Vacationing in Everyday Life

I’m in my second week of a new, half-time job, and my wise sponsor has invited me to honor the transition by not filling every spare moment.  My assignment is to notice how I spend time when I truly have choice and am listening.  

I love to sort and sift.  Now that we’ve brought every last thing over from the Golden Valley house, I spent time in the basement unpacking boxes and putting things where we can find them again. Surprisingly, I had the most fun in the work room, creating a place for hammers, another for screwdrivers, and one for plyers, using containers we already have.

I got my own office/writing space ordered.  I eliminated things from the floor and hung paintings—two oils by Veda Stanfield, a watercolor given to my mother when she retired, and the big piece I brought home from Ecuador simply because I couldn’t live without it. I took immense pleasure just sitting and enjoying this tidy, beautiful space.

I spent time in the yard. I set up the hammock and the chaise lounge that had been lying around and sat in them after work.  Consequently, I had two conversations with my next door neighbor, who I hadn’t yet met in six months. I had time to sweep the sidewalk, something I’ve wanted to do for a week now.  Given my new mode of acting on inspiration, I made the time, in my skirt and sandals, before work. 

I read a couple books, taking one to the pool and reading it in one sitting.  Patrick Rhone’s Enough is an inspiration for my own. His topic and voice kept me reading until the end.  Not pressuring myself to produce a book this week has been lovely and very freeing. Until I let that go,  I had no idea of the ever-present pressure to produce something extraordinary.

I walked, which I’ve wanted to do for years.  I walked before work on Monday. I walked after work because I was home before supper.  I strolled without thought of aerobic exercise, enjoying the flowers and looking at house numbers for ideas.  Just how do you put numbers in stucco?

And I’ve slept. Napping, going to bed early, getting up later all show me how in need of replenishment I’ve been.  More confirming information I’ve made the right move for me.

In short, I’m becoming the person I want to be, which I suspect is what happens on a vacation and can be incorporated into daily living, if I listen and move slowly enough.

Leaning into Change

Feeling Both/And Emotions   

   

I’m in a big period of transition, and my history is to focus on where I’m headed, be excited about it, stay positive. But the place I’m leaving has been a wonderful scene—beautiful setting, healthy environment, colleagues who have become trusted friends, impeccable supervisor and truly fulfilling work.  (You may wonder why I’d leave and the story of how this came about is curious because I wasn’t looking.)

What I’m attempting to do this week is inhabit the whole spectrum of human emotion—the anticipation and the delight of something new, the wistfulness of leaving a place that for eight years has helped me grow and learn new skills in the safest environment I’ve ever worked.  There’s a theory that workplaces mirror our families, reflecting the complicated dynamics of our first relational system and so if we’re not conscious, we can fall into habitual, outmoded roles.  But when we choose to consciously evolve, we mature and attract a family of responsible adults who take ownership for their actions, analyze their motives, and together create something meaningful. This particular group also has an ability to play together and bring out the best in each other. The staff at Hazelden’s Dan Anderson Renewal Center is remarkable and I’ve been blessed to be part of it.

Yet talk of family systems theory is not the way I’ll best make my transition. I need to live these last days from my heart,  to savor the views of the forest and lake as I see it for a last time, to enjoy the guests clamoring for one last conversation,  the special feeling of lecturing in Bigelow auditorium, delivering information and telling stories that might bring someone hope. Mostly I’m tuned into the goodness of the people I’ve worked with, crying smiling when they share what they appreciate about me, crying when I tell them how important they have been to my daily life. 

Even the happiest of transitions has a thread of loss, and for once I want to notice it, tend to it, knowing it doesn’t diminish how excited I am to be joining Hazelden St. Paul on Monday.

"Seek the Source of the Yearning"

I was up at the cabin for five days. At at some point in my planning this became a writing retreat, a silent writing retreat, a vegetarian and sugar free retreat, a fast from facebook retreat.  And I was able to do all those but one.

 I saw on facebook a line from Adyasanti: “Don’t seek what you are yearning for, seek the source of the yearning” and it was the perfect reflection on my day.  I’d gotten an idea to make cookies—peanut butter, chocolate chip, and molasses ginger cookies. I found cookbooks in the cupboard here from various churches and I looked up recipes, scoured the pantry, made a shopping list. The only catch is I don’t eat sugar or flour, and if I made cookies I would do nothing but eat cookies all day long. I’d feel sick, I wouldn’t feel like walking or writing or meditating, and I’d be unhappy.

So I took a walk to make the decision after an hour in the bracing cold.  When I came back, I chose to be true to my initial decision to not run away. I put all the cook books away and roasted brussel sprouts and cabbage, which were delicious.

Next I went online to see what movies were playing within a 20 mile radius. I watched every single trailer, hoping there was something I just couldn’t bear to miss. There was not.  In fact, you would have to pay me a lot to spend 90 minutes watching any of the movies playing locally. So that avenue of distraction closed as well.

Eventually I did write, I did read, and pray, and walk and do yoga and meditate. And still there was empty time. I got out the coloring books of mandalas and the beautiful pencils I’d bought and I just sat still and filled in small areas with various colors. And as I did the thought emerged—I’m lonely.  

As I sat with it, faces of people I know who might also be lonely appeared. Lots of them. I realized that even the most social people perhaps have moments of loneliness. Loneliness is part of being human. In that moment I felt connected to this world in a very sweet way. 

Then the image arose of me at age 3, on a Saturday morning, reaching into a low kitchen cupboard while my parents slept> I spied a box of chocolate only to discover it was bitter baker’s chocolate .  Ugh.  I had to process that quietly because I was alone, doing something I shouldn’t, filled with shame.  

While I’ve remembered that moment before, this was the first time I connected it to being lonely. Of course. I was a three year old who had to keep quiet in order to not wake her parents up, as she’d been instructed. I learned to entertain myself but it was a consolation for the real connection I wanted.

Because my loneliness has been soothed by sugar for so long, at the lake I immediately wanted cookies before I even realized I was lonely. Anything to stave off that feeling.  But by not giving into that impulse/craving a little opening occurred--just enough space for me to learn something, to heal something.

 That’s the gift of recovery.  I learn something and heal something every single time I choose to be healthy.

Letter of Permission

Since I'm the only thing that gets in the way of my happiness, I've written a letter of permission to myself to be as alive as possible.  Are you waiting for someone to give you permission--perhaps a parent, partner, employer or child? What do you give yourself permission to be?

Dear JoAnn,

I give you permission to be strong, powerful, charismatic and funny.

I give you permission to laugh and cry, make mistakes and to heal.

I give you permission to ask questions, sit in silence, talk for an hour, write what’s on your mind without censure.

I give you permission to love your body and brain, ask for what you want, and trust deeply in the goodness of the universe.

I give you permission to be a true original, to be just like everyone else, to be ordinary, dowdy and dull some days and on others to be the shiniest one in the room. 

I give you permission to love deeply, to look like a fool for your truth, to be uncomfortable.

I give you permission to be curious, scared, and wonder-filled. 

You have my permission to rest, to make friends with emptiness, and to be easily delighted.

You have permission to be.

Love, JoAnn

Falling into Grace

When you fall, in my case literally, it’s a chance to reflect before moving on.  If you can take attention back from “what does this look like to others?” and ask “what was I thinking before this happened?” you’ll maximize the learning—at least I hope I have.

This morning I forgot that a plumbing inspection was scheduled. When I heard the doorbell I was upstairs reading the newspaper in bed.  I put on clothes as quickly as I could and raced downstairs.  Why didn’t I simply throw a bathrobe over my nightgown and greet the inspector? Because I didn’t want a stranger to think I wasn’t yet dressed at 8 am.

We have two doors to our new house and I haven’t yet learned which doorbell ring goes with which door. I ran to the side door where most of the work folks come in. No one there. I raced to the front door and no one was there either.  In fact no one was even in sight. Apparently my thought process at this point was “if I miss this inspection not only will the plumbing not be approved but we will be fined and possibly lose our house.”

I flew out the door and saw a car with “City of Minneapolis” at the curb.  I yelled and continued toward it, tripped on something in my loose slippers, and fell sprawling on the frozen ground. The inspector, now out of her car, came toward me asking if I was ok. I got up quickly, wincing, and limped into the house, accompanying her throughout the brief, successful inspection. Her last words to me were “take some ibuprofen.”

I am certainly grateful that nothing is broken; my body is healthy and will heal quickly from the scrapes and bruises. I also think I’ll have a quiet day--soaking in a hot mineral bath, wearing soft clothing, and moving mindfully. 

But because I view everything as an invitation to increase awareness, I’d also like to notice where I might be governed by subtle fears of a worst-case scenario, fed perhaps by what I'm obsessively reading about our current political scene.

When else do I hurry because I’ve packed too much into a day, afraid I’ll miss something important?  How did I forgot the essential spiritual perspective that all is well? And can I be grateful that the earth itself has reminded me?

Ode to Straight Hair

How early in life do we start comparing ourselves to others? Stacy Eichman had naturally curly hair. Mine was fine and straighter than any stick my mother compared it to. Every Saturday night I sat before my mom on the floor while she dipped a comb in a glass of water and ran it through my hair, the cold drips on my neck the price of beauty, just as the stench of a Toni home permanent was.  Each night before church my hair was wrapped around the pink foam of a dozen sponge curlers so that I slept in a ring of Styrofoam, my own crown of thorns.

I remember one night I sat up and in a fit of discomfort pulled all the curlers out and hurled them across my bedroom.  Almost immediately I was filled with terror for this act of self-will.  My mother would be furious. I moved quickly to gather them all and then in the dark attempted to re-set my hair, without a comb or mirror, my six year old fingers clumsily  rectifying my betrayal.

I sang in the church’s children’s choir and one Sunday we performed, arranged on the altar steps by height, so I was in the front row.  Not long into the song, a boy two rows up got sick and projectile vomited all over us.  I recoiled, probably gagged, and looked to see who had done it. The choir director continued, and at the end of the song we were ushered to the basement kitchen, where parents had rushed to help us.  My dad was there along with lots of mothers tending to their splattered children.  I remember a bubble of conversation and then curly-haired Stacy was praised for appearing unfazed and continuing to sing “like a little trooper.” 

I felt indicted by comparison.  

I’m not sure what lessons I took from this event that remains vivid 50 years later. Was this the beginning of self-seeking—looking to appear poised and polished regardless of what’s going on inside? Does only perfection merit praise?  And where today am I curling my perfectly straight hair to meet someone’s ideal--literally and metaphorically? Is it ok to publish something without a nifty ending or profound conclusion?

Saint Jane Addams

What object from your childhood did you consider Holy? I was recently asked this question at a workshop on writing spiritual memoir, and quickly an image came to mind.

When I grew up we had the Childcraft set of encyclopedias, white books with red leather at the bottom, a drawing, and a volume number. Volume one, nursery rhymes, was the one we read the most, but I also explored the stories of famous people, especially Jane Addams and her settlement house in Chicago.

Perhaps because I considered this text holy, I read it sitting in the dark and quiet hallway next to the bookcase. I’d find the pictures of Jane and read about the life of this wealthy woman who chose to live among the poor. She opened her home to children and mothers, held neighborhood meetings, and created change because it was needed.

Why was that book holy to me? Because we were raised to take care our things, I treated the book itself with care.  But it was the story that transported me to another state of being, which is the function of holy relics and rituals.  I glimpsed what humans are capable of--kindness, generosity, self-sacrifice, authentic community--and I yearned for that myself.

I wonder if what we consider holy as children comes from our truest desires, if we instinctively know who the saints in our lives are—whether in person or in books. Perhaps I knew that the day care I'd attended, Unity House, was an historic settlement house in north Minneapolis and felt a connection.

Or perhaps we’re called to our best selves all along the way, a golden thread that, if we listen and take hold, allows us to step into the best life we can lead, the one that makes us both happy and useful.