It is so cold, it burns

I have the polar vortex blues.   I just finished a very long winded book about the futility of  time "The Magic Mountain" which certainly did not mitigate the existential angst.  Heart palpitations brought on by stress are not helping all the much, either.

What does one do to emerge from a philosophical funk?  I have opted to take on a more active role at church, including joining a covenant circle to get to know a few congregants more deeply.  I'm working hard to get the director of religious education ordained as a minister.  Apparently individual congregations can "call up" a member and ordain them.  It is like getting called up from the minors to the big game, except that congregations rarely do it....a Quixotic task always takes one out of oneself.

I'm going to try to go on a bobsled run in the near future and attempt to get my husband 50 things for his birthday.  So far, I have 27 and that is counting a six pack of beer as six things.  I have a new pair of black cowboy boots (thanks mom) that I am wearing every other day so New Englanders can  wonder if I am training for a rodeo in the near future.  I have added a new yoga class with another sassy older teacher who takes no yoga excuses....and hands me excessive amounts of props.

I continue to go to work, against all odds.  Nuff said.  

But most of all, I am trusting that when the light and the heat return, when the polar vortex is a cold, dark memory that my balance will be restored.  What the hell, polar vortex.  What the hell!

Dear Blog

Hey there, you are looking good.  Have you lost a few words?  No?  Listen,  I have been meaning to write but with the holidays and the kids birthdays, you know how it goes.  Yes, that's right, I usually do write about that during this time of year.  What?  No, I have not been writing with any other medium.

#LIAR!!!!!!

Listen, there is no need to go all Caps and get over excited with exclamation points.  I can explain Twitter.  Easily.  In fact, so easily.  And so quickly.  It's not you, it's me.

  Don't be like this.  I'm here now, right?  Droning on and on and making my circuitous points.  I hope there is room in my writing life for both you and Twitter.  In fact, I am starting to experience Twitter fatigue as I had to sort through many posts about the Golden Globes and which star flipped off which camera.

In the end, this is a letter of apology.  I am following pithy comedians, British football, Joyce Carol Oates, and the Huffington Post but I need more.  Although you feel a bit bloated and over wrought, you still give me the space I need to meander toward truth.

So I am back.  Short and sweet ain't always a feat.

Happy New Year!

Winter Solstice Poem (my actual favorite)

Each winter solstice, I put together a "Solstice Sack" to celebrate one of my favorite holidays and to remind all of us New Englanders that the light will return.

This year, my favorite poem didn't make the Sack, as it could be construed as a death poem and I don't want to make the kiddos cry:)  It was the best one, however:

Lines for Winter

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

 you find yourself--

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

                                                                        Mark Strand

Winter is a happy time up here in the North!

State of the Union

You know how presidents feel compelled to address the nation about the state of the union?  How far we have to go to achieve social justice, universal healthcare, and global warming?  I feel the same way about turning 50.  Compelled to share my wisdom, plead for unity in my house of representatives, and set a course for the next few years.  Turning 50 feels quite different than the other landmark years.  I have no urge to get a tattoo, move to Nepal, or take up paddle boarding.  I still may do all of those things but in a more peaceful manner.  Out with the wolf on the bicep, in with the OM mantra so I can still chant when I lose my memory.

It's nice to be past the mid-life crisis point and on to the spiritual crisis point in my trajectory.  My big move will not be to dye my hair, pierce some parts, and lose a few pounds.  My big move is to continue to move inward.  Talk less, judge less, care less.  Just realizing for the first time the connection between "careless" and "care less".  Pay attention to subtleties .  Luckily, I married well for that one.

Appreciate the mortality of my parents, and everyone.  It is all so fleeting.

I am proudest of my relationships.  My family.  My  friendships reflect well on me (for having the good sense to pick them).  The people in my life rock in all kinds of amazing ways.  They write and teach and solve equations and make music and art and history.  They protest and help those without much power.  They all have integrity and courage and that is how I have those things.  At 50 you know that you draw strength from people who put the shopping carriages back and do what they say they are going to do.  People who forgive and show compassion, even when it hurts one's own pride to do so.

At 50, I'm hanging on to the physical side of myself because I have young kids and because I want to keep moving forward.  I have learned that I can still run with the Navy ROTC guys for the first mile in a 5K and then I will nurse a groin injury for 2 months after that fleeting 7:45.  2 months and counting, actually.  Pace yourselves:)

These are the things I think my younger  friends need to find:  yoga, a supportive bra, a favorite poet, good pressed powder, a compassionate pediatrician (if applicable) and one good joke.  It just has to be funny to you.......I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but I turned it all around.

So this is me at 50.  Proud of who I am, where I'm from and most of all....who I love.  Peace to you all!

Serendipity

We have been in a frenzy over here preparing for Thanksgiving, hosting Thanksgiving, and storing 3 gravy boats from Thanksgiving.  It was an amazing day and I may do it again someday.  Nobody got food poisoning, so that increases our chances.

While we were turning the office into a dining room, I had to go through piles of papers, books, and detritus.

I found an old dog-eared copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Married to an alleged Nazi sympathizer, first born kidnapped and murdered and yet out of that pain came such a beautiful and elegantly written gift to women.  Following on the heels of Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, it was a welcome balm:

     With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women.  I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children.  It has primarily to do with distractions.  The bearing, rearing, feeding, and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls--woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life.......It is more basically:  how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.

I need to revisit some of her wisdom as I enter the holiday Tsunami season.  My hub is not cracked but it seems to be veering off the road on occasion.

Of all the books to reappear, this one is truly serendipitous.  As my darling children scream and throw socks at each other, in an inescapable game they play daily called "Stinky Feet", I give a silent prayer of thanks for the wise women who carved out enough time to pass on their wisdom.    

The Greatest Generation

My stepfather's father died this month at the age of 91.  Lt Col. Frank Crook joined the air force 10 days after Pearl Harbor on the day he turned 20 years old.  He was a fighter pilot and later served in the Korean War.  He traveled all over the world and retired to Shreveport LA.

I knew him as a kind, generous man who was always by the side of his wife Joyce.  I never saw the two of them apart.  For the past ten years, they sent cards to my children every Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  A ten dollar bill always fell out when they opened up the holiday greeting.

This afternoon, when I grabbed the mail, I saw two cards addressed to Luke and Emma in beautiful script that will soon be extinct in the modern world.  As they opened up their Happy Thanksgiving cards, the money fell out, as expected.

In the middle of her heartbreak, Joyce remembered to send my children their cards.  I am simply stunned by our elders and their adherence to doing things in a mindful and honorable way.

As I ponder the loss of the greatest generation, I hope that somewhere along the way, we pick up some of their habits.

God Bless you Lt. Col Crook.

Something is bugging me

Whenever I get stressed, I get psychosomatic lice.  It is such an odd thing to be terrified of, really but those of us who have been down that road never forget.  I tried to get my husband to check my head at 4:00am this morning but he has learned to pace himself, and refused to wake up.  I had a colleague do it at work, very professional but I had to know.  "Just Dandruff" she says jauntily.  Whew.  All clear.  Except for the underlying anxiety that drives me to think I have lice about once every 3 months.

I am reading a biography of Thomas Merton, a Catholic Trappist monk who talks about  his sinful life before his conversion experience.  At the top of his list was his fascination with Freud and Jung and the "false God" of psychoanalysis.  He attributes getting a young woman pregnant and fleeing Oxford for America to that particular cult which ultimately lead him to Columbia which ultimately lead him to God.  A circuitous route.

I worship at both the shrine of modern psychological thought and the mysterious unknown of spiritual contemplation.  Which can shed light on our fears and peccadillos?

I looked up the Freudian interpretation of bugs and found that in dreams, bugs are considered symbolic of cares and anxieties.  They are considered projections of our own disowned human behavior.  Never was much of a Freudian so onto the Jungian interpretation of  insect phobias:

To this day God is the name by which
I designate all things which cross my
willful path, violently and recklessly
All things which upset my views
plans, and intentions
And change the course of my life for
better or worse.

God has landed on my head.

Or the fear of God.

I wonder what Earwigs symbolize?