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  • Knitting Season

    Football season officially started over the Labor Day weekend.  I tend to think of it as knitting season.  It doesn't hurt that we are in the middle of US Open Season as well, for those of you who are tennis fans.

     

    After a sketchy summer of starting and stopping, it seems I have picked up my knitting again.  On Sunday I watched the game and knitted.  I actually watched the Baylor game.  Much as I'd like to have watched the Tennessee game, I didn't actually see that entire game until last night.  I watched the exciting first half hour on Sunday, and a piece of the second half  during the Baylor half-time, but otherwise I watched Baylor in hopes of seeing my great nephew, who kicks for Baylor, play.  Nephews trump mere residential loyalties after all.  

    Last night I was feeling a litle stressed and out-of-sorts mostly because I had managed my time badly during the day and had to cut my walk short due to a minor muscle strain.  And that happened just because I was feeling stressed and didn't pay attention to what I was doing.  So I watched the DVR of the UT football game and followed it up with a Tennis chaser.  I actually got a little more knititng done than I had on Sunday, but then I wasn't quite as obsessively watching the screen.

     

    Somehow the beginning of September hit me hard.  There are too many unfinished projects, too many things I had hoped to have done by now.  Watching a ball game and knitting didn't help me finish any projects.  Sticking my head in the sand however, even metaphorically, offered a brief respite to a cluttered mind.  

     

  • Endurance

    Unknown-1I started listening to Alfred Lansing's book Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage about the time I finally started walking up and down the hills in my neighborhood, rather than sticking to easier and more level paths.  The book was an incredible story of triumph over adversity and strength of character.  It was also a good choice for finally tackling comparatively small hurdle of walking up and down a few hills, for how could I tell myself that I couldn't make it up a hill, in a safe neighborhood, on a warm morning, when I was listening to the journal entries of men who were fighting for survival, struggling with frostbitten fingers and worse.  The book was gripping, not only because the story was gripping, but because it brought the human touch to history.  Through journal entries, one experiences the thoughts of the actual players in this epic battle, one sees heroes of history not as mythic creatures, but as men, men who make bad decisions, men with flaws, but men nonetheless, men who pull together and rise beyond themselves to survive dangers and conditions that seem unimaginable to us today. There were times, stopping to catch my breath or rest my muscles on a steep hill that tears would be rolling down my face, or was it the tears that forced me to stop, and catching my breath was only incidental.  A bit of both, depending on the day, as the tears would certainly complicate my breathing and slow my muscles.

     

    This is how history should be taught, not as dates, not as mythic hero-worship, as the story of how we humans can be more than the sum of our weaknesses, and how great achievement comes not from being perfectly good and strong, but from digging deep into our fears and our failings and rising above them.

     

    Most of us will never have to endure anything as horrific as the struggle of these men.  Most of us will never need an Ernest Shackleton to pull us together and keep us going.  And for this I for one am incredibly grateful.  And yet, by sharing the actual experience of these men, only partially, through their words and our imaginations, we can learn something more about ourselves, and perhaps strengthen our confidence in our own resolve and endurance, for battles both large and small.

  • A Distant Symphony And A Question

    In Knoxville, we have Boomsday.

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    My first year in town I drove to the top of Sanderson Hill, not really near town, but with a good view of the fireworks, after George was in bed for the evening, and watched the last bit of the fireworks.  I wasn't a part of the festivities, but I enjoyed seeing the show.

     

    Last year I didn't feel up to going at all.  I didn't want to go by myself, and I somehow didn't, or couldn't manage to, find someone to go with.  This year however I intended to go and see what it was all about, despite my general ambivalence about dealing with traffic. After all, if I waited around for someone to show up, I'd never do anything, would I?

     

    Instead I awoke with a vicious sinus headache, a headache with which I struggled all day.  In the end, I stayed home.  But I could hear the fireworks from my house.  I wandered outside early, on the cusp of dusk really, and I couldn't see anything.  But I heard the fireworks coming from the direction of downtown. As it grew darker sometimes I would see a glimmer of something, although it may have just been my imagination, a dream of fireworks.  

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    Then the thunder started, Mother Nature singing harmony to the man made melody arising from the river.  Sheet lightening followed, interspersed with occasional sparkles of color.  I sat outside, on the lawn, in my comfy chair with a glass of wine, listening to this impromptu symphony with the added lightshow.  There was something peaceful about it, hard as that may be to explain.   I've been in some powerful and even frightening storms, but unless you are in that place of imminent danger, there is something awe inspiring about thunderstorms. Just as I love fog but hate to drive in it, I love thunderstorms, even when they are terrifyingly close. In their overwhelming power and beauty I see that I am but a helpless speck, that I have no control and can change nothing.  It should be terrifying, but it isn't. In relinquishing the idea of control one gains the possibility of peace.

     

    Soon the deluge began and I returned to the comfort of a roof and four walls, where I was lulled to sleep by the sound of retreating thunder. 

     

    Today is Labor Day, a day devoted to the rights and achievements of workers both socially and economically.  It is also one of the biggest retail sales days of the year.  Am I the only person who finds this incongruous? A day meant to celebrate the rights of laborers is a day where many who labor in underpaid retail jobs must work so that the companies that hire them can make more money.  Don't fool yourselves, the labor day sales are all about money.  I remember when holidays were holidays, and stores wee closed.  Laborers were off on labor day, even in retail sales.  Of course there are those who must work, those who protect us and care for us, who provide necessary services. Yes, having stores open is convenient, but isn't it a false convenience, robbing of us of the spirit of celebration, of honoring those who work so that this country may thrive?  By making Labor Day and Memorial Day into big shopping holidays have we really gained more than we have lost?

     

    Photos from Knoxville News Sentinel, here. 

     

     

  • Step by Step

    I couple of weeks ago I decided to up my walking schedule.  I had been walking twice a day, relatively short walks of a half a mile to a mile and a half, occasionally on a particularly busy day, taking ony one walk.  It was apparent that one short walk was not enough, and days I didn't get both walks in I would be stiff.  I decided to take one longer walk each day and see how that went.  The first two days I walked 2 1/2 miles around my neighborhood, which has some pretty steep hills.  Then I worked out a 3 mile loop in my neighborhood, and planned a couple of alternatives for days I didn't have time in the morning, or found myself elsewhere.  

     

    For the past two weeks I've taken a walk of at least 3 miles every day.  Although the first four or five days I was constantly exhausted, I noticed immediately that my walking was improving and that I moved better overall.  I also stopped freezing up and getting stiff in the evenings which meant that I fell asleep more easily and slept better. Although I can't say that I necessarily want to take a 3 mile walk every day, especially on those days that my schedule does not permit an early morning walk, I walk anyway.  I have not yet progressed to a point where I can skip walks, although that will probably come in time, as I continue to improve.

     

    The difference between 2 1/2 miles and 3+ is significant, at least for me.  I'm not built for speed and I've always been a bit of a slow starter.  But I have stamina.  The first two miles of a walk are a struggle.  They are still a struggle even though the walking is much easier.  But somewhere along the 2 1/2 mile point I undergo somekind of mental shift and it gets easier.  It is not that I am less tired.  It is not that any aching muscles or pains go away; they don't.  Something happens at 2 1/2 miles that makes me stop struggling against my aches and pains and integrate them better, almost as if I become my pain, and that allows me to move beyond it.  At 2 1/2 miles I am ready to push through.  And the benefits of pushing through, in terms of focus, mobility, and energy, are significant.

     

    My usual circuit ends at 3 miles back at my front door.  If I want to change the length of the walk, I have to make that decision somewhere around the 1 1/2 – 2  mile point, right when I least feel like adding to my slog.  If I am not walking from home at 6 AM however, there are more options.  A couple of my evening walks have extended past the 4 mile point, not because I was trying to walk further, but simply because I forgot to stop. I do think this is a good sign.  2 weeks is not quite enough that walking is a habit yet.  If I stopped I'd have to start all over, but it is a good start.

     

    The next step is writing.  I've climbed out of the boat.  I'm in the water.  I'm going to blog every weekday at least for now, until I have my groove back, until something changes that makes that impossible, and who knows when or if such a change will occur.    I don't really have a plan for what I will write.  If I write, and I walk, and I get through my days and meet my obligations that will be enough.  There are many other things I want to explore, many creative outlets I wish to resume, but there is no rush.  

     

    I tend to be the type of person who throws myself into things, following whatever captures my attention, until I hit a wall.  This time, I'm going to try going step by step.  I might still crash, but hopefully I won't burn. 

     

     

  • A Litte Girl’s Smile

    I am on a plane, ensconced in my seat. My kindle is in the seat back pocket, but at the moment I am half-heartedly looking at the in-flight magazine and watching my fellow passengers board.  A family comes down the aisle, slowly but calmly and patiently, being led by a young girl, I'm guessing, somewhere around 2 years of age.  She walks purposefully and deliberately, smiling, stopping each time she passes someone.  She says hi and waves her hand.  Her eyes sparkle.  One by one we all respond with a smile or a word or two, perhaps a little wave.  

     

    Later.

     

    We have landed.  Many of us are standing against the wall along one side of the jet bridge waiting for our gate-checked bags to appear.  The same young family eventually leaves the plane and makes their way up toward the terminal.  The little girl stops by each person she passes, looks up, smiles, and says bye-bye.  One by one we smile in response.  One young man, preoccupied with whatever he is typing on his cellphone, fails to notice.  The girl, surrounded by her family, innocently believing that the young man shares her desire to say goodbye, tugs lightly on his pants, looks up, and once again says bye-bye; he looks up temporarily startled, looks down, and smiles. 

     

    Innocence and joy.  What a lovely gift.

     

    Of course the girl will grow up.  In a couple of years she will begin to perceive that other people's understanding of a situation can be different her own, that their motives can be different as well, that they might not have her best interests at heart.  This is a necessary part of development, of being able to connect with other people fully, of developing empathy, but also of protecting oneself, of decoding the complicated dance of personal and social signals we humans use with each other.  My wish is that she is surrounded with love, that she is nurtured, that she is able to develop resiliency and strength.  I hope she can hold on to trust.

     

    It is good, sometimes, to be reminded of what life could be if we trusted more and feared less.

  • First You Have to Get Out of The Boat

    This passage, from Matthew (14: 25-29) was part of the gospel reading a few weeks ago.  A couple of nights later, at Vestry Meeting, Fr. Howard reminded us that faith (and strength and motivation and many things in life — I'm extrapolating here) wax and wane, but first you have to get out of the boat.

    Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.

    But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”

    “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.

    Come,” he said.

    Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

     

    I've been afraid to get out of the boat, afraid to write anything because I didn't really know what face I wanted to present to the world, and as a result, even when I do write, things get all jumbled up. Best to just plunge in.  The point of a personal blog is that it is personal.  It doesn't have to be soul-searching, nor does it have to be polished and perfected, beautifully written, or profound.  It just has to be out there.

     

    I'm getting out of the boat.

  • Writers Block

    Words escape me.  I want to write, I start post after post, draft after draft, all for naught.  The whole situation makes me feel a bit disorganized, incoherent even, as if I am in some sense partially disconnected from myself, even as, at the same time, I am building routines and feeling more settled.  Odd this, and yet good, filled with the promise of something new.  Of course these promises also seem like a hollow echo, oft repeated and never realized.

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    Perhaps I am just sick of my own internal monologue.  Not that I spend my days isolated or alone, but there seems to be some lack of adequate connection between action, thought, and word.  Perhaps I am just waiting for some refinement in understanding of my relationship to the world, the I and It, or the I and You, (Thou if you remember the English translations of Martin Buber). My struggle at the moment is more along the line of finding a voice for the I part of that equation.  It is not so much a situation of having lost a sense of self, but more of rediscovering a sense of voice. However, for a person who doesn't tend to fully understand what she thinks until she can put words ot it, voice and self are inextricably intertwined.

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    Enough already! No more words.  Instead I offer these photos, taken with my phone from my walk this morning.  I have consistently managed a walk of at least 3 miles every day for the past 10 days or so.  Todays photos are simply from this mornings walk around my mother's subdivision outside of Dallas.  I'll be home in Tennessee tomorrow.  Words, once started, will eventually flow.

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  • Jump Start and Hitting a Wall

    School started last week and, as seems to happen, it was not the only activity gearing up in earnest.  Suddenly I, who have no school-age children, found mysef inundated and I hit a wall, the there-are-not-enough-hours-in-the-day wall.  It is a particularly interesting wall to run into because it is not real, it is a myth, or a mental model, and yet if you allow yourself to fall prey to its seductive hold on your mind, you can run right smack into it with full force.  Hitting that wall hurts. It takes a hard toll not only on your mind, but your body as well.  

     

    Even though I was well aware that the beginning of school brought with it other changes, that the freewheeling, empty-agenda days of summer were coming to a close, I still experienced a certain mental disconnect.  I let my priorities slip, and I let the outside world tell me what was important. And that is the thing about time; it is really rather fluid, and we humans are just tiny specs in the greater scheme of things.  We can allow ourselves to be overtaken by outside pressures and committments.  We can fall prey to the myth, the there-is-not-enough-time-in-the-day myth.  But usually we are wrong.  Everything is a matter of choices and priorities, of listening to what is important, of honoring your gifts.  The simple truth is that we all too often let the world tell us what we are supposed to believe, tell us what we are supposed to accomplish, tell us what is important, and then we chafe at this, avoid responsibility and shut a part of ourselves down. We tell ourselves that our "me time" is a separate entity that must be guarded, separate from the driving forces of life.  Thus begins a struggle that eats away our time and our souls.  The simple truth is that we can live our lives around what is precious, or we can let external forces drive us.  Yes, there must be some balance.  Yes we must live in the world. But here's the thing:  there are differences in motivitaion, in the "why" of what we do, and that in turn affects how we live our lives and, over time, who we are.  

     

    My problem wasn't really with the why.  Nor was it a problem of taking on too much.  More exactly, I fell prey to another dangerous myth, a myth that is instrumental in feeding the big "not enough time" myth.  I fell prey to the "not good enough" myth.  The problem with feeling like you are not enough, is that it is a self-perpetuating myth, and it pits you against time and the world, it pits you against death.  Because the world is big and overpowering and in many ways it can convince you that you don't matter and your efforts are worthless, that you are but a tiny spec of sand to be washed away in the tide. But it isn't true.  Our lives are not lived on a global stage.  Our lives are lived on a much smaller stage, the stage of the personal, and it is on this stage that our true value lies.  We can be swept away in the tide, or we can stand for truth.  We can let the world beat us down, or we can let our gifts flourish.  We can be washed out in the tide, or we can hold our ground.  We have a choice.  We can be a grain of sand tossed about by life, or we can be a small barnacle on clinging steadfastly to our own place.  Yes we may occasionally knocked off our perch, but we can find a new rock and re-anchor ourselves.  It is that steadfast attention to truth, to our own gifts, that brings us peace.  By clinging to our own rock, our own truth, we eventually find shelter and we find true community.  By clinging to our truth we find a haven that can withstand the tides.

     

  • Playing with Color and Pattern

    The dining table is covered in china.  Old and new, a mixture of styles, periods, qualities, the accumulated bits and pieces tell a story and create a history.  When I loaded these things into the car I was not sure what I would do with the pieces.  As I opened the boxes and placed pieces on the table, mixing them with pieces I already owned, I was surprised at the many ways all these disparate bits fit together and made new connections.

    Chinacollage

     

    Rather than create a panoramic shot, I intentionally made a collage because I am intrigued by the sometimes surprising ways things mix together.  I am also intrigued by questions of taste and style and the way our style is a reflection of the accumulated influences of our lives and the people we have become.  Hence, you also get the headless photo of me as well as the china.  But more about that later.

     

    Style in dress shows the self we wish to present to the world.  Increasingly I think our homes also could reflect ourselves, although in a more intimate and private way.  Also our homes may be shared, reflecting influences of those we love, and the meeting of these influences and choices is also a more personal interaction.  As for me, I am realizing that my love of pretty dishes is where I let my more romantic inclinations run freely.  Tables are for sharing with others. But I also think the act of setting a table, of putting out china and glassware, of making it pretty, rather than merely functional, is a very romantic thing.  I like the romance of the meal, not just the nutrition offered by the food.

     

    But this idea of romance and style, the personal and the public, and the way our environments and our choices in those environments reflect aspects of ourselves, remains a relatively new chain of thought.  I have formed no cogent conclusions. And yet I see a portrait forming.  And although I recognize it as a portrait of myself, I also recognize that the image that is emerging does not coincide with the words I would have previously used to describe myself.  Am I so bad at self awareness?  Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not.  It may be a question of acceptance, of accepting this softer side, of allowing vulnerabilities to show.  

     

    Or I may just be full of  baloney.

     

    On this table there are dishes belonging to my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother.  There are dishes that George and I chose together, dishes George bought for me as gifts, things I chose myself. There are dishes with direct ties to memory, and others that really mean nothing to me, that have no significance other than the fact that they were on my table. My mother wanted to downsize.  I still like to play with pretty things and set pretty tables.  I chose the pieces I would take so it is not surprising that they should work together.  Many of the pieces are not strong, dramatic, full of contrast.  I am not a person who loves high contrast.  I am not a person who loves white plates, although I did indeed go through a brief period where I thought I did.  It wasn't that I wanted white plates, what I wanted was clarity, and that is another story.

    I like the way the pieces work together, sharing similar colors and shades, without bold pops of color, without high contrast and drama.  I don't like full sets of china, all the pieces belonging together, but I do like things that work together.  This is also how I like to dress. I like color and I like to coordinate, but I don't want to be either too matchy-matchy or to wear too much contrast. Hence the headless outfit. My feet won out over my head because I love the way the soft colors of the outdoor carpet harmonize with the colors of the concrete, adding subtle gradations of texture and color, just as I also love the way my grandfather's planters and the flowers blend with the bricks and the door and the reflections of greenery in the window to make a harmonious whole.  It struck me today that the things I love and even who I am and the choices I make all arise out of my own personal history and decisions, but that the origins of these things have roots in the histories and the choices of the people who influenced my early life even without my conscious awareness of their influence. 

     

    Welcome to my front door.  Welcome to my house, my table, my blog, my world. It is not a perfect world, no world is, and there are all kinds of disjointed and inconsistent bits and bobs milling about and a few rough edges here and there. But then rough-edges-are-us, we humans.

     

    The photo can be enlarged with a mouse-click.  The small inset photo above my shoulder shows my colors in indoor lighting, where they are softer.  Outside the outfit is a little bright, and I feel a little more exposed by its brightness, but hey, those rough edges are always popping out despite our best intentions. 

     

  • Rain, Rain…..

    It seems remarkable how a bit of rain can mess up my all toofragile systems.  I usually take a walk early in the morning, starting before sunrise, when it is still cool and the world seems almost langourously soft and inviting, while simultaneously full of promise.  Those early morning walks, followed by 15 to 20 minutes of peaceful quiet meditative time set the tone for the day.  But since I have returned to Tennessee from my trip to Texas for my brother's wedding, it seems that it has rained in the early morning more often than it has not, and truthfully, I have not always been successful at adapting my schedule to walking at other times of the day. I am getting better at this however, not because there aren't other demands on my time, but because taking the time to both walk and meditate sets me free to be myself in the world.  When I don't take this time, I let the world drive me, batter me even; I allow the world to convince me that I am never enough.   But not only does walking give me more peace, walking gives me more energy.  Walking helps me sleep better at night.  Best of all walking makes me feel like there are more hours in the day even though technically there are less because I have spent some of those hours walking.  But I am not yet ready to walk in the rain, even a light rain.

     

    And yet is rain such a bad thing?  The flowers are thriving.  I am saved having to water the flower beds.  It seems that the rains are helping me to break to much reliance on routine.   I cannot control the vagueries of the world and so I must adapt.  By walking at 6 AM, or 10 or 1 PM or sunset I claim control of my own well-being and I allow myself to place myself first, even if only for a brief bubble of time. This has not always been easy; it seems I had grown too accustomed to letting myself be tossed about on the tides of obligation and demands, even the unintended and well-meaning demands of family and friends.  Learning to step out and interrupt the flow of obligation perhaps also helps with learning to find the balance between the "on" and the "off", the extroverted side of my personality and the introverted part, the soul and the world.  For some of this, this sense of balance seems to be a lifetime's struggle.

     

    Yesterday I took my walk in the mid-afternoon.  It is not my favorite time to walk although I do seem to be adapting to the hotter summers.  I walked downtown and the streets, although by no means deserted, were quiet, peaceful even. Perhaps this was because it was the first day of school and the kids had been let out early, a transitional day between true summer and not-yet-fall.  Perhaps it was all just a happy bubble of sunshine between the morning and the evening rains. 

     

    I had just been to the Assessor's office.  I finally went downtown with a copy of George's death certificate to have his name removed from the property record.  I should have done this long ago.  But then, at first my heart was broken and wasn't ready to let go. Then my body was broken.  Finally I feared I had lost my mind.  I felt befogged, as if my focus would never return.  It was still raining in some part of my soul, and that rain was gray and dreary.  I couldn't walk in that rain, couldn't feel its life giving force. It was easier to sit, face plastered to the window watching the rain from a protected place, rather than to go out and battle it.  It is difficult to describe how that change occurred, I only know that suddenly it was there, like an inner rainbow beconning forth between the retreating showers and the dawning light.  

     

    As I walked around downtown on a lazy summer afternoon, in some sense the last summer afternoon, although summer heat has by no means abated, a realization formed in my consciousness.  George and I lived in this house 1 year and 3 months before he died.  On Sunday it had been 1 year and three months since his death, 1 year and 3 months that I had lived alone in this house without him.  Everything has changed.  Nothing has changed.  Every single day is a new future. The future does not erase the past.  Every single day brings a new opportunity and a new balance.