Posts Categorized: Surrendering

Remembering to Keep My Mouth Shut

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

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

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.

Twisting, Bending, and Holiday Nirvana

A couple of weeks ago, only a few days I after I wrote a blog about my firm resolution to pay attention to my body’s subtle cues, I had a little stumble, a little fall, resulting in some sore ribs. Nothing I couldn’t ignore.

A couple of days later, congratulating myself on my quick recovery, I went back to my regular yoga class. As I twisted and then stretched into a forward bend, I felt a slight click, something I had always called an adjustment, For a moment I thought I that once again yoga had offered its magical relief. As I began to move into Tadasana, a muscle spasm took me to the floor. What had felt delicious the day before prevented me from getting off my mat, and I only got into a wheel chair with the help of friends. 

For the week that followed, which included a long holiday, a muscle spasm got my attention nearly full-time, day and night, So much for subtle listening. I’m not saying that there weren’t certain benefits to being served a turkey dinner by my family, but to tell the truth it wasn’t worth it.

Since then, a couple of gifted bodywork detectives helped me to trace the injury to hyper flexibility, something I had thought was a good thing. What a revelation! I’m told by my best allies that without enough strength, flexibility can be dangerous. Apparently my muscles came to the rescue when they seized, protecting those fragile ribs and the essential organs beneath them. What a clever body! But hardly subtle; apparently this is what it took to get my attention.

I had plenty of time to lie around and reflect on the situation, a yummy opportunity for a metaphor junkie. And what I noticed is that my usual habit to tend, to befriend, to find harmony with win/win solutions, has basically resulted in the habit of back-bending a bit too far. Occasionally all this stretching and allowing has cost me money. But more often the cost is hidden. When I abandon my own strong knowing, it may please others, but it takes a good while to begin to trust myself again.

As luck would have it, this is also the holiday season. The exact time that the Back Bender tends to take over, for all the seasonal reasons, both joyous and overwrought.

As I hauled my yoga mat up the stairs to class today, the pain was gone. I know the strength will return in its own time.

Gradually my body will thank me for my patience. Or, better yet, it won’t have the need to yell at me to get my attention. Now that sounds like a perfect gift for the two of us, my body and me.

May you find joy in standing firm this season, even as you embrace the flexibility of an open mind. May you listen to your body’s wise guidance, even as you celebrate all the life it gives.

Serving This Body

Until I arrived at a ripened middle age, I truly had no idea how little attention I paid to my body, mostly expecting it to function fully with little supervision, whether I was asking it to conceive and give birth or to run a couple of miles. And this body just did as required, with only a few protests or sprains. I realize now how very lucky this is. Also, how oblivious I was. While I was believing that youth made me impervious, some of my peers were already quietly dealing with life-altering diagnoses.

I turned fifty and then sixty, and gradually a bit more maintenance was required. Next came surgery. I replaced twisted and worn-out old parts. Not painless, but I’ve been able to walk and dance and do most yoga poses again. And, hey, at least I haven’t found myself in the organ-replacement line.

Since I hit seventy, more of my friends have been visited by serious conditions that have taken over their lives. A few have had the time in their bodies run out. Gratitude visits daily as I recognize this good fortune.

During this past decade an irregular heartbeat required a couple of trips out of state to get back in rhythm. Since then I’ve needed a few heart-stopping reboots (aka cardioversions, nowhere near as scary as they sound). And still through the miracles of modern medicine I’ve been allowed to basically ignore my body once again, although I do feed and water it regularly,

Although my outer hearing is still good, my inner hearing could use serious amplification. Sometimes when I’m meditating I scan this body and I see how hard it still is to attend to the signals, which might as well be made of smoke some days. 

I remember the part of my younger self that either ignored or bullied this immaculate living machine, while it went about handling its business without my head’s intervention. And I marvel at the many automatic systems that keep things running. But I also live with the consequences of my own bullying and self-neglect. I sincerely want to make it up to myself by finally giving my body the respect it has earned.

I have begun to wonder what it would mean to claim mature leadership of my body. Recently the phrase Servant Leadership popped into my mind. This was something I’d learned about years ago when I studied organizational development. In a nutshell, a servant leader is one who shares power and puts the needs of the employees first, with the goal of helping people develop and perform as highly as possible. Instead of the people working to serve the leader, the leader exists to serve the people.

Now this sounds just like the kind of relationship I want with my body, I think. Today I ask what it would be like to be a true Servant Leader of my body, as if I worked for it? This seems like a worthy goal as I mature fully into my wizened old age. 

And for once I listen. My body says Yes, somewhere around my belly button. It’s a good start. 

Saluting all your good starts.

IMG 3009

Call and Response

This body, this loyal servant 

with promptings and desires 

once manageable 

or at least quiet and discreet,

unobtrusive as it went about 

its everyday business,

This very body just expanded 

its tech department,

added a Response Center Tower 

with a basement ready to catch complaints 

as they pump in from every organ and limb.

Lines are always busy, 

but I try to check in at least once every day,

sometimes just so I can ignore 

Its advice all over again.

— SgB 2023

The Solace of Destruction

Three years ago, at the end of the ill-fated summer of 2020, George and I went to our off-grid mountain cabin as we had for so many years. Our cabin was in a little enclave of summer homes perched along a snow-fed river within an Oregon old growth and second growth forest. It was situated a couple of hours from our home in the Willamette Valley.

When we heard about wildfire to the east, we were more concerned about the effects of smoke combined with Covid than we were with fire’s spread. Our Anniversary only a day away, we thought we’d stay one more night, After all, we’d weathered storms there before. Then the local rural fire department stopped by to upgrade our evacuation status to Go. We agreed that this was a most excellent idea. 

As soon as we finished staining the decks.

With the dozen or so other cabin owners gone, the forest had gone strangely silent.

While we were closing up, I looked around for Calvin, our little white designer mutt. I called his name. No response. We searched the woods. Nothing. A few panicked minutes later, I found the little guy quaking and refusing to get out from under our car. I crouched on all fours to pull him into my arms.

That’s when time stopped. I saw myself in an eerie tableau, surrounded by the vertical green uprising of a heavily wooded two-hundred-year-old forest of at least 13 varieties of ancient trees and countless species of animal life, and yet no chipmunks or jays squawked into the vacuum.

At that moment it still didn’t occur to me that any part of what was present all around us could ever be lost. The silence was that deep and that wide, an enormous space filled with a world of peace. I sat quietly, savoring the enormity of the feeling.

Meanwhile, the staining done, we snapped into autopilot, locked up and left, leaving the guestbook of cabin history we always left on the kitchen table for posterity.

A toxic yellow cloud tailgated us for the entire the 85-mile trip back to our hometown. It arrived at our doorstep along with us, having traveled roughly 70 miles an hour. This was the same cloud that broke records for air pollution and later settled around the entire globe.

That day, of course, we didn’t know any of this. All we knew was that the radios on the ground were gone and only a couple of firefighters were fending off destruction of a historic lodge and retreat center. The next couple of days we were part of an informal network, trying to guess from Forest Service maps which of our cabins had gone up in smoke. We guessed and said goodbye to one summer home after another via chats. Months later we finally learned that 69 burned. The mystery of the one that remained has yet to be solved.

It’s been three years since what has come to be called the Labor Day Conflagration of 2020, which drove those faraway fires to burn that entire valley and so many more throughout the West.

I refused to return to the site of destruction when my husband and others made trips there. I simply wasn’t ready. This allowed me to create an untouchable cabin tableau in which every corner of my mind is filled with sentimental objects from a century of family life. This included family quilts, even the one we once huddled under after we first made love in his college apartment. In the corner was an irreplaceable handmade cajon my husband bought on the street in Havana from a Cuban drummer, and the walls were covered with maps of the area and original art created by friends. All alive now, preserved only my memory. Beautiful and inviolate forever.

Last weekend I finally returned to the burn. When we arrived at the knoll that once held our summer home, the sky was open and the nearby mountaintops were suddenly visible, a new backdrop to the mass graves of piled logs. Instead of being flattened by a sense of emptiness and loss as I had expected, I stepped into a familiar and soothing refrain: the buzzing and bumbling of dragonflies and horseflies, competing with jays and crows for airtime. Purple fireweed heathered all the clearings, their cheerfulness broken by black horizontal stripes of fallen wooden soldiers.

I looked up to see the shell of a tall tree that had once been the best view from our outhouse, as it stood tall pointing to the stars and moon. It was still vertical. Remembering how I once piled stones there, I reached down to find a sleek river rock, once black and now a mottled red. It was hot. I stood quietly, in awe of the power of fire, whether from the sun or wildfire. Ghosts of old growth cedar and yew and spruce and fir stood in silent sentry around us, witnesses of an older order.  There was some solace in the sheer force of destruction.

in the middle of the scene was a giant redwood snag I had called the Grandmother. She had been my mentor, my elder, my friend and meditation teacher for 17 years.I even introduced her to my real-life mother. Each time I had arrived at the cabin and each time I left, I had greeted her, honored her enormous life cycle, noticed how she was leaning but still unbowed, sheltering frilly ferns and thick moss at her base. And here now just beyond the clearing she leaned, her bark whitened above the flame mark, and yet her roots still held firm, deeply connected in the earth.

The deep well of destruction. The buzzing sounds of creation. All of this held in the enormity of a moment of Silence.

IMG 0625

Fireweed Dance

Yesterday I hobnobbed with ghosts,

danced on the grave of the ancient forest,

trucked with shadows from the trees. 

I did the fireweed dance 

The mullein dance, the dragonfly dance

On that place where something else once stood.

And then

 

for a still moment there was and there wasn’t

an absence of anything,

even that cabin with the shaky floors 

and the stained-glass skylights

once dwarfed by forest giants

now eloped, fused together forever

carried away 

by the mountain wind 

— SgB 2023

 

Life Is a Demanding Lover

This summer I turned a new page in my imagined book of life. Perhaps it’s even a new chapter. I’ve done the math so many ways: I’m entering the last quarter of my life (if I live to a hundred). Or, more realistically it’s the last one-sixth of life coming up (if I top out at ninety). In other words, I turned 75. 

It took me a while to come out because, for the first time in my life, I didn’t feel so proud of my age. Perhaps all the ageist humor about my generation has taken root in my head. Or maybe it’s the Post-it notes I unintentionally slap on to “people of that age,” a lifetime habit. Yesterday when I was at the hospital for a routine procedure, a nurse looked at my chart and asked if they got my age right and gave me a Girlfriend Thumbs-up.

For a long time now people have seemed sincerely surprised when I reveal my age, having assumed that I’m still in my youthful sixties. Or at least that’s what they say. So maybe I’m not the only one with the Post-It notes.

I spent most of the early summer in a Life Review Project. What a luxury to be able to take slow-down time to question childhood assumptions and discover lessons that life just keeps teaching me! The more I look inside, the more I see. I still have a host of other assumptions and beliefs about EVERYTHING having to do with aging. The truth is I’m fortunate to be reasonably healthy. As far as I know, no wicked cells are lurking in my body planning a coup. And, although my memory for details is sometimes hazy, it feels like something stronger has taken hold. Perhaps it’s wisdom, grounded in the losses of these years which serve as continual reminders of life’s impermanence. 

Besides, it’s very clear to me that my Eternal Self has no age whatsoever. She also doesn’t even have a name, she reminds me, usually with a wink.

A T-shirt caught my eye while I was on a recent ramble. Reality is a Demanding Lover, it said. The phrase resonates like a Zen koan.  I remember all the times I’ve bet against Reality and lost, discovering in the process what it takes to truly cooperate with Life. The longer I think, the more I notice myself writing another, equal, message, perhaps for the back of the T-shirt: Reality is a Generous Lover. 

And I know both are true. Life has sometimes slapped me with demands that I never would have believed that that I would be able to meet. And then it has generously showed me that there is more than enough support to meet it all.  The more often I surrender to reality, the easier life goes. And so I surrender once more. When all is said and done, my initiation to the last one-sixth of my life has left me with more clarity. I’m officially committing to spend the rest of my life learning to love life better, whether reality is demanding or generous. I’m down for all of it.

May your passages be as gentle.

  • ——

Wounded Love

     I

Last night a drawing caught my fancy.

Wounded Man.

500 years old, 

A cookie cutter outline of a human form

Impaled by knives,

by swords, by arrows 

pierced ten, twenty times, more, 

soon to become an index for the very

first doctors.

Wound Woman,

I thought,

That’s what I feel like today,

I see this body,

riddled as it is 

by wear,

by steps and missteps

held together

for a time

by miracles

and titanium.

I think of this

brave heart, 

how it expands

again, again, again after each break.

I looked down to see 

a landscape carved by life.

In gratitude,

I call all of this Me.

              II

I take Me out to a concert in the park.

How’s your summer going?

The standard greeting rushes out

when I see my

long-missed friend.

Then, remembering his body’s battle with cancer, 

I tender the next question

How are you feeling?

Okay, he answers, 

on the weeks I don’t have chemo,

That’s half the time, 

which is pretty good.

He tells me of trips to see his sons, 

stare at the stars, listen to music

savor the company of friends

How do you keep going?  I ask, 

suddenly aware of my complaints 

of creakiness and fatigue.

He gently holds my eye.

I love life, he says simply.

And that answer catches the breath

and still rings bright and true

as summer breeze turns to fall.

— SgB 2023

Lessons from a Rescue

April, 2007.

I retrieve the local paper from the driveway. Page 1 is filled with accounts of a puppy mill raid. About ninety designer mutts in desperate need of foster families. The single-wide trailer where they procreated and fought and chewed through the floor to find food was now emptied, the owner awaiting trial for the second time.

It’s my first morning back from an intensive life coach training, and I’m definitely on the lookout for coincidences. The leader of the course, a famous writer, was known for something she called the Technology of Magic. She wrote Get a Dog! on the title page of my copy of her new book. This puppy mill coincidence seemed pretty magical, so I head down to the shelter, curious but not convinced.

I get there to find cages with various combinations of Maltese, Yorkie, Chihuahua, and Papillon mutts stacked into a very unstable doggie high rise that rose to the ceiling. It’s a frantic, chaotic scene. Some of the animals are starved skinny. All are barking. 

I’ll just look for one that’s not barking, I thought. And there he was, poised at the entrance to a crate full of fuzzy mutts, sitting calmly and gazing around him like a Beanie Baby Buddha.

Then we found out he was only about eight weeks old. No problem, said my inner genius. He’s too young to be messed up by his surroundings, given some good training. And so we took him home to “foster,” (My family used air quotes too). Once there, I gave him a bit of water and kibble. His eyes lit up. “My person” could’ve been written in neon over my head in dog writing.

And that is how it was for the next 16 years. Within days he figured out that his main job was to be a therapy dog in the Oasis. And I’ve been accompanied by a little white shadow ever since.  Forget about privacy. Doors not firmly shut would be likely nudged open by a nose during one of his ongoing sweeps of the house.

He was eye candy his entire life, from an irresistible puppy, to a stately, 15-pound senior. We called him Calvin for his cowlick hairdo, his wide-eyes and mischievous nature.

It didn’t take long after we got him before we discovered that his anxious attachment to me was becoming a problem. He occasionally nipped people who hugged me, so I stopped hugging my friends when I encountered them on the bike path outside our house.

Experts were called in. Training commenced, with spotty results. He nearly got himself killed in the dog park when he squared off against a German Shepherd. This was before he got his testicles out, but he held a grudge for pointy-ears his whole life. And that life ended naturally last month.

During his lifetime, Calvin must have nipped or bit at least ten people, most of whom were admiring what a cute little dog he was. Only two reported him. This earned him a tag labeling him dangerous. That tag is on his collar on the mantel now, right beside a hand carved box with his ashes and a snip of his soft white hair. And a beautiful memorial portrait on a Christmas ornament hand painted by his admirer, Liz-e. His hypervigilance is over, and he is at rest.

Being Calvin’s person taught me many lessons, but the biggest I think is this: Never underestimate the power of early childhood (or puppyhood) trauma. The neural pathways established in the very earliest stages of life never quite go away. But if we can meet the victims with something like the patience and devotion that our pet offers us, our hearts grow a bit wiser, kinder and more compassionate. And that compassion can extend even toward ourselves as our own hearts heal from life’s inevitable losses.

Runaway Rescue! (Resolution Revolution)

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

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