expectations

THE ART OF RESTING IN THE NOTHING

Sunday morning I heard and saw my spruce trees whispered to me as I stood by the window.  A feeling of calm and knowing came over me. Everything is going to be alright. The message became clearer later when I was watching Oprah on Super Soul Sunday. She was interviewing Shauna Niequist on her new book, Present Over Perfect. While I got over being impressed by Shauna in a hurry, her one sentence stayed with me. ‘Listen to your life.’

I have not been listening. I felt the danger of listening and hearing. I would then have to act on what it is that I’m hearing from me. There’s always this urge to run and run fast, stick my head under the pillow, put my fingers in my ears and go lalalalala! Catch me when you can. I think I’ve been caught. I don’t feel trapped. I’ve finally stop running. That is all. I’m out of breath, exhausted by my efforts. It doesn’t work anyways. Underneath the ignored knowing is all that unease fighting to get out.

I’ve been feeling all the fatigue, the aches and pains of futile efforts in this part of the year. Maybe it is January. Maybe it’s my SAD. Today I’ve given up and in to the struggle. I don’t have to keep a stiff upper lip. I am not British after all. I am allowing all my feelings their freedom. They have a right to be heard. All the emotions – sad, glad, mad, every shade, are part of the human equation. I suppose we all feel a sense of shame and failure when we can’t live up to our own expectations. I know I do.

Today I’m takings off my Wonder Woman costume. I’m tired of leaping over tall buildings and holding up the world. My shoulders are sore. My tiara and boots need polishing. My lasso needs repairing. I’m not young anymore either. There’s grey in my hair and crow’s feet around my eyes. I need to hang up my rescue gear alongside the nurse’s duty shoes. I need to rest in the retirement of my careers. Drop all that busyness of distraction. Listen to the spruce trees talk. Hear what my life is telling me. Rest in the nothing of the day. There is nothing that I have to do and nowhere that I have to go. I can hear the sound of my one hand clapping. It is my life calling.

                          Love After Love

The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life. 

THE SHORT OF IT…OR LETTING GO

So I tend to hang on to things, like clutter…of all kinds.  I have a difficult time of letting go.  I’m like Sheba with a bone.  It is said that it is really not about the stuff, but something else.  So what is it, then?  Do I know?

I find everything hard, even breathing nowadays.  I have gained back the whole nine yards and probably more that I have lost when I first got Sheba.  It is hard to maintain that pace, or so I like to tell myself.  I guess you might say I’m a bit down in the dump with winter rearing its ugly head.  The morning is dark, dark till 8 am.  It is hard to drag my butt out of bed in a cheerful manner.  But being an adult, I still TRY to do my best even though I do feel like crying.

My phone is ringing and I answer.  I am hoping that someone is calling just to chat….you know…how it used to be, when people call up each other for a visit?  But no, it is from someone who is doing research of some sort.  I am honest.  I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions for someone’s research project.  You might say I am somewhat melancholy, but what the heck?  Who needs to be brave and wear a cheerful front all the time?  It is still October and there is snow on the ground and everything is messy!

But I am brave!  I can still get out of bed in the morning, though not cheerfully.  I am not hopping up and down with joy but I am still interested.  I am still interested enough to get with the program, to get out of the house and face the world, to take care of business and to get my hair cut.  It is such a relief to be shorn.  It is symbolic action of some sort…. to rid myself of the excess, of the weight of unnecessary cargo.  I am letting go.

I am letting go of many things…excess hair, the need to fix everything for everyone, the need of doing the proper thing all the time, the need to live up to my own expectations.  I am letting go.  I am free falling.  I am creating my own serotonin.  I am creating joy.  I am also having a glass or two of wine.