Re-Calibrating My Heart

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn’t live boldly enough, that they didn’t invest enough heart, didn’t love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.” — Ted Hughes

Lately, I have been feeling a bit sheepish. Here’s why:

Most mornings, I stumble out of bed and, after a quick stop in the bathroom, head downstairs for coffee and a brief perusal of social media before getting ready to face the day. I’ve read numerous articles about the fact that getting on the computer, checking email and social media, first thing in the morning is the wrong thing to do if I want to be a productive and successful person who meets all my goals for the day. But this isn’t what has me feeling sheepish.

It’s the fact that I sit at my computer and cry.

One morning, I wept while watching a video of a little girl with a prosthetic leg joyfully receive the gift of a doll with a prosthetic leg “just like me”. Another day, tears leaked out while viewing the latest installment of Carpool Karaoke because…Les Miz! (Sorry, I’ve yet to fall completely under the “Hamilton” spell, but I’m sure it will happen!) I cried reading the letter from the young woman in the Stanford rape case; when I read a post about yet another pedestrian killed by a careless driver while crossing the street in a crosswalk with a “walk” sign. Happy, sad or moving for inexplicable reasons: I cry.

This is a little secret I’ve kept to myself for quite a while. I’m sharing it so that you will know that I do this, just like so many of you. Like so many others, I get caught up in the emotion of things far removed from me – the stories and experiences of people I will never meet – every day. And this is not a bad thing.

But it is a thing that concerns me. We expend a great deal of compassionate energy responding to social media these days. (And, yes, some people expend a lot of energy being trolls, but that is a whole different topic.) Whether we sit quietly and cry at our kitchen tables; whether we click “comment”, “like”, or “share”; whether we write an impassioned response that our friends quickly agree with – we are essentially engaged within a closed loop that we sometimes mistake for actually doing something.

Then we go about our days, feeling harassed and angry at other drivers, at the slow people in front of us at the checkout, at the coffee shop when someone doesn’t know before their turn what they want to order, for crying out loud! In the workplace, we complain about everyone else’s lousy work ethic or bad habit of bogarting the copy machine. We duck into doorways or restrooms to avoid that emotionally needy coworker (you know the one). We don’t engage with people whose political or religious opinions differ from ours, thereby making it easy to maintain strict boundaries between “US” and “THEM”. When faced with people who need our compassion – at the corner or in WalMart or as we drive through a particular neighborhood and suddenly think to lock our doors – all we feel is irritation, disgust, or fear.

I worry that one of the pitfalls of social media engagement is that, while it opens our lives up to a wider reach of people and stories, it also allows us to spend our compassionate energy without actually having to open our hearts and/or join our hands with others IRL. I worry that we prefer it this way, because we don’t get dirty or uncomfortable or risk vulnerability and rejection. We prefer it because it isn’t hard.

The truth is, our hearts are meant to be broken, which is not easy. Hearts broken open allow others to walk right in and find space to curl up and be safe. Hearts broken open let our love and energy to flow outward to touch real people with real needs. They aren’t meant to merely click a thumbs-up button and move on. Hearts broken open don’t press share and write, “I’m just going to leave this here.”

In his novel, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak says “Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.” With the exception of the sociopaths among us, we all feel the itch to make a positive difference. We all feel ourselves called to scratch that itch. And we all fear what might come leaking out. Still, our hearts are intended to leak in this way; we are meant to face our fear in order to add to the good of this world. I believe this with my whole broken-open heart.

And I worry that I am letting that good, compassionate leakage express itself in tears that fall on my keyboard and nowhere else. If, as Ted Hughes claimed, the only calibration that matters is how much heart we invest, I need to invest my heart in the world outside my kitchen, connected to me by something other than fiber optic cable or a wireless router. I think its time for a heartfelt re-calibration.

As Low as You Can, As Slow as You Need

 

A couple of weeks ago, I went on a group bicycle ride sponsored by a community organization. I had been told that these were easy rides, all fitness levels welcome, so I decided to give it a shot. The ride leader turned out to be the person who sold me my new bike back in March. He gathered the group together, shouting to be heard above the traffic and the crowds of people there in the busy market. “In case you didn’t know, this is going to be a hill ride,” he called out.

The groans were audible even above the surrounding din. The vast majority of cyclists I know dislike riding hills. Even cyclists who are in good condition sometimes prefer to avoid them. I have a varied history with hills; I hated them until I understood how to ride them. Then I enjoyed testing myself against them, and I got pretty good at navigating even the more daunting ones. However, at this point in time, I’m out of shape for riding, am just building my skills and stamina back up – and I haven’t taken on many hill challenges on the new bike. So while I wasn’t one of the groaners, I was a bit nervous to see how it would go.

Just before we hit the first and toughest hill, slightly under half of the group split off to take an alternate (hill-avoiding) route. I shifted gears and began the ascent. Barely more than halfway up, I was unable to continue on the bike, and got off to walk. The difference between my easiest, or granny, gear on a 21-speed (my old bike) and the granny gear on my new 9-speed is significant. But I was mostly disappointed in myself for losing fitness and gaining weight – both of which are a significant part of why I was unable to ride that hill.

While I successfully maneuvered the remaining hills, and enjoyed the speedy final descent, I was still processing that first hill climb when we reached the park where we reunited with those who had chosen to avoid the hilly passage. When the ride leader approached, asking how it went, I told him that while I love my new bike, I miss my 21-speeds on the hills. He said, “Did I know you were going to ride hills? Because we don’t usually recommend that model for hill riding.” He walked away before I could answer.

I was fuming. Without going into the entire story of my purchase, suffice it to say that his comment was both unexpected and unwelcome. I began to obsess about it, and I was filled with righteous indignation for days. The next few times I went out to ride, all I could think about was that I had a bike that would never meet my needs. This made my rides much less enjoyable, and contributed to a reluctance on my part to attempt any but the most easily navigable hills.

However, it is a truth universally acknowledged by cyclists that a ride in want of daunting hills will never be a truly epic one. Also true? No matter what avoidance techniques you employ there will be hills. So, the next time I was faced with a hill that required me to climb it, I grimly squared my shoulders and kept riding.

I talked myself through it. “Just drop into as low a gear as you can. Ok, doing great. Now, take it as slow as you need to. There’s no hurry.” It wasn’t pretty. It was tortuously slow. Onlookers may have wondered if I would ever make it to the top – and if so, WHEN?! But I just kept repeating, “As low as you can, as slow as you need to.” Eventually, my heart pounding and gasping for air, I crested the hill.

And that’s when I realized that it was an ordinary hill. Not an epic hill, not one for the record books: an ordinary, everyday, hill.

There will be lots of ordinary hills for me to climb. Just as there will, sometimes, be epic hills to get over.

One of the great things about cycling, in my opinion, is that I continually learn things that apply throughout my life, not just while on the bike. In life, we face hills. And we get over hills. Even if we have to go slow; even if we have to walk. In my almost 55 years, I have yet to fail at getting over one…eventually. Sometimes it has been easy-peasey, and other times it has taken everything I had – more than I thought I could muster.

My new hill-mantra, “as low as you can, as slow as you need to”, is one I can generalize and use throughout my life. Drop your affect, keep your anxiety levels down, breathe – in other words, go as low as you can. Ratcheting up the fear, anxiety, or panic because you see a challenge looming on the horizon only makes things worse. More stressful. More difficult. More tense. No job is done more easily with your tense shoulders hunched up around your ears! Relax into the upward climb and it will be a lot less painful.

Then: take the time you need. Life, contrary to what we sometimes glean from our surrounding culture, is not a race. While timeliness can be a factor, it is rarely the only factor. Finishing well is generally more important. I can’t think how many times I’ve hurried through some project or task, only to discover that I could (and should) have taken somewhat more time to do it really well rather than to rush to completion.

Go as low as you can, as slow as you need to. I keep repeating this mantra to myself, on my bike and off, and finding it beneficial in setting a great tone to my days. When I do encounter one of life’s hills, I have a way to approach it that doesn’t incite unnecessary fear or stress. Just the calm, ordinary effort required to keep moving forward.

 

 

Circling Out of the Dark

“Dispiritedness and disappointment are the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday.” – Lance Armstrong

The spiritual geniuses of the ages and of the everyday simply don’t let despair have the last word, nor do they close their eyes to its pictures or deny the enormity of its facts. They say, “Yes, and …,” and they wake up the next day, and the day after that, to live accordingly.”  — Krista Tippett

 

Whether we are spiritual geniuses or not, we cannot let despair (dispiritedness, disappointment) have the last word, even when we feel like we’ve hit it hard; even when we feel as shattered as if we crashed into a brick wall going ninety miles an hour.

I know this is true – but like many important truths, it is taking me a lifetime to understand.

Harry Chapin, the singer-storyteller, wrote “All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown/The moon rolls through the nighttime, till the daybreak comes around/All my life’s a circle and I can tell you why/The season’s spinnin’ round again the years keep rollin’ by/It seems like I’ve been here before, I can’t remember when/But I got this funny feelin’ that I’ll be back once again…”

I think his image of life as a circle of experiences that keep coming around is an excellent one. I visualize it in varying ways:

     

What each of these images have in common is that they keep circling back. Whether this process plays in an endless loop (like the infinity symbol), keeps circling ever inward toward more precise understanding (like the nautilus), or keeps ascending toward higher levels of experience (like the upward spiral), is a matter of discernment. For today, it is enough for me to remember that repetition is part of the learning process.

Sometimes, I think I should know things already. Things like: my thoughts impact my mood; what others say or think about me is only their perspective, not holy truth; I should never eat two breakfast burritos when one will suffice. And I DO know these things. I just don’t always remember to act in accordance with what I know. The resulting consequence is that I get the opportunity to relearn the basics, each time with added nuances of realization and/or understanding.

I know, that sounds like an awfully positive spin on the “d-words” (dispirited, disappointed, despairing) when the experience of any one of them feels pretty crappy. If I’ve allowed myself to dwell in one or more for any length of time, it gets harder to climb back up into the sunlight of positude. Recently, for example, I became aware of just how dispirited and low I have felt for a while. It had set in and taken hold for so long, I had forgotten that it was not just the natural way people feel. Then I started noticing how often my thoughts flowed along these lines: “My life sucks!” “Why can’t just one thing, one little thing, go right?” “This can’t be what I went through all that for!” Every day, not only were those thoughts there, but so were the clouds of depression and, even, despair.

Then I remembered that I know how to address this: I can change my thinking.  As soon as I started consciously changing my thoughts, things began to change. My whole life hasn’t been dramatically recreated, but it feels a whole lot better. Turns out, re-learning what I already knew feels like a gift. Like sunshine after months of clouds. Like true friendship after long, lonely days. Like meeting my future self and discovering that she’s pretty wise, if she let’s herself be! Today won’t be perfect, and neither will tomorrow. But both days will feel a lot better than any two random days last month, because I will be thinking “I’ve got this.”

And so it is when we circle back around. The everyday spiritual genius hiding within each of us can finally say, “Yes, and…”; can finally allow our inner resources (as opposed to our feared deficits or perceived brokenness) to choose our way forward. Suddenly, we’re circling out of that “D”arkness, into the light of a new day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rainbow Cow

“The rainbow you see is different than the rainbow visible to all other observers, because an entirely different set of drops refracts and reflects the light in alignment for each observer’s eyes. The falling drops are only in position to perform this function for that very moment when they pass through that single ray of light. They continue to fall away, and other drops pass in place to refract and reflect light again. Falling rain suspends the rainbow in the sky for the short time that the relationship of sun, rain, and observer are aligned for the transformation to happen and thus for this creative phenomenon to exist.  –Kyna Leski The Storm of Creativity

There are days when the whole world feels gray and close. Days when there seems to be precious little breathing space, and sunshine feels like a distant memory (even if it shone only yesterday). It was on one such day that, discouraged and disheartened, I stopped by a friend’s house for a glass of wine and a little companionship. When I arrived, sitting on the island in her kitchen was a coloring book page which had been carefully removed from the book. The pre-printed picture was the outline of a happy cow standing in a flower-strewn meadow. The cow had been colored, painstakingly, with thin-line markers in a rainbow pattern (heavy on green and orange sections).

As my friend poured me a generous helping of cabernet, I picked up the colored page and said, “Wow! Someone has been busy!”

At that moment, my friend’s five-year-old daughter Kate walked into the room, intent on some mission of her own. As she passed me she said, “I drew that for you,” and continued through the room and out the door on the other side.

“Thank you, peanut,” I called to her retreating back.

The rainbow cow picture now hangs on my refrigerator, and I thought of it immediately as I read the passage (quoted above) from Kyna Leski’s book on creativity. First, it struck me that every rainbow exists as a function of a particular observer being in that particular place at that particular moment. Leski asserts that this means every rainbow we observe is different from the same rainbow seen by someone else. I had thought that Kate’s rainbow cow was a little strange because of the preponderance of green and orange, but now I wonder if it might not be a reflection of Kate’s observational experience. Or it may be that, in translating her experience through her own artistic vision, a rainbow come alive in cowhide would naturally seem to be shaded in such a way. In any case, the one thing I am certain of is that only Kate would have produced this particular rainbow cow. We all know what rainbows look like, yet every one of us would express that collective understanding differently, due to our own alignment.

As I thought more about the passage from Leski’s book, I cast my mind back to the night Kate gave me the cow drawing. I remember sipping my wine and chatting about the day. Kate and her little sister, Anne, periodically interrupted the adult conversation with giggles or tears; there were hugs and tickles. Within me a change took place: I began to view the gray, sunless day through new eyes. From this new perspective, the hours appeared less uniform in their gray-ness. There had been bright spots and hopeful signs, which I had missed or dismissed before. I realized that a shift in perspective could completely change my view, and in turn could completely shift my experience. More importantly, I saw that such a shift was entirely within my own power. Take a step in any direction (including a mental step or shift) and it is possible to have a clearer, brighter, or simply different, view of things.

Leski goes on to say “the relationship of sun, rain, and observer are aligned for the transformation to happen”. In the margins of my book I wrote, “relationship makes transformation possible”. Certainly, on the night I received Kate’s rainbow cow drawing, relationship offered me that possibility – the opportunity to create a new mind-set as I looked at my day from a different angle. Being with people I loved, held in their positive regard and hospitality, I was able to feel myself renewed and the day/my world view transformed toward the positive. How many times in my life has it been true that relationship has made transformation possible? There are countless examples, from small ones (transforming a momentary mood from gray to sunny) to significant and memorable ones (transforming an unengaged life into a vibrantly engaged one).

In light of these ruminations, glancing at my refrigerator has become an opportunity to check in with myself. First, I remember that I am loved – and usually even the grayest of clouds lightens with that thought. Second, Kate’s rainbow cow reminds me that, not only is my vision of the world unique to me, but it is within my power to shift that unique vision when it isn’t serving me well. Third, it reminds me that relationship (with earth, others, Creator) makes transformation possible. This last may be most important of all if it serves as an impetus to allow my energies to flow both outward and inward. That exchange of energy is where transformation becomes possible. That exchange of energy is how rainbows, and rainbow cows, are made.

Forgiving The Past

Last weekend, I went to a bar to hear a phenomenal blues musician named Dylan Doyle. As it happens, I went to college with Dylan’s father, so the event became a mini-reunion of college friends. I hadn’t seen any of these friends for thirty years, a fact that once would have filled me with dread.

For much of my life, I carried a memory of the past that was highly selective and very tenacious. It included all of my embarrassing moments, the times I behaved badly, the ways I hurt people, and every instance in which I completely misread the situation. Sure I remembered the good times, but those memories focused on the other people involved – I was clear about who they seemed to be and completely uncertain of who I had been. This lopsided habit of memory led me to avoid reunions with high school or college friends because I was always tongue-tied in the face of the strong possibility that I had been insensitive, lacking in self-awareness, and immature “back in the day”.

Then, a few years ago I had a realization: of course I was insensitive, lacking in self-awareness and immature. Duh – late adolescence is known for these qualities. After a whole career spent working with college students I finally thought to apply what I knew about them to myself at that age: college students can be wonderful and energetic, on fire with hope and promise AND they can be arrogant jerks. All rolled up in one fresh-faced human package. Furthermore, it occurred to me that my college friends had their less-than-attractive moments as well. I had been forgiving of these, or overlooked them, or had been so self-focused I’d missed them altogether. The end result being that I had loved them anyway. And perhaps (I could finally accept) they had loved imperfect me as well.

These realizations have led me to reconsider my habit of holding on to the past the way an abusive school teacher once held a paddle – always ready to use it “instructively”. I can’t change the past: who I was or how I behaved at any given moment remains what it was. But there is limited learning that comes from beating myself up with that moment – whether twenty years or twenty minutes ago. Now I try to learn what I can from daily reflection, then let go. Forgiving the past – which is really forgiving myself for my past – allows me greater freedom to act in my life today; I am more open and adventurous, less fearful.

As a result, I’ve been able to enjoy a number of reunions in recent years. Mostly, they’ve been lovely. Some have been one time get-togethers, others have led to rekindled, active friendships. I’ve noticed that the ones that haven’t gone as well have included a component of holding on to the past – one or both of us have failed to reach a place of forgiveness, or we are yearning for something that the other represented to us in the past. These troubled reunions have cemented my belief in the importance of forgiving the past – and have served as a map to the spots in my own heart where there is resistance to it.

Which brings me back to last weekend. What fun it was to gather with these old friends! I rediscovered what attracted me to them all those years ago: they are smart and funny, thoughtful and talented, easy to be with. Once we forgive the past, reunions don’t have to be about the past, they can be focused on the present. I was able to enjoy the moment we were having – basking in the amazing musicianship of Dylan Doyle and the unencumbered pleasure of good company.

 

 

 

 

Changing Climates

“The world has been abnormal for so long that we’ve forgotten what it’s like to live in a peaceful and reasonable climate. If there is to be any peace or reason, we have to create it in our own hearts and homes.” —Madeleine L’Engle, A Swiftly Tilting Planet

I don’t remember when I first read A Swiftly Tilting Planet. As with so many of the books that have stayed with me, what I can remember is the feeling of my mind expanding as I flew through the pages. So much happens in the story line that I wouldn’t attempt a synopsis of the book here. However, in the story the world is on the brink of nuclear annihilation. In this tense and terrifying moment, Meg (our heroine) learns that everything is connected. Everything is connected. Therefore, it matters what she does – even if it is something so seemingly insignificant as what she allows to live within her own heart.

I copied down the quote, above, and have kept it easily to hand for many years. It is said by Meg’s father to remind his family that, in the fateful hour in which they find themselves, they each have something to contribute to the good. I have used the quote, over the years, to remind myself that creating peace and reason in my own heart is crucial to finding it in the world beyond me.

Peaceful and reasonable. These are qualities I strive for, values (peace and reason) I hold deeply. But we humans don’t start there – we get there through intention and effort. And not by overvaluing our intellectual selves at the expense of our emotional selves. We have emotions; we feel things deeply because if we did not, we would always maintain the status quo. Growth – whether on a personal or global scale – only happens with the emotional impetus to change.

However, if we operate only at the feeling stage, we spend our energies expressing but not creating. Don’t misunderstand me: expression of our emotions is a powerful thing – and when we’re coming to terms with hurtful experiences or attempting to find/use our voices despite repression, suppression, or oppression it is an absolutely necessary thing.

And then what?

I’ve watched the news throughout this political season with interest and horror. All my life, I’ve believed many of the things Bernie Sanders stands for, and found abhorrent most of what Donald Trump espouses. But as I see shouting matches devolving into violence and entrenchment, I am reminded that we are living in an abnormal climate. How am I, one person, supposed to have an effect on that?

And then I remember that I do and I can have an effect on it – because everything is connected. Madeleine L’Engle was the first to introduce me to quantum theory, but she certainly wasn’t the last. In college theology courses, I studied Teilhard de Chardin and first learned about the concept of the noosphere. And in recent decades, science has been proving, with break-through after break-through, that what I think and feel does, indeed, have an impact that reaches far beyond my own self.

With that in mind, you will not see me throwing my hands up in an act of surrender. You will not hear me declaring that I give up – or that if things don’t go the way I want them to I will wash my hands of responsibility and leave it for others to take the blame. But neither will you see me engaging in shouting or shoving matches. My most intense struggles will be internal – attempting to quiet my agitation long enough to experience a peaceful heart and a reasonable mind. Whenever I can reach that place internally, I will do my best to project it outward. Because of all the things I think I know, the one I believe with every fiber of my being is that everything is connected. EveryONE is connected.

Ain’t That a Shame?

Back in 2010, I began a weight-loss effort that took me from a high of 354 pounds (possibly higher, but I lacked the courage to get on a scale for a long time) to a low in 2014 of 176. I had reached that magical place where I could declare, “I lost half my body weight!”

2015 was a difficult year for me, for many reasons. Importantly, my lifestyle changed dramatically. I went from very active on a daily basis to very sedentary, and from planful about meals mostly eaten at home to meals mostly grabbed on the go. The weight began to creep back on – well, creep suggests a slow accumulation; perhaps a word suggesting a process both more swift and more dramatic would be most appropriate (I just can’t think of one).

Anyway, the point is I’ve gained back a bunch of weight.

Why am I writing about this today? Well, for the past several days I’ve seen snippets of a former television weight-loss contestant talking on TV and in my Facebook feed. Basically, all of the bits I’ve seen have focused primarily on her feelings of shame over regaining much of the weight she lost during her televised contest*.

Here’s what I am feeling about the weight I’ve regained:

  • Disappointment
  • Discomfort
  • Discouragement
  • Determination.

I would certainly say that my weight gain is a shame. I would not say “I am ashamed” of my recent weight gain. There is a world of difference between these two sentences; it is not just semantics. I am disappointed that, in pursuit of other goals I lost sight of my own personal health goals. I experience discomfort because all of my clothes are too small, because I feel the extra weight as I attempt to become more active again, and because my body just doesn’t feel as good at this weight. I am discouraged – that it is so easy to gain weight but so hard to lose it and that, so far, my efforts to arrest the gain have been less than successful. But I am also determined to refocus my efforts, primarily to bring my physical health and the daily experience of being in this body back into healthful alignment. Secondarily, to make clothes shopping easier again (#truth).

Shame: the debilitating, self-pummeling toxic emotion has little to do with it (and that little, I remind myself, is internalized from external factors).  “Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change,” says shame researcher Brene Brown. “Shame'” she says, “erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.” If I learned anything in the process of losing a lot of weight in a healthy way, I learned that the shame I had nurtured and held on to for so many years, thinking it was the only correct response to being obese, was the very thing that prevented me from taking action for change. When I stopped hiding in the house of shame I had constructed, I was finally able to move forward in my life.

It is such a different experience to take a look at my current weight and see the daily choices, the environmental factors, the emotions that feed into it and to feel generally ok in my own skin in spite of them. Some days, I’m mad at myself for allowing it to happen – but in the way you are sometimes mad at a friend when you discover she gave you a “nice” response rather than a “brutally honest” response – you get over it and the friendship survives.

When I met with my doctor recently, she said, “I’m confident that you know how to and will get back on track because you’ve already done it. ” And while, for a moment, I ruefully wondered if her confidence was justified, in the end all I could do was agree. I have done it. I can do it.

Whether I will lose these regained pounds or not remains to be seen. If I do, I believe I will be more comfortable, encouraged, and satisfied. But I don’t believe the outcome will determine whether I am a more worthy person. So don’t be looking for me to take to the shame-based talk show circuit anytime soon. I wouldn’t offer the viewers enough drama on the subject: just me, doing the best I can to make one good choice at a time.

To all of my friends who are out there, attempting to do the same, I say:

“your worthiness is a birthright and not something you have to earn.” — Brene Brown

(To be fair, I believe she is trying to promote a more positive message, but I haven’t tuned in for the full episodes of her appearances.)

Chausson’s Bicycle

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In 1899, Romantic composer, Ernest Chausson, went out for a bicycle ride. While riding downhill, he hit a brick wall and was killed instantly, cutting short a promising career. In her poem about Chausson’s death, Denise Levertov imagines him riding, his mind filled with music and the colors of the countryside, both gaining in intensity as he gathers speed, takes flight on his bicycle. And then the wall, and a sudden silence.

I’ve owned Breathing the Water, Levertov’s collection of poems in which “From the Image-Flow — Death of Chausson, 1899” is printed, for twentysome years. I’m uncertain how many times, in those years, I’ve read this poem without real comprehension. I didn’t know who Chausson was and never felt enough curiosity to look him up. Furthermore, as someone who didn’t ride a bike, I didn’t catch her allusions to cycling.

This week, I happened to read the poem again and, although she never uses the word “bicycle”, I knew. I finally understood the poem (not just the words she used), and I caught on to the manner of Chausson’s death without resorting to Wikipedia (though I did look it up just to be sure).

What made the difference to my comprehension, this time around? It wasn’t imagination, I’ve certainly had the same ability to conjure thoughts and mental pictures at other times. And I doubt it was merely a matter of timing. No, what opened me up to the imagery of the poem was experience: the flash of recognition that comes with having practical contact with and observation of facts or events.

There was a time in my life when I did not seek out experiences. A long period in which it seemed enough to imagine, dream or surmise how a thing might feel; to use books or other people’s life stories as a guide. “Practical contact” might lead to things I feared, things like pain or grief or disappointment – so I avoided it. I anesthetized myself with food, and protected my tender possibilities with layers of fat that held other people and direct experience at bay. Eventually, I protected myself into near self-obliteration – both literally and figuratively. Almost worse than the erasure of my own life was the discovery that I had completely blunted my ability to feel empathy or compassion.

I had lost my ability to feel my way into a poem.

That changed when I began to say yes to new experiences. I even made it a New Year’s resolution one year: “Say yes to people and doing, no to staying home and sitting.”  Today, a few years down the line from that sterile space I once inhabited, I have not quite become an advocate of stockpiling experiences for their own sake. I still don’t understand the adrenaline-junkies among us, for example. But I have become a vociferous supporter of trying the things that call to you. This has led me to experiences I wouldn’t exchange for “safety”, even though some were emotionally difficult – experiences that opened my heart and engaged my intellect, experiences that allowed beauty to blow open my perceptions or that drew forth gifts I had hidden deep within.

If I hadn’t allowed myself to open up to experience, I wouldn’t have felt the grief  of this past week following the death of a friend. But I also wouldn’t have felt the balm of connection or the solidarity of shared loss.

After such a week, this is the two-fold gift of Chausson’s bicycle. First, the realization that my capacities (to see, to feel, to express) are enriched by engaging with new or broader experience. Second, that life cannot be fully lived if I’m always looking fearfully for the unseen brick wall ahead. Like Levertov’s imagined composer, I intend to ride fast and free, to hear arpeggios in the passing stream and revel in the flashing colors of this world. The wall and the silence are somewhere ahead: this I know. Even so, I will keep my feet to the pedals.

 

 

 

 

 

Turning Our Scars to Beauty Marks

We have no scar to show for happiness. — Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

When I left the house with my ice skates, Mom told me not to stay out too long in the sub-zero temperatures. It was cold enough that my face felt like it might crack into a million pieces every time I smiled. But I was ten and my friends were skating so I skated. It was too cold for leisurely touring around the rink, practicing my backwards skating or making imitation figure-skating moves. No one had brought their sticks, so hockey was out. Which left speed races or whiplash – the two options that would keep us all moving briskly enough to stay reasonably warm in the bitter cold.

If you’ve never played whiplash on ice, you’ve missed out on a truly exhilarating, yet terrifying, experience. Everyone forms a line, holding hands with the people in front of and behind them. The “leader” skates around in whatever erratic manner s/he prefers, while those in the line behind attempt to follow suit. Invariably, the pace picks up, and the whole line is suddenly skating faster and faster. Those toward the end of the line begin to be whipped around at astonishing speeds. Their task is to hold on for dear life! When, inevitably, they drop hands or fall, everyone shouts “Whiplash!”. The game stops while the line re-forms, with the last person moving to the front of the line and becoming the leader.

It wasn’t much fun to be the leader. Even if you tried to be creative, there was really only one point to the game: get the whole line moving fast enough that those at the back would be whipped around significantly enough to lose their balance or drop hands. The fun, as every kid would immediately guess, was had at the back of the line.

Anyway, on that particular afternoon, it was finally my turn to be at the end of the line. I usually managed to keep my feet in the game, but that afternoon was epic. Our Whiplashes were phenomenal! We kept congratulating one another on the way we were whipping each other around on the rink. I took my place at the end of the line with great anticipation. We picked up speed, going faster and faster. Then, just as I began to be propelled at high speed, I hit a divot in the ice and my left skate stopped dead. I fell, launching forward like a projectile, my arms out in front of me. I heard it was breathtaking, the way I flew threw the air stretched out like a parka-clad superhero. I landed in a belly-flop on the ice, which didn’t hurt so much as it left me unable to catch a breath. What did hurt was my right wrist, which landed immediately in front of someone else’s moving skate. Their jagged toe-pick immediately sliced into my wrist, and a pile-up of memorable proportions ensued. Eventually, those on top of the pile of bodies were able to regain their feet, and those of us at the bottom began testing our limbs to make certain nothing was broken. There was a jagged gash in my wrist, which the others gathered around to gawk at. Finally, my cold-addled brain registered the pain signals being sent to it, and I quickly headed home so I wouldn’t embarrass myself by wailing in front of the whole neighborhood.

I remember every detail of that afternoon, although it took place decades ago. (I admit I may have embellished the story a bit over the years.) Every time I notice the tiny white scar on my wrist, it all comes back to me. I don’t notice it that often, but frequently enough to keep ahold of those details.

And that’s how it is with scars. They serve as life-long reminders of the events that caused them. We don’t forget. This is true with emotional scars, as well as the physical ones. We seem always able to touch the scarring event or experience with an immediacy that can take us right to that moment, directly to that emotion. Sometimes, we wear the scar like a badge of honor, the way I wear that tiny white patch on my wrist – a sign of my own badassery or resilience. Sometimes, the scar serves as a warning system, reminding us of the pain that can happen if we don’t protect ourselves. We wear our negative and painful experiences on the surface of our bodies and our psyches, keeping those feelings and experiences – for good or ill – always accessible.

Unfortunately, the same is not also true of happy feelings and experiences. They do not imprint themselves on our surfaces, with similar easy access to memory or the same immediacy of emotion that scars produce. This can lead us to a lopsided recollection of our lives – we readily see the times that scarred us, but have to work harder to recall the times of happiness or positive growth with the same detail.

I think this was the impetus that led me to get a tattoo a few years ago. I wanted a visual reminder of my own growth and the positive changes I was enacting in my life. It was the thought behind the social media campaign “To write love on her arms”. In some ways, it may be the impetus behind our need to document everything in our lives these days with cell phone photos, snapchats, instagrams and selfies. See? we seem to be saying. There was beauty today. Or laughter. Or one shining moment that deserves to be remembered.

Earlier this week, my dear friend Amy passed away unexpectedly. She was too young; her death is a shock to all who knew and loved her. First, there were the tears and expressions of disbelief. And while the pain of loss and grief is still fresh, I’ve been watching the steady stream of photos and memories being shared on social media. As friends and family have stopped to remember, it is the happy moments they are bringing forward and sharing: Amy’s beautiful and irrepressible smile, her positive energy, her kindness. I can’t count how many times in the past few days I’ve said to myself, “Ah, I had forgotten!”

Not only that, but many of us have reconnected over our shared grief and our happy memories. It is so easy to forget, in the busyness of life, the people we’ve loved with and laughed with, the moments and experiences that have fed our souls, the happinesses that enhance our lives – they do so without leaving scars behind to keep them available to us, to remind us to touch them with the same care (and reverence) with which we touch our scarred places.

Was that cold afternoon on an ice rink in Hastings Minnesota really a defining moment in my life? No. What did I learn? I learned that there’s a down-side to being the last person in a Whiplash! line. I learned that injuries in bitter cold don’t bleed as profusely as they do once they warm up. Conversely, were the many happy and laughter-filled moments with Amy defining experiences? I believe they were – I was reminded to take myself less seriously; I discovered that it is possible to work to physical exhaustion and still be enjoying the moment; I learned the fine art of the inside joke from a master. And I learned that happiness is something we have to work for, to take risks for – Amy taught me that through the example of her life, not because she died.

If happiness leaves a scar, it is only when we realize we’ve not attended to it as fully as we ought to have. Perhaps that is just the way it is. But what if we practiced holding happiness at our surfaces, the way we hold our painful scars? What if we looked for ways to write/imprint love and joy on our bodies and our psyches so that we have inadvertent and regular reminders to attend to them? We could call them beauty marks and it wouldn’t be a euphemism! What if, every time we saw or felt a scar or scarring memory, we taught ourselves to also recall a happiness or positive growth moment? Would this help to correct our lopsided vision of ourselves, our capacities, our realities? All I know is that I’d like it to. And that most of us could stand a little self-correction toward a more positive vision of ourselves, our experiences, our lives.  Here’s wishing us all plentiful beauty marks!

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After the Bonk

bonk*:  Expression used by cyclists to describe excercise-induced low blood sugar levels; being a feeling of light-headedness and weakness in all limbs. Similar to ‘The Wall’ in running. Has fallen out of usage in recent years due to alternative meanings. — Urban Dictionary
One of the realities of life for true afficionados – whether it is books, movies, running, or some other thing that is loved – is that even at times when we aren’t engaging with the thing, we talk about the thing. For the better part of the last year, this has been the case with me and bicycling. I’ve read about cycling, I’ve talked about it and written about, I’ve participated in the Thursday night twitter meet-up called #bikeschool – but I haven’t been riding.
I’m making a concerted effort to change that, primarily because I miss the way biking makes me feel when I do it – calmer, fitter, more engaged with my community and with nature. I do love riding – even more than I love talking about riding.
April is the month that I pledge (for the past three years) to ride every day. It’s called #30DaysofBiking. Begun by friends in Minneapolis, it has become a worldwide movement with teams in cities all over the place – including Spain and Belarus**. April, at least in east-central Iowa, is also a mixed-bag of weather, which is part of the challenge of keeping to the pledge.
This year, the first three days of the month offered a cycling challenge in the form of high winds (which I gladly faced rather than the sleet I rode in last year on the #30daysofbiking kick-off ride in Minneapolis). Friday and Saturday I dutifully rode, pushing against headwinds and trying to remember the tricks of countering gusty crosswinds to remain upright on my bike.  Dressed in layers and wearing gloves against the early spring chill, I was excited to be out riding my new bike.
Sunday, April 3, was a beautiful day; sunny, with temperatures climbing into the 70s. I had social commitments early in the day, but I was itching to get out for the day’s ride. It was mid-afternoon before I managed it, but as soon as my tires hit the pavement, my spirits soared. I headed south on the trail, nodding or calling friendly greetings to the other trail-users, plentiful on such a gorgeous day. The winds were still gusty and strong, but when I set out they were manageable. And at my back.
When I last rode regularly, it was not at all unusual for me to easily ride thirty or more miles in an afternoon. My mind remembered that – overriding any signals from my body that I hadn’t stayed in shape to do that easily. So I rode and rode, loving the experience. Eventually, my brain received the message my body had been sending for a while: turn back or you’ll regret it! When I did turn around to head back into town, I was immediately struck full-face by 40-mile an hour winds. Um, yeah. The ride back was going to be a bit more difficult.
In one section of trail, surrounded on all sides by open fields, the wind threatened to sweep me right off my bike, and my bike right off the trail. Suddenly, my awesome Sunday ride had become (in my mind anyway) an epic battle between me and the elements. My knees painfully protested the degree of force necessary to crank the pedals. My mind contracted – gone were the sweet fancies that had flitted through it on the ride out. Now, my only thought was a repetitive, “Keep going.” When I allowed myself a rest stop, I rationed the water in my bottle so it would last a bit longer, even though my mouth felt bone dry. Because it was my third ride in as many days, I was sore from getting accustomed to my new saddle. My knees had commenced screaming. I considered calling a friend to come pick me up, but rejected the idea with stern self-talk. At the downhill section where speeds well over twenty miles an hour are typical even while sometimes coasting, fighting the wind I never got above 13 mph. My attention was so concentrated that I hadn’t noticed the clouds massing until it started to rain. And then, weirdly, my feet started cramping. I got off the bike and walked until the cramps subsided. Then I rode some more.
As suddenly as it had started, the feeling that I was locked in an epic battle against the weather ended. I was simply exhausted with another two miles to go before reaching home. The rain had been brief, but the wind continued unabated. My internal dialogue went silent. There was nothing to do but keep moving. And so I did.
Later, after a shower and food, my body was sore and tired. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the afternoon’s ride. When, I wondered, would I be able to get out again? How would I keep challenging myself to push my limits? I realized, with real surprise, that – miserable as I had been – I had been enjoying myself! Not the kind of enjoyment that results in warm feelings and easy laughter – not even the enjoyment I felt after riding in last year’s sleet, because that was derived in part from the camaraderie that develops when friends share difficulties. No, this brand of fun was definitely a more serious kind. I hadn’t been in any real danger – I could easily have stopped and called for assistance. But I didn’t, and the serious fun of it was exactly that. I pushed myself to do more than I thought I could. In doing so, I realized that I was capable of more.
I bonked hard that day. But what I learned was this: what I am truly capable of doing is only visible after the bonk. And that is an important lesson to keep hold of in other parts of my life. I wasn’t embarrassed that I crashed and I didn’t waste time berating myself (though I could have taken some measures to mitigate or prevent it). Instead, I was proud of myself for keeping on. Why is it so hard to generalize that experience to the other parts of life? Lord knows, I crash and burn in my personal and professional life with regularity, and sometimes it is my own fault. But why should I allow the crashes to define my sense of self-worth, when what comes afterwards is often more revealing of who I am and what I’m capable of achieving?
I think that is what “serious fun” is all about: challenging limits, not solely for the sake of doing so, but in order to learn and grow. And that’s what I’m taking with me this time, after the bonk.
*Yes, I know bonk is a word used in other contexts that are sexual in nature – try to be mature enough not to snicker about this every time I use it in the context of cycling, please!
**My friend, Patrick Stephenson, is the driving force behind this movement of “joyful cyclists” which contributes, through sponsorships, to cycling charities – check it out online!.