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Remembering to Keep My Mouth Shut

June 16, 2024 in Body or Aging, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Surrendering

Being quick-witted and sassy is what women in my family have always been known for. I used to have such fun racing to pop off an answer framed as a question, Jeopardy style. I always won. I’ve also always loved pulling off a good rescue mission.

Stir together the impulse response and the Rescuer persona. Apply a long career aa a teacher and counselor. Bake for about 65 years. What comes out is someone like me: a human being who is constantly learning to keep her mouth shut.

Nowadays I at least know to slow myself down. And when I do slip up, it’s because I’ve somehow convinced myself of my own brilliance and wisdom. Based (of course) on an ample lifetime of learning the hard way.

The best worst news of getting older is that the quick-witted trick doesn’t quite work the same.Now I think of the very best snappy comeback and then I sometimes stop mid-sentence, awkwardly waiting for someone’s name or a common everyday noun to emerge from the murky bowels of my memory. Just like the old days when I frequently blew a good punchline.

It’s strange to be That Person, and the one who forgets important things like where she stashed an item of some importance (say a car title, or perhaps her very own head). Day by day it’s apparent that I’m over it (my head, that is).

Who is This One now she’s in the third act of life? Not the same. And yet that’s not true either. There’s a very big, calm part that always knows, when asked, what’s truly important to remember. It lives somewhere and nowhere and everywhere, and it has always had my back.

When I remember this I don’t need the cheap memory tricks anymore. but what I do need I’ve had all along, and she’s a hella good navigator, calm and wise. One with the Big Picture in mind. One who knows the wisdom of silence, or at least the secret of when to listen well. One who wants nothing and whose fuel is a calm, loving heart. And that knowing is far more powerful than any one word could ever be.

I relearn this nearly every day.

Gratitude for all these moments of clarity, even when I forget.

Nourishment

I want to eat

the morning light

by the tablespoon.

No. By the cupful.

Stalking it

ambushing it

as it butters its way

across the room,

moves at a certain slant,

creeps up behind

the shadows tucked into corners

swallows everything in its way

I scoop it up for free

like capturing snow for a cone.

Three cupsful of radiance

in a giant waffle cone, please.

Savoring its smooth glow,

I swallow its essence whole,

ready now to face

the news of the day

—SgB June, 2024

photo by

George Beekman

Fuse for Your Pocket: Green on Green

April 16, 2024 in Confusion to Clarity, Power of Connection, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Green on Green

Here in Oregon the color is always on-brand, just like rain, her more-famous sister brand. When spring first rolls around, the infinitude of colors of green flood the landscape. No one has yet invented Spring foliage tours, but the potential is there.

Oregon Leaf Peeping tours. come drink in the colors during our spring greening event, at its best for only a couple or three weeks. (Just remember: you heard the idea here.)

Ever since the increased loss of ancient forest lands to wildfire in the last five years, I try to stay focused on gratitude for what’s left. Spring always makes this less of a struggle, with its constant reminders of renewal.

Earlier this month I went on a retreat in HG Andrews Experimental Forest. It’s in the Cascade mountains a couple hours from my home. It’s also the very first US Forest Service outpost devoted to forest research, centered in an ancient forest stand. It was established around the time of my birth, a more innocent and less fiery time.

I had been there exactly a year ago. Since then 70% of the surrounding forest acreage had burned. In addition, windfall from last winter’s ice storm damage surrounding us served as a constant reminder of nature’s growing vulnerability. Seeing all of this damage hit me hard.

How do I open up enough space for hope along with this sorrow? This was my heart’s cry as I walked the trail. After a good cry, I just might’ve needed to distracted myself a bit because before I knew it I was trying to name all the colors of green in a Crayola box. (The kind with 120 colors and a sharpener embedded in the box.)

I sat on a stump on a virgin forest riverbank to contemplate this, ancient trees all around. The longer I perched there the more I could see. I began to imagine breathing it all in. I gazed at a cluster of moss for a while, slowly letting in what was right in front of me. I counted at least five different species of moss, layered in deepening shades of my new favorite color.

Fir, hemlock, and cedar created a canopy which sheltered their moss friends. A few trillium flowers trumpeted the arrival of spring and tiny calypso orchids poked shyly out of the earth. It was like a Disney movie.

I drank it all in and closed my eyes. When I opened them again the words forest magic drifted through my mind. In its spell, I forgot to name anything at all, no matter what color. I was flooded by a deep sense of the ineffable beauty and comfort of all creation. I remembered a few words by poet Dylan Thomas. “The force that through the green fuse lights the world.” There was a sweet moment of being completely taken over by that powerful source of renewal. Then a flood of profound peace. Followed by a desire to protect the fragile land.

There’s comfort in knowing that I’m not alone. And I still carry the green fuse in the pocket of my mind. Maybe you’d like to put it in your pocket too, as you revel in the new life that spring offers.

Mourning Dove

soft cry

first sound

new day

rising voice

of hope

or a question.

Are you there?

the answer

a beat away

but steady

now, now, now.

a slow dissolve and

a surrender to

a landing and

a resolution and

a repetition or

a preparation

for the next call.

Are you there?

Where? Where, where, where?

Same chord with

the same

soft insistence on

a mournful tone of

longing and

a forever call with

the same always response.

just this, this, this, and this

here, here, here. and here.

Home, home, and home

—SgB 2023

photo by

George Beekman

Don’t Feed the Fears

March 18, 2024 in Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Surrendering

The sign was tucked precariously into the shingles of a house a bit back from the road. When I passed it before, I assumed it was just another treasure a college student had ripped off from the national forest. But yesterday, perhaps because I had new glasses, I doubled back to check it out.

Sure enough. Nothing about Bears. Don’t Feed the Fears it said. Now THAT sounds about right, I thought. And then the question came to me.

What if I could accomplish this in my own lifetime? What if I could truly learn to refrain from feeding the fears that come with most any challenge?

Let me just say It would be a miracle.

And I believe in miracles.

Love is Letting Go of Fear was my favorite go-to for the entire decade of the 1980’s, when I was submerged in mothering two young children.

There were times when I might have taken it a bit far, like the day I noticed my daughter, not yet three, perched at the top of a slide. Was she hesitant, waiting for my permission? I ran to the slide, but she was already propelling down the chute, coming close to landing on her still somewhat bald head. For years I would laugh about my struggles conveying to her “a decent sense of fear.”

Later I learned there was another name for the challenge of raising both my kids. ADHD. What I’ve learned from this entire experience would fill at least a book or two (and one I already wrote. Literally). But what I have left to learn about neurodiversity could fill far more pages. And continue to offer valuable perspective, as I’m still learning.

But what I’m thinking about nowadays is more basic yet. What simple mantra has been my guide over the years? It could be summarized in the very same three words: Don’t Feed the Fears.

I’ve traveled to retreats, embracing meditation, holy listening, and inquiry. I’ve continued to discover that generalized “fear” includes death and chronic debilitating illness, the things that I see beloved friends facing head-on nowadays. The Big Things.

I’m learning to make enough space in my life for the silence I need to take inspiration from the snowdrops and hyacinths pushing their way up just outside the walls of daily routine. I’m taking this poem by May Sarton with me as I spend a few days in my tiny meditation/writing hut, where I’ll be joining other meditators at a semi-silent online retreat. My goal is to allow this busy mind to trust the way of all other living things this Spring.

I want to begin with curiosity about how the next passages of life might look if I truly learned life lessons and took inspiration from the simple mantra, Don’t Feed the Fears.

The Short Story of My Shadow and Me

March 18, 2024 in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck

Once I tried to give away my shadow.
It wasn’t easy. More like downright terrifying.
I was launching my new book,
Putting Your Best Foot Forward:
a PR Guide to Life™ Suddenly I saw that my foot wasn’t the problem.
It was my shadow.
Such a mouth it had. Always with a snappy comebacks
Always with the opinions,
Always with the surprises.

It was time to move it along,
and so I started low.to the earth
with Groundhog, squatting at his burrow door.
(He was known to be cranky this time of year so I whispered).
You can use my shadow as a backup,
I gently suggested.
You might be more predictable,
He curled his lip and bared his incisors
I’ve got enough shadow
worries on my own without yours,
he snarled, And besides, It won’t fit!

Plan A (The Giveaway) was out.
Plan B (Direct Persuasion) was in.
Moon Shadows are kinder than Day Shadows, and so we met under a full moon.
Thank you so much for your service,.
Perhaps retirement might suit you, I suggested.,
I kept the argument civil, logical,
Sensitive to its needs.
But the nicer I was the nastier the response.
until I noticed my collar getting very hot,
and I heard myself saying
Okay then, I’m done trying to figure this out.
Let me make it clear: I don’t need you anymore.

And what if I refuse? It asked,
After that there were no other words,
only a dark pressure in my midnight mind,
a burrowing into my chest,
a sense of something crouching
Somewhere deep and out of reach.

And so I guess it’s the two of us now,
and I know that I will never see
the dance we do together, my shadow and me.

Mother, Simon, and Me

May 13, 2022 in Confusion to Clarity, Power of Connection, Remembering

Covid Social Distance Thank You Footprint Blue

Nearly every recess in second grade, I raced to the playground to play one of my favorite games, either Mother May I or Simon Says. I didn’t care which. I don’t remember loving the power of telling the other kids how many baby or giant steps they could take. I just liked the way the rules were so easy, as long as you paid attention. If you weren’t listening or you didn’t mind Simon or moved without Mother’s permission, you were O-U-T.

So very simple and clear.

Ever since 2020 I’ve been longing for that old certainty. At first I studied daily updates and followed the leads, somewhat obsessively focused on decoding pandemic rules. Mostly I obeyed them, which wasn’t too hard since I’m of the certain age that makes caution advisable. But lately Simon has been MIA and I haven’t been able to get a clear answer from Mother. So, like everyone else, I’ve been following my best educated guess about re-entering the world of people.

At least that’s my excuse for my questionable decision to fly to Las Vegas last month for an extended family errand. Somehow the first night, looking for a restaurant, we found ourselves smack dab in the middle of several crowd events, mostly outdoors, but still. I was not prepared for the overstimulation that is Las Vegas, a place I hadn’t visited in years. And having been (mostly) sheltered, it was a lot.

A part of me was excited. At the same time another part (my whole nervous system?) began to scream for shelter. After a couple of days of entertainment laced with terror, my husband and I drove a few hours to pick up an RV. We drove it nearly a thousand miles back home to Oregon. This involved learning how to manage all the systems along the way and included a short Siri-directed diversion through San Francisco’s winding streets. Did I mention we were in an unfamiliar vehicle? In an RV? I’m still unpacking from the adventure of the trip.

In the end I didn’t get Covid, something I’ve resigned myself to experiencing as it becomes endemic. As it turns out, several of my friends, both traveling and stationary, did contract the virus. What to do? I’m hearing from lots of other folks about how awkward it is to make plans to reconnect, even though we know itwill probably be worth it in the end. Yesterday, a friend pointed out a people-friendly website: https://covidactnow.org. Having this resource has opened the door to more clarity in summer planning, began with a BIG stretch: indoor singing (with mask). ALMOST like the good old days. But I’ve mostly returned to my old cautious ways.

I don’t want to forget the quieter pleasures of the life lived at a slower pace. Walking my elderly dog. Quiet time in solitude by the sea. Following the rise and fall of the ocean, the graceful arc of seagulls and raptors. Life lived on my own terms.

I think Mother would approve.

Be well,

Remembering Las Vegas

(or How Not to Emerge from Pandemic Isolation)

Brilliant collage of magenta

Cosmic calliope of punk

Decibels killing to the human ear

Street zipping over the projected sky

“Nuns” with pasties, fishnets and thongs twerking,

Moonwalking the tricky world between sacred and profane.

Mother May I?

Take one small step into morning

this moment of arising

of drifting in and out without effort

into not being a me and then being one,

becoming and unbecoming

again and again.

in the dark margin.

May I taste this tiny slice of life

and savor this small knowledge of death?

—SgB 5/2022

Is Spring enough to match the war of hell?

March 24, 2022 in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Remembering, Spring

Words have been eluding me this month, mostly because news of war is always lurking, even in the early rays of morning light. I recently recovered from the bad habit of doom scrolling over Covid or presidential politics, and I was finally settling into the soothing early-morning habit of meditating and reading or writing poetry. Then along came Russian invasion of Ukraine, and tragic scenes from Kiev and Karkov (and other places I can’t even pronounce) flooded my mind.

I became acutely aware my own helplessness in the face of such enormous tragedy. Then I thought of our sister city Uzhrogod in the Ukraine. And so Geo and I went down to the courthouse and held a sign in solidarity. We donated money for supplies. Then we gave some more to support a local couple who were traveling to the warfront with medical supplies. This helped, but it didn’t feel like enough to match the hell of that war.

Then I thought of the painful losses within my own family from suicide and addiction, another hell in another time of life. And I remembered William Carlos Williams’ words: “It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.” The last few days I’ve managed to pick up a pen or remember a few words from trusted source Mary Oliver, determined to save the only life I can, my own. When I do that, the day dawns with a new dimension. If I’m lucky, I can be absorbed by a different world, the one that has been right beside me, all around me, all along.

To my amazement, Spring has come. Yesterday I sat in the sunshine on my deck in the woods on the meadow with a poet friend. The plum blossoms blushed pink and, and one of them floated like a tiny lotus in the bird bath, accompanied by the bubbling fountain over my shoulder. I knew right then what it is to be in heaven. Sometimes it feels as if there’s no place big enough to contain all the contradictions of life. Guilt came up, along with one image of starving people in Mariupol. Suddenly, the plum tree, along with the song of the yellow-rumped warblers, all of it was gone. This is how it is for me nowadays. My heart breaks from the hell of war. I try to do something to useful. But all the while there’s the heaven of spring, right outside my door.

Meditation helps. Walking and biking and yoga help. But what helps most of all is simply stopping, breathing, and looking around to take in the wonders of the world where I’m embedded right here and now.

Yesterday I saw a photo of a subway car in Karkhiv where many families shelter. A mother had placed a tin can with tulips in the window where she and her two sons were sheltering. (Check it out here.) May this be an image we all remember, a moment of spring poetry. A piece of heaven to honor the soul in us all.

There is a quick moment

somewhere between dark and light.

Neither this or that.

Mystery sits there.

Nightmares become dreams and dreams nightmares.

Dome of sky offers a day uncut by sorrow

and morning is born again

with news of war waiting

unbidden in the shadows

—SgB 3/2022

How to Get Rich on Love

February 14, 2022 in Power of Connection, Radical Kindness, Spring

Morning meanders take me out my door and into the meadow outside for a loop to the top of a little hill. When I get there, I catch my breath and take in the expansive pastoral view of a green gully with a large barn across the way. This has been my habit most every morning for many years. In my mind it was my little secret before the pandemic made it a wider walking path. A couple of weeks ago, a classic park bench appeared at my usual breathing spot. A plaque on the back declared the more you love, the richer you are. No Parks Department insignia. No dedication to someone’s father, mother, sister. Just those eight words.

A mystery.

My imagination went on a walkabout. This wasn’t an amateur installation. Someone rich had been here, someone who had loved and been loved enough to memorialize it with an anonymous public installation. I live in a small city of overlapping relationships. So it wasn’t long before I began to hear speculation and nearly first-hand origin stories about the bench. The first, of course, was a secret romance of star-crossed lovers whose ashes were spread right there.

But my favorite (the one I made up, sort of) was about two people who fell in love and decided that they wouldn’t keep it to themselves. In my story, their expanded hearts multiplied and multiplied, spreading their love to this generation and the next through their generosity. And when one of them died, they died wealthy by every measure. In my heart I knew these people. I loved them both.

An old storyteller once told me: if it weren’t true it shoulda been, And so I’m choosing my version. This is a Love Bench, available to all, a place for love to grow. And now it’s a new addition to my morning walks. A place to steep in the power of the heart, every day of the year. A sure way to get rich.

May you feel the wealth grow around you and let it grow your heart. Every day of the year.

PS. Special thanks to my Valentine of more than 50 years, Geo, aka George Beekman, for photos and help putting this together. I’ll sit on that bench with you any day.

Invitation to a Wandering Queen

This is just to say the welcome mat is out.

The table is set.

And also this:

I never forgot you.

There’s a soft seat here, tucked inside

this rib cage

as small and as big as the known universe

offering everything and nothing

but a throne fit for a sovereign

queen of hearts, a place to sit and be

or maybe not be

anything at all,

protected by

a foggy moat.

Ready embers still await you.

Won’t you come to stay?

—SgB 1/2022

Runaway Rescue! (Resolution Revolution)

January 13, 2022 in Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness, Surrendering, Winter

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Once again reality didn’t agree with my plans. The nerve of it. Less than month ago I reflected on a Christmas past, the year our family spent the holiday tending sick puppies and watching them die from Parvo, one by one. For me it was a story of grace and humor in the weirdest places. I had no idea that another dog-centered holiday movie was about to be released.

This year on Christmas Eve the scene was set. The lights. The wrapped presents. The Tree. The baking. The full refrigerator. The early afternoon arrival of my son and his partner Liz-e, along with Finn, a year-old beagle they’d rescued from Korea, where a stray might be headed for the meat market. He had experienced more than a little trauma in his life: a tsunami, loss of his entire litter, being shipped half-way around the globe. But in the end he was rescued by a warm-hearted network of dog lovers from both countries (https://wildheartspdx.com).

Within a couple of hours of his arrival, as a rare Oregon snow began to drift in, he zoomed out the front door, down the bike path, and (eventually) all over town. We were able to follow him some of the time by using Air Tags, which sent occasional beeps to my son’s phone when an iPhone is close by. For three below-freezing days a scattered tag-team of family and friends and firemen and security police random strangers stalked him through the snow, many of them foregoing their holiday plans. Gratitude isn’t a big enough word for these many acts of human generosity. He had travelled almost 30 miles over three days when he stopped running and took shelter under a parked truck. The smell of Korean carry-out food was what it took to lure him out in the end. And all was well. It was The perfect Hallmark holiday movie, with less kissing. And afterwards a few more nightmare-type dreams of losing control.

Isn’t that the way life shows up sometimes? Just when you think you’ve got some idea packaged into a preplanned version, it can explode into something more chaotic and less welcomed. You’d think this is a lesson we’ve all learned from the last couple of years of Covid. And yet along comes the terrible surprise of one more highly transmissible variant just as things were settling down and life was returning to something we recalled as normal. The only surprise here is the fact that we’re surprised, having lulled ourselves into the belief that things would match our intentions for them.

A teacher of mine once asked me if I’d rather have a flexible mind or body as I age. I don’t like having to make that choice, but I would land on the mind every time. Because when it’s limber, it’s easy to see what’s negotiable with the Universe and what’s not. And at its heart the mind knows to love what it has no choice but to accept. In a throw-away line last week, Stephen Colbert said, “Can I change it? I can’t? Then I love it!”

Now that’s flexibility. A tall order during these trying times. A full-time job, really. But this is the kind of freedom I want in life. This peace. This freedom.

I want this for all of us.

—SgB

Resolution Revolution

Here I am once again

same time new year

holding tight to the road,

to this revolution of my own making.

The one where I resolve

not to resolve

to be lighter, brighter orsomeone

with nothing out of place,

a corrected version of me,

but built back better.

Instead, let me evolve into someone

good enough but better when still.

Because this revolution is not televised.

—SgB 1/2022

Dead Puppy Christmas and Carbonated Holiness

December 13, 2021 in Confusion to Clarity, Family Stress, Getting Unstuck, Remembering, Surrendering, Winter

One Christmas past, my daughter and her friend brought home fifteen sick puppies from a kill shelter rescue mission that had gone awry. I imagined a family home Christmas as a video, swarming with curious, slightly weak puppies around the Christmas tree.

I didn’t know much about Parvo at the time. Reality hit quickly. When we saw how sick the puppies were, we rallied to a new mission, setting up an emergency vet clinic.

For the two days leading to Christmas we nursed half-pound infants, trying desperately to save them from the grim effects of the disease. We kept our arms full, set alarms and devised a way to hydrate with homemade IV’s. Instead of going to a midnight service we prayed for their survival as we held them and watched them fade. Hour after hour the little pile of bodies in the corner grew. In the end only one survived, born miraculously on Christmas Eve.

My blog post that season said “This will be the Christmas of Dead Puppies soon, and we will laugh. Someday.” When my son Ben read it, he said he cried, and I saw how powerful my protective shield had been, and how truly traumatic it had been for all of us. We needed to grieve. Now, ten years later, I have the distance to see the whole picture and appreciate how we coped.. We cried plenty, but somehow even in the midst of it all there were moments of hilarity.

What saved us was being able to see our own powerlessness in the face of the absolute absurdity of the scene. We told ourselves that it couldn’t get any worse and then it did. Again and again. I guess you could say that dark humor became our greatest ally. This and the power of distraction. My memories of the year feature us stumbling through some Christmas carols, playing Pictionary, and awkwardly dancing to a Wii Rock Band workout featuring Beatles music. But mostly I remember the laughter.

It may seem strange, but ten years later I realize that this may be have been our most deeply soulful Christmas of all, working together through the crisis and still finding a kind of humor in the midst of an awful situation. Later I heard Anne Lamott call laughter “carbonated holiness,” and I knew just what she was talking about.

This is what I wish for each of you this holiday season.

Without the dead puppies.

Just some carbonated holiness.

With love,

Susan Grace

Dead Puppy Christmas

Today in the mist of a stroll

through the Advent calendar

I open tiny windows of Christmases past,

The first scene is one I tenderly recall,

Dead Puppy Christmas

There we are, five of us humans,

jostling fifteen half-pound puppies

recently rescued

before the Grinch of Parvo took over,

now sick and getting sicker.

Across from the tree in this diorama

is a small I-V stand

Each hour another pup stops breathing

and a tiny body Is added

to the pile in the corner.

In between we cry,

stumble through carols,

distract ourselves with sugar cookies,

eggnog, gingerbread and games,

Tending to life and to death,

Awaiting the miracle of Christmas Eve,

one surviving puppy.

—SgB 12/2021

First Step, Second Step

November 9, 2021 in Body or Aging, Getting Unstuck, Surrendering

It is pointless to know where the way leads. Think only of the first step. The rest will come.

— Sams of Tabriz

It was time for my first big step. I was finally able to bear my own weight after a bike accident resulting in six weeks of complete dependence on everyone around me. My heart was full of gratitude, but my balance was precarious as I ditched the surgery boot and slowly began to reclaim my own two feet.

This is when I convinced my husband that we should take our first road trip in forty years. It made sense, I argued, using Lockdown Logic, for him to drive and for me to ride with my foot elevated on the dashboard for several days along western edge of the continent from Oregon to the Southern edge of our country. Lockdown Logic said that it was time to use that car we bought just before the pandemic. It said that we should get out of our little bubble and drive, not fly. Some of my lifelong friends had been planning a gathering for a year in San Diego, so logic said that now must be time to hazard a trip out of the cocoon. In addition, secretly I wanted to reconnect with my rural roots by simple human interaction in more far-flung parts of this divided land we hear so much about.

Half-way through the trip, I bragged to my friends about our small safe haven of a city, especially our local school board. We live in college town with a deep dedication to education. Our little city leans left in a state that is famously unpredictable. We’re well outside of the newly vilified city of Portland, so we’ve seen few so-called culture wars.

While we were traveling, we saw proof of a country more united than the news would have us believe. Except for a few drivers who didn’t like our slower pace as we followed directions like the old codgers we are, we were met by human kindness throughout our trip, whether red or blue. We saw little mask or anti-mask mania. Little evidence of vax wars. We came back relieved, ready to report that rumors of civil war are greatly exaggerated.

So the first big step back to “normal,” was a complete success.

The second day after our return, I went down to my local food cooperative, where I ran into a friend who filled me in on local news, referring me to the New York Times. One of our bright lights, Sami Al-Abdrabbuh, our school board chairman, had been under physical threat almost since he was re-elected by a landslide.(More here)

I began to doubt my recent travel experience and felt the cocoon calling me back. After a couple days, I remembered one of my favorite quotations, attributed to Rumi’s teacher Shams: It is pointless to know where the way leads. Think only of the first step. The rest will come. I know that I can’t un-step that first forward step toward my fellow beings. All I can do now is get stronger, more educated, and more flexible to prepare for the next step. So I‘ve been educating myself on harassment and cyber threats. By moving out of denial and into reality, I armed myself with information about how I can take a more grounded and informed stand to support my very real oasis of a community..

I want to reboot stronger and lighter. My second step has been to return to my physical therapy schedule. Who knows what the next step will bring? For now, it’s showing up for my body so that I can take more balanced and healing steps. It turns out that this is the perfect time for this challenge, what with all the traditional expectations and the challenge of reconnecting during upcoming holidays . My prayer is that I remember all the lessons of the last two years as I continue into the future with step after ever-stronger informed step.

May we all notice human kindness permeating our coming days. May we move forward to the beat of our shared heart, our shared humanity, our shared planet…

Road Trip

Her country, newly

humbled by fear

called to her,

offering its western perimeter.

A whiff of youthful memory

cried out, which caused her to

stare sit stretch

and then sit again,

watching sky television

a dream of a parched world

flying by

not the same as before

but still

ocean met dunes

rocks stood sentinel

days were fruitfully spent

moving under bowl of big blue

cities came and went

with humans still busy

annoying other humans

passing on the right

honking from the left

and then the gusty rain came

erasing it all in a big wet huff

and after that there was this:

a miniature freeway oasis

appearing from the fog

with fairy lights and

breakfast in little brown bags

but most of all the kindness

of a muscle flexed, a stranger’s hand

lifting a bag, opening a door

just because you with your cane

could use one.

—SgB 10/2021

Spider Sense

November 9, 2021 in Getting Unstuck

During my slow recovery from a broken bone and surgery this fall, I’ve given myself the luxury of silk. Spiderweb Silk. The spider on my windowsill creates its miracle of tensile strength slowly and steadily. As I watch I think of the body magic that is healing my body with very little help from me. With plenty of time on my hands and a new curiosity, I’ve dipped into the human Interweb to find out more about spiders.

Newsflash! Spiders aren’t all hairy monsters who devour their own. Only some of them. About 40% can get cranky enough to consume each other. Biologists who focus on the social life of spiders discovered that adult spiders seem to forget how to behave together after being alone too long, which causes them to become aggressive. They’re still not sure why some spider species like to hang out together while many eat spiders if given the chance. As it turns out, spiders raised in groups almost never try to eat even unfamiliar spiders. When they remain together, they respond to chemical cues and remain tolerant. But when they’ve been isolated, the familiarity is lost, and that’s what leads to intolerant and aggressive behavior.

I’ve seldom ventured out on my own two crutches at all, but last week, I headed out with the help of my trustworthy life partner and nursemaid Geo. Out of necessity we went to a big box grocery store where masks are still required. People are my favorite! I thought, looking forward to the quick exchanges of connection that are part of the human social world. I tried the “smiley eyes” thing out as I motored around in my electric go-cart. People mostly ignored me, which felt lonely and awkward. Then at the check-out line one guy, his mask down below his chin, told me that I was cutting into line. I saw that this was true and I apologized, but he just glared back.

Immediately my mind got busy judging him. Then it began to criticize other people’s pandemic behavior. There are some very sticky thought webs about that subject, I noticed. I couldn’t wait to get to my safe and predictable home, shocked at how one interaction had shifted my whole mood. Back with my spider and its web, I remembered another spider factoid: most spiders create a new web every day. Then I remembered that I had forgotten for a minute: the energetic kindness of strangers who have bounded ahead of me to help open doors. The beautiful emails and cards of sympathy and kindness. The meals prepared and cheerful visits of friends.

There was such clarity in that moment that I began to spin a new web based on my simple truth, backed by more than 70 years human social life. No matter who smiles at me or gives me crap or what gets spun in the news cycle, I know for sure that most humans are not unkind. I could see the likelihood that our species will get less cranky as we get out more. I think we’ll learn again how to tap into our basic human need for kindness and connection. And when I’m in doubt, I remind myself of the words of spiritual eco-activist Joanna Macy: “Let life through, in the biggest doorway in your being.” When I do that, there’s enough room in my heart for all of creation, including cranky humans and spiders.

May we all remember that in the coming months.

SgB 10/2021

Letting It Roll

November 9, 2021 in Getting Unstuck

Resistance

I tie my limbs with rubber bows

red yellow blue green

remembering not to hold,

I breathe and count rep by rep

the movements of slow recovery.

—SgB

Now has come an easy time. I let it roll.

Thus began my personal mantra for the month of August, courtesy of my favorite poet William Stafford. And so at the beginning of last month I changed my daily practice to include rolling around town and country on my electric bike. Clever, huh? But then, a couple weeks in, I hit a pile of loose gravel.

My understanding of letting it roll changed radically in that moment. I was forced to drop immediately any idea of managing the situation. There was no choice but to let the Universe roll on without my guidance. So much help began showing up, from the angels on the spot who helped out at the scene, to my husband who was impeccably on call for the first two weeks, to the long list of family, neighbors, and friends who came forth with offers, food, and encouragement. Now a metal plate and a few screws are holding the fibula back together while I experience the meaning of surrender and dependence and still manage a humble brag concerning my Athletic Injury.

Now has come an easy time. Right here. Today, I remind myself, with my leg propped up on various surfaces around the house, I’m finally freed of the lessons brought by the pain of the first two weeks. I repeat the Easy Time mantra frequently, even while I continue to give up some pride and gratefully accept help. Since there will be no wild times requiring bearing weight for a total of nearly eight weeks, I’m learning all kinds of other things about asking for help and releasing a few dozen unexamined preferences. My walker and I roll along fine when I keep these things in mind. But sometimes I forget, and then come the thought storms about how long this will be, how pathetic I am, how bad it is for my body and mind to be largely sedentary for four weeks, how unbearable the pain is.

Suddenly it’s not an easy time anymore. Everything becomes harder and I get lost in a little pity tea party. Then I take a sip of the nettle tea my friend sent to help knit my bones. And I notice I’m breathing fuller and my monkey mind is taking a nap. And the serene beauty of autumn takes over the healing.

This is that easy time. And I am grateful.

May you find some easy times and places this Autumn.

And may you let this good time roll.

SgB 9/2021

Why I am Happy

November 9, 2021 in Body or Aging, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Summer

I hate summers. Every year by fall the words tumble out. Admitting it seems sacrilegious. And yet there it is. Even today, as I savor the summer world waking up, I know that it’s not completely true. I don’t really hate it. But still.

No. Not still. That’s the problem with summer, I think. All the hubbub and activity. Summers are composed of too muchness. Overwhelm. Not enough stillness. So big. So busy. So much coming and going and not enough time to land.

Like most everyone around me, I’ve been trying my best to make up for lost time with family and friends while responding to the reality of a rapidly shifting world. Yesterday I sat for a time in my garden, trying to catch up with myself. Essentially nothing from my activity-based checklist is completed, and yet already there’s that sense of depletion. A phrase from a beloved poem by William Stafford, Why I am Happy popped into my mind. My framed and beautifully scribed copy burned in a forest fire last fall, but the wonderful thing about words is they don’t burn but keep doing their magic as long as we can string a few phrases together.

The next words, I let it roll, come into my mind.

My to-do list for the next month just got a whole lot shorter.

And so we come to my summer wish list for you, my friends:

May you let it all roll as you remember the peace and ease of the blue and free lake you already carry inside yourself.May that elusive peace of mind be your guide as often as you can during these precious days.

It’s a wish and a prayer. For you. For all of us.

SgB 8/2021

Now That I Know

July 20, 2021 in Getting Unstuck

Now that I Know…

These are the words of my spiritual director, a radical priest who holds space in a small loft in Portland. I’m not a Catholic, but I trust this guy.

I’ve just weathered the traumatic accidental drowning of a friend and an addiction crisis with a family member. Both were situations requiring me to find the ground under my feet ASAP while at the same time surrendering to all the things I couldn’t control even if I wanted to. Other people’s needs seemed to dictate my days.

Now that I know, he said quietly.

What? I asked, leaning in.

What did you learn? What do you know now that you didn’t know before? He asked.

For a moment the overwhelm and fog lifted. Clarity. A felt sense of calm, a perspective. A way to move on.