Transitions

Sunset

It’s been a year of transitions, large and small.  The first one was my transition from full-time worker to unemployed and then to budding consultant.  Things in that third realm are moving slowly-but-surely in the direction I want them to go, so perhaps that role is not only one of the transitions, but a continuation of my hopefully ongoing evolution.

The most dramatic example of life transitions was the near juxtaposition of the passing of my oldest relative, Uncle Paul who died at the age of 99 and the advent of the newest relative, my great niece Amelia June, born just a few weeks later. 

When I think of what transitions and transformations my Uncle Paul saw in his 99 years, and project what possible changes little Mia will see in her lifetime I am both awed and excited and maybe just a little frightened.

He lived through two world wars and countless armed conflicts, some named wars others less honest in their descriptions.  He saw diseases that uniformly killed conquered.  He saw polio, diphtheria even some cancers go from fatal to curable, to preventable.

Mia will grow up learning to read on a computer.  She may never hear the word polio.  She’ll take her first plane ride before she’s a year old, and get to know her grandparents as much through Facetime as she will through face-to-face time.   I won’t even try to project the changes she will see.  The only certainty is that changes there will be and someday she will see look back in wonder at those changes.

What’s Zen got to do with this?  A key tenant of Zen is that everything changes.  It’s easy to see that concept as helpful when times are bad, but good times change as well, don’t they?  It’s not so great, in the middle of something really good, to think that someday that will pass and there will be bad times.  For me the key lesson in this is to focus on the present moment.  Ultimately, that's all there is anyway.  

If I could wish anything for my newest little niece, her brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and of course parents, it would be that she will be present in each moment of her life, celebrating to good times and learning from the bad. 

One of my favorite quotes, it’s been around so I’m not sure where it came from originally, but I heard it from Carolyn Myss is:

“Yesterday is History, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift, that’s why we call it the ‘Present.’”    I wish you all the joy of this precious present.    J

Sunrise

Christmas in July

I’ve always had a thing about Christmas.  Not exactly the religious part, although that was certainly a part of my early upbringing.  It’s more that the season can bring out good things in people that don’t always emerge on regular days.

Not surprisingly, I even collect books about Christmas.  I may have one of the most extensive collections of books about Christmas this side of the North Pole.  I’m not sure how many, somehow counting them seems too business-like, but I have nearly three-quarters of a four story bookshelf that I had as a child filled with books with the holiday theme. 

This is just the beginning...

I won’t deconstruct this love of Christmas, but maybe telling you a little bit about some of the books will be enlightening.  Some stories tell about an unexpected detour to a different holiday than the character planned.  Getting snowbound before the final destination is a favorite of many writers.

There are also those stories where an animal is involved.  A dog or cat, or in one story a donkey needs help from a human to find its way home.  Or in others, a special animal might do the same service for a human.

In many stories there is an emotional or behavioral change on the part of the main character, a la Scrooge.  It's good to be reminded that we can learn and grow and become better.

Then there's simply the idea of people being around family, giving and receiving gifts, or just being loving and positive.  I must admit that I’m a sucker for happy endings, and I’ve never found a story involving Christmas that had anything other than a happy ending. 

So I will continue to search new and used book stores, Goodwill, the library’s sale area for any book that even hints at a Christmas theme.  Even if the story is a bit simplistic or even hackneyed, I know I will find elements that meet my need to enter the Christmas season even, maybe especially, in July.

By the way...We keep our stockings hung up all year.  We never know when something will show up in one of them.  

What’s Zen got to do with it?  What you focus on becomes larger in your experience.  So I have chosen on some of the very hottest days of the summer to concentrate on my favorite holiday.

If you are a someone who likes the positive feeling of Christmas, regardless of your spiritual tradition, why not hang a stocking up now and see what happens?  In the immortal words of that Zen Master, Auntie Mame, perhaps you, too "...need a little Christmas, right this very minute!”  There's a good chance you'll feel happier and maybe even a little cooler.   It sure worked for me!

A New View

Sunrise on the salt marsh.

As I typed in the title of this, I had one idea.  But a couple of minutes later I realized that it isn’t the sunrise on the Eastern Shore of Virginia that I wanted to write about.

It hit me as I went into the kitchen of a home I hadn’t been in until yesterday, making coffee with a pot I had never seen.   It became even clearer as I took a piece of lemon pound cake as my morning meal.  Like my attitude about chocolate chip cookies, (they're not just for breakfast anymore,) this morning just like I do at home, that piece of cake will be breakfast and I’ll enjoy it.  The fact is, with all of the strange things I mentioned there is something else surrounding me that I have been blessed to recognize in a number of different places all of my life.  It’s that feeling of “home.” 

Here I am in a new place, with over a dozen people spread out over two houses at this moment, only five of whom I knew before yesterday, yet I feel totally at home.  Where am I and why do I feel so comfortable and connected? 

It’s a story that started two-dozen years ago, but one that is as old as friendship.  In this story, one woman is the keystone.  But I hope and believe that anyone reading this will be able to identify someone similar who has touched his or her life.

Mary Copes came into my life those two-dozen years ago as an angel’s helper.  I was between houses, living away from Mitch only because we had sold our house in Stone Mountain and weren’t able to move into our new place in Atlanta for a couple of months.  Mitch sneaked our two cats into his “crash pad” in Charlotte and I needed a place to stay while we waited to close on the new house. 

I had been acquainted with Mary Copes since starting the Atlanta job.  She was an executive assistant in the main office of the organization, and I would have known her for that reason alone, as did everyone else.  But it was her unwavering aura of friendliness and patience that made her stand out.  It also led to me having the courage when someone suggested it, to ask her if I might be able to stay with her while I was between homes.  And that was where our relationship moved from being cordial acquaintances to a beyond life-long friendship.

We sat down over coffee, for the first of literally hundreds of times, and she invited me to stay in her basement bedroom until Mitch and I had our place together.  That was her way…she took in strays.

When I moved in, I found to my surprise that also staying in this “safe house” was her ex husband.  At first I was taken aback.  But she was matter-of-fact in explaining that his new place wasn’t ready for him to move in, and like me, he needed a temporary place to stay, too. 

“No matter what else has happened, he’s the father of my children” she told me, to explain his presence.   And as I got to know her, it did.  That was her way, graceful and generous always.  I got to know and appreciate him, and before he moved out, we had many enjoyable dinners at his favorite buffet restaurant.  To this day, I can’t pass that brand without thinking of those days, and how I came to see that the end of a marriage didn’t need to be the end of civility and compassion.

There are literally hundreds of stories that bring me to today here at the Eastern Shore.  Most of the memories are wonderful, but the reason I am here is to honor her life, a life that was tragically cut short by a driver who lost control and crossed the median into oncoming traffic.  In a moment, her life was ended and many lives were changed forever. 

I can still remember and very much appreciate the call about the accident from her granddaughter.  While so difficult for me to hear, how much more difficult it was for Ashley to have to say the words, “...she didn’t make it.” 

 Because her passing was so sudden, and coupled with the very serious injuries of her husband, there wasn’t a public memorial.   I heard from Ashley (who by the way has turned into the extraordinary woman her grandmother had envisioned she would become) that in July they were going to sprinkle some of her ashes in the water at the Eastern Shore.  I asked if the family would let me attend.  She asked her mom and her aunt, whom I have known through all these years and thankfully they said yes. 

My GPS deserted me without a house in sight, but with my call for help, the girls hopped in their car to come and find me.  Her son, whom I knew of for years, but had never met, welcomed me with a hug, as open and warm as his sisters had been.  And, also special, when I got into the house I received a big hug from a burly, teddy bear of a young man I would never have recognized as the toddler I had played with on the floor of his grandmother’s house so many years ago.

The granddaughter I had watched grow up in photos and stories, a new daughter-in-law, and the step grandson, who she would most certainly have loved as her own, also welcomed this stranger that was me into the family with barely a ripple. 

So here I am at their vacation home rental at the Eastern Shore of Virginia, a welcomed member of the family.  That’s one of the things I have been given the opportunity to see…that her ability to welcome people into her home and into her heart was passed on to her children.  Immediately I felt I belonged, in this place, at this time, with these people.   

So my new view is not of the marshland of the shore at sunrise, as beautiful as this setting is.  My new view is that family extends beyond birth and blood.  I know that my family has been expanded, even at a time when I am formally acknowledging the loss of the physical presence of the special woman who is the loving energy that connects us all.

A dolphin pod, not seen before by anyone in the family, appeared just as we prepared to spread her ashes on the sea she loved.

I will forever be grateful that Mary Copes was in my life, and that in spite of, or perhaps as a compensation for her passing, she has given me a wonderful gift.  It’s the gift of a new branch grafted on to my family tree.  

I can remember the last words we said to each other, just days before she died.  “Copes, I love you bunches!” I told her.

“I love you too.”  She’d replied.  And now, because  of her, I continue to feel that that love through her family. 

Sunset.  The ebb and flow of life continues.

What’s Zen got to do with this?  Zen teaches that nothing is permanent.  We will have times of suffering.  It also teaches that when we are given this “precious human life” we have the ability to make a positive difference.  The precious human life that was my friend, Mary Copes, indeed made a difference. 

May I live up to her example.    

In the Footsteps of Wordsworth

It's not often that I think of myself as an English teacher.  I certainly own the teacher part,  but it's strange to remember that my first teaching experience was in teaching English to high school students.   I was reminded in a wonderful way on a recent hiking trip.  The trip itself is worth its own story, but for this memoir I will focus on something early in the 95-mile walk along "Offa's Dyke" trail.

When you're planning to walk 95 miles in 9 days, adding extra mileage for a side-trip is not to be taken lightly.  But this hike through Wales brought us in sight and reasonable walking distance of Tintern Abbey, the inspiration of one of William Wordsworth's best-known poems, "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey."

Wordsworth (what a wonderful name for a poet!) was also a walker and was known for travelling that way throughout England and Wales.  No surprise I would feel an affinity for him so when our planned hike took us along trails he no doubt had also walked, it was impossible not to spend some time there as well.

From a break in the trees, we could see the ruins of the Abbey.  I imagine it was much the same view that Wordsworth viewed those 200 years before us.

"Once again I see these hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive woods run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door..."









There is something about walking in new places, seeing ancient things that are new to your eyes that brings life into a different focus.  I realize that Wordsworth wasn't actually talking about the Abbey itself, but about the experience of being out in nature and being able to see more clearly those things that are important.

I took a copy of the poem with me, to read as I looked at the ruins of the Abbey, but was struck not so much by that poem, but by the first lines of a second poem that just happened to be on the copied page after the final stanza of Tintern Abbey.

That poem?  "The World is Too Much With Us."  The lines?

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

What's Zen got to do with it?  Taking time to be in nature, to get away from the constant din of life is a theme for humans throughout time.  We need it no less today than Wordsworth did 200 years ago.   Arguably we might need it more.  My wish for you?  Take time to connect with the cathedral of nature, and find some rest from the everyday.

Unexpected Wisdom

We have one of those one day at a time calendars.  You know the kind that has a saying for each day of the year.  Not surprisingly, it’s a Zen calendar.  A couple of days ago the message was from that well-known master, not of Zen but of the one-liner, W. C. Fields.  Hey, wisdom comes from many directions, right?

I have to say I loved this quote: “My wife drove me to drink - I’m eternally indebted to her.”  Before the feminist and politically correct police pounce, let me explain.  While I am pretty sure that W.C. was making the joke at the expense of his wife, if you take that part out and just look at the meaning, it’s pretty powerful. 

I think that what he was saying was that something negative in his life (wife nagging in his case) actually turned out to be a positive thing (he found something he really enjoyed.)  Think back on your life and see if you can think of something that was really bad as it happened, but then it turned out to be that “silver-lined cloud” or the “blessing in disguise” that we’ve all heard about.   This W.C. Fields quote got me thinking about that and I realize that much more often than not, I’ve experienced that magic happen for me.

Take the time I applied for a position as the head of a department.  In the clarity of hindsight, I know that I applied for the position because it was expected.  I was the senior person in the department, there were few opportunities to advance and this was the only one I possible.  I didn’t get the job, and I will admit I cried some really big tears.  Looking back I realize that it was my ego that cried.  I wasn’t the right person for the job, and more importantly, the job wasn’t right for me either.  It would have been a disaster.  In the words of W.C. “... I am eternally indebted.”

Then, there’s the very recent time when my job was eliminated and I found myself unemployed for the first time in over 30 years.  I shed a few tears over that and, I am sorry yet also grateful to say, many of  my friends also shed some tears on my behalf.  But, being at a different place in my life this time, my tears were smaller and the time to recover much faster than I thought possible. 

Instead of a huge gap where my work had been, I find myself surrounded with family and friends who care about me, whether I am working for money or not.  I find opportunities to learn new things and get involved in activities that interest me.  I have time to plan and execute meals that are fun and supportive of my husband and myself.  And I have time to take on some of the mundane but necessary things to “keep the home fires burning” and relieve some of the burdens so when he comes home, he has more time to relax.  And so do I!

I have reconnected with long-time friends and connected in new and better ways with people from my work life.  I have more time and more energy to give to the things I love to do, like this writing as one example.  

There is a benefit to adding years in your life.  The longer perspective helps you more easily see the fine hand of the Universe guiding circumstances for your greater good, even when at the time they don't feel that way.

It’s our good fortune to be able to see that guidance in time to not only gain comfort but to learn from the situation.  With life experience, the time between something bad happening and understanding that there was something better coming gets shorter and shorter.  So, like Zen Master, W.C, Fields, for those things I did not get, and for those things that were taken away, “I’m eternally indebted.”