As if it happened yesterday…

I am in the midst of celebrating my 59th birthday. The actual date of that event is January 25, but I continue to celebrate with a family dinner out tonight, since our youngest daughter Johanna was able to come for the weekend. What better way to celebrate than in the midst of cherished family?!!

On Thursday, my “real” birthday, I opened an email being circulated at work titled “Value”, expounding on the value of both large and small increments of time. I thought I might enjoy reading it. I’ve always liked Psalms 90:12 “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” So much to be thankful for in all the days of our lives.

Halfway down the page came the example that brought me up short: “To realize the value of nine months, ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn.”

It has been almost 40 years since that day, my birthday, when I went into labor with our much-loved and much anticipated first child. No ultrasounds in those days that informed of the baby’s sex, or more soberly, of anomalies in a baby’s development. We just knew we wanted a healthy baby — and what a way to celebrate my birthday! By early evening, the doctor told us it was time to get to the hospital, and we were so excited.

All checked in, we went to the labor room assigned to us and a friendly nurse came in to check on baby and me. Chatting happily with her, I rested between contractions for her to listen to baby’s heartbeat. IT WASN’T THERE! How could that be? The baby had spent the day kicking and telling me it was time to get out of there. The nurse’s demeanor changed and she called immediately for back-up. By the time our OB-GYN arrived, mere minutes later, having been informed of what was going on, I was whisked away for an emergency C-section, leaving a white-faced Harold behind. Our most important moment and we were separated.

When I woke up, I didn’t even need to ask. Harold sat there, had been there through the night, as had our dear doctor, who waited with him. I knew from the tears running down Harold’s face–”Susie, they tried but they couldn’t save our little girl”. The doctor briefly told us that her condition had been so weakened by a dying placenta giving her virtually no nourishment, that the stress of labor had been too much for her little heart. Other questions would wait and he left us alone to grieve together.

Nearly 40 years and I sit here with tears coursing down my cheeks, the unimaginable pain and loss recalled. It doesn’t happen as often as it once did, but that loss will always be a part of me, of us. Something will happen and it will be there again…as if it happened yesterday…

Nine months, 3/4 of a year — maybe not much time when seen against the background of an entire lifetime — but in that nine months, baby Amy became a part of me, of us. We liked nothing better than sitting on the couch, feeling her kick, and envisioning the day we’d hold this active child on our laps. Nine months was her whole lifetime, and those nine months forever changed ours.

Thursday I read an email, and it was as if it happened yesterday…

Tonight, at OUR birthday dinner, Amy will be with her family, just as she has always been and always will be.

To understand…

Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said “To believe and to understand are not diverse things, but the same things in different periods of growth”.

And consider this quote from Susan Wittig Albert’s upcoming book Spanish Dagger: “And knowing the truth doesn’t mean there’s no unfinished business.”  (And yes, dear reading friends, I see nothing wrong with mentioning both of these awesome authors together…but I wander…)

Here’s the thing…I know I’m a compulsive eater. After countless books on the subject and some pretty good therapy, I even know the reasons for the compulsion. So I know the truth – and I believe what the books and the therapist have told me.

I know the damage poor eating habits and excess weight can do (have done) to my health. I know what to eat and how to cook healthy food. I’m sure I’ve tried and succeeded at losing weight on 75% of the weight-loss diets/eating plans known to mankind.

But I can’t understand why, at my advanced age, I can’t put all of this behind me and give up the nasty habits. There’s evidently some of that “unfinished business” that China Bayles was speaking of in Spanish Dagger. Or maybe it’s just lack of will power or self-control.

Whatever it is, I’m frustrated and discouraged and not very happy with myself. I guess I’ll go read another book. Where are those cookies?

What was lost is found

About ten days ago, I noticed that I had only one earring when I normally have two — in the second or upper piercings of my ear lobes.  For that spot, I wear small silver studs.  Figuring I had pulled it out changing clothes I searched all through the house to no avail.  To be honest, I really had no idea when or where I’d lost it.  I even spent some time cleaning my car — a good thing to do anyway since it needed it. Still no earring.  I found a pair of small earrings in my jewelry box that I could use, but they have a colored stone, and being the anal person that I am, I missed the blend-with-everything quality of the plain silver ones.

While we were out running errands today, and stopping at one of our favorite haunts, Barnes and Noble, I popped in to a nearby store that I knew to carry a good selection of sterling silver earrings.  They didn’t have exactly what I wanted, but I purchased two pair that I knew would work.  Not wanting my poor husband to “suffer” over long outside, I hurried back to the car.  I opened the door and opened my mouth to say something about the poor service in the store, when I saw something on the car mat glittering in the sun.  You guessed it — the lost earring.  Sigh…  I offered to take the new ones back but Harold allowed as how I should keep them rather than keep him waiting in the car for a second time.

Now, I know this isn’t an overly amazing story, but something similar happened many years ago, and it came to mind today.  The stakes were a little higher — I lost my wedding ring set.  I got to work one day and noticed I wasn’t wearing them. I was devastated when searches of home, car and work yielded nothing.  I didn’t know if they had somehow slipped into the trash somewhere; I had no clue.  They weren’t loose on my finger. I went over and over in my mind how it could have happened.  I rarely took the rings off. I had lately, though, as I was trying a new hand cream, and I would take the rings off to clean them occasionally as the cream clung to everything.  Horrors, I thought I might have even knocked them into the toilet as I was applying make-up and lotions in the morning before work.

I was working at a locally-owned department store in Albuquerque, and had done so for many years.  Every day was the same.  Drive to work, park the car, go into work — same routine, same parking place.  The day I lost the rings, I let all my co-workers know they were lost, but they could do no more than sympathize with me, and they offered to look around but I didn’t really think I’d lost them there. 

At the same time, I was part of a small Bible-study group.  The next time we met, I asked if it would be OK to pray about the missing rings.  I didn’t think I was being too materialistic, since what I missed most was the emotional attachment of the rings, the sentimental value.  So, we did pray about the situation. Mostly, I prayed to be at peace about the loss, and to try to not to berate myself so much for being careless.

Still, weeks went by, and I finally accepted that my rings were gone forever.  Harold was wonderful about it.  He said we were still just as married, and one day we would get matching bands. 

One October morning, a co-worker called me on the phone and asked if I could come see her in her office.  I walked back, wondering what she wanted.  I admit to being a little impatient as I was thinking of the busy day ahead.  Lou said she had something she thought I should see.  She held out her hand, opened it slowly, and there were my rings.  Talk about a shock!!  She proceeded to tell me that when she parked her car and got out that morning, she dropped her keys.  She bent over to pick them up and saw something glittering in the sun, down in a crack in the parking lot – my rings!  She didn’t really think they were mine after all the time that had passed but she wanted me to see them just in case. 

Notice I said this was an October morning.  It had been in April that I lost the rings.  Months of laying in that parking lot, which happened to be attached to an abandoned building.  We just used it for our employee parking because it was convenient.  There was just no telling how many cars had been in and out of that lot in those six months, no doubt even parking on top of that very crack in the pavement. There was no mark on the rings; they hadn’t been flattened by being run over; they were in perfect shape.  They must have been in just exactly the right position to be protected.  All I could work out in my mind was that I had taken the rings off in the car for SOME reason and they had fallen to the ground when I got out.  Why no one had seen them before was a mystery — maybe the angle of the sun was just right just that morning…

I still think of this as a minor miracle!

Creating…

Much of my reading of late has been somewhat on the heavy side, what with both of my reading groups and some books that I’ve chosen as well. My group reads include Naomi Wolf’s The Treehouse and Pinkola-Estes’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, as well as one not quite as serious but also introspective in Bender’s Plain and Simple. Independent from the groups I’ve read Sue Monk Kidd’s Dance of the Dissident Daughter and Holy Hunger by Margaret Bullitt-Jones.

This serious stack is a bit unusual for me, especially all at one time. In looking it over, I began to wonder what drew me to this selection. I could argue that at least the first three were because of the reading groups. True, but they’re still done voluntarily – I’m not facilitating any of the three, and I’ve skipped books before — but not these.

Dance is really a re-read — I wanted to delve into it more deeply for two reasons. First, it’s been a while since I read it and in the meantime, I’ve read two of Kidd’s wonderful fiction offerings. She (Kidd) and I go back a long way. As a younger wife and mother, I read her devotional writings monthly in a magazine I subscribed to; she was also a younger wife and mother then and her writing really spoke to me. When I read Dance the first time, I had trouble reconciling the two very different aspects of the same woman. And, while I loved her novels, they did not fit with the Kidd I had known either. I needed to re-acquaint myself. Second, I learned that this book was important to my daughter Rebecca and I wanted to be able to discuss it with her. Haven’t had that discussion yet but hope to soon.

The Treehouse, Plain and Simple, and WWRWTW I did read for my groups, but also because I wanted to — something in them struck a chord within me as well. Wanted to read them — yes — but the truth comes closer to needing to read them.  Some thought, some idea, something to be discovered — it’s as though I’m being beckoned.
I acquired Holy Hunger after hearing the author speak on a great TV show “New Morning”, recommended to me by a friend. I didn’t need to read the book to know that the author and I had much in common — issues with parents, weight issues, food addiction… Since I’m currently going to Weight Watchers and trying to succeed, I hoped her book would shed some light on the whys of my compulsive eating. I know how to lose weight but I think I won’t be completely and finally successful unless I do a little more work on the reasons I got to this point.

So, that’s what I’m reading and some of the reasons for choosing to do so.

As I reflected on these books, I began to recognize a common thread. Though they all come at it from differing perspectives, all speak of a need to know one’s true self, to find the core of one’s being, to be comfortable with finding it, and to be able to express it in a creative, healthy, self-affirming way.

I’m struggling with my creative self. I want to express myself. I love to write. Yet, as oft as not lately, I am tongue-tied. It’s not that the words aren’t there. They are — whirling around at a dizzying rate inside my head. I tell myself I haven’t had time to work. I convince myself that other tasks need to be completed first, that my fulltime job leaves me too exhausted. Why the excuses? I’m working on finding the answer to that.

It’s not time, or the lack of it. I could find the time. It’s not that I don’t have the physical tools — I collect pens and papers — I love them! I have a desktop computer and a laptop computer. I have grammar books, dictionaries, several thesauri, shelves of reference books, blank and partly filled journals, and a score of books about writing. I even have this blog! For the first time in my adult life, I actually have a room set aside that I can call my own — not even a spare bed for guests. It’s my treehouse, going back to Wolf’s book. The space is mine. And I rarely use it…

Am I worried I don’t have the talent? For what it’s worth, that’s not the problem. I do know I can write — others have told me and it’s a knowing I have within me. I’m not looking for an audience or commercial success — I’m content to write for me and mine. It’s not that I’m not creative. Besides writing, I have a flair and passion for various needle arts and for cooking.

For now, I see several factors. One is giving myself the license to write — to overcome and/or ignore the voice that tells me I have other tasks to complete first, that I’m not pulling my load around the house. I don’t know why that pesky little voice bugs me about that — Harold certainly doesn’t and he’s the one who shares my space. He loves to see me writing. Of course, another insidious whispering sometimes mentions that I might not have anything worthwhile to say. I’m at the point of vanquishing that voice for good. If I write it, it’s worthwhile — even if no one else ever reads it. Of course, there’s the one that tells me not to dig too deeply into my past — that wants to scare me by implying I might not be able to handle what I find. So what, I say — if I find that I need to vent, even to spew venom on paper, I can do that, and I’ll be intact when I finish, because I am stronger than anything in my past. I’ve come to be not so afraid of true feelings, even though I know much exploration is still ahead. I’m learning, and healing and growing, from all I read and all I share with the wonderful wise women in my reading and writing circles. I’m on my way to finding the true authentic me. So far, I like what I’ve found.

I’ve come around to the one thing that stops me, and it is, I believe, closely related to my last post. I am not intentional, not resolute about taking the time and the space and the place to create. Do I need to find out WHY I don’t do that — or do I just need to write?

For now, I think I just need to do it. Naomi Wolf writes that her father Leonard believes that every one of us is an artist, whatever our creative medium might be. I find myself thinking back to these words from The Treehouse: “He wants to know you have put your emotion into it, driven your artist’s discipline into it, seen it through to completion and signed your name to it, if only in your own mind. If you do, he believes, your work comes alive, and gives life to those around you. And, it gives life, he is sure, to you.” And a bit farther on, “He (Leonard) believes that no amount of money or recognition can compensate you if you are not doing your life’s passionate creative work; and if you are not doing it, you had better draw everything to a complete stop until you can listen deeply to your soul, identify your true heart’s desire, and change direction. It’s that important.”

Yep, that sounds to me like just do it! I suspect the answers will follow. Off to my treehouse I go!

To be Resolute…

The new year has begun. With its arrival have come stirrings of wanting to make some changes. Resolutions perhaps?

I told my husband the other day that I disliked the celebration of New Year’s because it made me think of things left undone: changes not made, letters not written, calls not made, writing not done, a blog ignored, books not read, clutter not disposed of, resolutions not kept in the old year. He reminded me of the old comic — his name escapes me — who said the easiest way to keep resolutions was to make one that you wouldn’t make any. Cute, but that didn’t seem to fit my mood either. What would? I began to look into this idea of resolutions.

From Wikipedia : “A New Year’s resolution is a committment that an individual makes to a project or a habit, often a lifestyle change that is generally interpreted as advantageous. The name comes from the fact that these commitments normally go into effect on New Years Day and remain until the set goal has been achieved, although many resolutions go unachieved and are often broken fairly shortly after they are set.” OK, so that’s not so encouraging, but then neither is my assessment of the past year. I’ll try a word search…

Some definitions of resolution include: a firm decision to do something; firmness of mind and purpose; the quality of being resolute. Some synonyms are: conviction, intent, mettle, tenacity, grit, perseverance, heart, spirit, resoluteness…

Resolute isn’t a word I hear much of late. Do we use another word? It mean: possessing determination and purposefulness; firmly determined in purpose. Synonyms include: adamant, stalwart, loyal, fixed, persistent, steadfast, true, faithful…

To my mind, my above word search makes it pretty clear that a resolution is something of note; something of worth. And, to be resolute implies not only determination but integrity. Maybe along the lines of “don’t say it if you don’t mean it”, or as we say these days, “if you’re going to talk the talk, then walk the walk.”

Where does this lead me? To make resolutions or not? To make resolutions a matter of conscience? This brings to mind a passage of Scripture that may be the Christian equivalent of this matter of resolution. Colossians 3:23 says: “Whatever you do, do it enthusistically, as something done for the Lord…”, with a footnote that says “do it enthusiastically” translates literally as “do it from the soul”.

Cosidering all this, am I going to make resolutions for this new year of 2007? Perhaps only one, but not that of the old comic.

I resolve TO BE RESOLUTE. Whatever I undertake, I will be determined, purposeful, faithful. I will be intentional, trying to make all that I do a matter of conscience. If I can accomplish this, then perhaps at this time next year, I won’t be so discouraged about this year.

Does this mean more blog entries for 2007?  Check back to see!

I wish all a very happy New Year filled with blessings and joy and peace.