Singing the Popeye Song

           Moving into a one bedroom rental has been harder on me physically, and I’m only one year older since the last year when I sold my home and moved into a bedroom suite at the Flower Farm. I had Maggie then who would use her strong arms and organized mind. She was helpful in more than many ways and I could share ideas and challenges with her. This time, I was the one doing all the organizing, with little or no input from anyone. I had to decide what I wanted, where I wanted it, and how to move it. I also had to learn how to ask for help which was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to learn. I truly began another level of the process of re-creating myself, and it was tough making all those decisions.

I’ve done so many things in the last year: bought new items, searched new pathways of thought, made new friends, tried new ways of expression.  I had to fill in as many of the gaps that had been created by the loss of friends and husband and a community of people who shared a way of life with me. I gave and packed away so many items that, as I now open each box from the storage locker, I am surprised by every other item I find: like the picture of the Hummingbird Katchina or the Dan Stolpes pen and ink renditions of the spirit animals as commemoration of Rolling Thunder and Semu Huaute. Last year, I set up my life experiences in such a way that I was forced to pursue my life without these trappings packed in cardboard boxes. I had to move along my path in a different manner.

            The image of a space suit flashes with its long life-preserving tether to a main ship. How far can a person move away from his/her core beliefs before the life line ruptures because it is stretched too far?

            On a drive with a new friend one Saturday to transport my ‘new-to-me’ washer and dryer, she asked, “What sustains you?”

I answered without hesitation, “Our Earth in all her rhythms and beauty. The energy in all that is.” I had no doubt, no reservation. Some would argue that I am not accepting or knowing or depending on “God”. If they are categorizing “God” as the fellow sitting on a cloud with a white beard and a pointy finger, I don’t accept him. What I do accept is the multifaceted way the details of each moment, day, season, year present themselves to me while I walk through my life. If I am worried, restless, anxious, sad, glad, angry, I breathe the air and drink water both with huge gulps. However much I need to be nurtured and patted on the back, I only have to stand in the sun and feel the presence of aliveness seep into my muscles and bones. The smells of whatever is blooming stop me in my tracks. I am offered blessings whenever I take the time to notice.

What I’m realizing is that I didn’t really move that far away from what I was after 33 years of living the life I lived with my husband. I’ve strengthened who I am and I am more able to exemplify the person I am in the way I want to express it. I can do my life my way instead of the way I did it as a wife and companion, mother and nurse.

As I think on it, that’s what made this move harder, not the physical effort, but the conscious attention I gave to all the details, plus the excitement and anxiety of putting my life back together for me and my beliefs. "I am what I am, I am , I am."

Turning a Challenge into an Art Form

Being in balance is a little like standing to put on a pair of tennis shoes without a chair in the room and without giving up and sitting on the floor.

The act requires first standing on one foot then the other to place a sock over each set of toes.  The second challenge is getting the laced openings open enough for one fell swoop of a foot to enter at least far enough into the shoe so you can put it quickly back on the floor and wedge your heel into place.  The third challenge is tying the laces into a bow.

I find I can tell many things about myself and how my day is beginning by how well I can execute this task. I’m almost beginning to think of it as my morning yoga exercise or maybe even a meditation. From another perspective, I feel it as a dance and perhaps it is becoming a personal morning art form. This practice developed after an introductory Aikido class I took one summer at Brightenbush Hot Springs with 50 or so other Reiki Masters.

We were asked to stand with one foot in front of the other in our best balanced form.  We each had partners who then pushed at our shoulder to see how much it would take to topple us sideways.  I was appalled at myself when my partner had only to exert a feather touch and over I went.  I had no balance, even when I asked to do it again and planted myself more strongly (or so I thought) on both bared feet.  Over I went, again.

Later in the morning after I’d learned where my center was, how to hold onto my Chi, and how to ground plus after I’d discovered various other reasons I was off balance, (like my ragged breathing, lack of focus and self awareness) my partner had to press a little harder on my shoulder to get me to topple, but it wasn’t much pressure at all.

Using this ‘putting on my tennis shoe’ routine, I can now tell much about myself (whether I’m in a rush, not remembering to breathe, or am ungrounded ) by the way I hop in place trying to put on a sock or how my upper body drifts to one side when I’m working on the ‘toes-in-the-shoe’ maneuver.  How much I struggle, while I accomplish this task, lets me know how alert I am or how disgruntled or how much I may have on my mind.  Sometimes it goes well, sometimes not.  This daily experiment is just a little thermometer of my level of stress. It’s like a dance with me that tells me I have too many thoughts and distractions going on inside me and around me.

If I can slow down and settle myself before I start this challenge, the whole event takes much less time. I can find a place where my muscles seem to float and barely feel used.  I can become so engrossed in this morning test that I can feel light and heavy at the same time.

As it is usually the final piece of dressing, my entire sense of self ends up being absolutely ready to get on with my day.