For these things, we are thankful…

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Tomorrow morning will mark exactly a week since I packed my remaining possessions in my car and turned over the keys to my apartment. In that week, I have realized that I kept too much stuff. I drive a small SUV and had to put the seats down flat to fit everything in the back. Yesterday, I cut that amount in half. I think tomorrow, I might cut it in half again.

It is amazing how little we really need. But what was more shocking for me to realize was that all those things I held onto because “I might need them someday” were not only cluttering up my life, they were affecting my ability to let go of the past and move on. Even more profoundly revealing was the idea that many of those items could be used by someone who actually DOES need them right now, not just some hypothetical day in the future. And that person will have to go buy that same item. So now, I have an item that I am not using and there is another identical item that had to be produced, an item that used up more of the planet’s resources and another person’s financial resources to purchase it. All the while, the item sat in my home, unused, unneeded and taking up space. If we really want to save the planet and help our fellow man, we have to start by not hoarding stuff.

I also realized how easy it is, with all that stuff, to forget to give thanks for the important things. And I am not talking about people, they obviously are the most important parts of our lives, I am talking about being thankful for “things”. To figure out what is important, you have strip everything away and then add it back it to see the value it added to your life. For example, go two days without brushing your teeth and you will absolutely appreciate the value of your toothbrush.

When we allow our lives to be taken down to the bare essentials we find out what those essentials are. Today, I am thankful for being able to brush my teeth with clean water from a faucet, for freshly laundered underwear, and for electricity. I have a feeling that before my sabbatical is over, I will find that those things are luxuries.

The well of strength…

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I really appreciate hearing from people who are reading this blog.  I want to set the record straight and admit that I don’t actually have any answers to the mysteries of life.  The only thing I know is the path that I personally have walked to get here to this moment.

I struggle as much as anyone.  I struggle with insecurities, feelings of sadness and despair, of self-doubt and recriminations, and pretty much everything that a human being can struggle with.  One of the lessons I have learned in the past few years is that as human beings, we have a whole range of emotions.  The idea that we always need to be “happy” is not viable. In order to even understand what happy is you have to have felt sad at one time.  To understand joy, you need to understand despair.  They are all valid human emotions and in order to be centered, we have to understand and allow all of them to be part of us.  We have to embrace the sad as well as the happy.  It all just IS.

One thing that helps me through the dark times is a mantra, “the pain I go through today becomes the well of strength I will draw upon tomorrow.”   Adversity is a great catalyst for growth and you have to embrace the hard times as exercise for your emotions just like you would embrace a physical exercise program for the health of your body. It isn’t easy, but it will ultimately make you stronger.   Avoiding your problems weakens you.  Avoiding problems in relationships weakens the relationship. You have to face problems, as well as life, head on.

This weekend, I came over to eastern Washington to return some items to friends who I probably won’t see again until next year and to spend time at their cabin.  I brought a few friends over with me to do some hiking.  In the evenings, I sat and listened to the intellectual discussion of my extremely intelligent friends swirl around me. I laughed with them at the humorous anecdotes they shared.  I listened to their stories of heartbreak and their hopes for the future.  I felt the joy of their love for each other and for me.  At the same time, I knew that those moments weren’t going to happen again for a long time with this group of people, if they ever happen again. P1030314

As I prepare to embark on this journey, saying goodbye even temporarily is by far the hardest thing I have had to do.  Leaving people you love is difficult for all of us.  We long for them and grieve that we can’t be with them.  Those emotions of longing and sadness are the price we pay for loving people.  I would rather sit with my sadness and longing and feel it deep in my soul than give up one moment of the joy of being loved by my friends.

White sand days…

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One of my favorite analogies about life was shared with me from my friend Pat.  I was really struggling with letting go of past hurts and disappointments.  Pat asked me why I was devoting so much energy to trying to change those things that can’t be changed, no matter how much I wished them to be different.  Then he told me his analogy of the hourglass.

We all have an hourglass that represents the length of our lives.  The hourglass has clear sand it, we don’t know how much is in there or when our lives will end.  The moment we are born, the hourglass is flipped upside down and the sand starts running through.  When it comes out, each grain is either white or black. It is white during those times that we are appreciating our lives, being good human beings, making good choices, etc.  It is black when we are stuck in the past, complaining, being mean…you get the idea.  So all of us, when we look at the sand of the part of our lives we have lived already, have some shade of gray.  None of us has been either all good or all bad in how we deal with things, we are all somewhere in between.

Here is the thing…We can’t control the amount of clear sand that is in the hourglass, it is a finite amount and could run out anytime. We have to live our lives today, this isn’t a dress rehearsal. We also can’t take the sand that already came out and change its color.  It is either white or black, it has already happened and we can’t go back in time. We have to accept what life is right now because the only thing accomplished by wishing for the black sand to be white is to make more black sand fall as we waste our lives on regret.  The only thing that we can control in that equation is the neck of the hourglass, this moment.  So I began to ask myself when I woke up in the morning, “Robin, is this going to be a white sand day or a black sand day? How do you want to live your life right now at this moment.”  That line of thinking has totally changed my life.  Thanks Pat.

So today, my first day of homelessness, I woke up late and went on a spectacular bike ride.  I am still struggling to find a photo client that I like for displaying pictures, but here are a few from my ride.  It is definitely a white sand day.

P1030305 P1030296 P1030292 P1030288 P1030287 P1030279 P1030275 P1030274 P1030264 P1030256 P1030238 P1030236 P1030234 P1030233 P1030228

Fear is Where the Fun Starts

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I was an unwed pregnant teen at 17 years old and my son was born a month after I turned 18. I learned pretty quickly that life isn’t easy for young, single mothers. I had to quit my job at a shoe factory because I didn’t have daycare. Soon after, I lost my apartment and I was homeless for the first time in my life.

The first night you spend on the street is one of the scariest nights of your life. Then it gets easier, you find regular places to sleep and people to hang around with that you can trust. The unnerving part is that so much of your energy is devoted to safety. It is hard to have the capacity to look for work when you have to spend so much time just looking for food, shelter, and warmth. When you have an infant who is depending on you, the insecurity of meeting basic needs is even greater.

Tomorrow, for the first time in over 30 years, at 49 years old, I will be homeless again. This time it will be because of choice not necessity, yet even so, I stand here on the precipice of being divided by zero again. My stuff has been given away, my apartment cleaned, my car is packed. I turn the keys over at 11 am and for the next year will have no place that to call “mine”, no place to nest or feel safe from the world. It is a scary and daunting place to be. For a long time I have wondered if I can actually do it or if I will cave to the illusion of safety that our houses create. There is only one way to find out…face the fear and do that which scares me most.

Everyone who knows me describes my character as someone who will whine the whole way up the ladder of a high dive, complaining the whole time that I can’t do it. But when I reach the top, I just jump. No fanfare, no explanation, no coaxing required. The process of climbing and complaining is my way of convincing and reassuring myself that the course of action I am on is where I want to be. Once I reach it, if I haven’t turned back, there is only one choice…jump. Tonight I am jumping. Tonight I am facing the fear, telling it hell no, and taking the risk anyway.

During one of the times that I was whining about doing some crazy activity that my friend Matt got me into, I told him how afraid I was. He looked at me with that gleam in his eye and said “feels good doesn’t it?” When I answered “not really”, Matt countered with “Robin, fear is where the fun starts. It is when you are at that edge of out of control that you are most fully alive”. And he was right, it does feel good. It pushes you to the edge of comfort and engages your mind and body in a way that safety never can. It makes all your senses come alive.

If you are stuck in a rut or want to make changes in your life, start with finding something you are afraid of and face it. It doesn’t have to be an adventure sport or even a risky activity. It could be something as simple as trying a new food or learning how to parallel park or even being vulnerable and authentic with your partner. It is something that pushes you out of your comfort, where you feel unsafe. Any activity that makes your heart pound and gives you that amazing sense of accomplishment when you have completed it…go do it. It is the first step to moving forward.

Face the fear because fear is where the fun starts.

The encouraging thing is that every time you meet a situation, though you may think at the time it is an impossibility and you go through the tortures of the damned, once you have met it and lived through it you find that forever after you are freer than you ever were before. If you can live through that you can live through anything. You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face.

You are able to say to yourself, `I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’
The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it. If you fail anywhere along the line, it will take away your confidence. You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn By Living (1960)

My Rock

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The time has come. All my “stuff” has been culled. I now have some gear stored at a friend’s house, a few boxes with pictures and mementos in my office, one bag of clothes, my bike, and my rock. stuff

The rock in the picture is red granite. It is very heavy and it isn’t going with me, I am going to put it in my office. I found the rock on a beach in Canada one summer when I was a little girl. We were on a family vacation and my dad convinced my sister and I that the rock was really a petrified dinosaur egg. He brought the rock home and we used it as a doorstop at our summer home on a lake in Maine when I was growing up. I believed that story and told it to my friends when they came over. I remember feeling so gullible when I found out it was a rock, but I knew how much of a tease and practical joker my dad was so I wasn’t really upset about it, I should have known better. I know I probably should give up the rock, but I just can’t.

The rock and all my other possessions that I am keeping are just symbols. They aren’t what really is important in life, they are just reminders of what is important. My real rocks are my family and friends, the people I love and who love me. My dad is gone now, but the rock is a symbol of the love he had for me. He loved me enough to tell me that story and carry this heavy rock all the way up the beach, took it back to Maine, and then kept it all those years while I was growing up.

It has been really hard saying goodbye to my friends. I am going to miss them more than they will ever know. Even harder is saying goodbye to my beautiful daughter whose amazing spirit and love for the world around her has kept me going for the last 5 years. She and I have a special bond which was born in the fires of adversity. We have laughed more the last week than we have in a long time, knowing the time is coming to say goodbye. She is a really special person.

The big revelation for me was understanding that she, and my friends, are going to miss me as much as I am going to miss them. It made me feel loved. I know they are cheering me on, but I also know that it leaves a hole for them and it makes me sad. The world is a small place and although I might not be physically present, I will be connected through Facebook, this blog, and hopefully some phone calls and visits. I need my rocks in my life, even if I am far away. And they need me.

Adventures with Nana

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I remember very clearly what I was doing on this day 2 years ago.  I sat in my apartment on pins and needles waiting while 3000 miles away, my two beautiful granddaughters were being born.  spring-29Their names are Brooklyn and Charlotte and they are the most amazing, intelligent, beautiful, loving grandchildren on the whole planet. 

I sat here that day, waiting…and waiting…and waiting. I find that it is especially hard to be away from family during times that elicit strong emotions, things like births, weddings, and funerals.  You sit alone and wait for news while people who are physically there are caught up in the event and don’t necessarily have time or the capacity to send out notifications. But the really hard part is wanting someone to share the emotion with, someone who will feel the joy or the sorrow with you, someone to cry with, someone to hug. One of the hardest things about my relationship with Brooklyn & Charlotte is being the grandparent who is “from away”. Their other three grandparents live nearby and see them often so have stronger bonds with them as a result. I have to admit I am envious.

When my son and my daughter-in-law chose the girls’ names, I figured out a way that I could have a special bond with them of my own. I looked up the names Brooklyn and Charlotte as cities. There are 8 towns named Brooklyn and 6 named Charlotte in the U.S. So when the girls get to be about 7 years old, every summer we are going to take a vacation. Welcome-to-Brooklyn-Highway-Sign welcomeWe are going to go two towns, one of each. We are going to have our pictures taken next to the Welcome to Brooklyn or Welcome to Charlotte sign, do a little cycling, and figure out the special things those towns have to offer. I want the girls to realize that everywhere in the world is some place special. Adventure doesn’t have to be about traveling to exotic places, you can find adventure in your own backyard. The easiest way to be happy in a place is to look at where you live through the eyes of a tourist and find the interesting, funky things that make the place you live in special. That is the legacy I want to leave them with. I am calling these trips “Adventures with Nana”.

When you have children, you worry about everything. Where will they go to school, what if they get in trouble, what if they get a C in algebra, are they hanging around the “right” friends, etc. and those are all things you are supposed to worry about, that is what a parent’s job is. But when you are a grandparent, you only have one task, one thing to teach them about life. Your only job is to show them that, no matter what, they are worthy of love and belonging.

Happy 2nd birthday to my beautiful granddaughters. Nana loves you always and misses you more than you could ever imagine.

In the awkward intersections…

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Until I was about 44 years old, I was proper.  I conformed to the conventions of whatever group I happened to be with in an effort to blend in, adhere to the norms, and to not be singled out.  Our society and culture, as well as the social groups we belong to, put norms on what we can talk about, how we should act, how we should dress, what we should look like and who we should be friends with. And for all of our bravado of saying we don’t conform, this is something all of us do.  For example, there are few heterosexual men that will wear an evening gown, high heels, and makeup in public. We get embarrassed when someone is walking down the street wailing at the top of their lungs because public displays of emotions are frowned upon.  To be a “hipster” you have to look, act, and dress a certain way.  All of those things are examples of conforming.  I just have to say…screw that.

Dirty-FilterInstead of being proper, I have become a believer in filters.  Filters keep out what you don’t want and let in the parts that you do. For example, coffee filters keep the grounds out yet still let in the delicious coffee.  One day I was having a conversation with Matt about a ski meetup I had joined while he was travelling abroad. I was telling him that the challenging part was when driving to the mountain with a new carload of people each week and having the first superficial conversation over and over, i.e. what do you do, where are you from, etc.  I complained that it didn’t allow you to really get to know anyone more in-depth because you never got to any “meatier” discussions.  Matt’s response was “so just start with the 4th conversation”.  HUH, I don’t understand?  He said, “when they get in the car just start talking about poop, or your last sexual encounter, or your stand on women’s rights. If they ride with you again, they will be your friends.  If they jump out of the car, you’ll know they really aren’t people you want to hang around anyway.  It’s a filter.”

That made me think about all the really great friends I have and what attracted me to them.  In each case, the people I am closest to moved into my inner circle of friends by saying or doing something totally outrageous.  I love outrageous, unrestrained people. Who to hell wants to hang around boring, superficial, predictable people?  Oh yeah, other boring, superficial, predictable people do.  I want to be unpredictable so I look for other people to mirror that for me.

One of my favorite stories of a friend who is unrestrained and who I love dearly is my friend Jenny.  Jenny, Tracy and I all went skiing one Saturday morning. Tracy and I were friends but we didn’t really know Jenny that well.  When we got in the car, we all had a story we wanted to share about how great our week was. Tracy had something good happen at work, I got a new grant, but Jenny wanted to tell her story first.  Jenny said, “I had the best week. I met up with this guy I haven’t seen since I moved here. We made out at the bar, I brought him home, we had sex all night, then in the morning, we woke up, made bloody mary’s and stayed naked on the couch all day.”  Silence. Tracy and I looked at each other and, as one, said, “my news isn’t that interesting after all.”   How could we not fall in love and be friends with a person like Jenny?  She has this fantastic sense of self, of her needs, and of what is really important in life.  She is fabulous.  And most of the women who hear me tell that story all say “I want to do that” but very few ever will even attempt anything so bold.

Relationships take lots of work and honest, open communication. We all want to be seen in a good light, but you have to willing to be real and authentic with people always, from day one.  Even when it is hard and you don’t want people to know that you have made a mistake, done something stupid, or are having a crazy moment, you have to just put yourself out there anyway.  You will enjoy life a lot more if you can just be your unrestrained self with people that can be that way with you in return.  And that means in all your crazy glory, even wailing at the top of your lungs while walking down the street. The people who are truly your friends won’t shy away from that.  If they can’t handle the authentic you…well why would you even care what they think?  Authenticity is a filter, it filters out those who we want to keep in our lives from those who we need to let go so that they can find what they are looking for in someone else.

I believe that we are pretty spectacular people and that if we know ourselves, we can then introduce ourselves to others in an honest, fun, specifically quirky way as individuals who are comfortable with our awkwardness… and that’s usually where we connect with people– the awkward intersections. ~ Rachel

If you plant peas, you are going to get peas… ~Ella

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I am not sure why it is so hard for me to recognize that fact. It is a pretty simple thing to understand. We reap what we sow, so if we sow pea seeds, we can’t expect strawberries to pop up.

Like attracts like. Isn’t that the universal law of attraction? The people who are closest to us and the people who we are attracted to mirror who we are.  They reflect back our inner selves and we also act as mirrors to them.  You can tell a lot about a person when you look at the people who they value, the people who are closest to them.

I have said it before, I have the best friends ever. They are all men and women of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity.  I admire them greatly and feel like I am always striving to be like them. They challenge me to be my best.

What I tend to forget is that I act as their mirror also, it isn’t a one-way thing.  They are attracted to me for the qualities they see in me.  That is the hard part for me to accept because it blows all my inner doubts and issues of self-esteem out of the water.  Those self-doubts are of my own making.  I am planting peas.  If all I do is put out my fears, insecurities, self-doubts, I will cultivate people in my life that have those same doubts.  I will cultivate friends who don’t reflect my values.

The problem is, I am not living up to my end of the relationship bargain. I am expecting these incredible people to be supportive of my struggles and they are.  But in my insecurity and self-doubt, what I am not doing is supporting them in their struggles in return. I have to ask myself, when they need me to mirror back to them those same incredible qualities, am I doing my job?

Part of developing a new identity is deciding who I want to be. I have chosen these people to be my friends, so I am choosing those attributes as characteristics I want to mirror.  So it is time to step up and accept that is who I am.  I am a woman of courage, integrity, humor, compassion, thoughtfulness, deep feelings, and authenticity. I have been planting my crops and I will harvest what I have sown.  It is time to act like a grown woman and be the friend I need to be.

Marianne Williamson said it better than I ever could, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? … Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…. As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

It is harvest time.

Dear Santa…

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wedding pat & jess In the process of purging, I had to go through the “treasures” I have saved.  The first time I tried, I opened the cedar chest and saw my wedding dress.  I burst into tears and shut the lid. Since then, I have been avoiding it, trying to do other things first. Yesterday, my beautiful daughter came over and helped me.  We spent an hour laughing hysterically at the handmade cards and gifts my kids have made for each other and for me over the years.  There were mother’s day cards hailing my virtues as a mother, projects from school where they display their prowess as artists, boy scout and girl scout awards, awards for academic achievements and creative endeavors like dance, athletic awards, and funny cards I saved that they had made for each other.

I have two amazing children, Patrick who is 31 and Jessica who will soon be 26.  I love them with all my heart.  They are both physically stunning people, but it is who they are as human beings that makes them truly beautiful. What struck me yesterday as my daughter was here helping me pack and purge, was how funny they both are.  We were reading all these old cards and she was giving a running commentary about how much of a genius she was as a child and what a moron her brother (who she loves dearly) was. Two of their cards went like this:

Dear Jessica: “From a brother you like, I want you to know…Get out of my room or I will tell Mom. Happy Birthday.” ~Pat 
Dear Santa: “I have ben vera good. My bruther has been vera bad.” ~Jessica  

pat card jessica card 1 jessica card 2

Someone posted on my Facebook that moments like that, of Jessica and I laughing hysterically at the cards, were priceless.  I was reflecting on that and realized that my life has been filled with a lifetime of those moments.  I come from a family of siblings that could make you roll on the floor with laughter.  My children have inherited that same gift.  They take the most ordinary life events and have the capacity to see the humor in them.

That gift will serve them well in life.  They can take difficult and challenging times and turn them into laughter.  There is lots of research that laughter boosts energy levels and decreases stress. It also connects us to other people, lightens each other’s burdens, inspires hope, and keeps us balanced. Laughter is one of the greatest gifts we can give each other as human beings.
Make someone laugh today. And when they do, take a moment to enjoy the sound, to see the sparkle in their eyes, to appreciate the moment of joy.  It really is one of the most priceless moments of our lives.

stuffThis morning, I feel like the richest person on Earth.  Thanks for making me laugh Jess and for making this purging process a little easier.

Just Zen it, your body knows what to do. ~Shaun

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I grew up skiing in Maine and I was pretty good. I moved to North Carolina when I was 19 and didn’t ski regularly again for 25 years. When I moved to Washington, the first thing I bought was a pair of skis. I was a comfortable and happy blue run (intermediate skier). But I would watch those people who would ski off-piste, through the trees, down fall lines, and on the steepest stuff I could ever imagine and I longed to be like them. I believed that I would never be able to do it, that I would never be that good of a skier. Then, I met Shaun. skiing

Shaun is the best skier I know and for some reason, decided to make me his personal project. So he skied with me, he would give me advice, he helped me choose a new pair of wider skis for powder, he watched my form, he laughed with/at me, he became my friend. Then one day, we had a reasonable dump of powder and Shaun texts me the night before skiing and says “bring the fatties” (fat skis). I will never forget what he did when we got up top. Instead of the usual…”this is what I want you to do”, Shaun just shows me the run we are going to go down. Instead of waiting for me to go first and then giving me advice, Shaun just takes off and yells over his shoulder, “Just Zen it Robin, your body knows what to do.”

WHAT? I remember yelling “what does THAT mean?”. But Shaun was getting too far ahead of me so I had to catch up so I could ask him. The whole way I am mumbling and cursing to myself that he is giving me these directions and then just abandoning me to figure it out. When all of a sudden, I realize, I am skiing off-piste, through the powder and the trees. When I realize I am doing it, 3 things happened: 1) I immediately panic, but then realize that I am okay, 2) I yell to Shaun: “I am doing it!” and see him just shake his head and 3) I start giggling.

When I am pushing myself, stretching my boundaries, taking a risk, and being successful, I have an giggling problem. It has annoyed a few people who are no longer in my life because although I try to control it, when I do something I thought I never could do and have fun, it just wells up from inside me and I can’t help it…I giggle. And skiing through those trees and in that powder was FUN. Shaun knew that I had the skills to do it. With his help support and a few big pushes, I have no problem going through trees, down fall lines, and can pretty much ski wherever I want. But I still keep giggling. Life should be fun.

The reality is that I am a pretty competent person in a lot of things. What holds me back is that I can’t get out of my own head and overcome my fear of the unknown in order to do them. As soon as I get out of my own way, sure enough, I can do it. I believe many of us are the same way. So my advice…Just Zen it, your body knows what to do.

Where fear is, happiness is not. ~Seneca