Lessons in the Grocery Line, Part 1

I entered the grocery store at a brisk pace, one item on my list: laundry soap, five - maybe ten - minutes to get to yoga. Frustrated at myself - I was just at the store yesterday - and in a hurry, my focus was narrow. No room for enjoying Christmas displays, the latest People headlines or my fellow shoppers.

Beeline to the cleaning aisle, choice made quickly, happy note that it's on sale. This early, only one checkout was open, and it looked like I might get right up to the checker. As I rounded the corner, still moving at my no-time-to-waste pace, I almost collided with the woman already at the checker.

I hadn't seen her because she was in a cart. She'd just gotten to the checker, because only one item from the overflowing basket in front was on the belt. My hope of getting to yoga on time came to an instant halt because speed was not a gift she currently possessed.

Just like patience is not a gift I possess in abundance.

From the back, with her beautiful silver curls and abundant red-fleece encased hips, she could have been Mrs. Claus. However, when she looked back at me, her scowl, yellow bumpy face, and dirty band-aid covered nose made her look more like the witch of a young child's nightmare. She didn't make eye contact with me, but turned back around and pulled her cart up a bit so the checker could pull items from her basket. It was clearly a concession to my presence. I could feel her annoyance at being rushed, and not being able to unload her own groceries in her own way.

For one brief moment I considered asking her if she minded letting me go first. I invite people with one or two things to go in front of me often - in part as a meditation in the patience that so often eludes me. However, her "back-off" energy and my better sense prevailed. I took a breath, and then another, and released the urgency.

Through the checker's banter it was clear Miss B., as she called her, came through this line often. (She probably chose the early hour to avoid impatient shoppers and the need to hurry.) The checker was a pretty middle-aged woman with spiked super-blonde hair, and the amazing ability to carry on a conversation, check groceries, and bag them with the speed of a super-hero and the serenity of a saint.

Miss B.: That laundry soap isn't mine. Don't you be charging me for that.

Checker: I know. I know. I wouldn't do that. Do you want paper or plastic for the stuff that won't fit in your bag.

Miss B.: I want paper. That plastic falls over and my things go everywhere. And don't charge me for this yarn here either. I already paid for that. That's why it's in this bag (which I notice is plastic).

Checker: Oh, I was going to charge you double for that. No, triple. I've got some shopping to do.

Miss B.: I'll bet you do.

Checker: Do you have your reward card? Hurry up. Get it out. There are people waiting. Come on. Come on. (Her voice holds no impatience at all. Only the same wry humor that's been present from the start of this exchange.)

Miss B.: Hold your horses honey. They don't mind waiting. I'm moving as fast as I can. I know it's here somewhere.

Checker: Are you ready? Okay. (On the intercom) I need help out for Miss B., please. (to me, grinning) I have to warn them it's her.

By this time I was laughing out loud, happy to be audience to their routine. I watched Miss B. relax under the barrage of the checker's playfulness. She never quite smiled, or made eye-contact, but what could easily have been taken as a string of insults, or at the least rudeness, was clearly comfort to her.

When I finally found myself at the front of the line the checker aimed a crooked grin at me and said, "Did you feel the love?"

By the time I laughed my, "I sure did." reply back at her, my laundry soap was scanned, bagged and paid for. A glance at my watch assured me I would arrive at yoga in plenty of time. My light heart gently offered, "See? This is what patience can bring."

photo from Flickr

Procession

When I reached the onramp to the highway which would take me to the freeway which would take me home, the sight of cars lined up bumper to bumper for as far as visibility extended made my heart sink. Mark, the brother I'd been staying with near Tacoma (who generously piloted me to the highway) had been listening to the morning traffic report on the radio. Traffic was plugged all the way to the freeway - several miles up the road - and would be for some time to come.

We both knew the memorial service was later that day in the Tacoma Dome, but thought it was far enough north that it wouldn't impact my travels south. That was before we knew every police department who was sending representatives to the service was meeting at McChord Air Base. Right where the highway meets the freeway. While the service wasn't scheduled to start until 1:00, the caravan of police cars was to head north from McChord at 10:00.

I crept onto the highway at 8:00.

For more than an hour I sat wedged in traffic that moved inches at a time, feeling more reverence and gratitude than impatience. My fellow travelers seemed to be in the same place. No one tried to change lanes to jump ahead a few cars. There was no zooming or screeching or honking. Just clouds of car breath in the bright arctic morning air, and a stillness tinged with sadness and respect.

At one point a dozen police cars and motorcycles sped up the left shoulder, lights flashing. The cars in the left lane, nowhere to go really, turned wheels to the right in a move that looked for all the world like they were bowing.

Farther along, a caravan of limos with a huge motorcycle escort came onto the highway. The exit they merged from was near the restaurant where four police officers were gunned down a week ago as they sat enjoying their morning coffee. I wondered if I was seeing the families of the slain officers, and sent my heart out to partners and children who are living the cost of sacrifice those four officers made.

When the line of traffic finally delivered me to the freeway entrance - north to Seattle, south to Portland, straight ahead to McChord - I was stunned by what I saw. Police cars and motorcycles of every make and model, from multitudes of places, lined up parallel to the freeway, coming from the north, beyond my line of sight. Every one had its lights flashing, and each waited patiently to be signaled ahead to find its place in the memorial procession that would return north in just an hour.

As we (in that hour of waiting, watching, and witnessing my fellow travelers and I became "we") rounded the bend that would take us to the freeway, each car slowed a bit. Even though the road ahead was clear and we'd been held back for a very long time, we paused. I know in part it was because the sight of all those police officers in one place was astounding. But I know too that we sent our love, our condolences and our deepest respect and gratitude as we left our accidental procession and zoomed ahead into our everyday lives. Lives made easier and safer by these people gathered in unity to honor their fallen comrades, and to remind us all how very fortunate we are that there are those who are willing to die for our freedom.

photo from Flickr: police memorial in Ohio

A Bell, Noel and the Passage of Time

Unpacking Christmas stuff this week, I came across a large green bell with lots of curly red ribbon attached to it. Originally designed as a topper for a gift package, ours came into our home attached (sort of) to Toby. Two years ago.

A lot of our Christmas decorations carry specific memories, which are all the more vivid for being hidden eleven months of the year. This year as I jingled Toby's baby bell and played with the coiled curls of shiny red, I felt the passing of time in a new way.

Two years ago we brought a puppy into our home who turned our lives and expectations upside down and inside out. Even knowing how fast puppies become dogs, we weren't at all sure we could make it that long with our sanity intact, and without really talking about it, both considered whether we could keep him. Today he is the golden light that makes us laugh and softens our hearts, and whose smiling writhing greeting every time he sees us after an absence, no matter how short, makes us feel so loved.

A lifetime ago I was an abused, emotionally abandoned child being raised by parents who were both abused and emotionally abandoned children. I didn't know that then, and it would not have mattered. I did what was necessary to survive, and have spent the last couple of decades undoing those knots, and learning that there's more to life than survival.

Buried deep in one of the tubs and tubs of snowmen and Santas and silk poinsettias and angels and snowglobes and Santa and Mrs. ornaments, I find a small box that makes my heart quicken even before I've opened it. When I came into possession of the contents of this box just a few years ago, it was like I claimed a small happy part of the mostly sad life I fled as soon as I was big enough.

My mom loved Christmas and she became a different person during the holidays. Happier. Softer. More open. We had very little money, but she tried really hard to provide at least one gift for each of the four of us that would make us light up on Christmas morning. Usually Santa got the credit. I have a clear memory of the thrill of getting my Shirley Temple doll, her ringlets bouncing, white teeth showing through a red bow of a mouth, dimples permanently dented on either side.

Never a great cook, or very comfortable in the kitchen, my mom spent hours creating abundant traditional meals. Eggs, bacon, fresh-squeezed orange juice and Grandma's stollen for breakfast after presents had been opened. Turkey, bread stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cauliflower with cheese sauce, pumpkin pies for a dinner that started in the early afternoon and didn't really end until bedtime much later in the day. Although I did much of the cooking for our family from the age of seven on, I wasn't allowed, or required, to help with the holiday meals.

She did the decorating herself, too. We were allowed to help put ornaments on the tree, and as I got older was given the privilege of arranging certain figurines under her supervision. Again, there wasn't much, but she loved what was there. Tinsel and candy canes, saved from year to year, were added to the tree one painstaking piece at a time. Small porcelain bells were carefully strung in a window on red ribbon. She handled them with such love and care I was sure they were priceless and irreplaceable. I have the bells now, in their original box, which has their price of 85 cents written on the back. Handmade stockings for the children only, ours from the time we were babies, were hung above the fireplace which was our only source of heat and a big source of worry for me about how Santa was going to get down without being burned.

Her favorite decoration was a set of four little angels holding red candles, spelling out "NOEL" in bright red letters. The red of the letters kept peeling off, so every year she'd color them back in with her bright red fingernail polish. I loved watching her beautiful work-worn hands applying polish to the angels.

A few years ago when we were closing down my mom's house, after she could no longer care for herself, I found boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff in the loft of her barn. Most of it was mouse-gnawed or broken or mildewed beyond redemption. Among the few things I was able to rescue was the set of Noel angels. The angels that thrill me anew every year now when I unpack them.

Their place is by my kitchen sink. They sit at the feet of a newer angel I bought a couple of years ago who represents the spirit of the little girl who not only survived her childhood, but now thrives as a part of my whole.

Love is what weaves time into the blankets that keep us warm and safe and whole. The blankets might be newer and stronger - our two years with Toby. Or much older and full of holes - a broken childhood that ended forty years ago. It's interesting that Christmas, the time of year when new life promises the end of darkness, is the time when I become most aware of the strength, resilience, and gentle persistence of love.

A Dream

We were told to work on something of our own choice for this week's assignment, but to include a dream sequence.

I awaken disoriented. Still entangled in my night world, but pushed into the day world by an anguished cry. One I realize is mine the minute Marv rolls toward me with a rare look of concern on his face. Caught between worlds, I long to go back, hoping this time to change the outcome of my recurring baby dream. The magnetic pull of Marv’s attention is too strong though, and I’m pulled forward instead.

My body moves into the familiar circle of my husband’s arms before my brain has the chance to refuse the comfort of his warm embrace, and he surprises me again by pulling me even closer and holding on. One hand moves up to my head, stroking strands of sweaty hair away from my flushed face. I allow myself to melt into the rhythm of his soothing, still not fully in either world.

Marv whispers into the predawn shadows above my head. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

My head offers a number of responses to his questions, none of which my relaxed and comforted body is willing to risk.

No I’m not okay you asshole. I’m never going to be okay again. And yes I’m hurt. Hurt worse than you could ever possibly imagine. If I knew how to make you feel this pain, pain that you inflicted, you would never sleep again.

“It was a just a bad dream,” I say. I feel his body tense ever so slightly, but he doesn’t pull away. I want him to ask. I won’t tell him if he doesn’t. I will tell him if he does, even knowing that telling will send his body out of bed and his attention far beyond my reach.

“It must have been pretty bad for you to cry out like that.” Is that fear I hear in his voice? Does he worry about me? Does he care?

I take one more tentative step onto this path, without committing to it fully. “I’ve had this dream before. It never gets any easier. This one was the worst, though. It felt more real than anything I’ve ever experienced.” Will he ask now? Do I really want to do this and ruin the first intimate embrace we’ve had for months? Do I really want him touching me this way?

The tension in Marv’s body increases and then manifests in a very specific hardness pressing against my leg. Without permission, my body moves to eliminate any remaining space between us. And then it opens to receive him as he pushes me onto my back and under his body, until we’re in his favorite missionary position. Words hide in the shadows, driven away by the urgent hunger of our bodies. Thoughts can’t form as the hormones of passion and release wash over my brain.

With the most primitive part of my being in complete control, and Marv’s uncharacteristic intensity, my orgasm comes quick, powerful and before his. Which means I actually enjoy his with him, a blue moon occurrence for us.

When we’re lying sweat-slick and satiated, still touching but no longer embraced, he says, “That should take care of your bad dream.”

And the dream rushes back into my consciousness so fast and hard, if I were standing it would have knocked me to the ground. For once I’m grateful for the predictability of men and sex. Marv doesn’t disappoint and drifts back to sleep before I have a chance to respond. I came so close to telling him this time - I’m pretty sure it was because of his hand pushing my hair away from my face. I’m so glad he distracted both of us. Because if he knew, he’d tell Harold and I’d have to confess at a meeting or worse yet, explain why I refused to confess. I’d have to be told one more time that I need to trust God; I need to believe; I need to stop clinging to my own selfish desires.

I hate this dream, and don’t know how to make it stop. I’m pretty sure God’s the one who sends it. To remind me that I was given chances and blew them all. I can hear His voice, sounding a lot like Marv sounding like Harold, say, “Your childless life is the consequence of all your bad choices and your refusal to put Me first in all things.”

Cooling and sticky, I pull the rumpled comforter up to my chin, then close my eyes and turn my sight inward. The dream awaits me in vivid detail, like I knew it would.

I’m pregnant – huge, awkward, baby-kicking pregnant. I feel wonder and joy and redemption. Finally pregnant and due to give birth any minute. I don’t mind the pains that increase by the second because I know that soon I will hold my daughter in my arms, and this time I will keep her and love her and care for her.

The dream world shifts without transition and I find myself in a rocking chair, holding my solid sweet-smelling daughter in the crook of one arm. I gaze into the face of the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen. My heart fills, floats, explodes in fireworks of joy. Katie Beth. Mine. To keep.

Another shift. I’m alone. My arms empty. My womb empty. Standing on a dark, desolate plain, empty except for a group of women floating away from me. One who looks a lot like Harold’s wife Bonnie carries my baby. Katie Beth cries out for me, her mother. I hear a woman say, “You aren’t fit to be her mother. We’re going to find a good mother for her.” I cry out, beg for her to be returned, stretch my arms as far as they’ll go toward my lost baby. The women continue their inexorable journey toward a horizon denied me. My feet are frozen to the ground, refuse to move. I cry out again, with every fiber of my being.

The strength of the memory nearly pushes the dream cry into daylight sound. This time, however, my brain overrides my body and clamps down hard.

My eyes fly open, focus on the glitter of the popcorned ceiling, refuse welling tears. I need to do something, anything, to fill the emptiness the dream has exposed. Marv’s temporary fix has left me feeling even emptier – if that’s possible – and dirty. Harold’s prophet voice booms uninvited into the cold echoing cavern of my being. “Only through complete submission to God and your husband will you find happiness and peace. Until you’re willing to completely let go, you shut yourself off from God’s grace.”

Without looking at the softly snoring man who is my husband, at least for a while longer, I shift my body to the edge of the bed and slip silently into the new day. I can’t live this way. I won’t live this way. And if going to hell is the price I’ll have to pay for my rebellious heart, I’m starting to wonder if it could possibly be any worse than what I’m living now.

photo from Flickr

Healing

One minute I held the carving knife firmly in my left hand, scrubbing it vigorously with the brush in my right. The next minute it was somehow airborne and swooping across my index finger, just under the nail. As it clattered into the sink I looked in horror at the newly formed inch-long, too-deep-to-believe, gash.

I am generally a very careful person. Sometimes too careful. However, in the kitchen I tend to release all care. It's where I'm the most comfortable and confident. I don't always follow the rules because I know how far I can push things. Usually. That said, I've cut myself before and have a couple of decent scars on my hands to show for it. Potato peeler against thumb, glass breaking and slicing a knuckle with too much pressure applied in dishwater, knife piercing a hand used as a cutting board.

None of those wounds compared to this one. It scared me into considering a visit to the emergency room and stitches - my possible first ever. A consideration I pushed away in exchange for applied pressure, a couple of prayers, and a we'll-wait-and-see.

Much later in the day, when I got up the courage to really look at the cut, it was bad. No pain. Not a lot of bleeding. Just long and deep. When I finally let Walt look, after making him promise not to tell me I needed stitches, his face and silence scared me almost as much as the gash itself.

I decided to give it a day: gauzed and taped my finger; held it protectively away from whatever I was doing; cradled my hand gently when at rest. Even though I'm left-handed and the wound was to my right index finger, I actually use my right hand for a lot. Like brushing my teeth, peeling an orange, zipping my jeans. All activities nearly impossible to do with an extended index finger.

And so what I got from my decision to let my body take care of itself was a week of focused awareness. I helped her in every way possible - keeping the wound clean and dry and protected. I was careful with that hand - mindful without distraction.

The healing process was nothing short of miraculous. By the next morning the canyon was filled with tender red flesh. The skin around the cut was puffy but not inflamed. I could look at my finger without feeling too woozy. One more day saw the wound getting smaller as the ends of the cut began to close. Each successive day revealed more healing and allowed the return of more freedom.

Healing is a theme of my life. There has been much to heal, both from without and from within. But like my finger, the true healing had to start from the deepest place of the wound and work its way out. It couldn't happen without help. If I'd ignored my cut finger and not cared for it at all, the process would have taken much longer, with some possible bad detours into infection and pain.

Healing has its own timeline, even under the best of conditions. It won't be rushed. It also doesn't allow skipping around or avoiding the icky parts. Inside out, deepest first, or nothing sticks.

One small cut has a huge impact on the rest of the system. All those years of insisting the emotional wounds of childhood, adolescence, young adulthood weren't important did nothing to diminish their impact on my ability to be a whole human being. The toxicity of those untended wounds made everything harder, brought me to the edge of death more than once, kept me imprisoned in the very walls I built to keep them hidden.

Even healed, wounds remain tender for a long time and require gentle attention for much longer than seems should be necessary. My finger no longer needs bandaging, but it cannot endure much pressure before it hurts. There's an interesting dent and some bruising and the promise of an interesting scar to come.

It's amazing how one simple cut can be a metaphor for one complicated life. But it's all there. The major wounds of my life, after years of hard work under the skilled and loving tutelage of a gifted counselor, are healed. (I reread this sentence several times, testing it for truth, finding just that. Truth.)

What remains is tender, interesting, uniquely me. What remains is a new appreciation for the deep wisdom of my body, and gratitude for the gentle lessons she offers. What remains is a sense of wonder at the gifts born from pain and the hard work of mindful healing.

picture from Flickr

Thanks-giving

I sit at my computer facing east, the direction of new beginnings. The pinks of sunrise absorbed into hungry night fog lying low over the ground. A cloudless sky begins to birth blue.

Grace, a Siamese friend to any potential lap, sits thrumming at the edge of my desk. Toby, a dog of unrestrained joy and simple pleasures, wanders in the back yard. Walt, a husband whose love and certainty of our soul-mate status never wavers (no matter the storm coming from me) sleeps at the other end of the house.

In this stillness I consider my wealth. Somewhere in the last space of time I've gone from being a survivor to being a woman who thrives on the gifts of each new day. I count as friends an enormous circle of men and women who are brave seekers of light, who inspire and who make me laugh. I spend my days as a writer and teacher and wife and friend and sister and student and explorer, but no longer define myself by any one of those labels.

I sit comfortably in my twirly desk chair, kept warm by pink polka-dotted flannel, allowing my heart to flow through my fingers into this amazing magical rectangle of technology. The peace lily in the corner offers its giants leaves over the edge of my desk, which is covered with my favorite red, yellow and turquoise antique cotton tablecloth. Coffee softened with cream sits at my right hand, a pile of work waiting for attention sits at my left. A small three-drawer wooden chest sits at the left-hand corner, a gift from my mother at high school graduation that reminds me she wanted to love me and did in fact do the best she could.

I feel well, rested, loved.

There is nothing else I need or want in this moment. I am full, fully present, overflowing with gratitude.

May you know that you are loved and valued and understood. May your eyes see nothing but beauty and your ears hear nothing but music. May you fill to overflowing with gratitude so the world is filled with its brilliant light.

Namaste.

Joyous Thanksgiving.

photo from Flickr

An Online Circle

As those of you who visit here regularly know, Carrie Link and I are offering a writing workshop in Portland starting in January. We are amazed and excited that so many of you have asked about the possibility of an online class. So it is with pleasure that we are announcing our online memoir writing class, to begin Monday, January 11. (We still have two more spots in the in-person class, if you live in the Portland area.)

Many of you are in situations where going to a class won’t work, but you’re hungry for a memoir writing community and for the accountability attending a class creates. If you’re looking for a safe place in which to tell your story and receive support and feedback, whether it’s your first effort or whether you’ve finished a book, this class will satisfy that need.

We will provide prompts, deadlines, teachings that will add to your craft tool kit, and detailed feedback for your writing. You will write, share your writing, and offer feedback and support to each other.

Please contact us for cost and additional information. We’re looking forward to learning and writing and moving closer to the light of truth together with you.