True North

Veering off the worn foot path, walking towards the north, I placed one foot in front of the other, thinking I was walking in a straight line.  But the wooded floor sloped gentle down and the rolled back up again, and a large fallen log blocked my path.  Stopping after 50 yards I was already disoriented.  The twins, trailing behind, eagerly hoping we’d quickly reach their destination, were anxious with uncertainty  and hollered “Mom, are you sure this is safe?”  Quickly looking down at the GPS coordinates, I realized I had gone entirely wrong, too far south and towards the east, not north-west like we needed.   How could that have happened I wondered?  And then I realized what I did wrong.  I was allowing all the wrong things  to guide me.  Instead of turning towards the sky, and looking at the sun, instead of using the GPS,  I simply found an arbitrary land mark on the ground as it lay before me and headed for it, presuming that just because it looked right, it was.

Once I allowed the sun and GPS to be my guide, we found the cache quickly.  The children happily exchanged their treasures for ones contained within the hidden box and then chatted excitedly, skipping, pointing out trees, woodpeckers, and milkweed plants, talking about the fairy houses they want to build, and the excitement they had throughout the day finding all the hidden treasures as we ended our Geocaching adventure.

As I reflect back on that moment in the woods, I realized how people get lost.  They choose the wrong source of guidance.  I am struck by the poignancy of that analogy  for my own life.  Rather than allowing faith, hope, and love to guide my me, steadying my stride, allowing me to firmly walk towards the path of righteousness, I instead, frantically ran away from fear, sadness, and pain, looking over my shoulder more than I looked ahead, as if trying to out run a beast, straying from every path I crossed, too scared to think.   Once I finally stopped running, it was as if I were standing in the middle of a wooded forest, unable to see the sun, with no way to know which direction was true north.  I stood, no longer running, but lost and disoriented, confused and unsure, tired, cold, and hungry.  No visible path in sight, what is a person to do?  No longer being chased by a monster the immediate threat of mortal danger had passed, but wandering lost and alone in the woods is surely another way to die.

It all seems so clear to me in hindsight, exactly how this happened, and how I’m finding my way.  I got on my knees and prayed.  I allowed my faith to be my compass, and now I’ve stopped looking for a treasure  and running from beasts.  Instead, I walk, one step at a time and allowing (or trying at least) my path to be the treasure itself.  The fact that I am alive, that I can soak in the sun and breath the crisp autumn air is a treasure indeed.  My pace has slowed down quite a bit since the days or running frantically away from my pain.  Some days it seems I’m getting no where fast, but yet I still notice all the things that I missed before while rushing about.  But most importantly, by slowing my pace and turning to a wise and safe navigational guide, I know where true north lies, and  I am finding my way.  I know there will be obstacles that block  my path, like a deep ravine  or  gushing river, but those will be challenges brought on by life and not ones that I’ve caused or made worse for myself.

All Sales Are Final

I looked in the mirror today and I was surprised by what I found.  I noticed the angle in which  my face appeared flattered the delicate line of my nose, the squareness of my chin was less pronounced now that my cheeks are full and plush, no longer sunken and hallow like that of an emaciated waif.  My soft brown hair, pulled back in a make shift bun had recently highlighted strands of blond falling and resting along the side of my face.  The eyes that were wide open and staring back at me were a deep, but sad shade of blue.   But yet I saw beauty in my reflection.   Despite the gain of 50 lbs and the plumpness of my belly and thighs, I saw my heart in that image, and for the moment, I loved myself.

The irony of seeing this self-image is that it comes at a time when I am surrounded by so much chaos, with debris and shrapnel exploding all around me.  The carnage and hurt that I’ve caused feels like an avalanche, you can’t outrun it, and soon I’ll be buried.  If ever there were a time to feel self hatred towards myself, now would be the time.  So, I was perplexed that when I looked in the mirror,  instead of experiencing a longing to inflict some deep and prolonged pain onto myself, I saw the truth and saw the beauty within my heart.

I stared in that mirror for a long time, trying to feel some hatred towards myself.  But, it was not there.  I am angry with myself.  I am disappointed.  I hate what I’ve done.  But I didn’t hate myself, but rather I simply for gave myself even though I look to my left, and then to my right and see the wake of destruction  in my path.  The expense of this moment of peace, perhaps, far exceeds the value of obtaining it.  But  “all sales are final” there’s no going back, there’s no way to undo the price that I’ve paid for this insight.  But because I have learned how to love I understand that I must carry on this path that I started, honoring the love that I have hurt so badly.  I’ve begun my journey towards redemption, so I must carry on without going back,  because …”all sales are final.”

Zero Karma

The psychiatrist told me that I was 90% sane also said something else that sticks in my mind and gives me pause to think at times when my mind turns hostile on me.  He said “Look, it isn’t like you killed anybody.”  I think about that often.  No, I didn’t kill anyone.  I’ve hurt people badly, but they still live.  Because the degree of anguish I feel related to my guilt is so great at times, I often wonder how people who accidentally or unintentionally committed manslaughter find a way to survive.  If they are feeling a degree of remorse that is consistent with their crime, I feel compassion for them, which in no way is meant to minimize the pain and grief of loss felt by the families of the victims.   About a year or so ago I read “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb.  It tells the story of a woman who commits vehicular manslaughter while under the influence of prescription narcotics, which she became addicted to after her experience in the Columbine shooting.  She became stuck in her mental anguish, the guilt and terror crippled her.  Instead of redeeming herself, she slowly drowned in her own despair, never compensating for the wrong she committed.

I think of that novel and the fact that scenarios like that play out all the time.  What good does feeling guilty and remorseful do if I simply wallow in fear and self pity?  If I fail to act, if I fail to become a better, stronger, more thoughtful, compassionate person, then I’m not redeeming myself, I’m not doing the world a service.  Perhaps I speak of Karma. Maybe it really does exist.  When I went to that psychic, and I hesitate to even reference it, but she said my Karmic level was zero, my lesson in this life is free will.   For a while I tried to figure out what a level of zero meant.  With no success I finally gave up and decided that the whole concept was in contrast to the Catholic faith and decided just to put it all out of my mind.  But, the other day at work I was speaking with the Indian friend I know.  He practices Buddhism and is a Hare Krishna and he mentioned Karma to me.  So I asked him what it meant.  He looked at me and said “You have no Karma left.  You’ve used up all your good Karma.”   My stomach dropped the way it would on the down hill slope of a roller coaster.  I felt sick to my stomach.  I had thought before that at least it meant I didn’t have any bad Karma, but the way he worded it made me feel sick.   Who ever I’ve been, what ever I’ve done, in this life or in the past, must have been pretty lousy and bad.

If I believe that we sign up for the burdens in our life and if I believe that my life lesson is free will, then it makes sense that I’d have a Karmic level of zero.  “Here you go” says life, “You get a clean slate to choose who you want to be, but your life will be challenging, you will suffer pain with no good Karma to buffer it, but no bad Karma to make it worse.  Live your life and decide who you want to be…then be it.”  But isn’t that what we are all supposed to do any way?

Again the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi floods into my mind.  “Lord, make me a channel of your peace.  Where there is hatred, let me sow love…”  The self control and commitment to be that person, the person who responds to anger with kindness and love, who puts their hurts and sadness aside to comfort the pain of others is the antithesis of who I’ve been through out my life.  I feel the weight of the shame and the sorrow that accompanies this realization, but it doesn’t change what I must do or who I want to be.  As I start my day I think…Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, let me sow love Lord, please grant me the courage and strength to accomplish that task.

Learned Optimism

I have a cousin William.   Although we’ve grown up separately only seeing each other a few times in our youth, we’ve lived mirror lives, unbeknownst to us.  Charismatic, intelligent and warm hearted, with the same  desire to leave the world a better place for having graced it, he’s burdened with the same anxiety, sense of inadequacy, and unguided driveness that fuels impulsivity and foolish mistakes.   While his physical features resemble that of his father and not my aunt, my features are strikingly more similar to our grandfather, but yet we share our grandmother’s mental DNA.

Like a scientific study of twins separated at birth, the similarities between us speaks to the power of genetics and the impact of family dynamics.  Our mothers, who were sisters, recreated the same environments and family dynamics with out ever really speaking.  To what degree things were different or worse for either of us really doesn’t matter, because we both hurt just the same.  Begrudgingly, we’ve become products of our environments.

In the the 1960-70’s famed psychologist, Martin Seligman coined the phrase “learned helplessness” to describe the phenomenon in which animals give up their attempts to avoid adverse experience because they believe there is no way to avoid it.  Locked in a room with no escape, they suffered electrical shocks again and again.  Believing they were utterly helpless to escape their pain, they eventually stopped trying to avoid pain or escape, even when a door was wide open before them.  Instead they just adapted and braced themselves for the painful stimulus, rolling over on their back and placing their feet up in the air because electrical shocks hurt their back less then it did on the tender pads of their paws.  They adapted to survive but failed to see the opportunity to escape.  This term applies to humans as well, but in humans our minds take things one step further and we tend to blame ourselves when the things go wrong.  We suffer pain and it is our own fault.  Learned helplessness.  It should be a diagnosis that exists in one of those big manuals used like a cookbook to label individual inflictions.

Voices in my mind rage at me right now: “What do you mean I could have made a different decision?”  “What?! I had other options?” “You mean I could have avoided all this pain and I didn’t have to be this way?”  So many times the doors to escaping my madness was open before, me but  I just lay on my back, hands in the air waiting for my electrical shock.  Separated by thousands of miles, growing up not knowing me, William’s done the same thing.

While our addictive behaviors and actions aren’t connected to illicit drugs or alcohol, we both developed unhealthy ways to cope with our distress.  Speaking to him yesterday made me understand why people in recovery from addiction need to find a sponsor, someone who has walked the path and can hold out their hand, supporting and encouraging, without judging when we fall.

Changing is uncomfortable and usually hurts, but so does getting shocked when you do nothing about it.  I remember how it felt when I started to understand this.   My world and reality swirled around me, feeling groundless with nothing solid beneath my feet.  I  began to understand that I had a choice and could change.  The world and  others in it were not the way I thought, and it turned out that my survival behaviors actually made the situation worse.  Slowly I’ve began to realize how and why I hurt and that allows me to learn how to stop and change.   The thing I never understood was that every time I gave up and allowed myself to endure the electric shock, it wasn’t just me who felt the pain, it hurt those around me.

Late in his career Seligman began to add to his theory and identified the flip side of helplessness and described what he called  learned optimism.  The notion that things are not always our fault, but yet we are still responsible for getting ourselves out of the situation that we are in.  So, I’ve learned that when a door is wide open, take a step outside.  Do not be frightened by the vastness of the world beyond your cage.  I know it hurts to stretch your arms and it takes time for your eyes to adjust to the bright light of the new world that you will see, but if you take advantage of the chance  you’ve been given, your hurt and anxiety can start to subside and that will bring comfort to those you love as well.

A Quiet Night

Tonight was a night reminiscent of a scene on television from the shows I watched in my childhood.  Always having chaos, anger, strife, and noise in my childhood home, I often imagined that normal families really were like the ones on “Leave it to Beaver” or “My Three Sons.”   Being the first Friday of the school year, we celebrated with Chinese take out.   The four of us sat around the kitchen table, each armed with chop sticks. My husband and I managed well, but the children preferred to impale their chunks of deep fried chicken with a single chop stick,  using it as if it were a skewer and then proceeded to dip the meat  into the starchy neon orange sweet and sour sauce while we talked about their experiences at school.

Then we baked chocolate chip cookies for dessert.  (Notice I said baked not made. I admit it, we used pre-made refrigerated dough.)

Then I folded laundry while the children took their showers.  As usual, my daughter maneuvered her way into the bathroom down stairs, which she prefers because the water pressure is better.  After folding the laundry my husband and I sat in the living room and had a conversation about our work days, with the only interruption being the sounds of a happy little girl singing sweetly in the shower:   “I will love you forever and ever, love you with all my heart; love you when we’re together; love you when we’re apart,” surprising me with the clarity in which she articulated her words and how strongly she sang the tune.  She sang in the manner in which a child sings with all the confidence in the world, unaware and unconcerned with the off key notes or missed beats.

I stopped  and took a mental snap shot of that moment.  There was no television on.  No radio on.  No computer on.  No telephones ringing.  No arguing.  No crying.  Just simple conversation interrupted only by the song of a child.  I was struck by the weightlessness and simplicity  of that moment.  The quietness of it softened and cushioned the air around me, brightening the light within me a bit.

This evening I’ve been granted a reprieve from the darkness and angst that stalks me.  I am thankful for it.  Thankful for the hard work that has gotten me to this point.  Thankful for the love and patience I’ve received that enables my growth.  But mostly thankful for the power inherent in the human capacity to forgive, or to at least try.

2nd Grade Jitters

“Mom…you have to sign up to be able to go to the bathroom.  What if I can’t remember where it is?”   To make matters worse, not only does tomorrow mark the first day of the second grade, the grade in which bathrooms are no longer located within the classroom, but the twins are entering separate classrooms for the first time in their life.   My daughter said “Mom, my brother isn’t going to be there to remind me where things are anymore.”  I think of how anxiety provoking that must be for them.  They’ve been together every day of their life with the exception of the 9 long days my son spent in the NICU after birth.

My breath rattles and shakes as I inhale, trembling for them.   I remember those first day jitters myself and I didn’t have to worry about being separated from a companion who had been present every day of my young life.   As I tucked them each into bed, I tightly hugged them and gently kissed their cheeks, reassuring them that I would walk them both to their classroom to make sure they found it okay and that we would locate the bathrooms before class started so they knew how to find their way. I reminded them that I had clean shorts and underwear hidden at the bottom of their bag where no body would notice, but they’d be there just for an emergency.  I think back to the first time they had to ride the school bus while in kindergarten and some how they got separated en route from the bus to class.   My daughter stood crying in the middle of a stream of happy children, when the assistant principal asked her what was wrong, she simply sobbed “I’ve lost my brother”  while he navigated his way to the end of the building, beaming with pride over his accomplishment only to be heartbroken by the sudden realization that she had not made it along with him.  He began to cry as well, quietly stating to the teacher “I’ve lost my sister.”

Faced with a new set of concerns this year, as I wrapped his blankets around him, my son softly spoke, almost a whisper, his voice cracking as he choked back tears “But what if I get sent to the  Principal’s office?”

“Well, then you will have to go, but even if you do,  your daddy and I will love you anyway”  I said, kissing his cheek.

I didn’t think I was anxious or worried about them returning to school until I heard the trepidation in their voices.   There is nothing like parenthood to make a person feel utterly helpless.  I run through the mental checklist that I imagine is necessary to ensure that I am buffering their discomfort and that I am functioning like a  somewhat competent parent:   School supplies (check); pencil box (check); snazzy new outfit (check); new sneakers (check); water bottles (check); tissues (check);  home made lunch packed with love containing a balance of healthy foods and sugar (check);  greeting card surreptitiously placed into their lunch boxes with enough of “x’s” and “o’s”  to let them know Mommy and Daddy love them, filled with a few quarters and stickers (check…check)…and still I feel helpless.

Like a mother bird kicking her baby out of the nest uncertain whether it will fly or crash, I am nervous for them but know that I need to let them spread their wings and fly. . and I am sure that their flight will be magnificent, as soon as I can get that cushioning to break their fall, strap on their safety helmet and cheer them on enthusiastically…you can do it kids, I know you can…

Trying to Channel Peace

“Make me a channel of your peace…”  These words, set to verse in a liturgical hymn,  flow rhythmically, undulating through my mind. This prayer, the one  of Saint Francis of Assisi has replaced the Serenity Prayer as the daily verse I cling to in effort to support my conscience as it continues to evolve.  I thought those words as I sat through the Grief Support group last week, feeling like a foal in a heard of stallions.   As the women take turns introducing themselves sharing the tragic sources of their grief, I meekly introduced myself “Hi, I’m Leigh, I’m a volunteer”  What can  I possibly say to these women who have suffered such formidable losses over the course of their lives? To be in your 50’s and be predeceased by your husband and daughter while watching a grandchild battle cancer is unfathomable to me.   I sit, humbled by their visible pain and am reminded how little I know about life.   As I listened to a women describe the way that she found her daughter’s body I thought “God, grant me wisdom to comfort her.”  And then later that day I thought it again, as I listened to Grandma talk about Aunt Bev’s growing cancer.  I watched as she grimaced and winced in pain as her  bruised and bloodied face and hands caused her aged body to ache.  Her wounds are the aftermath of falling from bed and I can’t imagine a life where danger confronts you even as you sleep.  I thought the words again “make me a channel of your peace….not to seek to be consoled but to console…”  I whispered the prayer a few days later when I had explain to the pretty, kind young girl who works at my office that the man who gave her a flower had just arrested and had been planning a violent assault.  And I thought it again when I saw the normal, innocent pain of disappointment on my son’s face as a single tear dripped down his cheek because after calling  five friends, and no one could come over to play.  Again and again I thought “Dear God, let me bring  comfort to them ”  yet it never feels as if I can offer enough.

I wonder often, does a person have to be at peace to be a channel of it?  Can I feel such weighted sorrow and sadness, yet contain it enough that I can  still bring comfort to others?  I pondered that question but recognize that in doing so, my thoughts  to drift towards the edge of self-pity.  Reflecting on all the ways I used to avoided feeling such heaviness, I accept that I have begun to “de-crap” and simplify my life.  But in doing I have more time on my hands than I have allowed before.  Some days pass painfully slow, feeling as long as a week.   I’ve been stripped of all my past coping mechanisms, I simply sit like a man in solitary confinement, paying his dues, the retributions for his past mistakes.   To pass idle time my mind began to comfort itself, playing a loved and favorite familiar word game, one that I’ve played since I was my children’s age.   I simply pick a letter and try to think of as many words that start with it as I can.   Since the tension at home is constantly vacillating from bad to well, not so bad at times, it doesn’t surprise me that words that I unconsciously chose was a “D,” yet the word that describes the irreparable damage of a marriage waste land remains no where on my list.  So, how many words did I think of that start with a “D” and describe how I feel at the moment?  Downtrodden, despondent, depressed and despair.  Dispirited, distraught, dissonant, dissociative, deluded, distorted.  Down in the dumps. Dejected, dangerous, deranged…disposable… and the one that’s my favorite…I feel like a contagious disease.

With all those “D” words rattling my brain I almost didn’t hear my daughter singing.  My beautiful angel of a daughter, her imperfections perfect for their existence, yet balanced with grace, love, and her intelligence.  Then I remembered the conversation we had in church today.

She asked me “Mama?  Why do we have to be quiet in church?”

I answered “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you can listen twice as much as you talk.”

“God talks to us?” she asked, wide eyed and curious?

“Yes” I replied.  “And church is the best place to hear him, but we can not hear what he is saying if we are too busy talking ourselves.”

Remembering my own words, I grew quiet and gave God the chance to come up with some “D” words of his own.  “Dig deep, dear daughter, do not doubt or despair.   Christ’s divinity has already paid your debts, so do not delay or dawdle in this darkness.  Day by day  your devotion and diligence pay dues, your duties are done.  God does delight in you…”

Bowing my head and closing my eyes, I whisper a word that starts with a “T” instead of a “D” … thank you.