HEALTHY ATTITUDES ( "LET GO OF SOMETHING HEAVY")

  

This is something I read:

Let go of something heavy.  Whatever your mountain is . . . fear, worry, doubt, or shame, it is far too weighty and wearing on your spirit . . . it is time to put it down.  Unburden yourself and imagine the wings that will unfold once [you are] free.  It is time to untether yourself and fly.  by Elle Harris at bellagrace@stampington.com

I've been carrying something too heavy this week.  I'm trying to let it go.  We all have mountains, another word for trouble.  Many times our mountains aren't tangible; they're emotions.  For me this week it's sadness.  In other posts (Healthy Attitudes, Part XIV) I've written about how mental illness affects a family.  It's a disease that hurts others.  It's a disease that can make its sufferers want to hurt others.  An unkind mystery to be sure.  Something I need--again--to turn over to God.  

In the same issue of Bella Grace where I saw the quote by Elle Harris, I found a writing prompt about a very different emotion than sadness--its opposite in fact: happiness.   Just a simple prompt:  "What does happiness look like?"  "What does happiness feel like?" And, "What does happiness sound like?"  I answered right off the bat.  

Happiness looks like my oldest grandson's smile.  It looks like my granddaughter walking in the door.  It looks like a clean house, a view of the ocean, and the trees out my bedroom window.  Happiness feels like my husband's arms around me, soft clothing, the love our daughter-in-law radiates, and when God is near.  Happiness sounds like the voice of my younger grandson when he picks up the phone (melodic, measured, pleased).  It sounds like my husband and me laughing.  It sounds like my teakettle, soaring music (Puccini, Andrea Bocelli, John Denver), and the whir of the overhead fan while we sleep.  There's so much more. 

These thoughts helped me let go of the feeling I was carrying.  Why should I spend (waste) my time (my life) with a burden both too heavy and unsolvable, at least by me?  

If you are holding on to fear, sadness, shame or whatever is crushing your spirit, it may be time to set it down. We may have to set it down more than once, but I bet we get better at doing that. 

A healthy attitude is not to let someone else's life (or death) ruin your life.  If they are kind they would not want that. It dishonors them. If they are not kind, you don't deserve that. It dishonors you.   

                                              In peace, Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

 

INSPIRING MINDS

Collage-Journaling by Nina Naomi

I don't Google "inspirational quotes."  I want to find them myself.  Or create them.  But most often something inspirational finds me, not the other way around.  We're all inspired by something different, aren't we? When something does reach us, we're likely to share.  Maybe one of these will reach you for you to share. I hope so.  

Quote by R. Arnold

I'm not familiar with Arnold, but I love the surprise of being fluent in silence.  We associate fluency with words, not their absence.  But here it is the silence that is eloquent.  The idea of sharing our fatigue naturally with each other without the need to speak is so appealing these days.  It feels like comfort and intimacy.  What could be more welcome?

Tablescape by Nina Naomi

"This is my life.  It is my one time to be me.  I want to experience every good thing." Maya Angelou.  Of course what is meaningful is that this is Maya Angelou speaking.  She has all our admiration.  I was privileged to see her perform once; she sang, talked, read and enchanted.  What is different about what she says is that she doesn't want to experience everything, but only every good thing.  A goal that takes work.  It may have been a wish she was granted, but not without her share of travail.  This may be true for us too.  

"Hope is the thing with feathers /  That perches in the soul - / And sings the tune without the words - / And never stops - at all - "  Emily Dickinson.  There's more to this poem, two more stanzas.  What is amazing is the absolute truth of her every word.  But then that is Dickinson's hallmark, isn't it?  Living in isolation with her extraordinary mind, she carries every subject, every emotion, on her lanyard. We could spend our life reading Emily Dickinson and feel that we had known the world.    

"Nothing is missing.  You are already whole."  Unattributed.  If we are complete, something at one time needed to be filled-in or added.  Completion is a finishing.  A correction of a lack.  But wholeness is different.  We are born whole.  We have no lack, we need not be made better.  I might say, "God made me whole."  

Then there are the smaller things we tell our own hearts to inspire:  "Try something new, my dear," I might say. "Make a friend, or a friend's day," I remind myself. "Reread your favorite book.  Why not?"  "Dig a hole, plant some seeds, water and wait." "Go outside and be amazed."  And always remember, 

Would you care to add?

 




 

 

GARDEN THERAPY

 

Blue Hydrangeas

Isolated in a country parsonage, after our second child was born I had the post-partum blues. Since one child took all my time anyway, we had decided, why not another?  After all, they're so much fun.  It was a good move; two fragrant babies are better than one.  Doubles the love. But winter in a bungalow without insulation and one icy bathroom, made caring for two in diapers harder than I expected. Sleeping was more like waking.  Plus I hadn't yet made a friend. 

As soon as the ground thawed a neighbor plowed a garden for me. Any 50° day we spent outdoors.  Not having any idea that planting was the easy part, I put in more seeds than I could possibly care for.  Mounds of zucchini, all kinds of vegetable and greens, trailing cucumbers, tomatoes that would have lost any competition had I entered them . . . .  I couldn't have had better therapy.  Same for the children.  They rolled around bundled in parkas until the temperatures rose.  

Hoeing and digging might seem mindless but it is also mindful, a word I didn't use then.  It takes you out of yourself.  The children felt it too.  Outside they didn't fuss.  Toys were shared.  The baby babbled, the first-born answered him. The cat chased a snake or two out of the strawberry patch. 

In the next house in a different part of the country I planted flowers and bushes instead of vegetables. But the therapy was the same.  Hours planning beds, adding, subtracting, pruning and, always, raking and burning leaves; you could do that then.  Mindful repetitive actions that caused stress to dissolve; it evaporated like water.  While I raked the kids swung back and forth, pumping up and down in graceful rhythmic motion.  It was one of the best times of life. 

Gardening is still therapy.  If you garden I bet you agree.  Chronic illness, pain, anxiety--whether physical or emotional--even heartsickness is healed in the garden. Not quickly, but steadily.  Where but outdoors do our senses lie so open to the quivering universe?  

There are times that I've teetered on the edge of despair when what I should have done is go outside:  pull weeds, sweep the paths, hose the deck, dead-head the plants.  Not to over-sell, because our healing kit holds many tools.  But placing our feet on solid ground, our hands in the loam, our ears and breath straining with the wind in the trees . . . that is where perspective settles fears.

Most recently gardening has been an escape from all we are facing.  There is no news out where I gather brush.  No intrusive thoughts.  Chronic sorrows diminish.  All that I love and appreciate seems to move forward in my heart. I come indoors at dusk contented. I would like to build a willow fence from all the brush I gather.  I may need help. 

When our children were small and a handful my husband used to say that a night out was cheaper than therapy.  What are the places where you can escape your cares?  I hope we all have many.  

                                                     Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIVING IN REVERSE

 

As you get older you start living in reverse, at least I have.  What else is the rage for de-cluttering if not living in reverse? 

When I young and registered for wedding gifts, clutter was not on my mind.  All that stuff I wanted.  A special dish for deviled eggs!  Now I'm giving away my mother's cow collection:  cows that pour milk, cows that dance, cows that play music.  Too many cows.  Linens, sheets and tablecloths pile up for the thrift shop.  Sheets for beds in sizes we don't even have anymore; tablecloths for dinner parties from a different era.  Business suits land in Nearly New.  Furniture, bake-ware, bits and bobs all wait for charity.  Too many toys, blankets and purses.  Was I really the one who bought all this, or kept it? 

The gift list gets smaller; the gifts more carefully chosen.  No more bulk-buys for networking.  How many this-or-that with some company's logo haven't I tossed?  And promotional tote bags? They sprout and multiply.

The pandemic has brought clarity, hasn't it?  Relationships that don't serve us can be let go as well.  Someone who's too competitive, or negative, or more frenemy than friend is not in our best interests. We can't fix everything.  

Fears fall away along with prejudices and complaints.  We collect experiences rather than things.  We give eachother our time and attention.  We plan outings.  For the children too.  

Ideas flow like air.  I exhale thoughts.  The longer we live the more we understand because somehow, in some way, we've been there before.  The way one generation lived through WWI, another lived through the Great Depression. The way some experienced the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. King, the Gulf War or 9-11, everyone today will know where they were when the pandemic shutdown began.  I remember the name of Allison Krause, a student killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a peace rally at Kent State on May 4, 1970.  That anniversary is coming up. And I know I'll remember the chants, "Say his name" . . . "George Floyd."   The longer we're alive the more formative moments, bad and good.

We bother to get to know ourselves and, Eureka, like who we are.  Or if we don't, we take steps.  Our friends are more precious. And love . . . love becomes most precious of all.  We don't throw away love; that we recycle. Take it, give it, take it, give it. Round and round.  If we have a lover we live in ripples of tenderness.  But we also dig for love from within.  We learn to love ourselves with that same gentleness we give to others.  We learn to forgive, even when forgetting is not in our control.  We don't save our emotions and we don't squander them.  We lay it all on the line.  

I pray more.  I'm getting to know God as God has always known me.  It's just another kind of embraceable love is what I'm finding.  I don't know how God manages to find me, but it happens every day.  Maybe because I'm outdoors more.  Mary Oliver says, 

When I am among the trees, 

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I would say that too.  We have beech and oaks and pines.  And cedar and dogwood.  And volunteers that grow huge and look more like weeds than trees. When I'm out amongst the trees I too feel saved. 

Could it be that as life reverses and becomes smaller (as it has for us all this past year), our thoughts become larger?  Our ideas range further? So that de-cluttering is also a gathering in, a pulling together and what remains matters more.  Matters more and has more space and time.  That would be good, wouldn't it?                                              
                                                         Nina Naomi

P.S. Full disclosure: I still have the plate for deviled eggs. It's useful and sparks joy!

                                                 

 

 

 

 

ONE DARK NIGHT; A POEM FOR SLEEPLESSNESS

I wake in the night to have tea.

Tea and a muffin.

Chamomile tea and a muffin spread with chewy honeycomb.

A crumbly corn muffin sticky with comb.

The sleeplessness is instantly transformed into a treat. 

 

Funny how that goes,

The way you can find pleasure in the smallest of things, 

Like the ritual of tea.  

So what might have been tossing and turning 

Becomes instead the silent space of reflection. 

I'm awake enough to browse Bella Grace and to write in its margins.

Ideas.  Inspirations.  

This is, after all, not a bad time to be awake.

The dark outside a comfort and the window ajar.

No one else stirs, not even the dog.  

Especially not even the dog, who curls like a snail.

 

Often worries come at night. 

Things always, as they say, look better in the morning.  

Emily Dickinson writes, "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." 

But tonight I am happy it is two in the morning.

I have hours in this peaceful room edged with shadows. 

A soothing hot drink and some honeycomb, 

A pen and some margins to write in.

 

Such  simple things to enjoy.   

I might settle into sleep

Or settle into wakefulness

In a pool of light with only black beyond the fringes as close as I can feel.  

                                          by Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 Wendell Berry 2012

THE REMARKABLE HARRIET JACOBS AND OUR LIVES TODAY

Edenton, North Carolina

We took an outing to Edenton, a picturesque town on the Albemarle Sound just a two and a half hour drive from home, where preserved historic areas are buttressed by reminders of slavery, much as enslaved labor buttressed the coastal economy.   

My husband recently finished Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself.  In the 1820s and 30s, Jacobs (1813-1897) lived hidden in the attic of her grandmother Molly, a freed woman, for nearly 7 years.  Can you imagine? The room was less than head height.  She was waiting for the right time to escape to freedom by way of the Chowan River. 

We went to Edenton to try to feel what life there was like.  It was the kind of trip that acts more like a whipsaw than anything else.  Filled with contradictions like life often is.  For us, a stay in a lovely room at the Inner Banks Inn with morning French Toast or eggs-to-order.  A little kitchen off the living room to make tea and coffee all hours. 

Living Room, Inner Banks Inn

A world apart from the world of Harriet Jacobs. And of those less privileged today.  We're more aware, aren't we, of our privilege at whatever level it lies?  

Just after arriving we walked to the grounds of St. Paul's Episcopal Church where Harriet and her children were baptized.  As my husband was describing to me  the "owner" who made her life unbearable, we spotted his grave: James Norcom, M.D. (1777-1850), who was known throughout his life as  "one of the most distinguished physicians of his time."

And in fact he does seem to have practiced charity to all, all but the enslaved. To Harriet he is a "licentious master" and predator who subjects her (and others) to unrelenting abuse.  Both he and his wife were known among the enslaved for their cruelty and violence.  Harriet chooses confinement--for who knew how long--in the crawl space over her grandmother's home and bakery, to life in the Norcom household.  

The next day we took the Harriet Jacobs' Tour; basically a golf-cart ride with a knowledgeable State guide around the places associated with the writer. Neither of us had heard the term "maritime railroad" but along the North Carolina coast it was a thriving and dangerous route to freedom.  Jacobs dresses as a sailor when she makes her escape North.

To no avail Norcom continues to hunt her with a passion. Here Norcom offers a $100 REWARD for "the apprehension and delivery of my Servant Girl, HARRIET.  She is a light mulatto," he says, "21 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high. . . ."  "She speaks easily and fluently," he continues, "and has an agreeable carriage and address."   James wants her back.   In her autobiography she states that she is able to fend him off, no mean feat.  It enrages the man.  The guide tells us that he becomes obsessed with her. Just reading this poster is hurtful. 

Part of the Jacobs' tour includes the African-American Cemetery, mostly unmarked graves. A few weeks ago we also stayed one night in Old Salem, in another historic inn, just an hour and a half from home.  There we saw what is called the Stranger's Graveyard.  Stones of African Americans marked only Adult or Child.

Harriet's life story is remarkable. She unites with her children and once free leads a long and extraordinary life as an activist.  She does more good than Norcom ever dreamed of. 

These trips are moving occasions.  While we were at the Inner Banks Inn the Derek Chauven verdict also came down.  Guilty on all counts.  The jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that ex-officer Chauven murdered George Floyd with his knee.  And all because a prescient child filmed the murder with her phone.  We watched promises that change and accountability are coming and hope, despite almost immediate evidence to the contrary, that this may be true. 

We are used to intense times, aren't we?  Pandemic worries, fears of violence, and whatever else we cope with. We are used to the cognitive dissonance, as it's called, of living with tremendous difficulties, and yet having wonderful lives.  I feel like this was a week of paying respects.  But it was also a longed-for week of traveling with my husband, eating food cooked by someone else, and sleeping on sheets I don't have to change.  It was a week at water's edge seeing new sights.  Now at its end I feel transformed, in more ways than one. 

With love and respect for all, Nina Naomi  

1886 Roanoke River Lighthouse, Edenton