge; I wasn't ready for that. 

I didn't see that she had lived decades without the time for a hobby, that until she retired she had to squeeze in her grandparenting time with my children.  I didn't see her life then as a well-deserved respite from the hundreds of students she had lovingly taught, as time for her to be herself, with only the demands she created.  

My mom died at 82 after a twenty-year retirement.  She learned to quilt and won prizes.  She and my dad moved to a small beach community where she joined book groups, the library board and a out-reach group for newcomers. She read and re-read history non-stop.  My parents had more time then to appreciate the rest of the family and to show love to one another.  They had time to watch the winter sun set over the ocean. My husband and I on the other hand, were meshing our travel schedules.  I was grateful for airports that had some good gift-buying options.  Does that ring a bell?  Are you there now?  I could shop for the Christmas dinner fixings, get the kid's and adult's tables set, scoop the torn wrapping paper into trash bags and fall asleep all on a moment's notice. Is that where you are?  What are your "then and now" Christmases like?  How have they changed?

Actually it's all good, isn't it?  My niece has 4-year-old twins.  During the Christmas pageant one of them had his fingers in his ears.  Her household reminds us why we have children when we are young.  My oldest grandson has never once said he needed or wanted anything.  All his gifts are surprises.  Our younger grandson plans to build a computer.  His list of component parts is quite lengthy. Our granddaughter just asked for anything soft.  I'm pretty much on that wavelength.  

I hope your last week of Advent is going at least somewhat the way you'd like it to.  I'm looking forward to hearing the Angels Sing on High the nearer we get to Christmas.  In Christ, Nina Naomi 

CONTENTMENT BY THE WINTER SEA

Today the sea is loud. I took Mr. Wiggles for his walk.  He's a malti-poo who was in foster care here when I found him.  So he's not afraid of the ocean, little guy that he is.  Off-leash, that's his treat.  

The noise comes from every direction.  The crashing right in front of me with the gray waves curling up and over, but then different sounds, deeper and steadier to the left and right, up and down the beach. Synchronized.  The air is damp and cool and close.  I didn't need my scarf or gloves.  I hope you're someplace today that you like, where you can have a short (or long) walk or run. Or something to listen to or watch that takes your attention and holds it. Something in nature.  Winter is good for that.  

Mary Oliver (1935-2019) says,

The sea is the most beautiful face in the universe.

She wrote, 

The sea can do craziness, it can do smooth, it can lie down like silk breathing or toss havoc shoreward; it can give gifts or withhold all; it can rise, ebb, froth like an incoming frenzy of fountains, or it can sweet-talk entirely.  As I can too, and so, no doubt, can you, and you. 

So I'm content again and hope you are too.  Contentment is richer than joy, that comes in spurts, surprising us.  Contentment I think builds and is more likely to last. It's part of our relationship with ourselves. I'm thinking we can even be content, so to speak, if we're not happy.  There are times, events that we don't expect to be happy about but may still be content knowing that we are doing the best we can, or that someone else is. Or that the unhappiness is a natural part of life. 

When I saw those dolphin leaping, tail and all (Post,"Happening All at Once," 12/8/19), I felt an instant response, a reaction to the moment--happiness.  A kind of giddiness almost.  Today is more serene.  Does the distinction matter?  Both are good.  One enfolds, one lifts.  Both are blessings, all are blessings--joy, happiness, satisfaction, contentment.  And at least this weekend all have been here at the sea, overlapping like the waves themselves.  I didn't have to do anything, just walk the dog and look and listen.  I bet looking and listening is the key.  As we learn in mindfulness training, keeping an open heart.  




 

"DO MORE OF THAT"

"YOU KNOW HOW EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE

YOU DO SOMETHING AND THE LITTLE

VOICE INSIDE SAYS, 'THERE. THAT'S

IT.  THAT'S WHY YOU'RE HERE' ... AND

YOU GET A WARM GLOW IN YOUR HEART

BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT'S TRUE?

DO MORE OF THAT."

Jacob Nordby

Now that's a Christmas gift!  Let's give it to ourselves right now! 

LIFE AT A DEEPER LEVEL

I 💝 personal growth.  I bet you do too.  We want to grow personally, professionally, spiritually, every which way.  It's why we read, take classes, work hard, practice meditation, do so many things.  Lately I've been learning about post-traumatic growth.  I came to the topic by way of Mindful.org. and an article by American journalist and science writer Sharon Begley (b. 1956) about the science of "bouncing back" after trauma. Apparently some 60% of us will experience adversity, stress or suffering that rises to the level of trauma.  Many of us will report some form of personal growth afterwards.  A good thing, yes?

A traumatic event used to be described as one that fell outside the normal scope of experience.  But the uncommon has became more common.  Another school shooting, this one in Santa Clarita, California. Opioid deaths. More #MeToo survivors.   So trauma is now more specifically defined by experts as something that challenges our bedrock assumptions about life.  The challenge may come from health issues or marriage crises, violence or disability--make your own list.  It's often something that shatters our image of ourselves, of our world or of someone we love. Anything that causes severe emotional distress can disrupt our life as we believed it to be.

Post-traumatic growth, I'm discovering, is different from resilience. Resilience allows us to return to our previous level of functioning.  Post-traumatic growth is a positive change that happens in the context of crisis.  It doesn't replace stress; it may even occur with it.  The term was coined in 1996 by psychologists Lawrence Calhoun and Richard Tedeschi; I'm enjoying their research.

Post-traumatic growth occurs as we struggle with our crises.  We may make writing or journalling a part of our struggle.  We may disclose to trusted friends or a therapist.  We may take direct action.  And not least, we accept that the past can't be changed.  These good ways to cope are buffers against mental illness, the research shows.  My husband, for example, wrote a difficult book about a tragedy in our family. 

Post-traumatic growth takes forms we all recognize, perhaps in ourselves:  a renewed appreciation for life; a changed sense of priorities; warmer more intimate relationships; greater sense of personal strength; new possibilities.  All positive things.  So apparently adversity isn't the end. There can be more.  I like that.

It's a funny thing to be interested in I expect.  But most religions recognize the transformative power of suffering. We don't seek suffering.  Nor is it supplanted by growth.  But as we become the new person we need to be after trauma, we may end up living life at a deeper level and that is not to be scorned. I believe it is to be welcomed.  With my beliefs I would take this deeper level as a gift from God. 

I just attended my third Day of Mindfulness, a lovely silent retreat with guided and unguided meditations.  Another way people cope.  My take-aways from reading about post-traumatic growth are all helpful.  Under stress or not, it's good to have people to talk to; it's healthy to pray and to journal.  Losses may be unavoidable or not, but they likely won't ruin our lives. I bet you've found that to be true. And we can embrace any meaningful changes that follow our struggles.  

                                                    Nina Naomi

"A Lovely Silent Retreat" (Central Park, NYC)

 

  

SMALL THINGS, RICH LIFE

Winter comes slowly in North Carolina.  Leaves shrivel early from drought, before the temperatures drop.  September was a dry month, but we finally had late-October rain.  The first quarter of the school year has ended and it's apple cider season.  Last week the high was 55⁰ with a light drizzle.  I bought mums.  This week the rain stopped and we could use the fire-pit when the sun went down.  No more daylight savings.  Change of season is when we take stock, isn't it? Because I know I'll be staying in more soon, I've been thinking about the small things that make our lives richer. 
Here's one:  

"We would be together and have our books

and at night be warm in bed together 

with the windows open and the stars bright."  

Ernest Hemingway wrote this sentence in his inimitable style.  Mostly one-syllable words, simple sentence structure, nothing complicated.  Just "books," "night," "warm," "stars" and a word-picture emerges of two happy people in bed.  Content with each other.  Stars out the open window. Hemingway draws the scene as clearly as a painter would.  

So there are two things here that make our life richer.  One is being with our other half in bed as we reach for sleep wrapped in the warmth of our bodies.  The other is the reading itself, maybe Hemingway again or another of the American classics, or something newer.  At our house we start bedtimes with me propped up by pillows and my husband in the easy chair.  Reading is a perfect indoors winter pastime. I have a small stack of treasures waiting.  

Here's another small thing:  

"I DAYDREAM A LOT - THAT'S HOW I GET MY IDEAS.

IF I'M SITTING IN A 

CAFE, I'M NOT ON MY PHONE BECAUSE I WANT TO HEAR 

MY MIND.  I THINK THAT

THOSE PERIODS OF SMALL

SOLITUDE THAT WE ARE REALLY

LOSING ARE SO IMPORTANT."   

Poet singer-songwriter Patti Smith (b. 1946) said this.  She won the National Book Award for her first memoir, Just Kids (2010).  The small thing is the idea of just sitting so we can hear our mind.  We used to do this more often.  For a 70's punk rock singer, poet and  winner of the prestigious National Book Award to just sit with her own thoughts in a public place is inspirational to me.  If Patti Smith can do it so can I.  I can be myself without self-consciousness, sans phone.  

The third is my "Could-Do" list for November-December.  It's filled with small things.  Maybe some of these are on your list too:

Try one new Holiday recipe
Walk in the woods on the new golden pine straw
Gather fat pine cones for kindling, small ones to decorate
Share real (not edited) pictures
Spend at least one night away from home; make it romantic
Skip Amazon, shop local

Friendly Market, Morehead City, NC

Watch a movie-for-grownups
Go to a performance--the Messiah, the high school band concert, The Nutcracker . . .
Decorate with live greens, holly, pine, cedar, spruce and fir
And candy canes
And homemade paper snowflakes

Nothing hard on my could-do list.  I think as I do one I'll add one.  Just the things that nourish and uplift.  A list of treats. 

 









 

"SMALL KINDNESSES" BY DANUSHA LAMERIS

                                      Small Kindnesses

              I've been thinking about the way, when you walk
              down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
              to let you by.  Or how strangers still say "bless you"
              when someone sneezes, a leftover
              from the Bubonic plague.  "Don't die," we are saying.
              And sometimes when you spill lemons 
              from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
              pick them up.  Mostly we don't want to harm each other.
              We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
              and to say thank you to the person handing it.  To smile
              at them and for them to smile back.  For the waitress
              to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
              and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
              We have so little of each other, now.  So far from tribe and fire.
              Only these brief moments of exchange.
              What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, 
              these fleeting temples we make together when we say, "Here,
              have my seat," "Go ahead - you first," "I like your hat." 
                                                       by Danusha Lameris

What do you think?  Do you like this?  The author is poet laureate of Santa Cruz County, California.  It's wonderful to me that Santa Cruz County has its own poet laureate. I know that the US has a poet laureate and that North Carolina does, as other states do.  And about a dozen national governments, including Great Britain.  I even knew that the poet Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate in Rome (in 1341 but I didn't know the date), hence the term "laureate."  My own little corner of the world has its Piedmont Laureate (www.piedmontlaureate.org), not necessarily a poet, but someone who promotes the literary arts in the schools and community.  For a US county or city or Borough (Fresno, CA and the Borough of Brooklyn for example) to want poetry as part of its identity is encouraging I think.

After all, look at Lameris' poem.  I read an analysis by another poet, Naomi Nye, in the NYT magazine (Sept. 19, 2019).  She says that the poem breezes compliments and simple care, is a catalogue of small encouragements and celebrates graciousness within the community.  One reader's comments caught what I bet many of us feel.  She wrote, "When I read this poem everything around me softened for a moment."  Yes, me too.  

The poem makes me especially think about interactions between women, how we chat with strangers and affirm each other. I feel like I can say that without fear of contradiction.  How many times haven't I received a compliment on my mustard-yellow hobo bag? Or my little peep-toe flats that tie with a grosgrain ribbon?  If your tag shows someone just might tuck it in for you.  Or pick-up something you've dropped but not noticed.  I like it that when you hear a "Bless You" from a neighboring carrel it means "Don't die."  We're not saying that literally of course, but the history of the courtesy shows how long we have been caring for one another.   

Small kindnesses always stand for something more, something unspoken:  our needs, our gifts, how we navigate the rigors of life.  As an English teacher once, someone who can find solace in John Donne or Emily Dickinson or Mary Oliver, I am glad to now be acquainted with the Poet Laureate of Santa Cruz County, CA.  I'll start with The Moons of August (2013) and go from there.  

     What's gone
     Is not quite gone, but lingers, 
     Not the language, but the bones
     of the language.  Not the beloved,
     but the dark bed the beloved makes
     inside our bodies. 

I can't wait to read more of this poet.  "The the dark bed the beloved makes inside our bodies."  Wow.  Can language get better than that?  Such an unexpected blessing found today.  
                                                    Nina Naomi
 




 

YOUR CALMER SIDE

Illustration by Lori Roberts, Quote by Eckhart Tolle

You know I'm a newcomer to mindfulness, just two and a half years.  But ever since I started the practice I've looked for helps.  They're abundant.  One of the helps I found got me thinking about our calmer sides.  We all have one.  I guess it's the accessibility that differs, from person-to-person, from day-to-day.  We know when we're calm we feel differently.  Our breath, our heart rate, our minds are all sending signals of patience and kindness, with ourselves and with others.  

As part of this month's culmination in Thanksgiving I've decided to make gratitude and thankfulness an intention.  The science on this tells me my calmer side will rejoice.  With a little help from the pros, here's the plan:  First, let go of the desire for my life to be different than it is.  Sure it would be nice to feel younger, to have all the family closer, to have all my prayers answered. If wishes were horses . . . .  But that's not real, is it? The idea is to accept today, as it is.  And when I weigh everything, today just as it is, is good.  I can be thankful for that.


Second, let go of expectations. I can tell just by writing this, that leaving expectations behind brings peace.  My breath has deepened.  We can still believe in ourselves, work hard, change anything toxic that we can.  But be more flexible in accepting the results.  

Third, to let go of expectations and limitations means also to let go of the illusion of perfection.  Ah, something easy for me. I couldn't enjoy my life at all if it were tied to perfection.  My yoga poses, my pottery class, the sweater I'm knitting, the poetry I write, the meals I cook, this blog, my body, my whole personality, all are so far from perfect . . . .  And yet, I still trust myself first, my intuitions and my decisions. Where are you on this path?  At a good place I hope. 


Fourth, let go of comparisons.  We've all seen this maxim in one form or another.

"Comparison is the Thief of Joy"

            Theodore Roosevelt

That's what's wrong with social media isn't it?  For all the fun and good it does and the connections it builds, no one ever says "When I'm on Facebook I feel so fulfilled" or "What I like best about my life is the time I spend on Facebook."  Instead it makes us feel itchy, vaguely dissatisfied, morose even--like when we've watched too much TV or sat at the computer or been indoors too long.  I am working to be content with what I have.  That means no comparisons. No comparing houses, cars, jobs, children, spouses, vacations, abilities, achievements . . . no comparing lives!  Experts say letting go of comparisons creates space to appreciate where we are today and how far we've come. 

Fifth, let go of the past.  Not the good things.  Not the memory of my mother's love or how our babies felt when they were little, not the house I grew up in with my brother or the first date with my husband.  But the past that breeds resentment.  The traumatic past, the tough and terrible past that is triggered so unexpectedly.  The past of which we would be rid. This is a hard one; it may require professional help.  Sometimes when I am going somewhere I say, "I'm not going to take __X__ with me."  Some baggage, some thought, some memory.  I can't change the past but maybe, just maybe, I can leave it where it belongs. 

Lastly, let go of "someday."  I know I'm too old to put things off.  But perhaps we all are.  If it's important find a way.  Don't wait until we're out of school or married or the kids are older or we have more money or we're retired.  The expiration date of life is uncertain.  Less uncertain as we age, but still . . . .  If we've let go of expectations and comparisons and limitations then there's no reason to put off what is important to us.  After all, it doesn't have to be perfect!  We've let go of that!

So with help from others this is my November's recipe for calm.  A new season, a new month, a new plan.  And if it goes awry, not as I expect, or not as well as someone else's plan, I'll take it calmly and be grateful for what is.  Trusting myself.