"Don't think so much!"

How many of us were told this when we were children?  Especially those of us who were girls.  My mother was particularly likely to say it, probably because she spent the most time with me and was at the receiving end of the most challenging statements and questions that came out of my mouth.  I don’t blame Mom – undoubtedly she had been silenced too, and discouraged from “thinking.”  The whole twentieth century, certainly through my childhood, was an era of children being “seen and not heard.”  Nice little girls were not supposed to mull over the nature of God, or to question church theology, world history, or, worse still, admit to being “a great Episcopalian but probably not a Christian.”  The latter, which remains my paradoxical reality to this day, sent our sixties-era station wagon careening to the side of the road, where mom, in barely controlled fury out of clenched teeth, said, “Do. Not. Say. Such. A. Thing. Ever. Ever. Again.”  The power of the things I was thinking to discomfort or even anger people having been fully demonstrated, I clammed up for decades, remaining silent in academic settings where I really should have been participating, remaining in employee roles when I should have been the boss, and resisting, terrified, the opportunity to write publicly about anything I was thinking.  In personal situations when I drummed up the courage to speak my truth only to be shot down, I would burst into tears and walk away.  It was my comfort choice, I guess.

This comes up because the Fire Starter book (see previous blog) exercises seem to be unusually efficient at getting to the core of what one loves to do.  At the top of all my lists is Deep Thinking, and Writing (or Talking about) what I’m thinking about.  I’ve kept a journal most of my adult life, at times waking up in the wee hours so that I could write before work.  Even during the years, even decades, that I did not sing, I kept writing.  Writing was the thing I couldn’t “NOT” do, like breathing.  But what I wrote was stuffed into the proverbial box, kept away from view.

Of course, while many of us have been taught to be “critical thinkers,” society as a whole would probably prefer that we not be too successful at it.  I mean, I can poke intellectual holes in just about every construct in our world, from capitalism to health care to religion.  I can understand and assess situations on a dime, and express myself about them (although until now I have mostly held back, or tried to communicate with unwelcoming audiences!) And having recently come to understand the Law of Attraction power of my thoughts, I’m much more conscious of being aware of what my thoughts may be attracting, and am training myself to be mostly positive and uplifting in my thinking and writing, rather than "critical," per se.

Some people are creators.  Some people are growers. Some people are explorers. Some people are fighters.  Some people are buyers or sellers.  Some people teach. Some people nurture.  Some people heal.  I’m learning that I am a “thinker and expresser.”  The spiritual and intellectual energy coming through me must express.  For decades, I tried to be an artist because the end results were powerful, but I couldn’t stand to spend more than an hour painting, so I was not successful.  And while I still have an intense connection to a unique choral music tradition, there is still a disconcerting disconnect between what I really believe and the words coming out of my mouth.  It is only when I write – or converse with relatively like-minded people – that I am the fullest expression of “me.”  In a recent interview, I was asked what I saw myself doing in five years’ time.  I said, “Living in England and writing.”  I did not get the position!  But the moment those five words came out of my mouth, I felt a jolt.  The truth about “home” and my identity had finally come out.

Sorry, Mom.  And yet…I know that she was a deep thinker, too, with an extraordinary speaking voice.  In today’s world, she might have clawed her way out of the box as well!  As time goes on, perhaps more and more youngsters will be encouraged to think their wildest, most independent thoughts and dreams, and express them openly. And their parents will say, "Bravo!" Perhaps they are saying it today!

 

Inspiration

OK, so I guess it isn’t surprising that, at a big life transition, one might need some inspiration. 

But what always surprises me (but shouldn’t) is the synchronicity in these moments.  A life coach friend has just lent me a book which, based only on the first pages of the introduction, feels like it will revolutionize my life.  I had to take an hour to absorb only five pages or so, but I’m now so excited about this author’s infectious energy that I cannot wait to make my way through the entire book and its exercises. Called “The Fire Starter Sessions: a Soulful and Practical Guide to Creating Success on your own Terms,” it’s by life coach Danielle Laporte and it was published in 2012 by Crown Archetype, New York.

Here are just a few standout sentences:

“You become a trailblazer by virtue of being your genuine self.  It is that simple – and that profound.” (xiii)

“Sometimes the courage to be true to yourself comes in the form of an out-loud declaration, a rebellion, or a love-drenched vow... authenticity is the muscle that helps you shake up beliefs, policies, and restraints, and gives you the strength to do the things some say can’t be done.” (xv)

“Your way. Slightly reckless, downright defiant, uncharted, seat-of-the-pants, make it up as you go, not a leg to stand on, what will your mother say?” (xix)

Goodness, that last sentence summarizes my whole adult life, odd, considering I was the most conventional, play-by-the-rules young girl, and that my passion is something practically medieval.  I have to love anyone who helps me see my uncharted, bushwhacking path in a whole new, positive light! 

There are three or four blog essays lined up on my computer…I am falling behind because I’m living somewhere where my computer and the wi-fi don’t seem to completely communicate.  But I bless the fact that I finally have a computer, and access to wi-fi (no matter how wobbly), so as odd as it seems, I’m really moving forward!  And I have a funny feeling that my path took a little detour simply so I could be introduced to this book.  I’ll let you know down the road if there are any more brilliant “zingers” and what they are the catalyst for.

 

 

Lunar Eclipse

Just a reminder that there will be a "super moon" lunar eclipse tomorrow night.  The best viewing sounds like it will be from about 10 to 11 pm, US eastern time. 

I don't know about the deep astrological or astronomical meaning of this event, but I do know that, as I get older, the more and more astonished I am by the beauty and power of the stars, planets and sky phenomena.  Venus literally woke me up about a week ago, like a giant flashlight in my face.  How it could be that bright, I don't know.  We are surrounded by marvels.

So if you are like me, staying up to ten or eleven tomorrow night will be a stretch, but it should be worth it!  See you next week!

Big Sister

I guess some of the lists I've done the last few days have helped.  For the first time since my brother died over two months ago, I feel somewhat at peace.  You can have spent years doing "spiritual work" but this kind of loss just throws things into turmoil, doesn't it?  I don't sense his presence right now, but I have had periodic snapshots of this blonde, laughing kid, bubbly and energetic, as he was, in a way, right to the end.  I was always the serious big sister, dark haired and kind of a worry wart, trying to keep my brothers from getting into trouble.  How, exactly, do you keep two young boys from mischief?  It was a lost cause!  Whether it was bee stings, or roughhousing in the back deck of the station wagon, or splashing on the waters of Lake Champlain in tiny tippy little blue plastic boats, "the boys" were a bundle of energy.  But they always had fun...being older big sister, "fun" is something I've kind of had to learn, and am still learning!

When someone commiserated with me at the memorial service, I said, "yeah, it was not a good week for being a big sister."  And I realize that somehow I had brought with me into adulthood that sense that I needed to protect my brothers. Once we all reached adulthood, I'm sure that role must have expired...but Andrew's death made me realize I had never quite released it.  Over these last two months, it's taken a bit of doing, but I have finally accepted that I was a great (although, at times, irritating) big sister early on, when I needed to be.  Then all of us went our separate directions, to totally different lives.  Now the family equation has changed again.  Two-plus months on, I'm just beginning to feel at peace with this new reality, and to give myself permission to be the bubbly one from time to time! 

"What if?"

Sometimes, you just have mornings (or middles of the night) when it is simply impossible to come up with a list of positive affirmations.  Something is weighing on you, or making you anxious or sad, and you just can’t couch it in upbeat language or find a positive “spin” on it.  I absolutely believe Abraham- Hicks and other authors who say that it is crucial to find a way to feel at least somewhat better immediately, and that spinning one’s wheels in negativity is not an option because it can lead to a downward spiral.

There are two things I try to do in these circumstances.

The first is, to write a series of questions starting with “What if…?”  What if I had the power to change my situation? (Which of course I do, but sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.)  What if a solution is already in place?  What if there’s an answer waiting to come to me today or tomorrow, if I just listen?  What if such-and-such will happen in perfect timing?  What if I can choose to be happy, no matter how it turns out?...etc. Sometimes it helps to pretend “what if” the solution I am looking for has already happened, just to try to bring my heart to a place of comfort and calm. The tricky thing with positive affirmations is that if I am energetically too far from the statement I am making (“I love the feeling of abundance” when I am poor, or “I love having plenty of time to do what I love” when I am being run ragged), then it just causes too much inner turmoil and the affirmation is not effective.  Somehow, “what if” questions seem to more gently move me out of a stuck place. 

Another thing I do when I’m in this situation is to try to envision where I am at as one side of a chasm, and the thing I want is at the other side of the chasm.  Now, that would normally not seem to be an encouraging picture, except in my “game,” my rule is that there is a bridge across the chasm, and that bridge is love.  Moment by moment, over the next few minutes, hours or even days, I try to find things in my life that I love, or things in my anticipated scenario that I love.  I write them down, immediately, if possible.  I’ve never made a picture or collage, but that would be effective too.  Love is the only bridge forward out of fear or negativity, and as I scurry along the edge of the chasm, just knowing that there is a bridge takes the panic away.  And, as usual with my lists, even if the things I “love” are only fireflies, or the fact that it’s a sunny day, that’s OK!  Love in any form is the route forward across the bridge, out of the “eddy” into the stream, or whatever metaphor you are living right now!

I’ve even been trying these techniques when I contemplate some of the really frightening, intractable world situations in front of us, like the refugee crisis, or the islands of plastic in the ocean.  “What if the people of the world come together from this event and learn to be kinder to one another?”  “What if we learn to love and take care of the earth now?”  “Where is the love in this picture?”  The goal isn't to become another Pollyanna, and this isn't a replacement for action in many situations, but by putting it out there in what the Quakers call a “query,” a question requiring some contemplation but not necessitating an immediate answer, my heart may stay open in love rather than close up reactively or in fear.  "What if?" may open the door to solutions, both personal and global.  We all need that in the middle of the night.

 

Passions

The other weekend, the bus that took me to New York City went through Lake George, NY, and our timing was such that we beat (by the looks of it, by only a few minutes) the start of a parade of classic cars.  The main street of the village (which is a jumble of arcades, tattoo shops, diners, souvenir shops, etc.) was lined with chairs, and people had even climbed onto the roofs of cars and the beds of pick-up trucks, eagerly awaiting the start of the procession.  On the edge of town, a huge park seemed to be crammed to the gills with classic cars, some of which were lining up to drive through town.

As happens a lot recently, I was aware of both “the old me” and “the new me” at work.  The old me was the snob.  There was nothing, nothing about the town, the people (with their sunburns, cigarettes, short shorts) or even the cars, that interested or appealed to me in any way, and I recognized the old impulse to critique, judge or even make fun of the scene we were driving through.  

And yet there is nothing like finally identifying and embracing your own “weird”/unique passions to soften your judgmental side.  I mean, let’s face it, there may be millions of human enthusiasms – bug collecting, chess, Cajun swing dancing, mountain climbing, organic farming, meteorology, astrology, astronomy, archaeology, scuba diving, liberal causes, conservative causes, quilting, bird watching… And in 2015, there are 7 billion or so souls on this planet, all with an utterly singular imprint of nationality, gender, age, beliefs, work skills, and hobbies or passions.  This is life, this is the Divine continually growing, expanding and expressing.  And yet no one of us is meant to be enthused by all options, all passions.  It would be impossible.  We may have had the kind of excellent liberal arts education that helped us appreciate a full palette of human experience and expression.  We may be bombarded every day with news, information, books and magazines, and other people’s (or news organizations’, or advertisers’) enthusiasms.  But we don’t need to confuse them with ours, and in fact we will find life profoundly confusing if we confuse them with ours, as I did for too long.  As we proceed through life, we gradually identify what “floats our boat” and then are drawn, Law of Attraction-style, to the people who love the same thing, the place where our passion is best nurtured, and the organizations or events where we can learn more about our passion or passions.  This is how it should be.

Looking out at the classic car scene, yes, it felt alien and boring to me, as would a conference on information technology, a class on genetics, The Wall Street Journal, a country music concert, a roller derby or a poetry slam.  Heck, I’m beginning to realize that relatively few topics interest me in the least (the handful I love, I really love.)  But the “new me” recognized the passion, curiosity and appreciation in all those people pulling folding chairs out onto the curb, and gave them the inner “thumbs up.”  You go, folks.  We’re all in this together.  We all have our “thing” (with its parade or procession!)  Mine isn’t yours, and yours isn’t mine, but that’s OK!  It sure felt better, as the bus pulled back onto the Northway, to feel a sense of common humanity rather than condescension.  That’s not my tribe.  That’s not where I want to be or who I want to be with.  But in the larger scheme of things, we are part of the same tribe.  The tribe of passion for something.  The tribe of life.  Nice to meet you!

Eddies

Autumn, this year, seems to be coming late to the Northeast.  Leaves are still green, the air is warm, and although the quality of the light is changing, the cloudless blue skies are belying the calendar.  Or trying to. 

On the Liz path, there is, once again, a certain surreal quality to yet another fall in yet another “eddy.”  It’s beautiful in Northern New York, and in so many ways, I’m in a far more comfortable stopping point than the last few Septembers.  Looking back, I realize that for the last five years, early fall has tended to find me “gearing up” for a new foray into English church music, from a home and/or work situation that was, like an eddy by the side of a rapidly flowing river, kind of improbable, unsettled and relatively still.  Each of these eddies had seemed like dead ends in and of themselves, circling and spiraling around seemingly without purpose, and yet each made possible – because of their temporary nature – a winter musical experience that I would have been unlikely to be able to “go for” if I had been more settled or tied down.  Most people would understandably be alarmed by undertaking this kind of moment-to-moment journey in their 50’s, but I was more alarmed by the notion of not doing it.  I knew that if I were to have any significant experiences in this field, it had to happen now.  And I guess I grasped that, while there might be some rhyme or reason to how it all turned out, there also might not be, and I just had to go for it.  I had not followed the normal path that men had done for generations, so all bets were off anyway!

The dream?  A singing position as a “lay clerk” in an English cathedral or an American equivalent; and/or to make a name for myself in the more scholarly branch of the field with my Herbert Howells articles; and/or possibly to get into a PhD program in England based on my Howells studies.  If these three intersecting worlds might be said to be banquet tables, my efforts these last few years have yielded dramatic yet not lasting results, kind of as if – from behind a barrier -- I snatched one or two extraordinary morsels of food, the best food I’ve ever eaten, but have not been able to sit down to the main meal.  I sang for nine months in the mixed men and women’s choir at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York (approximately one choral evensong a week – a thrill!), I sang a “dream” evensong service in England, was one of the first women ever to audition for an English cathedral choir, saw and heard girls and women singing in English university and cathedral choirs, got to know some prominent English church musicians, and published articles that I hoped would “wow” the music field, but essentially seem to have dropped like quiet pebbles into a still pond.  If these sound like modest accomplishments, they really aren’t.  If you had asked me in 2010 if any of this would have been possible, I would have said, no way on earth!  And when I was younger and the field was entirely male, even envisioning such experiences would have been considered delusional.  So this time period has been magical and fast flowing, punctuated by quiet eddies by the side of the stream where the water seemed to flow backwards for a time.

This year’s eddy, however, has a decidedly different quality to it.  Five years ago I was 54, and now I am 59.  The difference is really monumental.  It has to do with both energy level and goals.  There’s not much I have to tell any of you over 55 about energy!  Goal-wise, I realize that there is nothing further that I need to prove to myself.  I know that I have the passion, the talent and the intellectual capacity to have been successful in some branch of this field had it been open to me 40 years ago, or if I had had a different level of confidence.  If I had doubts about that earlier in my life, now I don’t.  And so today, I don’t feel the need to “pursue” these opportunities any more, or to push the river.  It’s OK.  Younger women and men will take the lead now. There may be opportunities in the future for summer singing at English cathedrals, but my bigger goal right now, as I head into my sixties, is becoming settled and content.  The difference is, I honor my passion for English church music and everything English (literature, art, music, history, landscape, movies, architecture, humor…) and don’t intend this time to run away, as I did in my late 20’s.  That is the stream of my life.  And as I find myself in this fall’s eddy by the side of the stream, my job is to find that little surge of life that will take me downstream – and release the urge to fight or control it!

 

 

Sir David Willcocks

OK, this wasn't what I was going to write about today, but I can't not note the death of Sir David Willcocks who, as the conductor of the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, influenced so many church musicians.  I fell in love with English church music listening to records by this choir, in the 60's and 70's, when all my friends (I am sure!) were listening to another kind of music entirely!

That's all I can say right now.  What a watershed year this is turning out to be. 

Reader Comments

I guess my readers have already figured out that I grew up in 1960s, the era of a diary being a small, leather-bound journal with a lock on the front.  Most of them were five-year diaries, with each day being divided into five, so you had approximately four lines on which to summarize the day's events or news.  My entries were hardly earthshattering; "Bus to school was boring.  Art class was fun.  Went to choir rehearsal after school.  Mom made spaghetti for dinner."  That kind of thing.  Perhaps once in a blue moon, I might have made an oblique reference to a "cute guy" or a Top 40 song I liked, or the fact that it was my birthday.  But as far as revelations go, that was it.  Yet this diary was held in the closest secrecy, locked each and every day, and put into one drawer of my desk while the miniscule key was hidden at the bottom of the little pencil cup that also held miscellany like paper clips, thumb tacks and rubber bands.  This diary was me, and the notion that anyone might read it, much less comment on its contents, would have been horrifying.  My thoughts, as mundane as they were, were private.  My life was private.

In the early 2000's, I regularly taught a unit on George Orwell's 1984 at the Community College of Vermont. My new, post-911 reading of this book had made it seem ever more relevant, and the image (in the 1984 movie) of Winston Smith crouching by the side of his living room telescreen, trying to write in a journal without being seen, hit me to my core.  Yet I found that this generation of students seemed to have an entirely different view on privacy.  The messages of the book, while not entirely lost on them, were dated.  Their view was, if you put everything "out there," you will be safe.  There is no privacy any more, so just get over it!

The last few years of teaching, I struggled to get used to on-line class discussion boards and feedback.  Having come to teaching rather late in the day, and having done it as an adjunct (and missed, perhaps, the kind of in-service trainings that long-term, full-time professors were getting in many institutions), I had missed the "piece" about student feedback.  My own inner "computer" memory went back 30 years or more, scanned, and was unable to find any scenario where I might have been invited -- or allowed -- to comment on my teachers, good or bad!  As a teacher, I welcomed in theory some student feedback.  I really didn't see myself as some high muckty-muck passing on wisdom from on high; indeed my classes were quite informal and discussion-based, and students often commented in passing on class or my teaching -- or I could pick up their level of interest from the looks on their faces!  It's just that I couldn't yet relate to written, public comments from students.  My own experience in my family, school and college level learning had been in the role of the silent student, taking copious notes and studying hard, and just learning what I could from person A or person B, then moving on. 

In this blog, I am not a teacher, and readers are not students, so this parallel is flawed, except to the extent that I guess I am trying to explain why I haven't yet clicked on the "allow reader comments" option.  It has been all I can do to open up that locked diary at all, and to let people read it.  It has been all I can do to stop being the silent student.  And now that I am beginning to feel somewhat comfortable with it, yes, my curiosity is growing as to whether people are interested, inspired, bored or whatever with what I am saying.  I cannot see your faces!  I think I am somewhat stronger as a person, and know (as I didn't earlier in my life) that I will probably survive a range of feedback.  So sometime over the next month or two, I suspect you'll suddenly see that option opening up.  It will be the morning that all my old reservations seem, well, dated.

Contrasts

This weekend, I came to New York City to attend the funeral service of John Scott, who was the organist-choirmaster of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, and who died a month ago of a heart attack, stunning the world of English church music.  It was a beautiful, solemn service, and the brand new choir of the school year and the assistant organists did beautiful jobs under trying and sad circumstances.  The church was packed.

In a case of interesting timing, New York's Labor Day parade was taking place out on Fifth Avenue at exactly the same time.  St. Thomas is no doubt used to these things, and the subway that rumbles under the church during services.  However, it was one of the most profound, bittersweet contrasts that I have ever experienced, straining to focus on sung plainsong, and the fragile musical mysteries of Thomas Tallis's "If ye love me" and the Lotti "Crucifixus," to an outside cacophony of horns, bagpipes, piped in music (Rolling Stones), thumping and yelling.  Speaking only for myself, I know that at some point in my life, my inner snob would have been distressed by this kind of distraction, preferring the purity of a perfect musical and church/spiritual experience.

And yet at a certain point, I literally had to laugh out loud.  Not too audibly, I hope, but I just had to laugh.  I mean, the whole thing was such a metaphor for the human experience, and for the impulse to have churches and spiritual places "set apart" in the first place.  We need those places.  Some of us need them more than others.  But quite literally, right outside the door is chaos!  People demanding better working conditions, celebrating, dancing, pleading for money, building skyscrapers, shopping and taking part in a wild symphony of life.  It is all part of one crazy whole, especially in a city like New York.  In a way, it was a grand send off for an Englishman.  I loved the fact that as people were streaming out the door at the end, most of the congregation in solemn black clothing, a huge float was going by, and one guy on it was enthusiastically waving to us!  After a moment's hesitation, I waved back just as enthusiastically!  I mean, why not? 

I've learned one thing on this brief trip to New York.  As some of you know, I was one of the last people "on my block" to decide to own a computer, and as of now, I still limp through life with a non-smart Tracfone and a rather too big PC laptop.  Right before coming down, my computer battery died and another computer issue developed, and then, awaiting a replacement battery charger for my phone, I had to come to the city technologically naked.  I'll finally say for the record, "I get it now!"  I get that in 2015, if you want to communicate, write a blog, connect with people, travel to Manhattan or the grocery store, find work, find fun, anything, this is no longer the way to operate!  Indeed, my online presence is "home" in a way I have not wanted to admit, and in my continuing dialogue on that topic, up-to-date communication technology is now rising to the top of my list!

New York was a joy this weekend.  Overwhelming, but a joy.  Lots to think about.  The contrasts were life in action, and I'm glad I came.

Clues

Sometimes when you are trying to put yourself back together again, the Universe presents you with clues, kind of experiential neon signs saying, "Look here!  Remember this?"  Like an amnesiac, you might have been presented with these kinds of clues for months, years, or even decades, and simply not recognized them.  But as the fog lifts (or you start to exit the cave), they become visible again.  And not only do you see or hear them, but you sense in yourself an energy of excitement or even passion. "That's me!"

The other night, I found myself speaking French to a native-speaker.  While I stumbled somewhat initially, the fact is that within minutes the language was coming back to me, over forty years since my last French class, in high school.  I remembered that my highest AP score all those years ago was in French, not English or History.  Hmm...I loved speaking French again.  Clue number one.

This encounter led to clue number two, in the form of several tiny photographs of French chateaux on a cell phone.  I worshipfully extended my finger out and touched the images of formal gardens, magnificent architecture and furnishings, even 18th century costumes in silk and satin.  I was like a starving woman being presented with a meal.

There might be said to be two major kinds of beauty, natural and "man-made."  For decades, I have immersed myself in the former, trying to fully appreciate America's majestic mountains, great lakes, deserts and farmlands.  I've lived in them, painted paintings of them, rowed and sailed in them, driven long distances in them, taken photographs of them, and otherwise "tried" to connect to or create a passion for these places. 

But last night's clue uncovered the truth.  In a heartbeat, I would trade decades of natural beauty for even one year surrounded by the sublime of a different sort.  Not just English cathedrals and abbeys, but English or French stately homes and gardens, great oil paintings (portrait and landscape), old silver, oriental rugs, and great books.  I would stop wearing cotton shirts and jeans and disintegrating sandals, and exchange them with velvet and fine fabrics and jewelry.  Old world, antique surroundings and items, as well as music, are my passion.  My master's thesis analyzed a 12th century musical "office" (or series of chants for all the monastic services for a day) written in honor of an 8th century French saint...

I can see how I managed to convince myself that such things were irrelevant 30 years ago, in 80's Reagan America, and it's easy even now to try to do the same again.  And yet, when you sing a song you thought you would never sing, or speak a language that you thought you had forgotten, or touch a postage-stamp-sized image with longing and awe, I guess you need to pay attention.  That just might be the real "you" speaking.

NOTE: I'm having a few computer issues, and may not be as regular at posting the next few days as I would like.  I'll do my best, and see you soon!  Thanks for reading!

New School Year

OK, it seems strange to be talking about a school year at my age, but it is fall, and life always seems to start over again even when you are no longer in a classroom.  In the classroom of life, what will I learn this year?  Who will be my teachers? What are my classes? 

The theme among so many of my friends is, "home."  We all seem to experiencing various permutations on it, but finding a home, selling a home, moving to a new place -- all of us seem to be looking at the 60's and trying to figure out where to spend it most constructively.  And there are people all over the world -- voluntarily or not -- focused on the same theme.

That's the course I'm majoring in this year...and I look forward to great teachers and fellow students!  I don't expect it to be a cinch, but when learning is the goal, it's hard to fail...

Labor Day's here

For a number of summers, I've thought back to the old 60's song by Nat King Cole, "Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer." (Yes, "those days of soda and pretzels and beer.") This is the kind of music I heard on my transistor radio as a "tween" and teen on the Capital District's WPTR 1540, "the station with the happy difference." It was the era of the Beach Boys, Elvis and that impression that even upstate New York could be like California if you just chilled out and went to a beach and ate hot dogs.  I was privileged to spend much of the summer in our northeast version, the rocky shores of freezing Lake Champlain.  The sky's light was all wrong, as was the landscape, but somehow that impression that summer "should" be lazy and hazy -- with craziness only related to the goofiness of drinking a beer for the first time -- has persisted.  For many years, there has been nothing lazy about summers, and with our media access no longer limited to easy listening rock radio stations, we know too much, don't we?  We are absolutely bombarded with important news -- and irrelevant distractions -- far more than 50 years ago.  Entire populations of people are moving in waves across the globe, entire U.S. states are on fire, political and other wars are heating up.  Many of our individual lives seem to resemble a big, crazy kaleidoscope more than the light, airy haze of a West Coast beach.  Labor Day seems more like an exhausting finish line, not the culmination of weeks of relaxation.

It's easy to dismiss that song as utterly irrelevant...and yet, and yet, and yet...is there a human being on the planet who does not need a short reprieve right now? It's OK to take a moment this weekend to hold the world's challenges to our hearts, and then strike up the barbecue, or play a game of badminton, or listen to polka music, or take a swim, or talk with friends and family.  It just might make the world a happier place for a moment or two, which can't hurt.  See you Tuesday!

Caving

Exactly thirty-five years ago this week I arrived at Royal Holloway College in Egham, Surrey, England to start my master's degree.  The bus from Heathrow dropped me outside the college, and I dragged two large suitcases up the sidewalk (pavement) to the main entrance, it being the pre-roller bag era.  When I turned the corner, the morning mist was parting and brilliant sun was just starting to light up the astonishing red brick Victorian building.  I knew I had come home.

It took several days for food service to commence, but on its first evening, I lined up in the "Boog Tube" (don't ask!) and picked up a tray, and a plate of unbelievably stodgy meat, potatoes, cabbage and "pudd", and walked into the main dining area with its high ceilings, old portraits and many tables.  It was one of those pivotal moments.  I could choose to sit on my own off in the corner, or I could join one of the laughing, chattering groups of (mostly younger) students already eating.  I chose the latter, and I will never regret it.  The group I sat with became my core group of friends, and I am still in touch with several of them.

One of them, a guy with dark hair and a beard, somehow assumed from the fact that I was American that I must also be quite athletic, and he asked if I would like to go caving the following weekend.  The caving club was taking a day in the Mendip Hills, and it would be great fun.  My childhood experience with caves began and ended with Howe Caverns, near Albany, NY, where you walk upright around cathedral-like caverns and "ooh" and "aah" at all the stalagmites and stalactites.  So I said yes.  Why not?

On the day, we arrived by minivan at a small parking area, and my first clue should have been the fact that I could not see a cave opening.  My second clue should have been the tangle of gear that people started taking out of the back of the van.  Sets of headlamps attached to huge batteries on belts were separated out, one for each spelunker.  I was told I should leave my glasses behind, because they would be ruined in the cave.  I protested that I could see nothing without my glasses, but they insisted -- leave the glasses behind.  Someone helped me attach the very old-fashioned miner's headlamp and battery to my body, and I was stunned to see students, one by one, disappearing into a miniscule opening in the hill on their hands and knees.  Within minutes, I was one of them.  This was probably not the right activity for a young woman with serious claustrophobia, and I knew it within seconds, but also being afflicted with a terror of causing inconvenience to anyone, I kept my mouth shut, and crawled on hands and knees with the rest of them, down, down, down into the bowels of the earth.  I totally didn't "get" why we were doing this, but knew this wasn't the moment to analyze!

After an hour or so of slowly crawling downwards into the earth, we arrived at what must have been the destination -- a reasonably large "room" where at least all eight or ten of us could stand up and stretch.  Then, we headed up again, I think by a different tunnel.  Things were going fine until I realized that the person ahead of me had literally disappeared into a tiny dark circle.  I was slim back then, yet reasonably tall, and a sick feeling came over me.  When it was my turn, I was able to wrench my head and shoulders through this hole, but my forward progress stopped entirely when my hips got stuck.  It was like a figure eight or an egg timer, with nothing to hold onto above, and nothing to prop my feet onto behind. Up until now, I had managed to stay quite calm, but at this, I started flailing around with my arms and legs and I burst into tears.  I could see in my mind's eye the letter they would have to send to my parents ("Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, your daughter, sadly, did not survive a college caving trip...") My tears brought the attention I needed, in that the person ahead of me finally grabbed onto one or both of my arms, and the person behind me started to push my legs, but still, no forward progress.  It was finally decided that my headlamp and battery belt should be removed and pulled through separately, and once that was accomplished, I got through fine.  At the other side, the headlamp and battery were re-attached, and I made it, eventually, out of the black tunnel into the bright sunlight.  Not a moment too soon.

We all grabbed sandwiches, and sat out in the glorious fall sunshine eating them.  Except for me, everyone was thrilled by what a great cave it had been, and they were looking forward to an even jollier time in a second cave in the afternoon.  "Liz, do you want to go?"  I politely said, "No, I think I'll just wander around town." I couldn't even begin to imagine the appeal of spending a bright, sunny day crawling around underground, and I was still stung by the mortification of having to be pushed and shoved like a sack of potatoes through holes in the rock.  I watched them enthusiastically troop off to another cave not far away and start burrowing, and then I turned on my heels and set off to explore the tiny village.

At the time, I learned one lesson: to try not to judge those who would willingly take part in such an activity!  They loved it.  I didn't understand it, but they loved it.  Love is love. Secondly, and this has resonated several times in my life -- there will be moments when you are utterly stuck and flailing about making an idiot of yourself and people behind and ahead of you may be rolling their eyes and pulling and shoving you, but if you remove all your extraneous baggage and let people help you, eventually you'll come unstuck and move forward and out into the light.  You will.

Lastly, and this has just come to me as I'm writing, I think my day of caving has been a Plato's Allegory of the Cave-like metaphor for my whole journey since leaving England in 1981, only reversed. For reasons I still don't fully understand, I decided to head "down" into the recesses of my life and life itself, not to take the easy or comfortable path.  It's been a path where, without glasses, I often couldn't see a thing, and was really overall not doing the activities I most loved.  I challenged my claustrophobia, my dislike of the dark -- initially, just because I thought I had to try to do what every other American 20-something was doing (work in the corporate world) and not to stand out or be a bother. And once I was in the cave, there was no choice but to complete the whole circuit in and out.  In 2015, I finally see a flicker of light ahead, and it makes me happy that I'm nearing the portal back into the sun!  In the afternoon, after lunch on the grass, I can choose an easier path! 

Dragonflies

For several nights, there were huge numbers of dragonflies up here in Northern New York.  They didn’t seem like average dragonflies – they were huge, at least five inches across, and there were swarms of them.  And yet suddenly yesterday they were gone.  A quick search of the internet tells me that this happened earlier in the summer in Chicago and elsewhere. 

Of course, I wanted to remind myself of the meaning of dragonflies, and consulted my book Medicine Cards, by Jamie Sams and David Carson (1988.)  They say that “Dragonfly Medicine is of the dreamtime and the illusionary façade we accept as physical reality…Dragonfly is the essence of the winds of change, the messages of wisdom and enlightenment, and the communications from the elemental world.” There was this very quality to these swarms, kind of a sense that these animal beings were rising up from the river of life to bring us a message, and then move on.  Their deep green/blue/black color was magical, mystical.  They made literal magic of an already beautiful landscape, and yet they also made you wonder what is beyond that landscape, if this is all illusion. Could there be something even more beautiful, more profound?

Each of us seeing these creatures had an opportunity to discern what individual message they were bringing.  For me, it was simply, “there is something more going on here than meets the eye.”  And now that the dragonflies are gone, I miss them!

What I learned over summer vacation

Goodness, what a summer!

I learned that, just because you may have outgrown a place (or it has outgrown you!) doesn't necessarily mean that it's all over.  This may apply to people too.

I learned that, in a situation where you think, "this is silly, I've outgrown this," if you take a deep breath and don't walk away, someone you never expected may come up and engage you in a fascinating conversation.

I learned that losing a sibling is much more painful than I could have anticipated.  And, of course, I didn't anticipate it.  Still feeling shattered in a million pieces.

I learned that when the Universe wants to give you a little extra space toward re-grouping and heading in the right direction, for goodness sake accept and say "yes."

I learned, for the umpteenth time, that the goal of life is happiness, period.  Not happiness "because" (you are in a certain place or with certain people or doing a certain job...) Just happiness.  This is the hardest lesson in the world for a woman who spent decades deliberately separating herself from the music and country she loves most.  I still fall into the trap that "I'll be happy when I'm back in England and seeing cathedrals and hearing or singing English church music" etc.  It's such a high-wire act to focus on happiness in the present yet still hold onto a dream.  I haven't figured it out yet, but when someone dies so unexpectedly, it forces you to appreciate a "place" of present happiness.  Perhaps we pave the way to a future dream by being fully appreciative and happy in the now.  At least you're happy en route!

Lastly, I learned (or came more fully to believe) that we women of 59-and-a-half, if we are still alive and breathing, are unbelievably powerful.  Many of us are already experiencing that sensation of being looked through, or looked at quizzically or dismissively.  But beating in our hearts are powerful drumbeats of wisdom, power and transformation.  I learned to stand up tall and strong in the face of some unexpected life lessons.  I learned once again not to be afraid to move forward even if I can't see the path.  If no one else sees me, I see me. I'm not sure I could fully do that in the spring.  Thank you, summer of 2015!