The Quiet - A Christmas Meditation

 When you fall on your knees,

when the weary world weighs upon your shoulders,

when your journey seems crooked and winding and never-ending,

when you knock on the door and are turned away,

When Christmas has lost its magic,

when you cannot move one more step,

or bear one more thing,

Crawl.

Crawl and curl up in the soft hay of a manger.

Hold your heavy heart.

Let your heart open.

Feel the warmth of Nature's breath,

Hear the quiet stillness,

And breathe.

Then you will see a small, flickering light in the distance,

A star perhaps, or a candle.

Feel the tiny tinge of Hope,

Hear the wind whispering,

Grace.

Peace. 

Love.

Know the gentle touch of love.

You are loved.

You are loved.

You are Love.

Darlin' Can We Freeze

This summer Jay shared a song with his sister and me. It's called Freeze by Kygo. The lyrics say 

"I'm watching a star, 

million light years away. 

I wish I could pause, 

and hit replay. '

Cause summers go so fast. 

Darlin' can we freeze." 

I'll listen to it every day. 

Here is my summer playlist this year, a collection I found to get me through, or to let me cry.

Hope you enjoy it.

Summer 2022 - Letting Go

What is getting you through? Or letting you cry? Or lifting you up?

Waves

I'm sitting on the beach watching wave after wave come in. And they are so soft, so gentle. A quiet little splash. Not big angry ocean waves like they were a few days ago - those kind that make you step back a bit and wonder if something bad is going to happen. Not today, Satan. These waves are soothing to the eye, to the heart, to the soul. They restore us. Make us see beauty again. I think we are all looking for that. 

We've all been hit by waves these last few years. Those kind that knock us to the ground and toss us to and fro. I remember being little, jumping in the "rollies" with my cousins. We could handle that. It was fun. But then that one wave that you had to dive under really quick but it still caught you and threw you and you ended up with water in your nose and all discombobulated and you weren't sure you could hear or see or breathe. You had to go sit down and recover from the shock. Your mother would wrap you in a big sun-warmed beach towel and get you settled. It took a bit to catch your breath again. I'm feeling that way. From health to policing, to heat and politics, everyone is getting hit by these shock waves. The thing is these shock waves linger. We can't escape their after effects. It has felt like a wave machine, one after the other coming at us. And I didn't even mention the war in Ukraine. I have tried to give up the news. Too many shocks, too many waves that have us unbuoyed and out to sea and looking for land. How are we going to catch our breath again? 

The other night I had a conversation with a friend who is a speech therapist. She talked about all the kids have lost over these last few years - the thousands of conversations that didn't happen because they couldn't talk! She shared how selective mutism is on the rise. Their brains are hard-wired differently than before. As we teachers get ready for this school year we have to recognize and account for all that loss. What a shock! How are we going to help these kids catch their breath?

Earlier in the summer, I was in a professional development workshop with a psychologist. She shared how in a normal situation, one who is suffering a loss can rely on someone who is not suffering to help them through. I'm definitely not describing it as well as she did, but basically, one who is grounded and regulated is helping offer support to someone who is dysregulated and then the suffering person can regulate against that. Mothers do this with children, teachers do this with their students. But right now, we are all struggling to find that normalcy, to get back to regulation. We are all in the waves together. How do we get out of this? 

I can remember times in my life when I didn't know how I was going to get through, the death of my brother, the loss of a job, the lows of a child's depression. Then suddenly, when I thought I was at the bottom, a wave of peace that settled in me brought me back to my grounded state. Once it happened with a group of people who surrounded me and filled me with love. Once it happened when a friend who really understood stood by me and stood up for me. Once it happened when I just looked into my child's eyes and saw the light again. 

We aren't done with the shocks. And the aftershocks seem to last forever. I looked up how long the shocks last after an earthquake. It can go on for years. I know I'm mixing metaphors, but these waves or earthquakes or whatever you want to call them are real. How will we recover? How will we get back to that gently regulated state? For me now, the answer is in these gentle waves. They don't pick up all the seaweed and sand and shells and shake them about. They don't pick up much at all. That's a reminder that I can't pick up too much right now. They aren't that dark blue-brown of the turbulent ocean, they are just light blueish green, just reflecting the sky. I need to just reflect, not try to fix. They are soft in sound, not loud and overbearing. I need to walk and talk quietly. They are clear. I need to just be, not try to hold everything in and hold everything together. It's okay to let go. 

A few other things are getting me through. Looking at beautiful pictures. Trying to make a plant healthy. I bought a watercolor workbook from this website. (I am not being paid or anything... it's just something I found.) A friend gave me some beautiful cards with lovely quotes. These are the gentle waves I'll carry with me through this next season when I'm not able to get to the beach. I'll listen to a pretty song. I'll make some cookies. And I know that somewhere I'll get knocked down by another wave. But hopefully, I'll find a hand to hold and a warm beach towel waiting for me. 

 

T-shirts

I walk past the open door of his room at least 3 times every day. The chaos that covered the bedroom floor is now neatly tucked, rolled, and tightly packed into plastic bins he bought himself this time from Target. It's a lifetime of memories of his own, a half lifetime of memories of mine. He wants to throw away a bunch of the stained and threadbare t-shirts that are from high school and college. He wore them painting and working out he says. He wore them to crew and hockey and "Mom, they're disgusting." He is moving on. But I want them. To me, these are the fondled memories that I treasure. T-shirts, hundreds it seems, that say HTAA and The Prep and Go Irish. They have been dripped on and ripped, spilled on and spat on, but they remind me of his baby blanket, now tucked up in the attic in a bin much like the ones he is now filling up; a baby blanket with spit-up stains and holes that he made while dragging that thing around the house and sucking on it as he fell asleep. So loved and so needed for a time. Now I'll take the t-shirts, as a sign of his love and affection for all he did in high school and college, as something to hold onto when he is gone, to calm me when I am afraid and need a piece of him to cling to. When he was a baby and wouldn't go to sleep, I read somewhere that you are supposed to give them your nightgown, preferably one that you have slept in and nursed him in to soothe them, full of your smells and stains so they can feel you near. What do you give to a mother whose child is moving out? 

Now I know he's not a baby. I know he is on to bigger and better things. I know we gave him roots and now we have to give him wings. I know that in my head. How do I tell my heart? I cheered when he graduated college. Cheered when he got a place at the shore with friends. Cheered when he got his dream job because he could work remotely. Cheered when he got his first car. Now he's moving 3,000 miles away. My voice is raw. I can't cheer. I will, in front of him. I'll do my best to keep a cheery, happy face, with tons of congratulations and I'm so proud of you and you did it and you'll be great and it's so wonderful. But inside? Actually, I begged to drive with him. Not begged, but tried to use my mom's Jedi-mind tricks to convince him that I could meet him in Chicago after he visited friends and we'll just drive together. It helps to have another driver. And then I'll fly home. It will be easy and convenient. And I promise to be a good passenger. But he doesn't need me anymore. I just want one more ride with him. 

He'll be back at Christmas he says. We'll see him at Notre Dame in the fall. We'll visit in the spring. Maybe he'll move back someday. But I know the light in California draws you in and keeps you there like a magnet. The fact is he's moving out. He's finding his way toward another home. A home he builds himself. A home where I will be a guest. It's just so hard to let go of him! But maybe I don't have to, totally. I have the pictures, the memories, and the t-shirts. 

While he was cleaning out old boxes he found the graduation gift, cash, that I thought I had thrown away with the cards. I'm so glad he found it. It was here all along, not gone as I imagined. I will keep finding pieces of him everywhere too. I found one little memento the other day - a poem I had written a few years ago when he went to college:

This is the boy who we didn't expect

born with a cord wrapped around his neck

This is the boy who cried all the way home

who never wanted to be alone

I didn't let go of his hand.

This is the boy who called "mo' choo-choos"

who kicked his feet with his brand new shoes

This is the boy who walked the steps to pre-school

and never looked back

I held his hand.

This is the boy who stood at the front door

looking out the window at everything that passed by

This is the boy who fielded and pitched balls

who put on hockey gear and crashed into walls

who cried all the way home 

when he broke his collar bone

was told he couldn't play anymore

I squeezed his hand.

This is the boy who skated in the basement every day

This is the boy who won the game

who got MVP

I shook his hand.

This is the boy who asked his brothers about their day

who didn't want a dog, but loves him anyway

This is the boy who drives across the bridge for high school

I prayed for God to guide his hands.

This is the boy who laughs from his heart

who's going off to school

This is the boy who's looking outside now

beyond my world

And I let go of his hand. 

Juice Stains

My chair has a blanket draped over it. It's a summer blanket, a beach blanket that the kids got me for my birthday a few years ago. It has a pretty blue background and white stripes, which is what a summer beach blanket should have. But when I open it to spread across my legs to keep off the chill, I see red juice stains from summers ago. There are about 4-5 pinkish dots that scatter across one small section of the blanket. I don't remember how they got there. I picture the blanket spread on the sand marking our family territory, making room for more people to gather around, and warning others that more would be joining us. The blanket holds everything from beach bags to T-shirts to sunglasses to towels and sometimes phones and wallets left under a baseball hat. The kids can lay across it or huddle around to eat their lunches. The stains could have come from anything. Maybe my niece ate a frozen SpongeBob popsicle from the Fudgie Wudgie guy. Maybe my daughter spilled juice as she laughed at one of the stories that were being told. Maybe snowcone dripped down someone's arm and they didn't even know it.  And I don't know why I didn't clean it up right away. Maybe we were scurrying off the beach to get home before a storm. Maybe we were hurrying to get dinner ready. Maybe we were so caught up in our stories and it didn't matter about a couple drops of juice. Maybe someone folded it just so you couldn't see the stains anymore. Maybe it was one of our last days down the shore and I stuffed it in the beach bag and stuffed the beach bag on the back porch and focused on getting ready for school. Whatever the reasons, I'm glad the stains are still there. They remind me that even in these cold, snow-laced days, summer is coming. We will sit on the beach again. We will have fun in the sun very soon. I might try to get rid of the stains, but isn't that the funny thing, that they serve a small purpose? They transport us back to another time and space and ground us in a way that a clean blanket wouldn't. I guess every beach blanket has them. What do you do? Do you call it stained and go buy a new one? I learned yesterday, during a good housekeeping segment, that sheets should be replaced every two years! Hmm. Around here I still have the sheets that Annie got when she got her first big girl bed, about 18 years ago. I guess I do hold onto stained things. 

The chair where my blanket is draped is my coffee chair. At the beginning of COVID, when all our college kids were home and we were on lockdown, we moved the dining room table to the basement and brought in two stuffed chairs and a little table into the dining wing of the kitchen. With 6 adults in the house, we needed to be creative and make some flexible spaces. It was just a way to make more space for work and at the same time more space for play. My husband and I could sit and relax and catch up on our days. Anyone could hang out in the kitchen saving the precious family room space for work or zooming or watching tv. The coffee chair kept me in the center of the action. If the kids did make an appearance downstairs, I wanted to be accessible and present. The coffee chairs are the perfect spot. So now, even though we aren't on lockdown anymore, and the kids have gone back to school, my husband and I still use the coffee chairs every day. Maybe I should call them wine and beer chairs since that is more likely what we are drinking at 7:00 at night after the kitchen is cleaned up and the only child that remains home has gone off to do his things. There are probably some invisible stains there too, from the chardonnay and the beer splashing as we try to sink down into the cushions. But we have sunlight on Sunday mornings and big windows so we always have something to share. We can talk about the garden or the pool or the fence that needs repair or the dog as he runs back and forth outside. We talk about the weather as we watch a snow squall on one of the last days of March. We talk about the kids or work or the kids' work and how they are doing. We talk about what is next and what we might do this summer. We talk about our parents and our siblings and their kids. We talk about college and concerts we once went to. We talk about how old we feel now. We talk about our old houses and how we miss certain things like our First Avenue house and the back stairs that went up to the attic and down to the backdoor. We have had lots of conversations here and I'm sure we will have many more. Each one lingers on my mind and on my heart. 

I try to meditate every once in a while. I lean in to clearing my mind and my thoughts. I bring my awareness to my breath and my body. But still, stains creep in - the ugly thoughts that I thought were gone, the memories that I thought I had healed from. Ugly things people said, hurtful things that I wish I could erase. I don't know why. I sit in the quiet. I sit comfortably, I rest my hand on my heart and I try to listen to the voice within me. I try to pray. But there are still stains that come back and memories I would rather forget. But then I think about the blanket. Maybe there are more lessons from those hard times, more courage that I can garner from those experiences to take with me into the next day. More understanding for the next person I meet, more compassion for myself. Maybe there are things that we can't and shouldn't wash away. Juice stains. 

Homeful

January. The house empty again after college kids and grads returned to their life. After our house feeling so full it's a bummer to walk past the empty bedrooms, as cute as I may try to make them. COVID exhausted! Dreary days punctuated by snow, we like, and ice, we don't like. Empty tree stands and mantels and windows that once held greens and wreaths and light. Meals that feel like leftovers, but they're not? Short days and cold temperatures. Lack of exercise or motivation. No wonder we are tired and longing. I know we are all just muddling through this time. I'm trying to hang on. Here's what I've found that helps. I hope it helps you too.

One thing I have after Christmas are full cabinets. So I'm making all those treats that I planned to make over winter break that were quickly outsourced to restaurants and bakeries. We ordered food and went to the bagel shop more times than I expected. I need to empty the cabinets now. The pumpkin breakfast muffin mix, the brownie supplies, the full bag of bread flour. (I'm still not sure about the bread baking hobby, but I'm going to try it this weekend... what have I got to lose?) So here are a few recipes to help with emptying out the shelves. 

Lentil Chili (I added celery and carrots too!)

Bread in 5! (Love this site!)

peanut butter cookies  (I'm obsessed with Zoe and her show on Discovery Plus)

The second thing I have is books! I have shelves of books to keep me reading, but I recently read The Most Fun We Ever Had. I gave it 5 stars on goodreads! It's long, but I needed a book to keep me coming back day after day. Read it!

I also need to move. Robin Long from The Balanced Life keeps me going with her short and sweet pilates videos. Most videos are under 15 minutes so I can fit them in whenever. I also love how she's practically cheering you on saying, "You are done for the day!" I'm not creaky and cranky in the morning thanks to her youtube channel. 

What's next? I'm getting hopeful for February. It can be dreary but there's a four-day weekend in there! And - Valentine's Day! Even though I want to use all the food in the cabinets, I think for this Valentine's, we'll order out. But not just any order out, how about Maine lobster rolls for 2 from McLoons! Even though they are closed for the season, you can still have it shipped overnight. Check out this site Gold Belly for ideas.

The Olympics! Brush up on your Olympic knowledge with these sources.  Plan your viewing schedule with the kids. Everyone loves a good Olympic story. 

When you're not watching the Olympics, watch Derry Girls. This is completely out of character for me, but it's hilarious. And set in the 80's when I was in high school. (My vice-principal looks exactly like Sr. Michael in the show!) Haha! No offense!

I've really dropped off from writing, but it is something that fills me. Thank you for humoring me with reading this. What fills you? I hope you find something that makes you full and brings you joy! 

Take care and be well.

Joannie