Hurricane, No Peace

There’s something about the notion of small islands in the middle of the Pacific awaiting the onslaught of a huge storm that is horrifying. When you live in Paradise, where weather is generally more than kind, building codes are loose and houses are open.

Many houses are expected to have blown apart in this storm. I’ve somehow been focused on the image of a young mother with a baby and small children, with the urgent need to protect them and no way to do that.

One of my Swedish sisters was in the Tsunami in Thailand all those years ago. She ran back into danger to pull her child to safety. And he was a 15 year old strong boychild… Maybe it’s her stories that have me fastened on the simple horror.

And Paradise, well sort of. Apparently there are 7,000 islands in the Philippines, 2,000 of which are inhabited. Some of them have not yet recovered from a massive earthquake that happened not all that long ago.

And while when you live in the middle of the ocean, there are always storms, storms are getting worse. And we are part of that process and need to opt out, need to make things different. Climate change is creating these monster storms. And we’re part of that.

We’re connected to that mother with children in so many ways. What’s needed is for us to figure out how to be connected to that mother and mothers everywhere whose children are in danger in helpful ways… even if its being connected to mothers in your own valley whose children are unprotected.

Sorry, this is a bit meandering, I know. I seem to be having a hard time getting my passion and my clarity in the same place… But we must live with nature, acknowledging we’re part of it. Not doing so ls killing us. and worse, it’s killing other people when we pretend differently.

I’m not sure where the path to Peace is in this… but I hope we’re willing to take a look… Blessings on people caught in the storm. And let us consider how to be those blessings…

Exhale for Peace

And inhale too. But the inhale is automatic; the exhale needs concentration. And without breath, there is no peace.

Some days there’s too much to be done. I keep remembering that biblical injunction: Sufficient unto the days are the troubles thereof. Well, sometimes the troubles are more than sufficient. Particularly as I struggle with grief.

You have to keep an eagle eye on grief. When is it grief? When does it tilt toward depression. How do you honor the grief and stay faithful to yourself? How do you deal with the grief and the what the world needs? Luckily I have a great team of PCP who are tracking me: watching my BP, holding me accountable to exercise… (must get in pool today. must. must.) So easy to postpone. Work, Inertia. Grief. Inertia. Hello, Exercise, Oxygen. Come back, WW. Count those points. All of which needs to be balanced with staring into space.

If there’s anything I’m sure of, grief is a physical activity as well as one of the heart, soul and mind. Careful with those fragile bodies. I’m not at all sure we don’t need to resurrect some of those Victorian grieving traditions, to look at cultures that mourn well and see what we need to take on. “Getting on with life” is not only overrated, it’s ridiculous. Absence is as real a thing as presence. It’s disorienting. All that energy, dispersing into the universe. They’ve just discovered that energy carries memory. Wild science fiction as truth (and metaphor) as a person’s life swirls past you on their way out the door. Is it ridiculous to consider being present to Absence?

On those days when those memories lay you low, you want to lay low. But sometimes life, insistent and constant, has other ideas. Just because your heart is breaking doesn’t mean someone else’s life isn’t falling apart. And sometimes, not always, you have to be there with your hands out to catch someone before they hit the ground. That’s hard. That’s life.

When that happens, you have to try and remember the beauty. You have to lean on your friends. You have to get a good night’s sleep. And, in my opinion, you have to help out. Because folks need you. You may not be graceful. You may botch up the catch. You may need to keep a list of references on hand so you can find other support for folk who look to you for help.

And as you offer a steadying hand. Look for the beauty that inspires and supports you. Life. A fragile boat. And the hands on the oars are uncertain. But on we paddle. And hold the sweetness close.

Transforming Peace

No one let me know. I thought it would just be me and my brother. I was moving so slowly, because I’d had a back spasm the day before. But I wanted to be with Tom. He’s a calm presence, my brother, and he’s my brother. He’s what I have left of blood, he and my niece and nephew. But Tom and Deb and I knew a lifetime together.

At a point when so much of that lifetime has disappeared, we take what we get. I’ll take Tom any day. And up till now, the frenzy of my life and my Deb chores had clashed with the frenzy of his. And time is passing…

So, once I pulled myself together, off i went, moving very carefully.

Only to arrive and find that the new owner-to-be was there. Painting. (oh, the things we do for mortgages.) I hadn’t realized that Tom wasn’t there because he had stuff he needed to finish for the house, but because Chris had stuff to finish and Tom wanted to make it easy for the sale to happen. So we could finish.

And he’s my brother. He needed to touch Deb too in the only way we can. By paying careful and consistent respects. (some day I’ll open the bag of clothes that I brought from her clothes. But not today. Not this week. Maybe not this month.) And there’s a deadline. let’s go, let’s let it go. Let’s finally face the emptiness.

I was taken aback. But, hey!, let’s go with the flow. And then it was wonderful, because the new owner’s dad is a friend and favorite musician and he dropped by to see it and I took him through no-longer-Deb-not-quite-Chris-and-Katie’s-house. He didn’t know. He didn’t know it was our family. He didn’t know Deb was dead. How could she be? When she was always so alive. So we wept and held each other a bit. And he goggled at the house his little boy was buying. The house where my sister’s impulse purchase drawings of San Francisco hang on the wall now and will continue to hang when the house closes, because, don’t you know, Katie grew up in SF.

And so it went. We unwound and they wound. I separated this from that. In the end it seemed that i stripped the varnish of Deb from the house while others were engaged in painting in their lives. And so it goes, eh? In and out, ebb and flow, life and death… and then… in, ebb, life.

Ah my heart is full and sad and happy and scared and broken and hopeful. Forever and ever amen. In the season of Autumn when the leaves fall away to cluster at the base of the tree to make new life. When love dissipates in death but lingers in memory and insists in life. There is more Peace somewhere… and we keep trying to find it. and there it is, transforming Peace which in its turn is transforming us.

Autumn River Peace

Looking down from the bridge into the slowly moving Susquehanna this morning, I was caught by the beauty. It was picture perfect — looking ‘way too much like many of those sympathy cards I’ve recently received.

So at first I was stuck with that image. And then I recognized the movement of the water, flowing down to the ever renewing ocean. The gorgeous red and gold leaves slipping down over the stones were just the symbols of Fall’s slipping away…

And suddenly, I was smiling again. Happy to think about the notion renewal and rebirth… far away and unknown, but reassuring in some weird, but deeply visceral way. It was also a lovely reminder of how beautiful Deb’s life was and of what I’d been called to do and the ways I’d responded, ways I was proud of. I loved her. She’d needed me. I’d been there to the best of my abilities. She knew that and accepted my love and returned it full measure.

And now a gentle reminder that leaves slipping by are the way of the season… and incredibly beautiful. And I am a sad and lucky woman. Let us take it all in as it comes to us, all the sweet abundance, because in that we can search for Peace. Finding it, even if only from time to time, we can begin to spread it abroad.

Friendship Peace

Two of my Swedish Sisters were here this weekend to help say goodbye to Deb. They’d met her in Sweden, they’d stayed with her when they came to my wedding. They came to honor Deb and they stepped up to prop me up. Oh and they did. We counted blessings and gave thanks. Along the ways we made new memories.

They let me cry. They patted me. They fed me tea and chocolate (Finnish chocolate, tell no one!). We talked about all sorts of things and they came along as witnesses to my life as it is now. (Sadly they didn’t get to see my husband because he was sick the entire time they were here… ) They talked to me when I needed to jabber or when they needed something explained or just had something to say. And they were quiet when I needed quiet. And I could let them be quiet when their brains were exploding from all the English. We were present to one another.

They helped me remember why friends make a difference and reminded me to be grateful for all the astonishing and wonderful friends I have here and all over the world.

We all wondered at the thought that friendships such as ours — now over 44 years deep — can endure without a lot of tending, just because they are. We lived together. They shared their family (and now families) with me. They’ve met my family (now families) and loved them.

And in moments like this, you just push over bed in the morning as one of them comes in to chat and steals some covers and reassures your heart.

So even when the work ahead is hard, your heart is full and fueled for the journey. Peace goes better with friendship. Yes, indeed it does.

Peace Wobble

No one makes it down the road to Peace without a few wobbles. It’s a myth that anyone is always upright, energetically striding toward Peace. And I think it’s important to know that at a cellular level. Because we all worry so much… what if this happens, we worry… but what if things were just fine? Would that be all right with us?

As the Weebles teach us, there’s always a period when you find your feet again, even when you’ve been dreadfully overset or unbalanced… However unlikely that feels on the downswing. And reaching center is probably a momentary experience — that will repeat and repeat itself for years. as long as we keep moving forward. And as long as we keep laughing about the times it looks so scary!

And for me, I’m most likely to find that Balance and that Peace in the company of friends. It’s the medicine that keeps me going… hurrah, hooray! and thank you one and all who bore me up through this process.

A Much Needed Peace Sabbath

I’ve spent so much time preparing for yesterday’s service that I couldn’t anticipate how great today would feel. What it would be like to sit back in the bosom of my family (and oh bosoms of both gender where put to good use as we all wept and sniveled and then slowly laughed and rejoiced.

Family bonds were knit together in a new way, with new people, and new possibilities.

Old friends came and paid respects.

It was extravagant and outrageous, over the top and oh, so, Deb.

And today, I am exhausted. and I must admit. relieved. All the verbs I conjugate in today’s poem are real, but, it must be said, at the moment, not really what I’m feeling… that’s more… to rest. to talk. to chat. to listen to a little poetry. to be. In communion with my Swedish Sisters and my American. To eat breakfast with my family the whole mixed up blood, no blood, just pile in mix of relationship.

I thought perhaps I subconsciously scheduled that memorial for the Day of the Dead. I think perhaps it was really for the extra hour of sleep at the end of Daylight savings. It will be dark early, but tonight, I’ll take the time. Thank you all for your support… (and a happy, grateful Sabbath to you all.)

Peace of Goodbye

Today is the Day of the Dead. It is certainly the day of my dead.

It’s the day of the change of conversation. It’s the day of goodbye. It’s the cusp of something different, something unknown, something desperately sad, something infinitely precious, something terribly final.

The fact is that we come to this point in our lives. No looking away from it. No pretending.

Things change. And people die. And their loved one’s lives go on. And we all have to find ways to accept, transform, adjust.

And there is a Peace in goodbye. There is an ending to the limbo of shock and disbelief. And a path into whatever the new normal is. The post life, the folding in of the absence into the present… the ability to remember those memories that are currently walkabout, waiting for a place to settle down.

Oh, my sister, I miss you. I am missing you. I will be missing you. I have missed you. I will have been missing you for the rest of my life. And I am so grateful for the life we shared, both hard and fabulous. … I offer us both the Peace of Goodbye. Fly Free. “And I’ll keep living the life we were living as if I were two.” (Holly Near)

Peace Saints and Less-Than Saints

As the family slowly gathers for Deb’s memorial, and the year rolls around to what I find a very important time of the year: This is the season in quite a few traditions to remember the departed: The Communion of the Dead… and for some communion with the dead.

For me it’s always a chance to look back at what my ancestors taught me and look ahead at what I have to learn. I believe that most of us do what we can… I believe that those who came before did what they could. In some cases they succeeded wildly. In other cases, they missed the mark. In all cases, they had something to teach us.

In the soft light of twilight, we are invited to look closely at ourselves and decide whether or not we’re going to learn their lessons — whether that means taking on or shedding their behaviors.

Such a crazy time. I’m so grateful for the gathering, real and spectral, and yet, and yet, and yet. I will try very hard to walk in Peace, and to be gentle with myself as I work to stay open to the incredible outpouring of love — and grief — which is coming. We always promised ourselves we’d do this while she was still alive to receive the toasts. We didn’t make it, did we, Deb… I look for your face in the mirror… and sometimes i see it, on your own and in my own. Blessed, blessed be.

Sister Peace with Chocolate

I am struggling to get ready for the Memorial this weekend. In addition to the service, I’m getting my house ready for my Swedish sisters to visit. And I’m also getting my house into a place of Peace, because when this is over, I am going to need a place of refuge. I’m also struggling because there is no ignoring the earthly reality of her death. When the Memorial comes I have to say goodbye.

I have been getting the most extraordinary help from friends. People have organized me despite myself at home. People are singing in the Memorial. Tonight a girlfriend drove up from Harrisburg and just sat on the couch and then volunteered to go with me to fetch the Swedes.

My house looks fabulous. My bag has clothes piled up beside it for the weekend. Most of my writing for the ritual is done. Some of my writing for the sermon is done.

It’s so hard to let her go. That sweet familiar woman whose rhythms I knew as well as my own.

So what an incredible gift that these two women will arrive from Sweden, to wrap me in sister-love and sister-peace. Forty-four years later, love holds the center. I don’t know why I was smart enough to cultivate Love… but I give thanks, count my blessings, and wonder what kind of chocolate they will bring. They’re the first. and then the community will gather. Hard stuff is coming, but right now, I’m going focus on the love in… Oh, and Happy Halloween. I’ll be disguised as a person who’s doing OK… and I guess I am for a woman with a shattered heart.

But here come Cecelia and Margita… and all of you, who help me hold my heart together.

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