Goodbye (for now) to Florida

Goodbye to ibis. Goodbye to the Gulf of Mexico. Goodbye to alligators and armadillos. Goodbye to drive-through liquor stores. Goodbye to people dressed in suffocating costumes dancing on street corners in 95 degrees just to get one more driver to stop and buy stuff at a store in a strip mall. Goodbye to daily thunderstorms. Goodbye to smiling clerks and servers. Goodbye to the host at the gate to my friend's apartment complex who asked me, "You all fixin' to have some fun?" and laughed when I said, "It could happen." Goodbye to Winn-Dixie, one of the only places where the clerks don't always smile. Goodbye to Publix, where everyone seems genuinely happy. Goodbye to traffic jams on I-75. Goodbye to the giant confederate flag on I-75, the one that embarrasses us all. Goodbye to year-round porch-sitting. Goodbye to royal palm trees, still exotic to me after five years. Goodbye to Sandhill cranes in the mall parking lot. Goodbye to black widow spiders. Goodbye to cigar-sized grasshoppers. Goodbye to so many people I love. Goodbye to the places I didn't love, like Bruce B Downs north of Fowler. Goodbye to my best excuse for using "y'all." Goodbye to TPA, the easiest and most efficient airport I've ever been to. Goodbye to socklessness. Goodbye to the ubiquitous palmetto bugs and their ilk. Goodbye to hurricanes. Goodbye to the anoles my dog loves to chase. Goodbye to shorts worn with Ugg boots. Goodbye to decent iced tea served everywhere. Goodbye to the zebra longwing butterflies that liked the passion flower vine I planted. Goodbye to bringing a sweater to restaurants in the summer, and not in the winter. Goodbye to the voluptuous smell of gardenia and the velvet-heavy scent of jasmine. Goodbye to pelicans. Goodbye for now, Florida. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye...

I Hate Packing

Whether it's for an overnight trip or a move to another state, I hate packing. Every decision nearly paralyzes me--should I take these earrings or those? Do I have room for an extra pair of socks? Should I give away this book, though it was my grandmother's, though I haven't opened it in years? I want to live simply; I want to save everything, just in case I need it later. I want to get rid of the STUFF that is expensive to move or store, that weighs on my mind so that one of my recurring dreams is of having to move and never quite being able to gather everything. But then I pick up a card, ready to throw it out, and read it again, and see that it was given to me by a friend and it contains words of love, and I travel in memory...and then I put down the card, not having decided what to do with it, and look around me at the unfilled boxes, and despair. I contradict myself, like Whitman, "...I am large--I contain multitudes."

But I like unpacking. I like opening a box and figuring out where those items should go in the new place. I even like opening my suitcase and putting away the things I took on that trip in their proper places. The decisions have already been made--the stuff was taken with me, and brought back. It is finite, having already been contained. And the old brass figurine of a terrier dog that was my grandmothers comes out of the box and is put on the shelf, clean from having been dusted before it was packed, and I am home.

There's a lot of talk on the internet these days about being an introvert. There are tests that people take to define them as introverted or extroverted, this or that. Simplistically, introverts don't like to be around people, and extroverts do. But I--sometimes I like to be around people and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I like to meet new people and sometimes I like to stay home from the party and read. Sometimes I like talking one-on-one, and sometimes I like talking in groups. And aren't we all, really, like that? Some of both?

I'm not saying labels and categories are completely useless. But I do think we all contradict ourselves. We love to travel, and we love coming home. We hate being on the airplane, but we love glimpsing a new place from above, the mountains and trees so familiar and so strange. We love dreaming of going to Ireland, but hate planning the actual route to drive and where to stay. We feel a bit sorry for ourselves when we're sitting on the couch for another Friday night watching Netflix, and we dream of doing something so relaxing when we're standing awkwardly at a stranger's party with a drink in one hand and a fake smile plastered on.

But this, I'm sure of: I ALWAYS hate packing. It goes too slow and I get nothing done, or it goes too fast and I just KNOW I'm taking something I should have thrown out. Packing makes me feel like I'm shrinking, like I'm losing certainty; I don't know where that ball of garden twine is, and what if I suddenly need it? And it gives me more reasons to judge myself, because inevitably I'm far less organized than I would like to be, and packing highlights disorganization. It is, by nature, imperfect.

I think now I will put aside the boxes and tape, find my tennis shoes, and take a walk. Later, no doubt, I'll dream, again, about being unable to gather all of my things--the books that don't fit in the one box I have with me, the jewelry lying in a tangled mess on the dresser, the lamp I simply cannot carry down the stairs with this load, and the truck already driving away...and then I will wake up, and it will be nearly as awful in the waking world.

And then, finally and too soon, one day I will be unpacking boxes at the other end of my journey, rediscovering the parts of myself and my life that I had to put away for a little while.

Unloveable

I have a hundred arguments for why I'm unloveable. I can list my flaws and my mistakes--going back decades--more easily than I can list what I had for breakfast. When I'm sad or hurt or anxious, I settle into my own particular groove, a chorus my best friends know all too well:  If anyone knew the real me, the me who isn't trying to be what other people want, then no one--absolutely no one--would love me. And I'm talking all kinds of love here: familial, friendly, romantic. This is the voice I hear in my worst moments, the faux-logical voice that makes complete sense and comes to this conclusion despite everything I have read, thought, felt, heard, and tried to be.

On most of the bad days, I wish my miserable, pathetic inner voice said something else--anything else.

At a drive-in movie this summer, the fireflies speaking in light over the surrounding cornfields, I cried during the intermission. This was not a crying movie: it was The Lone Ranger, the reboot with Johnny Depp and that other guy. But I had stuff going on in my life, like we all do, and in my case it was stuff that involved a lot of uncertainty and change. I stood leaning against the car with an old friend who had already put up with a lot of my crying and worrying the previous month, and I couldn't stop the damn tears, and I told him I realized, finally, that despite years of thinking I was a fairly balanced, fairly confident person, I really, truly feared that no one could ever love the real me.

"Welcome to being human," he said, and he let me get tears and snot on his t-shirt, and then he said something that made me laugh, and then we watched the 2nd half of the movie.

In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown says some pretty scary stuff. Here's the scariest: "We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves and when we're embraced for who we are." WHAT? This seems to confirm my worst fears, to reinforce what my high school self knew in her core: I will never belong. Outsider forever. Get used to it, geeky girl who likes to read.

But of course, Brown's book goes on. And eventually it gets to this: "If the goal is authenticity and they don't like me, I'm okay. If the goal is being liked and they don't like me, I'm in trouble."

Which, to me, reads like a version of Whitman: "...re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” It also reads like an echo of Buddhism, suggesting that to live an authentic life--to seek enlightenment and understanding--is in itself the goal.

And these ideas comfort me. They do. Perhaps more comforting, however, is this thought: when I love someone (family, friend, lover), I love that person's authentic self. For me, a big part of loving someone is wanting to get closer to that authentic self, to be privilege to someone's fears and joys and inner contradictions.

My friends, I wish I had The Answer. If you're having one of those days, if your miserable inner voice is whispering similar poisons to you, I can only advise you to try all your tricks--meditate, walk, exercise, watch dumb tv, beg someone to tell you something nice about yourself, eat that pint of ice cream--and don't beat yourself up for trying them, even if they don't work. Especially if they don't work.

It's terrifying, this thing we're stuck doing, trying to live. Admitting to what you fear is also admitting to what you hope for. For me, after the tears, the sighing, the moping, the too much or too little sleeping, I try to remember the hope. We aren't guaranteed, any of us, that we'll get what we hope for. But then, we aren't guaranteed that we won't. (Take that, evil inner voice. Nothing is certain.)

Breathe. Keep breathing.

My Grandfather's Resolutions

My mother's father was a lawyer. When my mother was a child, he worked for the IRS, and family lore tells us that he was one of the lawyers who went to Chicago and helped put away Al Capone for tax evasion. My grandmother was extremely worried the whole time, we are told. And then my grandfather died, when my mother was just 14. I never met him.

But my mother adored him, though she was kept from him at times because he was "resting," because he had been diagnosed with hypertension and the thought was that playful, rambunctious children would make his condition worse.

Other than these things, what I mostly know about my grandfather was that because of the hypertension, he was on a low salt diet. Because of that, my mother never put salt on anything. And so I, too, am sensitive to salt, and avoid traditionally salt-loaded foods like potato chips.

But then my siblings and I went through some old documents and pictures in a box, and came across my grandfather's New Year resolutions for 1924. All of them made me laugh, but here are some of my favorites. Clearly I inherited my sweet tooth and my flirting habits from him.



January 2, 1924

WHEREAS, upon the beginning of a New Year it is meet, fitting, and proper that a certain lawyer aim toward a greatly improved conduct in all things of life…

IT IS THEREFORE RESOLVED, by him,

(1) That he will  not fall in love with more than twenty-five pretty girls at the same time, nor will he seek out the company of more than twenty-five in the course of one calendar week, nor will he flirt with any greater number than he can safely flirt with and not be found out by any of the others.

(2) That he will not stay out later than three o’clock A.M. on more than eight nights in any one week.

…

(4) That he will not attend any more movies than he can, and will not take any more pretty girls to the movies than his limited finances will permit; neither will he hold more than two (2) of any one young lady’s hands at any particular movie…

(5) That he will not shake the cherry pie tree nor milk the whipped cream cow more often than he gets a chance, nor will he eat any more of either's products than he can hold.

…

(10) That he will not smoke, drink, chew, swear, gamble, or grumble at the street car service, or lack thereof, very often.

(12) That he will not eat any more than two caramel pies at one time, and will not ask for said kind of pie more than once a day.

The Mouth of the Sky

Hi, friends. I'm sorry I haven't posted for nearly a month. Much has been percolating inside this summer, as I'm sure is the case for most of us. I have been staying at my sister's place in Pesotum, Illinois, where she has just started a therapeutic riding center called Healing Horse Stables. Today was the 2nd class through the Champaign Park District, with 8 riders and 4 horses and many volunteers making it work. I was nervous, just like I was for the first class last week. I don't deal well with so many variables--riders, horses, different saddles and bridles, stirrup lengths, side-walkers (in case some riders are unsteady), barrels to twine around and balls to throw in buckets. So I just sweet-talked the horse I was leading, kissing her nose when we stopped, telling her what a good girl she was being. I survived being in the maelstrom of all that chaos by focusing on the horse. When I was most nervous, I closed my awareness down to just her--her brown eyes looking around, her sweet horse smell, her need to get out of the way of other people and horses.

I suppose if there's a bigger idea here it's that this is one way to get through the chaos of our everyday lives: narrow the focus. There is so much, both outside of us and inside of us, clamoring for our attention. And though we often believe we should be in control of it all--especially what's going on inside each of us--sometimes we need to let go. We need to know that we're not in control of everything, and we don't have to be. The storms will rage, inside and out. The rivers will rise and overflow; the wind will pull down tree limbs; we will get lost in the fog. Maybe what we need when this happens is one thing to lean into, just one. One song, one bowl of ice cream, one horse, one walk, one hug. To let the rest happen as it will.

And then maybe we, like the sky in this picture, can sing out light when the time comes. We can always hope.

A June Day in My Homeland (Pesotum, Illinois)

9:00am  The alarm goes off. I am going to the very small church where my sister goes, my presence requested so I can add to the size of the choir (from 6 members to 7) because they're singing a special song. I am a mostly-Buddhist, who-knows-what-else-ist, but I love these kind people and this small church so I go. My 4 year old nephew comes over to sing too, though who knows whether he's singing the actual song or one of his own, and nobody minds because he is so cute.

Noon-ish  Lunch with church people; I sit next to my nephew (John John, or JJ) and he shows me silly cartoons on his iPod. Welcome to 21st century childhood.

2-ish  We return home to my sister's Therapeutic Riding Center. It's in the 80s and there's a strong Illinois prairie breeze. I bounce between the 7 dogs in the house and the horse-training going on outside. I sit in the sun and the wind so the flies don't bite me.

3-ish  I decide to meditate! On the other side of the house, where no one goes. Among the tall grass. It is 30 minutes of what meditation should be. I can imagine for the first time doing a whole hour every day. The only sounds are the wind and one of the horses running in his pasture. I finish filled with love for my friends and the world.

4-ish-6ish  I sit in a reclining chair on the porch. The windchimes play. The dogs come in and out the dog door, and my sister waters plants and chats on occasion. I think maybe I should get up and do something. I don't. I leave my phone in my pocket.

6ish-10  We drive into town to have dinner with my brother, his wife and 2 boys. They are fun and silly. We look at old family pictures together--from when we were kids, and then older ones going all the way back to the late 1800s. One relative, nicknamed "Leafy," looks so Irish I have to laugh, and there are many pictures of her. It is overwhelming. One letter is a typed statement by my great grandfather of how he will behave over the next year, and it includes not flirting with more girls than he can handle at one time.

10ish-11ish  Return to the country, the horses, the dogs--and then I take a walk down the road in front of my sister's house. No car passes. Fireflies call to each other over the fields, corn and soybeans and tall grass beside the road. The moon lights the landscape nearly as much as each homestead's lights, which are islands in the big flat rich fields. I keep walking past being tired; I keep telling myself "just a little bit longer." The wind is a friend. I think of Robert Frost's poem, "I have been one acquainted with the night" and I feel like a Midwest sprite and I let my hair blown around me.

11ish-midnight  Writing. Just journaling. My three dogs sleeping next to me on the couch. The windchimes outside. And then a sweet and hilarious friend messages me, and we chat while I can barely keep my eyes open.

Some time after midnight  Bed. To dream of dogs and horses, fireflies and fairies, wind and stars.

My Meditation Spot

This is where I get to meditate at my sister's Therapeutic Riding Center, Healing Horse Stables, in Pesotum, Illinois. This is beside her house, with a pasture behind that contains a curious and sweet stallion named Manue. As my sister Dorey and I were wandering through the side yard, noting the spots in the long grass where deer must bed down for the night, we came across a small area paved with bricks. "This is your meditation spot!" she said, and I knew she was right.

People meditate differently, and suggest different books and approaches. For me, the most important thing is just to sit quietly, my eyes closed, for a pre-determined period of time. Today it was 20 minutes. When I meditate, I don't try to "clear my mind," or attain an enlightened state, or stop worrying--I don't try to do anything. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. My mind and feelings dart around, from thought to thought. I notice that I'm thinking or feeling something, and then I take another deep breath, focusing on it. And then my mind goes again. And again I notice it moving around. But I don't judge where my mind goes, or what I feel. I don't try to analyze it. I come back to the breath.

For me, the key words in meditation--my informal mantra--are nonstriving and nonjudging.

And what usually happens for me? Why is it worthwhile to do this, knowing I am unlikely to attain enlightenment in those 20 minutes? Mostly: I remember that it is a whole and good thing to simply be myself, sitting quietly in the universe. I let go of the constant internal commentary that tells me I should be doing something productive. I quiet the voices that tell me my job is to solve my problems and the problems of others. The problems are there, yes. But for these 20 minutes, I give myself permission to notice them and not do anything about them.

There is so much struggle in this world. We believe everything will be better once we cleanthekitchenwalkthedoggradepaperspaybillschangethelightbulbovertheoutsidedooranswerthatemailmakemoremorey. For me, meditation is a break from this mindset. It is a peace, an acceptance, to quote my friend Nyssa Hanger, of what is.

Other things may happen for you when you meditate. Or not. They may happen every time, or just occasionally. And all of that is ok. I believe it's worth trying, and doing even if you don't make it a regular practice. You are worth the time it takes to center and understand yourself. You are of worth, even when you're not actually "doing anything."