Perspective

Death summons perspective. It stops us in our tracks, even if only briefly. The closer the loss is to our souls, the longer the pause. The lens through which we have grown accustomed to viewing our lives shifts. For some, it zooms out. For others, it zooms in. Things come into focus, or become blurred. What doesn't happen, is nothing.

Those who are far removed from the loss may offer a gasp or frown, or some other acknowledgement when they hear the news of the tragedy. Then they move on. It may appear that nothing has happened, but it's only a façade. At the very least, they have put up their proverbial hands to deflect the facts from reaching their heart. No sooner have they heard it, than they have shaken the thought from their heads. They straighten up their shoulders, close their eyes, and move through the pause that news of death insists upon.

It is not a malicious act of insensitivity. It is an act of self-preservation. To enter into the loss, the pain; to be swayed by the breakers that death hurls at the shore of safety, is to admit that they are not invincible. After all, it is the most terrifying kind of vulnerability to come face to face with mortality; to admit that every day is not a guarantee, but a gift.

For me, the lens has zoomed out, and has come into focus. I am not impervious to loss. To believe the lie that I am somehow sheltered from the final link that closes the loop in the circle of life, would be to separate myself from the world. It would create a belief of "otherness." I would be saying, "I am the fortunate, they are the less fortunate."

We are human. Our ability to love binds us, and our ability to lose unites us. If we are not in this together, then we are not in it at all. Life is a gift. As my father put it: "I cannot run from an aspect of the gift without running from all of it. If I run from life, I fail to live life. If I fail to live life, then I am unworthy of the gift. Right now, this morning, is life. Be a worthy steward of the gift. Embrace it all."

Contemplating the end of a long "sabbatical"

I sit and wonder how to best soak up my last moments of unemployment.

It’s the first of April and the sun is setting on this waiting game that started at December’s end.

Life is a volley between feast and famine,

And there’s no doubt I’m sitting firmly in the latter.

I squirm in my seat.

I can see the feast ahead.

But I’m not there yet.

No, no. I look around me and I see clearly – I’m not there yet.

I am right here.

I’m right here wearing my worn out shoes and outdated clothes.

But my bowl isn’t empty.

It’s full of rice and beans!

“Survival of the fittest” I joke with my Love, as we smile through tears at the state we’re in.

Secretly my mind is on that last piece of chocolate, sitting cold and preserved in the empty cheese drawer of our fridge.

We’re saving it for a rainy day, we say.

‘Cause right now,

with our garden that won’t grow, the cool that won’t stay in, and the mosquitos that won’t stay out –

It aint rainin’.

Oh no, that sun is shining.

It lights up this city and lights up this flat and lights up my baby’s eyes.

Those eyes…

They can’t decide if they’re green or they’re blue.

They seem to spark when that dimple shows up on the right side of his face,

Hiding in that speckled scruff of a beard he won’t let grow.

I follow those eyes and I see – [gasp]

They’re lookin’ at me!

I look deep into those turquoise pools,

And I start to fall.

He smiles, my heart pounds, my lips are chasing his, I’m sure I’m gonna drown, and then he says:

“How ‘bout them beans?”

I laugh,

And then he laughs.

We laugh til we cry and we hug til we sleep and then we say goodbye…

To another day.

I’m one day closer to that shiny, new job,

One day closer to paying off that debt,

one day closer to something new in that bowl.

After all,

One day is all we got.

Each and every day is just a collection,

Of the here’s,

And the now’s,

And the moments we call: “present.”

We call them that because that is what they are:

A present, a gift,

Already unwrapped and waiting to be seized.

I wake up in the morning on my last day of unemployment and I see that sun is shining but I say:

“Sure looks like rain to me!”

I make a beeline for that fridge,

That drawer,

That patient piece of velvety dark chocolate, because I know..

No matter what the weather,

Right now is all we got,

And I’ll be damned if I’m not gonna seize a delicious piece

of that stuff we call,

life.

Happy Easter

I have no great excuse for the large gap of time between blog posts. I had a goal of one post a week. Then some small, irritating-yet-very-convincing voice told me that I have nothing to say, and therefore nothing to write. Nothing that anyone would care to read, anyway. Maybe if I produced something worthwhile, I would have something to say about it, this voice tells me. So I turned inward, allowing my insides to congeal one Netflix episode at a time...

Therein lies one facet of the great lie of our generation. That is, the lie that tell us that our worth lies in our accomplishments; in what we are able to produce. Every pixelated corner of every social media site -- no, every internet site -- is overflowing with information. Not just information: ideas. Pick a subject. It could be politics, gluten-free cooking, DIY body butter, or yarn bombing. Almost anything you could possibly think to type into the search bar will have a plethora of sites to dig through. Soon, one hyperlink after another, you will be drowning in ideas, facts, and opinions. But mostly just pure rubbish.

All the while, there is something happening subconsciously. We realize, as we are sitting there consuming it all, one byte after another, that we are just that: consumers. All these other people, the ones who have discovered how to make no-sew tote bags and wine bottle bird feeders, have contributed something to modern society as we know it. What's happening in our subconscious is the forming of a question. This question slowly rises to our conscious mind leaving us (that is, people like me) feeling paralyzed: What can I contribute? Now, you can give into the paralysis or you can ask yourself another question: What does it take to transition from a consumer to a producer?

That's all well and good, but perhaps the real question is this: What is the source of your value? That is for you to decide, but I can tell you this: it sure as hell can't be found on the internet.

"Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather, it means never living apart from one’s self. It is not about the absence of other people-it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessarily mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people-it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone."

- Parker Palmer (emphasis added)

Boring is the New Brave

"Vocation does not come from willfulness. It comes from listening. I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about — quite apart from what I would like it to be about — or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions." - Parker Palmer

I spent a good number of minutes reading and re-reading this quote from Palmer's book "Let your life Speak." I pondered for some time, as we all do when reading something inspirational, over what this means in real time. That is, what do I hear when I listen to my life, rather than telling it what I want from it? What do you hear?

For me, the answer is a series of questions: They say you must write for your readers. Can you do this and also write for yourself? What my life is truly about... is this different than what I want it to be about? Can my life as a nurse and my life as a writer stem from the same values? Did I force these vocations upon myself, or was I called to them? Am I doing these things because I want to be "great", or simply because I want to do them?

Which leads me to further questioning: Where has this obsession with greatness come from, and how have we redefined what greatness is? Perhaps our obsession is fed by the headlines we read about over-night sensations. Gratuitous fan-fiction turning into pop culture phenomenons, or what-have-you. We may or may not admit it, but we want what these people have. An average human being one day, a guest on Oprah the next. We want to see our face next to a net worth seven - make it eight - digits long when we enter our name into the search engine. Without investing a kidney into Google Adwords, of course.

We don't read about the everyday heroes. The one's who put their nose to the grindstone day in and day out, because they are passionate about what they do. They may one day be successful, but it could take them years. Decades, even. We won't hear about them until they've already made their millions. What if they never make their millions? What if their life is about providing for their family, and raising children to be healthy, productive members of society, and just that? Would we care? Would anyone read about them? What if we heard that they accomplished this doing what they love to do? To me, that is bravery; that is something worthy of applause.

There was a time when having well-fed children with a roof over their heads was a great achievement. When did that become boring? We've long since left Maslow's Hierarchy in the dust, taking the basics of comfortable survival for granted. Will better, and bigger, and richer ever be enough? Instead, why don't we spend our energy appreciating these basic elements, and let our values that lie deep in the core of who we are guide and direct our vocation? You may be forever anonymous to the world wide web, but if your children see a smile on your face at the end of a day's work... Well, this is the part where you decide if that's worth it.

The Diary of a Cynic

You’ve finished uni, you’ve done some travelling, and you’ve even worked a bit here and there to make some money. It may even be a job related to what you studied, if you’re lucky. But most likely not. It’s possible you’ve even accomplished something creative. You’re approaching 30 rapidly, if you haven’t hit that mark already, and you find yourself asking, “Now what?”

It’s possible that this is becoming the popular age for the initiation of parenting because suddenly we 30-somethings of Western, middle class society are craving a purpose of some kind that is beyond increasing the number of selfies in foreign places on our Instagram. The creation and rearing of another human being provides this sense of purpose.

This will make many young people gag or shudder; the thought of a dependent child requiring your 24 hour awareness sounds like a cruel version of solitary confinement. Other’s may think, “Yes, that’s what I’m missing!” The rest of us, like myself, fall into the other category. Not ready to be a parent, we’ve spent all our money on travel, the creative project is done, and the blues have set in. We realize as we stare into the mirror that we really are a jack of all trades, master of none. The question remains, “What now?” 

If you’ve read this far you may be hoping I have some kind of revelation to share that answers this question. Sorry to disappoint, I don’t. I’m like you, wading from day to day, watching other people accomplish great things and wondering if I have greatness hidden in me somewhere and one day I’ll be inspired, and also make a really rich friend, and make headlines by changing the world. For that day, at least, until someone else comes along and does one better. I am a realist, however, so I ask again (I truly want to know) where does one go from here??

The In-Betweeners

What happiness… “Today marks the beginning of an awesome, exciting year ahead”, my love said on the first day of 2016. Indeed it does. My current happiness is a tribute to to the fact that change is possible. A tribute that says: if one is miserable, one can change their current state… with just a few, seemingly-impossible, incredibly challenging decisions, of course.

 But they are life changing – and isn’t that the point? Was it just four years ago that I was newly separated from an unhealthy marriage, ridden with ulcer-forming anxiety, torn on a soul-deep level, entirely unsure of what my future held and what happiness looked like?

It all seems light years away, as if from a different universe, a different life, a different person altogether.

Here I am, at the dawn of 2016, writing down my hopes and dreams (not resolutions – those are silly) for my life for the next twelve months. It will be my first year living in another country. It will be my first year working somewhere other than the hospital that has more or less borne and raised me for the last 6+ years. It will be the first year in which I publish a book (but certainly not the last).

It will be my third year, however, practicing presence. I have been practicing this most recently with the mantra, “Find happiness in the the in-between moments”. That is, I have been practicing finding beauty and joy in waiting for a train, in walking down the street between destinations, and in those slow, yet brief, breaths taken at the end of one task before the beginning of another.

We think – and read – a lot about being present in every circumstance. We forget, however, about the moments between circumstances, waving them away in our minds as being of no consequence. Think about how much time we waste in these moments, usually looking down at our phones instead of looking up and around at the beauty that surrounds us.

When you finish reading this, and before you move on to the next thing on your agenda, just breathe and think about the happiness that can be found in this moment, right now. Happy New Year.