120 Seconds of My Open Heart

Again, another bike ride. How can I resist? These wonderful late summer days which are soon to be fall -- cooler, brisker and perhaps some hesitation on my part to go out for these rides. It feels good to take my body and mind out for a ride, a good opportunity to sync the two while I quiet down my busy mind and contemplate for awhile.


As I began my usual route, I was thinking about the obstacles to being present and how these rob us of the time shared between humans. Specifically, there was an example this morning to illustrate this realization. My son had something to tell me. It was 6:30 a.m. and time to get my oldest out the door for his bus. There were lunches to be finished, breakfasts to be made and eaten, coffee to be enjoyed, and other morning routines to be followed. He looked at me with intent and I was mindfully aware of a choice to be made, either I continue on with my morning routine only half listening or I drop my busyness and give him space to share. I chose to drop all my doing, and yes this is all necessary doing because everyone wants to eat, have clean and folded clothes, and have a somewhat organized household, but I also dropped the extra thinking and mind racing. I stopped, looked directly into his eyes, took a deep cooling breath and opened to receive his words.


The point is this -- if we invest in the moments our kids really need us (or when anyone really needs us for that matter), we begin to create a new culture of paying attention and valuing the human interactions that meet us throughout our days on earth. When someone has something that needs to be said, and shared, it takes a lot of the stress, irritation and whining out of the interaction when we drop our doing and stay still to receive. Since when we avert from these moments, children, as well as adults, continue their strategies to gain our attention which creates a lot of drama, requires much more energy and interferes with our present task at hand anyway since none of us can really multi-task effectively; and had we only stopped and became present with a deep and cool breath of our heart and mind, all the additional nagging could have been prevented.

 
It takes more time and exertion to stop the flow coming from that other human than to simply quiet for a moment and offer the space to another to share. We all experience less frustration; and it really feels basically good to open to another human being this way. This is love in action. It is compassionate listening. It is not magic but it is magical. It is rather ordinary and wonderful and available to all of us. But it takes some practice and reminders and an awareness of all the wonderful benefits of actively listening and connecting with another.

 
Our children and other humans really aren’t asking for a great deal of time, but the time they do request, if offered completely, without distraction and expectation, can lead to an interaction which is much more fulfilling and dynamic. Human interaction can be based on a direct connection with very little obstacles if we so choose. Complete reception and total listening allows the interchange to go unimpeded and it feels good, basic, decent, and dignified and does drag on into a dramatic exchange that leaves feelings hurt and energy tentacles trailing behind a person who feels unheard or unloved.

 
I am realizing that my time alone on my bike rides offers me a space to contemplate and become aware of how to be a more fully engaged, open, present, and ultimately joyful human being; and to think all my youngest son really needed was about 120 seconds of my open heart.

When Death Comes Calling

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality.  But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know?  I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race—that rarely do I ever simply estimate it.  I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.” 

From The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

 

Just a few days away from the autumnal equinox, the warm days turn cold very quickly, without the gradual transition that happens after a slow cooker of a summer day.  At this time of the year as the sun moves lower toward the horizon, the earth on its axis tilts its inhabitants in this northern hemisphere further away from the sun, and suddenly within just minutes the day turns into a chilly evening that calls for an extra fleece jacket. 

Even smack in the middle of a glorious sunny afternoon during one of my bike rides, a cool breeze arrives and turns the heat and sweat on my skin to goose flesh and I am grateful for my light weight cotton jacket, a barrier against the chilly fall wind. 

I am managing to ride my eight mile loop nearly every day; it clears my mind and places my attention back into my body.  How easy it is to forget that our mind is a part of a greater whole, the moving parts of limbs, torso, spine, heart, organs, breath and skin.  I know that all the thinking I do for work, for keeping the logistical calendar of my children and myself, for the particular life challenges at the moment keeps me extra tense and I will relax and slow down to a more even pace as soon as I hop on my bike.  Within four blocks I am breathing more deeply, relaxing my mind, and settling into a physical rhythm that helps sweep away the foggy cobwebs of an overly full and easily distractible 21^st century mind.

And while on the bike, I am struck by the change in the feel of the air on my skin and in my nostrils, by the crunch of the leaves beneath my bike’s two wheels, by the sunlight on the trees creating golden hues and deep recesses of shadows between the branches, by the sound of the quieting down on earth. I notice a stray butterfly riding the currents of the autumn air above the creek bed where I stop on my bike ride to drink from my water bottle and I see the voluminous, strapping clouds in that same fall sky.  In the midst of all these sensory experiences, I am also struck by death right now.  Death has always been hanging around, right here next to life, it is just demanding a little more of my attention at the moment.

The other night as I was just ready to fall off the edge of the waking world, death’s heady breath touched my cheek, a reminder that we all are powerless to avert this inevitable encounter.  Two absolute realizations.  First, I feel this letting go, an absolution to figure out “the why” of a few big questions in my life.  It is about letting go of trying to control life, thinking it is possible to will away death or outsmart the pending fall.  I am just letting it all go, letting it all be. I am going to breathe and be content, dare I say, despite all the apparent difficulty and sadness that I am encountering, I am even going to be joyful. 

Second, I feel absolutely powerless to resist death and I have been fooling myself for quite a while now, convincing myself that I was not afraid of death.  See the truth is I am.  Not so much the act of dying, as the showing up on the other side of living, alone.  Shy of what is there waiting for me.  You know that interminable fear of arriving at a party without anyone you know, just yourself, and wondering if there will be anyone there that will want to talk to you, who might like you just a little and ease the awkwardness of those first few moments of stark aloneness. 

The noticing that fear is here, and welcoming it in, being curious and finding out more about who this fear actually is has become my theme for this pending fall.  Paying attention, being inquisitive, uncovering who this fear is and what it can teach and offer me, in life and in death, is actually helping me to let go, to become the outrageous fearless warrior I know I am. 

Just the other day, my youngest son told me a story about a real life act of courage.  He recounted to me that he recently slept out in his fort by himself all night long.  He offered to me this story of bravery and fearlessness and looked me directly in the eye to make sure I heard him.  This felt like a moment of sanity, a moment built on straightforward, direct, honest communication.  He wasn’t seeking any response other than my active listening and receiving of his message.

Someday, one day, I will be no more, but right now while I am, I can do a lot of good, even simple, quiet, garden variety good.  Like, pausing before I react to my kids, searching for understanding in a deeper way when my children do something I may find questionable, or sitting quietly in meditation relaxing and calming my mind so I can be a sane, loving human being.  If all I can ever offer is deep listening to a boy’s moments of courage and daring, then that is enough.  I need no other answer; I need no longer hold on so tightly to life.  So when death comes calling, I can let go knowing I was brave enough to truly live.

From Obstacle to Opportunity

Suiting up in a harness, I felt like I was going off to work for the phone company.  I had my nylon straps wrapped around my inner thighs, up the front and back of my torso and over my shoulders with steel carabineers and a zip line contraption attachment.  I was ready to go with my boys into the magical forest at the upper part of Holiday Valley Ski Resort, only we would soon be like tree monkeys with a hundred other brave humans at the Sky High Adventure Park.  With no preconceived notions or expectations I ascended the slope with my boys for a little three hour adventure this past Labor Day weekend.

Quickly learning that Sky High Adventure Park was an off the ground obstacle course, the next three hours would turn into an opportunity for me to confront my fears and to live moment by moment, step by step working with the present “obstacle” before me (on this course they call them elements). I began to gain more confidence with my body as it resided and moved through space high up in these sacred cherry and oak trees.  And I mean sacred, since each time I completed an element, overcoming my fears one at a time, I would go from scared to a moment of sacred, as I leaned my physical presence into each tree that I would meet on the next platform high above the ground.

As I started out, I entered the course via the same route as everyone regardless of which level course would be chosen.  I took some modicum of comfort in the fool-proof safety system of the double carabineers; one was always assuredly locked to a cable on the course while the other was open to attach to the next element such as a ladder, a zip line cable, or a cable across one of the open spaces between the trees.

The trick was to meet each element as it arose with the body and mind synchronized not getting too ahead of oneself in the mind, like overthinking the course, or what was to come next or when it all would this craziness all be over.  The idea was to go step by step, breath by breath.  I felt very scared, no terrified, in the beginning on the first baby course.  For me it was a big deal.  I am afraid of heights and experience a sense of vertigo and have been questioning my body’s ability and agility for the past year.  Still I found myself bending down on my lately creaky knees, letting go of my fears, my anxieties as well as my petty irritations as I moved through the first course.

One of the staff below saw my trepidation and was kind and aware enough to help encourage me while not enabling my dependence on him.  He saw my capabilities clearly beyond what I saw.  I grew to understand pretty quickly that the course was as much about my mind, and what I thought I could do, as it was about getting my body to actually do it.

As I made my way to the second element of the initial course, I came upon a tree trunk that was tilted at a slight angle from one tree platform to another, the total distance spanning about 10 feet in all.  To me walking across that truck seemed unfathomable.  I saw only the obstacle as I met my first fear of the morning on this course.  I stood at the edge of the platform ready to bail.  My guide below egged me on saying this was the hardest element of the course and that I could do this by simply placing one foot in front of the other (just like in Rudolph was urged to do!).  With my carabineers attached to the cable, I spread my arms out like a tightrope walker and faced down my first fear.  Miraculously I got to the other side in one piece, both body and mind.  I started to wonder was this more about my pride not being bruised since falling would not have meant certain death but rather a blow to my ego.

My confidence had shifted perceptibly and I continued on with less need of encouragement.  When I came to the first zip line, I figured out how to attach my lifeline to the cable, but suddenly froze at the edge of the platform.  How could I possibly trust this harness to hold me?  I had to walk off the platform and fly through the air like Tinkerbelle, or rather Sandy Duncan on stage. The only thing I was missing was my faerie dust. 

I moved into thin air with my feet forward and was propelled to the other side where a solid platform and a mature cherry tree welcomed my arrival.  Suddenly I clearly saw that our bodies, all these human bodies on this course were capable of so much more than we give them credit for, and that our mind often is the culprit in creating the obstacles we face every day. 

Upon graduation from the baby course, I decided, with a wee bit of encouragement from my guide, to try the next level up which would take me to heights of 25 feet and more challenging elements.  I once again entered the new course with a renewed sense of my purpose, my body, my potential, my genuine intelligence to meet the obstacles/elements.  Just like we meet the elements every day in our moment by moment encounters on earth, I was getting the hang of meeting the elements of this course.  I ascended and began to feel the groove and movement of my body.  My mentor called up to me as I moved this new course, “Jean, you could do any course here.”  Half believing him, my confidence grew; rather I remembered the confidence that has always existed within me.  And my aches and pains seemed to magically dissipate.  I hurt less; felt more, my mind expanded outward into space.  I was in a groove, in the zone, as my youngest son is wont to say.

When I came to one particularly challenging element, another cable tightrope with a triangular shaped rope to hold onto as I walked the twenty or so feet span across open space, I did a practice that I had learned as part of my meditation practice and have been applying to my daily living called “raising your windhorse.”  As I quietly said the words to invoke my confidence, I placed my first wobbly foot out onto the steel cable in the open space before me.  And within a minute or so, I had made it safely across to the next landing setting in the cherry tree 25 feet in space above the ground. 

I just kept chugging along on the course and was grateful for all the basic goodness surrounding me like the family in front of me,  a dad with his three children who gave me reassurance through his kindness.  I came to one of the final elements, and I took a breath, raised my windhorse, and began to cross but on the first step off I knew that my balance wasn’t there and I was in trouble.  The gentleman behind me instinctively reached out to bring me back to the wooden landing and I called out to me helper below, “How do I cross over this one?”  He said walk sideways on the cable tightrope all the way across.  I stepped off again holding onto the cable and shakily held the other cable for my hands and moved across the open space again methodically and deliberately breathing and concentrating on each and every step.

Life itself is like Sky High Adventure Park; we move from obstacle to opportunity in space and are continually touched by the elements throughout our entire life.  Challenging ourselves, taking a cleansing breath first before we meet a challenge, centering our body and relaxing our mind, are all things that I found I had to do first to make my journey through this course of elements and wide open spaces.  I trusted in my body, let go of the fears in my mind and found that this was a wonderful way to wrap up the summer and to begin a new school year.

 

 

 

A New School Year and a Haircut

 

My view of the world is a female one, and since I have children, it is also one of a mother. Now looking back at the younger mom I was when my boys were babies or toddlers, I remember that I felt a sense of confidence, self-assurance, and resourcefulness. Changing diapers, wiping up messes and dirty faces, and brushing away tears came naturally.  Tending to little ones in those younger years was like an Olympic Sport for me, I medalled in gold all the time. I could allay a cry with my body, feeding my children any time on demand.  It was miraculous that my body could produce life-sustaining and emotionally-calming milk.  I had the heart and stomach for all the little spills of life, as well as the nuclear diaper explosions. At least that is how I like to remember it now as an older mom of a teenager and a tween.

As a mom I am supposed to be nurturing, compassionate, kindly, gentle, and warm; a soft spot to catch my children when they trip and fall or just need to rest their weary bodies from a life that can wear you down.  It seemed easier when they were younger simply because they wanted to be caught and it didn’t matter who might be around to witness the spill.  Now as older children, who may still long for a safe place to land, they struggle against this warm motherly cushion, at least when they think people may notice.  It is no longer cool to need this warmth from their mother; thus the line of demarcation must be drawn wide and the landing must be far enough away so others cannot see. 

It seems like only two days ago I wrote about the break from making all those school lunches, and the schedule, and dragging tired, tousled-hair children out of bed at 6:30 a.m.  I love the summer, the great big open space of the warm breezes of these few months.  The long days of light and heat and wakefulness have morphed into the beginnings of autumn with fallen leaves already snapping under foot.  The crisp change of September has arrived and we are full throttle back to school.

In my family’s case, I see that the structure of the school year is desperately needed.  We need the school routine again in my family, even my boys agree.  The summer was wide open and we felt that openness; we experienced a precious connection to one another and the physical world as we slept under the stars, shared meals outdoors, meditated in forests and mountains during a week away in Vermont.  We swam in the ocean water of the Atlantic while in Maine.  We walked forest paths and splashed in cool mountain streams. 

But apart from that vacation and the outdoor time, there was a lot of indoor time for my boys being sucked into the digital world of gaming and far too much screen time, a product of their age and both parents working full time. 

The beginning of school year means for those of us with school age kids a list of things to do – school supply checklist, new clothes and shoes, last minute check in on summer reading assignments, and emotional transitions for those of us with children entering new schools; in my case, navigating the passage from elementary to middle and middle to high school.  I am confident about my high school son’s transition, but a little more reticent about my younger son.

For my youngest who is entering middle school we went last week to set up his locker and he took great care in organizing all his school things as I stood by in the wings.  As we walked together out of the school that afternoon, I saw a confident and happy boy prepared to begin the next phase of his life journey.  As a mom, I simply felt relief watching as he settled in.

This relief all shifted a few days later.  In our family, haircuts are a part of the back to school routine.  My freshman son’s school requires a haircut above the ears, out of the eyes and well above the collar.  I sat in the neighboring chair watching his long locks fall to the floor.  Seeing him with short hair was refreshing, a pleasant change. 

Next was my middle school son’s turn.  Navigating the waters of a haircut for him is much more intricate and fraught with potential emotional reaction.  He is at a turning point in his life as he nears the teenage years, exerting his independence, wanting to be taken seriously and listened to by his parents and others.  We talked about just trimming the ends off, and removing some of the bulk in the middle.  He wants longer hair but it fluffs up because it is so thick, not a consideration for his brother with thin fine hair. 

The stylist was a very patient listener, respectful of him; she talked with him throughout his haircut, as I recused myself from the discussion. Upon completion he blew past me to grab my keys out of my purse and head straight to our car.  The confidence and readiness that I witnessed earlier in the week was all but gone.  All evening his mind was in an emotional storm of feelings and confusion generated by his haircut. 

My natural tendency as a mom, as a woman, as a human being is to smooth things out, make it better.  Finally after a very long evening of unhappiness, he was able to identify his feelings, as I lay next to him in his bed rubbing his feet.  He summed it by saying he felt weak.  I dug a little deeper about this word weak and he said, “You know I feel helpless, like no one takes me seriously.” He talked about the mixed up batch of feeling confused, sick, mad and sad, and not really sure if he can tell if people are telling the truth.  He said, “I don’t care what others think of me, I only care what I think of myself.”

Once I took my analytical-tending mind out of the equation and listened, I saw his picture a little more clearly.  His hair had grown to the length he wanted it for the first impressions at his new school and picture day, and this haircut threw everything off for him.    

He just wanted to feel comfortable in his new school, comfortable with himself and his body.  Hair I have come to find out is as important to boys as to girls.  I am glad he can identify his feelings so well and that I have the good sense to give him space but I am sad over all this confusion he was feeling and that somehow I was the unintentional catalyst.  I am sad that I sometimes do not pay attention.  I am sad that time flies by and that a haircut could generate so much angst.

On the bright side, and there is always one I have found, it was a good lesson, another reminder about what I am actually doing here as mother to these boys.  I see that I am having a little trouble letting go of my baby as he grows and matures into a young man, but see that a combination of love, listening with a closed mouth and open heart is a good idea.  And the resourcefulness of a new mom I felt all those years ago when they were babies has turned into the seasoned wisdom of an older person, older mom, and there are times to insist upon things and there are times to let go and that a new school year does not always have to mean a new haircut.

In Search of True Love (and a Really Decent Beer)

It is daring to go it alone.  It is also fun and liberating and opens up space to meet others and to meet ourselves as well. 

After a full day of biking, cleaning and writing this past Saturday evening, I perched myself upon the top step of my back door stairs, caught a chance wave from my neighbor Jeff, and emptied my mind of the contents of the day.  As a breeze lifted some stray ends of my hair, I decided to do what I do when out of town by myself -- go it alone.  I got in my car to leave my quiet Mayberry of a Village and to have a drink and to dine in the good company of one.  I headed downtown to Canalside and briefly listened to a couple sing an Irish ballad outside the Irish Festival perimeter.  I then meandered down the historic cobblestone of the Canalside District and stared for a moment in silent wonder at the beauty before me -- Buffalo alive and bustling with people. The lights magically twinkling on the still water, the boats, the people, the aliveness of the place.  In that moment, I felt true wonderment.  I could have been standing in any other city in the world, Venice, Chicago, Boston, but I was in my home town.  It was beautiful.

I headed into the military museum and lo and behold a lounge had magically appeared since my last visit to this area in the spring.  Discovering that the restaurant had been there since May and realizing they had a good selection of microbrews on draft from which to choose, I promptly ordered an amber ale and struck up a conversation with two women.  We shared some relaxed conversation; they were both fine, friendly women interested in some of the same things as me like inspired places to go in our city with a good solid local touch.  Where can one go but Buffalo and find such easy conversation and immediate connection within five minutes?

While driving downtown, I had an idea in mind.  I want to go in search of true love, this evening and for the rest of my life.  I would begin by noticing the world and people around me, and if I felt I had an opening, I would ask people their view on this subject and harvest their thoughts and feelings.  I would be a silent witness to this very topic as I move through my life.  This evening would be as good of a place to start as any.

The topic of True Love I guessed would be defined by qualities such as, connection, relationship dynamics, the forces that bring people together, the why and how of worlds colliding, the space between two people and how they navigate that short distance. Such simple but meaningful things as a casual touch or protective posture.

This evening, I met a lovely couple in their early forties from Orchard Park who had ordered a Chardonnay and Grand Marnier to go in plastic tumblers but instead we easily struck up an hour long conversation so their drinks remained in their glasses.  As destiny would have it, we intersected each other’s worlds and they shared with me that they were celebrating 17 years of  marriage.  What better place to start my research than with a couple out on a date night away from the children in celebration of their marriage and love.  I told them about my research and asked them their thoughts and feelings on true love. 

Right away without a second thought, the husband chimed in and said true love is doing what the other person wants to do even when you may not want to.  His wife thought for a second or two more and delivered a more deliberated response about sticking with it (love that is) over the long haul, even when it isn’t easy or pretty, and that true love for her has to do with the great dad that her husband is to her children. I felt that it was the collective combination of sacrifice and loyalty that kept this couple returning over and over again to their love.  And parenting was central in their union.

After some chit chat about work, the husband circled back to the topic of true love and it seemed that for him this question, this emotion, this state of being orbited around family and being able to “go home.”  His question to me was about my parents’ status, if they were living, still married and occupying the family home.  I answered yes to all of these questions.  And, that seemed to say it all for him, about love, life, home, and connection to place.  In his mind, I could still “go home,” my base, where I grew up, from whence I came.  For me though, and possibly I say this out of sense of abundance (since I still do have my childhood home available for me to walk into), my home is where I am planted at any one moment and isn't about my childhood home any longer.  I love the home I have made for my children in "Mayberry" since my divorce years ago but realized only recently that I do not feel as much attachment as I thought to our house, and I feel that I could let go if need be, if circumstances required.   

My newfound friends chatted on about parenting and raising our kids with the values we find important and if we are actually instilling in them a sense of right and wrong in this very busy, digitally-driven, electronic, on-the-go-world. Again, we arrived at the conclusion, and maybe this was only the alcohol relaxing us into complacency, that the mere mention of the words, “right values,” says it all, that it indicates we are good parents, and we really do give a darn and will stop at nothing to continue exerting ourselves to do the right thing by our children.  We swallowed our last sip of our drinks, and I asked them to walk me to my car since the late summer sun had long since dipped beneath the Canadian horizon.  I gave them each a warm embrace for escorting me safe and sound to my car and headed home to Mayberry. 

Smiling Balloons

 

 “Did you know I always thought you were braver than me? Did you ever guess that that was why I was so afraid? It wasn't that I only loved some of you. But I wondered if you could ever love more than some of me."

J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

 

On a recent bike ride I felt my mind open up.  As my body was working, my heart rate accelerating and delivering more oxygen to my limbs and brain, I found space to consider the kind of job I am doing as a parent.  I pondered the question of nurturing versus enabling.  Certainly it takes a great deal of paying attention and discernment to sense when we have crossed the boundary from helpful to rescue.  But when life is bearing down on us, as it does throughout the busy work week, and with school soon to be starting up again, do I have it in me to continue this parenting work.  Really what other choice is there?  It is coming towards me and my boys are growing up and the game board is changing.  There are new challenges arriving on schedule or beforehand opening up a whole new arena of struggle.  Am I up to the task? What kind of support do I need, and who can run interference for me?

Recently I have had some wake up calls.  Relationships, major shifts in domestic situation and my health have all required that I pay attention and awaken a bit more, all very helpful for my waking up and confidence building but still the question of when to give more and when to back off seems ambiguous and I am just so darn tired some days.

My bike riding and meditating have helped keep me in a routine of contentment and even joyfulness.  Certain choices each day help keep me awake and maintain my poise and composure with a sense of gentleness and fearlessness, at least some of the time. 

And the very simple and precious blessings of connection reign supreme.  There are these special moments that happen right before our very eyes.  Their true and lasting meaning comes from our paying attention.  As an illustration: last Wednesday my youngest son and I shared some special moments after I came home tired from work; I could have chosen to start doing household tasks but I instead read the situation, his mood, his need, and I set everything aside to really pay attention and to engage in the moment with him.  It took very little effort; the exertion came from my decision to slow down and notice.

Aidan was playing with a remote controlled car on our asphalt driveway.  We live in Mayberry, USA.  A small happy village nestled among other villages and towns south of Buffalo.  It is a friendly, cheerful place with very little neighborly drama at least that I can tell.  As he maneuvered his car along the driveway, he decided he needed to draw some roadways.  Remarkably and to his delight, I found some white chalk kicking around in a cupboard and we drew a curvy roadway with roadblocks and parking spaces for his tiny car to traverse.  I helped by putting aside my ideas of how to design the highway system and be directed instead by my eleven year old.  There I stood as an archway for the little car to travel under.  I did downward dog for an extra exciting obstacle course.  Somewhere along the line I lost my adult self and found myself magically having a lot of fun, laughing, really giggling at this car that reminded me of a mouse zipping around my legs sometimes ramming into my bare feet.  I was no longer there, Aidan was no longer there; there was only this spry little mouse, Stuart Little, bounding from one side of the driveway to the other, side to side, up and down, finding his way to our street and onto the adjacent street. 

On that next side street, Aidan discovered the gooey stickiness of the tar used to repair the side street and plopped himself down on the cushiony buoyancy of the black strips laid down whimsically in a fashion that seemed more haphazard than logical.  He yanked at some of the black goo to form a ball while I sped his Stuart Little car along the roadway for a time alas forgetting we were playing in the middle of the street.

With that toy’s enjoyment exhausted, we decided, only after minimal convincing on my part, to go for a bike ride.  We stopped on Main Street, USA for the quintessential American ice cream cone and then traveled onto our Village plaza to one of the million Dollar Stores, which presently dots every corner of our nation.  As I waited outside, he went in to make his emergency purchase of two air horns and two helium happy face yellow Mylar balloons.  While I stood there patiently reading the life-size advertisements adorning the store window, “chicken thigh for a dollar,” I pondered, ‘Who purchases chicken at the Dollar Store?’  In my arrogance, the reality shone through, there are no doubt a good many that benefit from the cheap chicken in this store, quality aside, and it was possibly the only meat some people could afford to put on their supper table.

My thoughts were interrupted as Aidan exited the store with two big smiling balloons.  This memory just leaves such an impression on me.  The smile on his face was equally as big and bright as his balloons.  That moment rendered me breathless, filling my heart to breaking.  There was no other person with whom I’d rather be.  This moment was perfect in its simplicity; it was complete.

I took his plastic bag and he wound the helium balloons around his wrists for the ride home.  Two bouncing happy faced balloons riding along with two happy faced humans in Mayberry.  Our last stop would be his father’s house so he could zip upstairs quickly ring his doorbell and run off before his father could answer the door.  Ring and run leaving behind a smiling balloon and his love and adoration for his dad.

Charm Bracelet

 

“I knew I'd miss you. But the surprising thing is, you never leave me. I never forget a thing. Every kind of love, it seems, is the only one. It doesn't happen twice. And I never expected that you could have a broken heart and love with it too, so much that it doesn't seem broken at all.”

 

 “You know that place between asleep and awake, the place you can still remember dreaming? That's where I will always love you, that's where I will be waiting.”

 

Life is a mix of conflicting emotions, difficult times, joyous occasions, banal tasks, random occurrences, absurdities, trivialities, momentous events, births, deaths, changes, moments that take one’s breath away, moments that take one’s life away.

Looking only at concepts versus seeing the true workings of things, the contextual framework of the why and the how and the when, is like riding a bike without understanding the bike’s gear box and the way it switches between high and low gear, similar to how the mind and heart are wired and related to one another and the shifting between thinking and feeling and back again.  Are the mind and heart really so different or are they one and the same connected by pulses and switches of energy?

Often we are so focused on the fixed events, the past and its commensurate hurts and trials and sufferings.  The truth is there are obstacles and a habitual fixation on the past; the unalterable fixed part of the equation is the past and still we grasp it so tightly.  But which past do we believe, the one that has happened, or the other one that we think happened, or the one that we cling to in our mind.  The past is done and whether we find ourselves in the past or future, wherever, or more specifically whenever we are, the point we find ourselves in is our present.  It is good to be there as that is where the best chance for connection is, the true unwavering, sometimes uncomfortable place of vulnerability and softening and opening of human kinship.  We find our connection with others, human or otherwise in this present state of awareness.  And a set of variables does exist, we the individuals with free will and ability to make choices are the variables.  Despite past choices and the consequences, there are present choices that will surely impact the future.

Wherever or whenever we are is the present and whether time is linear or circular or counterclockwise or conical or spherical or moving in a vortex like a tornado, we are in a present, some present, and what we do with the time we have or how we choose to be, is the variable.  I think we sometimes are afraid to act, to make a decision, to make the wrong decision. The cause and effect of all our actions, our karma, is inevitable for to do nothing is also to act.  To become inert, immobile frightened by movement is to begin to die and implode, fold in upon oneself, lose oneself to one’s fear.  As I explained to my son during our recent family trip to New England that when one reacts with anger, one is no doubt feeling fearful, dubious in the present moment.  Yet the truth of the present moment, even if it is one of fear and doubt, is the truth of the moment, however uncomfortable.  It is in the next moment that we can reconcile with the prior moment; our new present. What joy, what opportunity!

Having a mindfulness practice can settle all this fear and dust of our mind; and realizing we are fundamentally all okay and alone, yet intricately, undeniably and unpredictably connected.  When we connect with one another in a mindful way, it feels more authentic, richer, and open.

Love and loving makes us healthier and that means loving whomever we are with at the moment -- our children, our friends, our parents, our neighbors, perfect strangers, our spouse, our lover.  Holding onto resentment and disappointment, guarantees that our prior heartbreaks will keep breaking us by keeping us in a loop of anger and fear.  The majority of us fear loving again or letting ourselves be loved again since it means risking getting hurt, experiencing yet another  broken heart.  This is a struggle we create.  Holding onto the resentment and anger is the obstacle; heartaches get better through time.  We have the option of pressing the reset button in the next present moment. 

There is always someone waiting to love us or be loved, moving towards us.  We are moving in and out of one another’s fields all day long, all lifelong.  It is a very potent way to view life and very spacious.  This does not mean that a loss of a loved one ought to be trivialized, on the contrary, a loved one, whether they died or chose to leave us, really is hurtful and disappointing, yet is a jewel, a charm on our life’s charm bracelet.  I have been given two charm bracelets in my life; my mom gave me one as a child bedecked with a Mexican Sombrero dancing on the end of it; another that was given to me by a former love and has recently been lost.  The bracelet gone, the relationship over, yet, our love that existed in the past endures and is a charm that I have added to my life’s bracelet.

When difficult moments arise, challenging circumstances, painful times of immense or small suffering, there is the certainty that they will pass.  The fundamental truth that we all know is that all moments come and go.  This is in no way to diminish the moment’s pain, it is essential to recognize the sadness in the moment, and alternately the joy in the moment as well.  Some moments there may be the sense or feeling to lean into them, other moments of emotional difficulty it may be like thoughts, touching them briefly and letting them travel on.  Add all the love and hurt as charms to your life's charm bracelet and wear it with fearlessness and daring, and an open, gentle heart.

 

 

(Beloved Quotes by J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan)