Waiting for the Light

 “May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring    

Last night I was thankful for the reasonableness of most drivers in our area. We had a power outage that covered my area of town. I realized in my move I had lost track of where any light sources were in my home.

Since even Internet was unavailable, I didn’t know how far the blackout had reached but had to go through about 4 unlit corners before I reached lit roads again. Almost all drivers reasonably and responsibly treated them as 4 way stops so I was able to get safely across to an area of town where I could purchase alternate light sources.

On the way home the news said a few thousand home had their power back but a few thousand others would need to wait until at least 1 am. I didn’t know whether I was returning to power in my home or not.

I was thankful for the inside light in my car to help me read the instructions and get the batteries in place for my light sources since I arrived to no power.

I was thankful for the sleeping bag I had bought for cold temperatures, for the fact that we are dealing with the milder possibilities of winter weather and that my light sources were strong enough to let me read until the loud sound of something being worked on across the street could finish and I could drift off.

I was thankful for medications to help me get what sleep I could.

I awoke to light.

That I see the things to be thankful for gives me the relief of knowing this other condition I am dealing with is not depression. That I can hear the positives adds to that relief.

Finding peace in the darkness gives hope that I will be able to gain the resources I need to face this other thing causing me to need help right now. It will come. Peace will return. Stability will be found. Light will return.

Retelling the Story

Question your feelings and stories. Once you’ve identified what you’re feeling, you have to stop and ask, given the circumstances, is it the right feeling? Meaning, of course, are you telling the right story? After all, feelings come from stories, an stories are our own invention.    Crucial conversations, Patterson, Grenny, McMilan and Switzler

There is no question that the story fueling this situation I face is incomplete. I have no illusion that I have the full facts of what is going on. I have been playing the guessing game for months, trying to gather information to still the uneasiness continuing to build in a significant relationship. When an occasion came which presented questions beyond my ability to find the answers without the aid I couldn’t seem to get, my inner reserves “let me down” and my coping abilities deflated.

I have been taught many labels and phrases for times like this in life: ‘too weak’, ‘falling apart’, ‘not good enough’, ‘this is tearing me up’, ‘I’m letting everyone down’, the list goes on and on. Old voices of accusation scream to be heard in the quiet of this needed isolation from certain high stressors in life. My life alternates between trying to move forward and a mind freezing emotional overload that stops me in my tracks. I am not coping as well as I would want to. My inner judge works hard to assign me the verdict of guilty beyond redemption as it did so much more easily once upon a time.

The difference is the voices of others who have gotten to know me over time in a deeper way then many of us take the chance to be known. These voices listen to my stories about myself and challenge them. The same happens from new appropriately chosen voices whose help was requested in this situation.

“I would like to question the idea of you ‘falling apart'”, began one such support. Then in evidence she listed the steps I am taking and the choices I am making to try to bring a positive resolution to what is going on. “Does that sound like someone who is falling apart?” She did not deny the high anxiety that is affecting my ability to function at the best of my capacity in daily life. She did not pretend that wasn’t there. She simply looked at the actions of my life to change this place. She held up a mirror of growth even in the midst of feelings of weakness.

Colleagues have given affirmations on my work. Those who are working with me through this process continue to be present and supportive. Others, such as those on a thread in a social media site, have done so simply by accepting my stated need for the support of thought and prayer as I seek to use respect and grace in this. They honor that, without asking me to explain the situation for them to judge.

Each of these resources helps me to edit the story I write about my ability to see this through to the best ending I can find, whatever that will be. They fill the margins with hope to counteract the turmoil of discouragement and fears I have not yet overcome. Without denying the residual weakness from the past that is affecting me, they mirror back to me where I am acting forward in a way that exhibits strength.

There are many ways to come alongside in situations of stress.  The support of those who don’t need to know the details in order to be supportive in thought and action is as important, maybe even more important, then the resources on the inside who are working with me to solve the situation.  Those who can help reinterpret the facts into a story of growth and strength are powerful agents of healing and hope in times a person does not measure up to their own societally sanctioned expectations.

Is there a story your encouragement and insights have the potential of changing into one of greater strength and possibility?

Dear Once Upon a Time

Dear Once Upon A Time,

You believed the fairytales of a woman’s ability to be like a god changing the attitudes of another, bringing to life your fairytale perfect home. You believed that you could change enough, be enough to satisfy the desires of those who were the forces of power in the world you had been taught to believe. For you, the Stepford Wife existence would have been a mercy. You would not have had to deal with me.

When among the hoped for fairytales, the nightmare took root you fought with virtual tooth and claw to keep me trapped within the prescriptions of your schedules and I tried to comply, tried to find the line between your ridged expectations and the fluidity of my visions of a world of creative possibility waiting to be explored. It was never enough. He had called me frivolous, an escape. And you did not have the talent set that would have made it all better, that would have finally brought the acceptance you so longed for. The anger and despair in you built, an anger you could not accept. You broke when finally you came to realize things would not change.

Someone saw me in you then. She called me an eagle locked in a cage. Her vision gave you hope that perhaps I was not a chain that held you down but wings waiting inside and tentatively you began to seek me again.

For many more years you would struggle to find a way for both of us to be accepted without breaking the code they  had set you in throughout your life. It was an uneasy alliance for your world had become one that had little room for me. As before, when despair robbed you of the energy to hold me down you let me emerge to write words of hope that you could read or to record a memory you would someday need. In those years, you let me create at times as well, practical crafts, nothing too frivolous.

You even tried to kill me when you realized my presence would never allow your world to have the stability of acceptance in a fairytale romance you had fought for so long. It was easier to blame and discard me then to face your humanness which kept you from being a god with power to effect the choices of another.

Ironically, when you finally accepted the reality of your life and began to heal in the aloneness of distance, you still could not accept my presence in your life. You still blamed me for being. They called it anxiety and depression. I knew that it was your raging grief at not being god enough to meet the expectations of the world of thought you had been raised in. The day you finally came face to face with your freedom not to be responsible for the choices of another, you began to heal.

I had learned to wait, that even within myself I could not impose a vision on the part of me still in the pain of disillusioned dreams. It would be years before I would meet the images of the hurt woman in a way that you could begin to see the painfulness of a life without me. Our uneasy alliance would find more compatibility in our house of disappointing or distant relationships.

You still held a separate face within the mirror. My face aged yet yours remained trapped in the age your dreams stood still. Mine was a face you did not recognize as the lines slowly changed from the rigid prison of your lost dreams. There was an uncomfortableness when you looked in the mirror. You could not accept seeing me so clearly etched into the surface of your life.

A few days ago I looked in the mirror and only saw this face. The specter of your trapped image was gone. It has not returned. I can not feel you anymore. I can feel the legacy you left of finding order to build my life within, but your anxiety and discomfort are gone. There is a quietness within of just being.

Like other trapped pieces met through the years of healing you have faded into memory. I only hope you found that  inner island of healing that was hidden from us years ago when time came to put so much of the past to rest. I hope you are finally happy there feeling the acceptance you longed for.

But I go on, inwardly whole and healthy, living fully in this life that was always mine to live. I can only hope I am wiser now and aware enough to see the changes in direction that are needed when anxiety sends signals of danger ahead.

I have learned from you. Thank you for all you added in my life in the years you did not recognize your worth.

Peace to you,

Myself

 

 

Okay, That does it!

I couldn’t believe it. The rumbling sound of the garbage truck roused me from my revery. My first garbage pickup to be responsible to have my bins out for and I had missed it, and on a hot summer day. I groaned as I leaped up to see if just maybe it was the larger truck for the nearby apartment. It wasn’t.

I ran outside to look. How could someone have done this to me? I had only been in my home a little over a month. The first weeks I had still had the garbage bin at my apartment building. The past weeks I had been on a vacation. Now, I was finally really settling in here and I had the time wrong for when to put out my bins!

But there they were, set in place. One of the neighbors I am just starting to know must have understood. Without a word or an expectation they did this mundane job for me.

I think I know who would have done this. They are the same people who picked up my mail for me while I was gone. Our schedules have so far differed enough that we have hardly talked but they have still given small kindnesses.

Even though after 4 months of getting to stretch out over the parking spaces, they now have to clear two of the spaces for me, both families that share my lot and the building our homes reside in have been friendly.

Now this.

Small kindnesses go a long way to making others feel welcomed and valued. Without that sense of caring, space is simply space.

That does it! I think this townhouse is starting to feel like home. I only hope I can find ways to return small kindnesses to my neighbours.

Building Together

The theme was aptly chosen — “Building Together” in honour of the new gym being built outside of our school doors. As a title for a celebration of those whose volunteer support in the school makes a difference to what we can do for our students it was a fitting way to merge the two ways of building. But for the committee, it was even more aptly named.

The four of us stayed after school decorating the walls for the volunteer tea at school the next day. Our committee had been working together for a few weeks. It had been one of those experiences where you didn’t mind the work involved because we all got along well and were willing to hear each other’s ideas. No one minded lending a hand where needed. Where other teaching commitments interfered with some job for one, the rest stepped in.

The person who took leadership of the group and I were talking just before heading home. Both of us acknowledged what a joy it was to work in a committee like ours. She made a comment about how different it was from working with a committee where people felt so committed to their own agenda that it was hard to enjoy a feeling of shared effort. She called such people “head strong”. I responded by saying I guessed our committee would be called “heart strong” then.

It really has been a pleasure getting to use my visual arts creativity to come up with ideas for this tea. I was able to teach someone else how to make an invitation with a computer program as well. It was great to be able to value the different gifts and talents we brought together. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I could just let go and be who I was when working with a group of adults.

My mindful gift today is the teamwork with heart-strong people. It is a busy time of year for me and this “attitude of gratitude” in the committee made a real difference in the amount of stress this added committed carried.

The Sun in Her Hands, Photo Collage, L. J. Andres

TAKING THE GIFT A BIT FURTHER:

 

In honour of my writing friend, Rod, I am going to carry my “attitude of gratitude”a bit further and start an A-Z list of things to feel grateful for. He is posting on gratitude this month and asked us for ideas.

Here is to you, my friend, from another place in my life where “heart-strong” people meet together on line to encourage each other’s writing.

Today’s Alphabet of Gratitude (To be added to at will)

A – Aerodynamics, Animals, Appreciation, Alliances, Adults
B – Beauty, Baskets, Babies, Brevity, Brooks, Blue, Black, Biology, Breath, Beaches, Benches
C – Children, courage, Clouds, Chemistry, Closets, Chinese Food, Chairs, Chopsticks, Collage
D – Determination, Delight, Diversity, Darkness,
E – Eagles, Eagerness, Equity, Evaluations, Events
F – French immersion, Faith, Fingers, Fragility, Fire, Freezers, Flowers, Friends, Fruit, Family, Fragrance
G – Grandchildren, Gifts, Green, Guitars
H – Happenstance, Happiness, Humility, Honesty, Humour, Hammers, Hills, Home
I – Idiosyncrasies, Imagination, Internet, Investigation
J – Jokes, Jumping, Jam, Journals, Journeys
K – Kids, Kites, Kitchen sinks
L – Life, Love, Laughter, Leaves, Legumes, Light
M – Mindfulness, Magnets, Music, Mountains, Magnets
N – Nature, Nurturing, Names, Nuts (Almonds and Pecans especially), Nonsense
O – Opinions, Openings, Operations, Obligations, Orange, Omega 3
P – Potential, Possibility, Perseverance, Pink, Peaches, Provinces, Providence, Provisions. Painting, Playing, Patience, Perspective, Peanut Butter, Pencils, Pens, Paper, Plumbing, Pictures
Q – Quirks, Quests, Quiet, Questions
R – Rest, Recorders, Respect, Rain, Rainbows, Rivers, Refrigerators, Resonance, Resourcefulness
S – Students, Spring, Serendipity, Streams, Storage. Sorbeto, Support, Softness, Sleep, Songs
T – Tenaciousness, Tenderness, Teaching, Truth, Theatre, Trees
U – Unguarded moments, Umbrellas, Undergrowth
V – Volunteers, Vacations, Victories, Vegetables
W – World, Writing, Wisdom, Water, Weariness, White
X – Xylophones, The X (an amusement park one week a year in my town),
Y – Yarn, Yard, Yams, Yellow, Yearning, Yawns
Z – Zoos, Zaniness, Zeal,

 

 

G – Dear Granny

 Dear Granny,

Thank you for the picture you sent me. I got it a bit over 45 years after you sent it, but I got it just when I needed to know it was there. On the back it said, “To Andie, so she can see her granny”.

The few memories of you that I have are gifts , those that held brightness and those that held confusion.

I remember an honesty that was painful to a child but later helped an adult find answers. You loved one of the sisters in my family best and it wasn’t me. I think I know why. Of us all, she was most like your son, our daddy. I think you knew what I would come to know that last day I saw him, only days before he died. But then, that truth only went to show another gift I got from you. It didn’t matter who you loved the best, I could love you just because I did.

I remember the records you gave us on one of our long treks back to Texas from the Northwest. Full size LP records of stories. Carol got Sleeping Beauty and I got William Tell. They came complete with background music from the orchestral scores of those pieces. Added to the Reader’s Digest set of LP’s mom and dad bought, your records helped me see the story in music, something I am able to share with my music student’s today. Carol grew out of her record but I never did. As long as I could keep them, they were a part of my memory of the best of childhood.

There is one other gift I remember from you. When I was 8 or 9, you came to visit us. I asked you to a picture of me or did you ask me? It doesn’t matter. I told you I wanted to be a bride in the picture. Your face only showed interest. A bride? But did I have a bride’s gown?

I had already learned something about color then. I had a light violet satiny dress in my dress-up box. And you had given me that soft pink sheer scarf that would make a perfect veil. Since the picture would be in black and white, that would do the trick. With no hesitation clear enough for a child to see you went along with my lofty plan. If this was my dream, you let it be my dream.

In my adult life I learned the stories of how your dreams fell apart. First a young husband dies. Then you married another who was violent when drinking. That last summer with dad,  I learned you wore scars through your life. The last day with dad I learned your husband beat my dad too.

I am so glad you had the nonconformity to choose separation over the violence back in the 30’s. It would be an act that would take all your determination. I know from dad’s one story and his hatred for the peanut butter and banana sandwiches that filled his lunch every day, sometimes your independence took a stubborn turn of not being willing to let others help you.

But you didn’t stop dad from getting work to finance his dream of being an opera singer someday. You were a divorced woman trying to raise a son without alienating him from the dad he wanted to visit as much as he could. You didn’t stop him when he gave up his dream to go into the Navy. Did you recognize the resentment that he wouldn’t realize was locked inside of him until that last day when he tried to tell the story to the nurse?

Thank you, Granny, for leaving me with the innocence of my dreams on that childhood day.

Now it is my turn. I am the Granny with a grandson who is 4 and a granddaughter who is 18 months old. It is my turn to listen to them. To find my way through my own preferences and wishes for them, my own fears from the past so that I can give them the same room to dream their own dreams and live their own lives. Both are already showing such distinct characteristics. It is my turn to learn to silence my own comparisons so that I can give them each what they need from me.

You showed me that model though. When I was small I heard your favoritism and saw you show it. But when I was in my elementary school, you sent that picture to me. Did you know how much I needed it? Did you know because of that letter daddy sent you?

Daddy gave me another letter spoken in words that day in August 2011. In that story he told the nurse, the meandering of his thoughts entwined my story with yours. The nurse afterwards confirmed what I had heard. My sister confirmed it further by telling me the words you said that first day I called on Skype during the beginning of his hospice care. Daddy said, “When I see you, I see my mother.”

I asked my cousins who had lived with you how they would describe you. They remember happy memories, but more, they remember your most distinct traits as non-conformity, determination and independence. When I look back on my life I see how those characteristics helped me.

When I got home from that farewell to my dad and looked at the pictures I had been given , your picture to me was among them. “To Andie,  So she can see her granny.” It sounds like you left a part of my granny in my life.

“When I see you, I see my mother.” I think that is one of the nicest compliments I have ever had.

Still and always loving you,

Andie

P.S. The night my daddy died I saw him with you in a dream. You were happy and laughing together.

Lillian’s Legacy, September 2011, in honor of my granny

 

http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/

 

 

Mo and Ro (a Milne friendly tail)

Mouse loved to have a little nibble of something early in the morning before the bigguns roused from their mountain tops. In his forage under the hot top-it he met his good friend cockroach.
“I sees you is out an about bright this morning, Ro. You seein any of them bigguns yet?”

Cockroach was too busy nibbling his crumblin to answer more than, “mmmumphahette” but reached out his denticles to Mouse. Held in their grasp was the last piece of crumblin.

A tiny tear trickled down Mouse’s cheek at the generosity. “You is a good friend, Ro,” he said taking the tiny nibblin. The bigguns had been doing the sweepins more regular like so pickins were rare these days.

Still Mouse glimpsed a prize cheese smear over by the edge of the everdrop. He had clamped his mountaineer rope and needle hooks once and scaled its heights but all the treasures there were locked up tight in aquariums you could see in but not touch in. He had been able to smell all the delectable delights but not reach em. Tummy growling he slide down the webbin and hadn’t tired the climb again.

That was when he met Ro nibblin a sketti rolled under the edge of the hot toppin. Ro had shared a bit then too and they had been fast friends ever since.

“Every Ro needs his Mo” Ro would skrill when Mo would mope around when food was scarce. “We’ll findum sumpin if we don’t give up.”

Mo offered to share his lovely cheese smear with Ro but, hearing the tummy rumbling of Mo, Ro protested he was full and skittled into the crack in the wall just as the rumbling avalanche from the other room alerted Mo to the coming of the bigguns. Scrappin the smear into his paw he scuttled into his warm little din behind the cold inside.

It had been a good adventure, thought Mo, as he licked the sticky yum from his forepaws. Patting his tummy he curled up and went to sleep.