Menopause and Infertility

So hey there loves.
Yesterday was menopause day, aka CD 366. One full year with no period.

The past year has been filled with chin pimples and fading hair, skin that is thinning everywhere, showing the impact of gravity and estrogen loss.

As someone who lived, it seemed, cycle to cycle for so many years.  A late cycle would bring hope then torment and sadness. The year before last was a year of long periods, of wondering more than once if maybe, just maybe........ but then a panic would set it, what if? and what if I had a loss? And I think that might have happened but I did not check with sticks or temping... just waited things out.

Once, my first long cycle, I was sure I was pregnant. And the mixture of emotions was profound.  Amazement.  Fury. Hope. Fear. and then, when the bleeding started, such immense loss.  And then, the next time, I mostly felt loss, that I was officially out of the zone of possibility, no way for a good outcome even if... and to feel my body changing, to see it changing.... well, some changes are easier than others.

So today marks perhaps the first day of not wondering.
A feeling of in between. No longer that.  Not yet wholly and fully this.

Maiden, mother, crone. and the middle one holy moly mo-cro.
I am both.

not a day goes by where I don't feel wonder, even if it is wonder and madness.

So here we are.  in the middle of the middle.

the end of the year

so here we are at the end of the year, and I am thinking about what i have learned. I learned I need to create, in ways that feel creative to me, as I am doing the work, letting the work through me, it is not optional. it is nourishment. it is essential. I have learned that too much work is not the blessing it may appear to be, but can impact everything in ways that feel like suffocation. that right work in right amounts is delicious. i have learned that my body and mind are brave and that my panic was/is pain trying to express itself. be heard. be understood. be accepted. and pushing it down and away is impossible. pull up a chair and listen, katekate. That is what it needs. after panic I need rest. full rest. sleep or distraction. I need to refill. i have learned I am not good at that. I bullshit myself. I am excellent at that. time to trade a little of my excellence in bs into excellence in self care. unapologetic. simply necessary. i have learned that I need connection that is simple. and I need conversations that are complex. that I need beauty that is simple. and beauty that is beyond imagining. I need to make space(s) for myself and within myself to hold who I am growing into, so I don't take the shape of an old container like a pot bound plant. I define the shape by my growing. i have learned that loving others is what I am here to do. and that others includes me. i have learned that doing my best work means telling the truth, even silently to myself. i have learned that I can speak, and that the listening is not up to me. but that I can speak in ways that make it more likely to be heard. I have learned that my enthusiasm can be a deterrent. too much. and the best I can do is laugh and call it what it is, and know that it is a filter. if I am too much, then maybe the work is not the right work, or the person is not the right fit, or the time is not right. my enthusiasm is a gift. but so is my conscious awareness of others. let me bring both together more harmoniously in the new year. i have learned that my changing body does not mean I have to reject myself because I am no longer familiar. it is an invitation to renew my own familiarity with this place I call home. recognizing I am in a time of rapid and chaotic transition. my needs will change as fast as my topography and my chemistry, and i need to cultivate self compassion, curiosity and fluidity in adapting. I have learned that love can be deep and distant, can be simple and complicated. that I can love and be loved and not understand or be understood. and that understanding is simply not as necessary as acceptance. If I wish to be accepted as myself. i need to accept others as themselves too. it goes both ways. both. in and out. out and in. like breath. i have learned that my mosaic of friends and family create the reality of my support system. that no one can hold the whole of my needs and no one should. I have learned to be a better piece in the mosaic of others'. I cannot be everything to anyone else either. i have learned that i know shit about parenting and my history of abuse and codependence makes this so so hard as I dance the crazy impossible certain to fail dance of conflict avoidance... but am doing my best with a smart sensitive spirited sprite whose energy outpaces mine like an Australian sheep dog. i am learning the difference between reacting and responding. this, my friends, is slow painful learning. i have learned how much of my life is tethered by a self I tend to so rarely. the one who is me. not the roles, the duties, the actions, the work. but this kateness, this one. this one who sits and writes and words come out like salty water of tears of joy and relief, face turned upwards toward whatever is out there, that connects with all and the everything, including all that is in here.

7

Somehow through miracles bigger than I will ever understand, Della is 7 today. She is immense and beautiful. Smart and funny. Snarky and tender and spirited. She is magical and complicated. Sensitive.
She is not yet independent or resilient or patient or empathetic. She is an only child who wants and believes she needs full immersion intensity, attention, interaction, responsiveness. School is hard, structure is not hard but noise is, and chaos, and no space for quiet. She arrives home tired and hungry. And needing to be internal. So in she goes, but near by.  barks out needs: Toast!  More toast! while her screen saves her with magical worlds the way mine once did with the original Star Trek and no I am not kidding.

I have rarely known anyone so often and deeply disappointed and disapppointable. Or someone with as lovely and contagious a smile and laugh and true silliness.  She knows we are here,  but aches for us to be closer. No longer wants kisses, will negotiate for hugs.

parenting in the time of consent is curious.  Yes it is your body but we NEED to wash it.

and me, oh I am missing the snuggles. I am missing being the throw pillow that held her weight even if not her attention. And as I try to reconnect with my own independence. My own patience. My own resilience. I am strung deep and hard into empathy and anxiousness, my desire to avoid discomfort a true pathology that gets in the way of joy and experience.  And I am navigating like a new driver with a standard transmission, too many pedals, too abrupt a change causes a lurch or a stall or a fearfilled rolling backwards as I forget all I know, emergency brake, flashers, ignition, my ability to walk or sit still or wait or think. there is a perpetual immediacy that I feel in parenting, and am learning (SLOWLY) to create gaps.  longer and longer.  between a thing and a response while still being responsive.  I can say, let me think about that. I can say, hm. I'm not sure.

Parenting means parenting me too.  this weirdness of finding out all the areas I've glosssed over with make do skills.  la la la avoidance. la la la.   well hello there unfinished business, guess I will scooch over and make some more room for you at this big ole table of other things I need to address.    learning and learning and relearning. not always comfortable.  no, that's a lie.  not comfortable nearly ever.   I reposted something on FB today, a great quote posted by someone who posts great quotes. 

Robert Kaplan

“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
Benjamin Mee, We Bought a Zoo

 I cannot promise the same.  Something great may not come of it.  But as I am learning my tiny brave steps.  my tiny insane moments of courage.  I can say that they are their own tiny greatness.  Look, I can say, look. I am trying.  I am pushing beyond what I knew or know. I am thinking of things differently.  I am willing to try to change.   Panic still has fun with me. A recent Lyme diagnosis has not been resolved with doxy. I wonder as I move forward who I am and what will stay, what will go. and how I will adjust to what my body feels like whatever that turns out to be. the same way I wonder who I am and what will stay in the wake of so many years of struggling with panic. I know I am still here. but also ever evolving. ever changing.

Last night, I tucked a sleeping Della into bed after reading, and I felt teary.  A deep ache for time passed and passing.  the preciousness of it all. and the impossibility of the adage to treasure and remember every moment. Some moments suck and are not treasured. Many go unnoticed in the act of being and doing and folding and working. Almost none can be remembered for me.  I know I held that baby full time for nearly a year. And yet, my memory is nearly a dream. the curve of her cheek. her ear. Her eyebrows. the way her chin dimples. Now stretched into a strong 7 year old who cartwheels in the living room, dances, and cries every single time she needs a bath. That, at least, remains the same. A touchpoint that connects the beginning to the now.

 

As above, not always, as below

So here we are.
April.
Snow still up over my boots, but a serious melt happening right now. The sky is full of clouds saying rain soon, rain soon, rain soon, as if that is a surprise. The earth is heavy with water right now, while on the other side of the earth, this rain, this snow, this water would be traded for gold.

So here I am.
Kate.
Snow still up over my boots, and life happening both above and below ground. Above ground, I turned 50. Della is growing fast, and teenagering already, and Doug is nearly ready for his seasons away at camp.  And I am not ready for that, not really. But here we are.

Below ground, I feel a little more stable. New medication holds the wolves of panic at bay. And I am returning slowly slowly to something that feels more like I used to. At least more like I used to.  But different. I'm different. And I can feel the change in my bones.

I do not want to live wary. (I choose this word, not warily)-- I do not want to live in fear.
I don't. I don't want to live waiting for the wolves to come and steal my happy, steal my autonomy, steal my sense of safety.  I don't want to feel as if my grip is tenuous. I want to feel strong and rooted and ready and able.
And I am shoring those up, digging deep, nourishing myself, and trying not to freak the fuck out when a windstorm comes and shakes the whole thing down and down and down.

I want to tell you about parenting and how, at 50, I am still panging with whateveritis that hurts when pregnancies are announced, and when little ones are passed, arms to arms, and the beginnings, so sweet, leave a longing.  I want to tell you we talk about adopting and how, here I am, knees and soul creaky, imagining and not being able to imagine. Not with this child, not in this lifetime, and then I feel bad for feeling that. As if I should be open.  But my openness is to not knowing what will come. Right now my heart is open in the direction of a family member needing extra love. And maybe that is what I am built for, yes, extra love-- here and here and here and here.

I want to tell you I am working hard at work that pays me with people I love. And I want to say that that is enough. But it isn't. I want to be creating more, writing, learning, self-directing.  My financial fear is still in place, month by month, we make it. Have more than most on the planet, and yet, we are of that group that is one emergency away from catastrophe. So for now, I kiss the ground in gratitude, and make lists of things I want to do when I have time, when I allow myself time.

I want to tell you I am taking care of my body, eating well, and walking and spending time outside. But my last two foods were potato chips and potato chips, and I walked to get them at the kitchen counter but I don't think that counts.

I want to tell you that I am flourishing in this post infertility era, this mid life, this amazing life, and I am and I'm not. there is no post-infertility. there is no post loss. there is life after, yes, but it is never "post", it does not recede. it rides shotgun. and I have come to realize that is what this is. a companion of sorts, a thing that is part of my experience that is not undoable.

I want to stay and write all day, I ache for this ache ache ache for this
but now, the timer is going off, the one that keeps me on track (HA HA HA HA HA)
and, coincidentally, also means my egg is ready to eat. the one I have boiled and will peel and will imagine it is anything other than what it is.

Anxiety, you may bite me.

Usually there is a rush, first. A whoosh as adrenaline bolts from the solar plexis gate and the race begins-- down arms, and legs, up along my jaw, into the top of my head, and neck, and into an emotional whatthefuckness of total hijacked badness.

under threat
in danger

in this land of no lions, the dangers the threats are ghosts. ghosts of old wounds, rubbed new by navigating grief.
ghosts are reminders of vulnerability, true vulnerability, true threat, true aloneness without resources, without backup, without the ability to keep anyone safe.
ghosts haunt with memories of insufficiency, of true inadequacy, faced with problems that I could not solve, were not solvable, about which I felt responsible even if I was not truly responsible, and ended in the ultimate failure of loss of a loved one.

this cocktail is a potent one,
the pin is pulled, the trigger, touchy, everything good feels temporary, and the anxiety, when it comes, feels like it will never leave.

I have so many tools at my disposal.  Yoga, breathing, nature, love. Meditation, mindfulness, awareness, curiosity.  I have art and friends and family and doctors. I am lucky beyond measure. And yet, with all of my tools, all of my resources, I am failing.  (don't worry, I KNOW better, but that is what it feels like).

beyond the triggery rushes, there is a low lying fog of it too-- potent in its own insidious ways: the fear of fear. a cloud-headed cool tingly feeling of waiting and sadness.
the grief of losing what felt like my own unconscious but oh now i know how sweet it was sovereignty
the grief of losing the innocence of life without this brand of Fear.
This is Anxiety plus Grief.

The timing and the emotional depth suggest the triggering may have started as I truly began to face the grief associated with Jeff's death after avoiding it for so long. But it is cleverly mixed with triggers embedded in things that every parent of a toddler faces. Often.

To get a handle on it at all, I asked for medication about a month ago.
I felt better knowing I had something to take, but I also felt more and more there is some sort of emotional scope creep where I was feeling fear more and more often. So, with my doctor's blessing I am doing an ativan boot camp-- medicating before physical responses as much as I can. This, I thought, would allow me to address the mental and emotional parts more directly without having to cope with the physical manifestations.
But in the 7 days since my plan was implemented, I have had two big triggers, two floods, two chunks of time washed away into the foreign and unpleasant land, and countless hours tinged or awash in fear of fear and grief about the fear.

today, the morning after the second trigger...I am so tired, bone tired. but also trying to revel in the good feelings that the lack of anxiety-in-this-moment means.
when it is not here, my ordinary, spectacularly ordinary life is so rich with good feelings, with openness with unclenched body.. but even with the relief, I am now on watch
and I hate that.

aware, alert for any change that may mean It's Coming Back.

constant vigilance.  vigilance does nothing but sap me. it does not keep it back. hold it at bay. make me more effective. it does not make me a better parent, a better person, a better artist (oh, maybe it will actually, who knows?), it does make me more compassionate to all who suffer from this bullshit.
but
man alive. I am just so tired.

this month marks one year of this dance.
and I toast it, with irony and  a quarter of an ativan.
I am working this, hard. and also trying my hand at allowing. at listening. at believing there are messages in this for me that are important.  I have a care team, I have Doug, I have my own stubborn tired self.
there are gifts in this, I am sure. and I say I am open to finding them. but in this moment, knowing there must be gifts is not the same as feeling it to be true.

coming back home

It was so dark and foggy this morning, nearly monochromatic until 7 when the yellow of the leaves started to peek through. it is hard to imagine that vibrancy dulled in any way now that it is midday and bright with clouds flying by overhead south to north.
The long stillness felt like a held breath, and there is relief in the motion, of leaves falling, of clouds flying. And there is a relief too in the view opening up, the fog gone, a sense of distance renewed.

I traveled last week for business, and am just now getting my feet under me. I was only west-coast time lagged, but felt like I was on mars. Away away. Way away. Being away from Della felt horrid. Not just because we have not yet weaned (although that was its own kind of suckitude), but because I am used to being within a car drive, an arm's reach, an hour.

So I am back and reconnecting every which way. Catching up to language that shifted in my absence, making that absence feel more acute. Catching up to my own selves, also feeling a bit shifted in flight. So yes, back home.  Grateful. Steeped in tea and toast and wool socks.

Journeys: buddha and ammo boxes

Driving up route 145 north out of colebrook, you'd pass Dostie's furniture on the right.  A long low building sided in vertical boards of a medium blue. Tune up shops, trailers and homes fall away quickly as the road heads uphill faster than you can downshift. 

The drive takes you up one of the most beautiful winding drives in New Hampshire, up and up and up. Up through Stewartstown to Clarksville toward Pittsburg.

For the past half hour, before I lost signal, I'd been listening to NPR, coming in tiny aggravating bits, a TED show on storytelling. I hear enough that affirms what I know, how stories inform us, connect us, express our humanness... and even though the sporadic signal is long since gone, an npr-ish narrator remains.

Driving up route 145 out of colebrook...

but it is me,

I am driving,

and I am driving to the cemetery.

This story was supposed to begin like this:

3 ammo boxes, a buddha and some bells.

An empty bag from Dunkin Donuts.

An empty car seat.

A baggie of stale cheerios.

A small painting of a winter sky.

A well-past prime brown eyed susan.

I am in good company I guess, confused company. Bit and pieces that express my life in this instant. This journey today has been a long one, and it has been a long one, and it will be a long one. I realized a while back that grief is a long term partner. It is patient enough to wait out any amount of denial and diversion. It comes up, coughs politely into its hand, just often enough to not forget. Occasionally it moves a doorway so you slam into a wall that was not there the day before, but that, these many years later, just happens sometimes.

I am here with two boxes of Jeff's things. Things I could not throw away but cannot keep. Things that were personal, intimate. Things that were his. I've added some symbolic things too, a fountain pen, an abacus, 3 fly fishing flies (a wooly bugger, blue winged olive and a royal wulff). I've added a knot of keys from an old truck. 3 stones. And a note I wrote with a very shaky hand the night before.

The things are in two ammo boxes, a momentary act of brilliance on my part, waterproof,  compact, and speaking directly to Jeff's love of old military equipment, and utilitarian design. He used to have one in his truck for change and the notebook where he fastidiously recorded every gallon of gas purchased, every oil change, every mile driven.

The third box came with my ebay purchase, and I will give it to Peter, the Sexton, whose history in the armed forces has just been revealed to me.

The buddha is in place of a marker I cannot afford.

And the bells, I am not sure what they are for. Movement maybe, movement. Change. 

And the flower, if all goes well, will come up again and again and again, spreading its pot bound roots deep into the nearly impenetrable soil that has been loosened, in this moment, by 2 and a half hours of Peter's patient digging.

Peter is a farmer and an angel. He has dug a million holes. Fence posts and grave markers. The hole where we stand is just one of those million, but the angel in him says that this is the only one that matters, the only one that matters this way, today.

We put the boxes in the bottom and slowly fill the hole with handfuls of soil and rocks while we fill the air with conversation that stretches nearly as far as the sky.

We talk of town politics and god and vietnam, of guns and hospitals, of his wife, and love, and hope.

We talk of things we agree on and things about which we disagree, but I can see how he sees it, if I were standing in his shoes.

He raises heritage chickens and I am raising a spirited child, and his kids are long grown.

We place the buddha and the plant. He places the carefully cut sod.  I arrange rocks to hold the bells which do not meet with my hopes for either clear ringing movement or of heavy-bottomed groundedness. Oh well. There are a million things, I know, that are better in theory than in practice.

And then, my nose fully burned, and my hair blown wild by a wind that has kept up with our conversation, we make our way back up the hill. He finds and hands me a turkey feather. We talk about skunks and the divots they've left everywhere in the grass.

With a hug, we part, and I walk to my car, stinking of the stale beer I spilled from a can I picked up as trash when I first arrived...my eyes seeking sign of cousins of the bees that flew in fast, as soon as my doors opened, and would not get out until ignored fully, with all the doors open, while I moved boxes and buddha and bells to the site.

It has been an hour and a half. And it has been much longer than that. And I am still 4 hours from home.

The light has changed, and now the hillsides show more glorious color-- the air has cleared maybe, and the wind is no longer tossing every leaf upside down.

145 is more beautiful north to south and I creep along, happy that no one is behind me, as I look out over acres of mountain sides, flush with fall color, and the black spears of some sort of evergreen.

I drive home through rain in franconia, hard enough to look like dark coming on.

The down and down and toward home.

Just as it is truly dark, I get out of the car to throw out my donut bag,  and my legs are wobbly from the journey.

It feels like so much longer than  a day.

I look up at the windows of our apartment, the twinkle lights strung perfectly imperfectly across the glass. It is like coming back from the moon, I imagine, welcoming and strange. And I am both lighter and heavier than I was when I left.

not at all our ordinary

Della is asleep.
not on me or next to me
or on anyone.
she's alone in the other room.
Granted, she is on my bed, the bed I will sleep in...
and worn out from a day of copious snot and some farm animals and a trip to target and a walk downtown

but we don't do this.
this is not at all our ordinary
it is the oddest thing ever to have her be asleep in there and have me awake in here

she fell asleep at 6 and will wake, starved and imperious, somewhere between now and 3am.

but here we are.
in separate rooms.

I've checked her a few times, she is now 90 degrees away from her starting position.
and
well.
wow.
I'm going to go have some dinner.
and
um
maybe read a book?
I don't have the faintest idea what to do which is insane and just goes to show just how far down the rabbit hole I've fallen

falling, saving myself, great fits and starts

once I wrote that flying is just falling and saving yourself over and over again, and I thought i was pretty clever but, of course, a bazillion other clever people have seen it the same way

so here I am
falling, saving myself, falling, saving myself.

I realized that I was stressing myself out, being crazy busy, working as hard as I could, putting in the biggest effort possible-- more hours of daycare meant more time to work, more hours of daycare meant I needed to work more time... and clients come and go, projects come and go... and
finally, after working like that-- there came a moment when I realized if I cut back on everything, that really, the only thing that would be different is my stress level.
Financially we'd be no better or worse off, but my days would get unwound from the crazy insanity of go go go go go go that I've been running, to something maybe more manageable.

Then, in the middle of that, there is summer, and Doug being away, and serial Della sickness and barfinesses thanks to daycare that kept me/us from being able to go and see him, and finally
yes
stop.
rebuild.
slowly.

Along with this, a new client who is a great fit.
And, my own heartwork, developing it fits and starts, culminating in a workshop I gave yesterday on everyday mindfulness that 11 brave and wonderful women attended... I was absolutely where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to be doing.
Right fit.

So, I am in a rebuilding and regrouping phase. Daycare is not an option for summer, and I need to just know that and plan for it if Doug is away.
Working like a crazy insane person to pay for daycare to come out even or behind is actually crazy and insane of the option for working like a slightly less crazy and insane person leaves me in the same position.

Lesson learned.
For now.
Because right now I am in the saving myself part of the program.

non weaning, yes, another update

after that shitstorm of emotion, that instantaneous shift that I was clearly not ready for...
well,

she's nursing again.

so.
what does it mean? it means I got a front-row preview of my actual process, and while it does suck, I will live.
tears don't kill us, thank god/goddess/all-that-is
but oh! there is grief
and gosh darn, how much I don't want to slog through that.... but I will, and I will live, even if it is astonishing in its complexity

but since i am in the habit of looking for hidden gifts, it also means I got a glimpse into what it might be like to sleep without the weight of my not-so-little-one slung across me, and, well, in some ways that will be nice. hello deep breath, I remember you.

it also means that I am aware of the fact of my own complexity, and at least I can practice (and practice and practice) self compassion...

thank you for your kind support while I struggle my way through this

on not weaning, part... heck, I've lost count...

So.

Yesterday Della woke to a stiff neck. As a reminder for those of you who might have missed some salient points, we co-sleep (a most excellent plan that helped us survive her infancy, and a most shitty plan when it comes to making or even envisioning changes), and are still nursing especially at night since I am like an all-dessert exhausted buffet.

So, her stiff neck was horrid. A full hour of shocked horrified tears, full blown, so very sad and horrible to not be able to do anything to help (no! don't rub it. no! no warm compress...). She tried to nurse to soothe, and each time she tried, it hurt really badly and she cried harder (not good for either of us).

Her neck THANKFULLY improved as the day went on, but a midday attempt at nursing still hurt, so...

We tend to nurse to wind down before sleep, but last night.... no. She said she was done.

And then we went to bed, and for the first time ever, she fell asleep next to me and not on me, and I cried hard and lay awake for hours trying to come to grips with this sudden change.
I was not ready to have it break off like that, associated with pain, and Oh, it was bad for me.

Midnight, she turned and nursed one side.
3am she nursed the other.
(Engorgement pain is no joke, and I was surprised and grateful)

Then, this morning, we're up and going and I guess I won't know where we stand until tonight.
I do know this: change is part of every moment, and while some of this is about me holding on to things I will never do again, and a kind of closeness that is one I have never experienced, and a connection with her that I know will transform, but this I know... this transition is one of the most fraught with emotional complexity that I have ever dealt with philosophically or in real life.
This is really, really, really, really hard.

remembering how to walk.

Each season, my eyes learn something new. This spring, I learned that the papery leaves on the beech trees that last, miraculously, all winter-- get pushed off by these long spiny spiraled furls of new leaves. The old leaves are parchment. The new ones begin as dark red tips on gray brown twigs.

I walked. I walked in the woods.

In the old days, this would have been nothing to remark on. The walking I mean. The beech leaves would have been worth remarking any day.

But the walking. Remember how i used to walk? I hiked every day, or most days. I spent time outdoors every day. Sometimes in the garden. Sometimes in the hammock. But outside. looking long and far (sky and stars) or close at flowers and roots and dirt.

I walked and breathed fresh air and felt my muscles push me uphill, and slow me down on the descents.  I walked and walked and walked.

I walked.

I have missed it. OH how I have missed it.

Della and I climbed into the thicket beside the big overgrown apple tree, up behind the garage thingy that holds the tools for maintenance here at our apartment building. We made a hole through the branches of the tree, the branches of the bushes next to it, and suddenly were under the tree, a mystical umbrella of branches and sky. Oh loveliness.

Then up behind the tree into the woods.  Woods with tiny tiny pinecones. Woods with fallen branches to step over. Woods with fallen leaves. Woods filled with deer poop.  Woods that smelled like woods and dirt and life.  Up the hill toward the clearning I could feel by the light.  And to the edge of the back side of the golf course! What a surprise that was. I did not know that is where this property ended.  The rustic local course that feels like it is far away. I realize now, the roads fold back, and the clearing makes sense now that I know it. But it felt like a surprise, like I was expecting sheep up there. Not greens.  

We turned back and came downhill again, back under the tree, through the branches, and back into the small slice of grass before the parking lot.  It was a small walk, but a very big walk. I spent so much time thinking about it. How the woods have been there much longer than I have lived here (of course), and of course I look at them and look at them and look at them.  But then, that day, something shifted. The light maybe. My perspective. The woods, I realized, could be hiked through.... it was like an epiphany. And it felt *possible* for the first time. A walk! Yes, with Della. Yes, holding hands and lifting over logs and under branches, and no don't pick that up it's poo. And yes....

And up there, a beech tree. Parchment leaves littering the ground underneath, with a few still on the branches...and new furled leaves waiting.

***

Totally gratuitous Della photo and me, smiling, and leaning wayyyyyy over to compensate for the DellaGrande.  From friday at my Mom's.

100 breaths, micro meditation

Hello loves,
I recently posted this over at Heartwork, but realized we could ALL use a bit of relief, so I am cross posting it here.  I am using it every day. Sometimes only for a breath or two, but sometimes for longer, and it really does help.

There are downloadables at the bottom.

100 Breaths: Experience the power of micro-meditation

Meditation can seem mystifying and mystical…  The benefits unattainable or something that can only be attained after years of practice and patience and… well…real life (for many of us) does not include easy access to that sort of space and time.

In the same way as nearly almost any other thing worth doing (even loving and allowing ourselves to be loved), practice does indeed help. But here’s a secret: hardcore intense practice is not necessary for you to experience some very real benefits of meditation. You can do it right now. No kidding.

Ready? Don’t overthink this, just give it a go- no preparation is required.

Simply watch your next breath come in and release.

Don’t try to change your breath, or force it, or hold it, or prolong it or even examine it. Just witness it. One breath, in and out.

Try witnessing two breaths. Breathe in. Then Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Just witness, don’t change anything except your attention.

Things that help:  Closing my eyes often helps me focus, but I just as often practice this with my eyes wide open.

For some of you, it may help to listen or hear yourself count (“1”, “2”, or say “inhale, exhale”). For some of you it will help to watch each number float in during the inhale, and float away during the exhale. For some, feeling your way around a string of beads or knots will help.

Mind wandering? Getting lost? If you lose track, don’t panic. Just begin again at some number near where you think you left off to go wandering.

I find that I often exhale, yawn, or sigh around breath #9.

When I find my mind has wandered off (and it always does), I just bring it back to witnessing my breath, choose a number close to where I think I wandered off… and just simply come back to counting.

A gentle invitation: Today (right now?), start with one breath or two. See if you feel some unraveling, some release, or maybe a moment of unexpected quiet.

Next time, try witnessing ten breaths.

Each time you return to this practice, add a few more breaths—maybe 5 or 10… By the time you reach 100 breaths? Congratulations! You will be doing 10-15 minutes of mystification-free meditation.

Here's a link to a downloadable version of the piece.

And here is a link to an audio file.

 

copyright 2013, Kate Johnson

www.kate-johnson.com

light, in three parts

Am sitting with sun coming in
tea warming me after an unexpectedly COLD shower (ug)
and just am trying to gather myself together.

I was going to be taking a goal oriented trip today, a solo trip. A long-ass drive trip. An all-day-in-the-car trip.  An at least one-part-shitty, one-part-maybe-healing kind of trip. But then I realized I was not ready, not really, and I am trying to be ok with that.  I try not to dwell here on shitty history, but sometimes it just is what I am dealing with. This year will be the 10 year anniversary of Jeff's death, and I realized, somewhat to my own surprise, that I was maybe ready to do some things I was not even able to think about a short while ago. One is to find a place to have a marker. A touchstone in the most literal sense. And this must be in the upper reaches of the state, in a place I know he loved. And I was going to go today to meet with a cemetery sexton to talk plot selection, etc. And it turns out, not surprisingly, that the place I picked from the map, upon further reflection, is not the right place. And yes, there is a right place. I have been there before, just long ago and far away. I will remember it when I see it. But I need to go, first. I need to go and look and feel my way toward the place I am remembering. And that will suck differently. Then I can talk plot and narrative arc and denouement. I was to leave well before dawn today to get there for a meeting time, then home again I hoped by dinner. Instead, I am here.

Here.

My beloveds are off eating pancakes, and I am needing to work since I can (I cannot when Della is here, our place is too small, and we are too interactive), and instead of diving into work I just played a bit with something I've been wanting to learn to do-- text along a curve

And I am stoked since it just simply worked.
Yes, I am an engineer by training, but I know no one more persistently thwarted by technology. So when I have success, it is like the biggest surprising YES ever, since my view of technology is that it should either be completely transparent (JUST WORK), or delight me. And this view persists, oh how it persists, in spite of my repeated experiences to the contrary.

So while I gather my expectations for the day while practicing more than a bit of self compassion, I wanted to write since I have been missing words here for a while. Sharing lovely images of Della is wonderful, (see below where Doug helps her look little for just a little longer), but words heal me differently and sometimes I forget that it is important not to hold it all back and down and hope it just magically resolves. There is healing when I let the light in.

another from easter

Luscious retreat.

This is an invitation to check out my upcoming October retreat if you might be interested. I will not be harping about it here, I promise.
I'll probably mention it just a few more times.
Early bird pricing goes until May 15th.
I am about to do a bigger advertising push.
But you, YOU are my people. And if this calls to you, let me know. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have. For example, there is a fridge for meds. Dartmouth and Boston are both 2 hours away. There is a local hospital for bloodwork if needed.

some kind of spring

all night it snowed. then it snowed all day.
tiny flakes that zipped down, straight and fast
big fluffy flakes that meandered
snow that came down hard and closed the space between my window and the apple tree
snow that blew sideways in cartoon spirals
snow that shhhhhhhhhhhed against the windows
snow that was silent
snow that piled up and fell off the trees, or got blown off in big white sheets
snow that stuck to the pine needles, the divots in the bark
snow that still weighs down the branches
snow that the plow truck pushes up against mountains of older snow, iced into place
snow that softened all the edges into curves
snow that holds long morning shadows like lattice

yesterday, every kind of snow...
but today? spring.

decluttering my own self

The start of the new year, and so many folks take to decluttering and resolutionating.
One of my decluttering projects is very personal: I am trying to see how I am getting in my own way and trying to see how to change that.  As such, today I meet with my new wonderful coach. I am excited but it is hard to know that I will be facing some of my longstanding demons.  I already have begun that sort of site excavation in the pre-work.  I know that it will be messier before it declutters, but it is a really awkward time in any project like this where things look much worse, feel more out of control... and then, it starts to come together.

I am so great at helping other folks do this, and I *so suck* at doing this for myself. Luckily I found a wonderful coach to assist me.  I cannot recommend Lorraine highly enough-- she is very smart (VERY), no bullshit, very intuitive, and I just want to curl up in a big chair and talk to her all day. Maybe someday we'll figure out how to make that happen.

As with so many transitions, just deciding it is time to make changes puts things into motion.

I already am on a better track.

I am happily taking some new risks that feel very very right-- one is a retreat I am planning for this coming October here in New England. Details are not complete yet (still deciding on a venue), but a lot is ready and up if you want to go check it out. Write me with concerns or questions. This will be introvert friendly and not at all a funky-artsy-competitive-who-is-cooler gathering.  This will be funky, to be sure, but playful and soulful and supportive and good.  Think about it. Pass it on. I can't wait to see what unfolds!

I-me

Flurries today, little snowflakes flying in all directions, sunshine one moment, clouds the next... but it is warmer all of a sudden, and there is just the faintest breath of wind.

I feel like I have my feet more underneath me today- feel more gathered up than broken down.

I know so many of us have written about this, how new grief so often brings up old grief, and sadness begets sadness. It is easy to get lost in it. Undertow.

Instead of resisting this time, or pathologically searching around for pockets of unhealed hurt to poke, I just leaned into it with compassion, yes, I said, yes, I know, I know. This *does* suck. That did suck. There is pain and there was pain.

And for once, the knots loosened instead of tightening.

I am an avoider of pain. I hate pain. I know, most of us are.
I am an avoider of things I do not want to be true.
I have no peace with the fact of loss. Except, maybe, this time. This time there was something to feel peaceful about, a bigger loving over arching something that said, no more suffering.
And this is as true as I can know it to be.

***

Now I want to write about Della for a moment, how she refers to herself as I-me.

I-me
I-me do it.

Covers a lot of bases.

She is into big time possession mode-- things are hers, not to be shared, and sadly missed when gone. These things include things at daycare so it is more than awkward.

She is dreaming now, and tells us her dreams sometimes.

When she wakes, she often says things about the previous day as if we are in mid-conversation.

Yes, we are still co sleeping.

Yes we are still nursing. Weaning will happen when we're ready, or when one of us is. And right now, we just aren't.

She is magnificent.  She is fierce and determined and funny and bossy and tender.
Nice boots mom!
Good job dad!
She pats me and my heart melts.

I cannot believe her immensity ever wasn't here, being, visible.

Today in my new groundedness, I am able to look up and see the snow falling down, in no way linear, back and forth, crisscrossing, meandering, no rush....
and am trying very hard to imagine embodying that kind of non-effort, even for a little while.

what kind of beauty

just now the sky lightened to tawny from indigo deep along the eastern edge, behind the pines.
the last stars fading
it is *so still* that I can see each pine needle.
i can see shadows of footprints in the snow

today I am starting with some moments of meditation
some intentional breathing

gathering myselves to get into a warm shower, comfy clothes, the car for a long drive to a client site...

this drive takes me past dark wooly work horses, some lovely lakes and streams and swamp lands,
up north and then west into mountains
it is always beautiful

there are some drives we dread, and others, like this one, that feel more like gifts.  On a morning like this, I wonder
will the water be open or iced over?
will the mountains be in clouds?
and of all the things there are to wonder, these questions are gifts too.
since it is not a question of whether there will be beauty,

it is only a question of what kinds of beauty I will be lucky enough to notice.

labyrinth/2

Yesterday I walked my first labyrinth.

Actually, that's not true. I walked my first half labyrinth.

It was much larger than I expected, and I walked more slowly than I expected, and there were more people in it than I expected, and I had *no idea* that the way "out" and the way "in" were the same path.
(I realize, philosophically, they are not the same, but literally, they are, and I had no idea what the etiquette was, who steps where to let which person pass?)

The labyrinth was laid out beautifully in black tape on an old wooden floor on the second storey of the town office building. There were candles up on the stage area, and soft music playing. Otherwise, it was silent except for the sound of people walking.

I had the hardest time stepping in. I got all choked up, and truly thought I would lose it right there.  What was that all about? Was it about the last year? The recent tragedies? The riffled up holiday emotions? The ailing beloved grandmother? The job uncertainty? The feeling of not quite having my footing?

Finally, I stepped in, and tried to allow myself to stay present and inward and true. I walked very slowly, really paying attention to how each foot felt as it contacted the floor. I was reminded of walking meditation, where as you step, you say, I am arriving, I am arriving, I am arriving, or, I am here, I am here.

I was totally in my own space when I realized I was face to face with someone in the process of coming out-- and we both dodged and weaved and finally made it past each other with awkward smiles. I was surprised at how hard it was to allow myself to step out of what felt like my path. I was afraid, maybe, of not knowing where to step back in.

At one point, I noticed a ladybug crossing the floor right in front of me, so I stopped and picked it up, and carried it for a while until it flew off my palm.

Slowly, I made my way to the center, meditated for a few minutes to the sounds of the creaking floorboards, and then, walked the first part of the pathway out. Once at the rim, and getting more and more aware of time passing, and my loved ones waiting for me at a nearby cafe, I respectfully stepped out, circled it once, and left.

To be honest, yes, it felt centering. It also felt *important*. I don't have a lot of rituals in my life, in fact, very very few.  And it felt sort of great to have a symbolic something to do, to take part in, something ephemeral.

It also felt like I was doing a bit of emotional decluttering. If only the stage of the project where you dump out the junk drawer to see what's been gathering in the back corners.

I've been working on decluttering a bit in more than one aspect of my life for a month or so, thanks to a great little book that my sister put me on to (read chapters 4-7 for the biggest ah has).

Decluttering, for me, does not and cannot mean achieving a steady state of serenity and order; it is much more kinetic, more of a tending, more of an ongoing process with big intention motivating it.  I know and have known I feel happier and more at peace in less cluttered, simpler, more beautiful spaces.  So this is about opening my space to feel better than it has until this recent flurry of decluttering began.

Anyway, it was how I marked the beginning of the year: stepping into the unknown, finding myself sad and relieved, on a path that often felt like it was going the wrong way, back and forth, not making progress that was visible, until there I was at the center, some place I'd never been before.