I'm Happy the Hooplah's Over...For Now

We've missed another false deadline for the Rapture, so I guess the last horrible days will be moved forward too.

I'd like to think that this kind of prediction is nothing but fear-mongering and false confidence that we "know." But to those who really believe, this looking forward to the Rapture might also be filled with hope. Hope that they'll be taken from this place we call Earth with its bad weather and wars and cruelty, and placed soundly at the feet of God in Heaven. Seated next to our Way-Shower Jesus. Happy at last. I can't criticize that because there isn't a one of us who hasn't said, "I wish this was over" or "I'm miserable," or "I don't think I can live through another day of this pain."

But the truth is, and it's been proven over and over, that we can't predict the end. Not the end today, not the end in 2012. We have not been successful in divining what God thinks or plans to do with us mortals in the end. And to put it out there as the gospel, as the Truth, I believe does more harm than good.

It sets the true believer up as an object of ridicule. It makes some of those that don't feel sure about their goodness feel unworthy and helpless. A few might panic and think, "What can I do to be good enough by May 21?" But mainly, when it doesn't take place, we scoff and look away, forgetting the simple truth: All we have is today. And we have to live it the best way we can, Rapture or no Rapture.

I thought today of something I used to do as a child. I had learned in Sunday School or Vacation Bible School that no one could know when the end would come. And I interpreted that to mean that if anyone thought they knew, it wouldn't happen. So for a couple of years, between the ages of maybe five and six, I would go to bed every night and say, "The end of the world is tomorrow." And I would be assured in my little kid's mind that I had another day to go to school and be with my friends and family.

I joked on Facebook about the fact that I would be happy when the Rapture was over and those of us left behind could begin to concentrate on things that mattered here on earth. Peace, taking care of our children, helping our neighbors, being healthy, feeding our souls. It was said lightly, but it's the truth. That's what I'm going to do today, like I did yesterday, and like I'll do tomorrow. But just in case, let me say it here: "The world will end tomorrow."

Change My Way of Thinking

Today at church, my minister suggested something that will probably cause you to read this blog and go, "Say WHAT?"

He suggested that for the next two weeks, when we get a bill in the mail, we open the envelope with a sense of gratitude. After all, we did receive electricity, cable, telephone, a house or car, insurance, etc. so why should we resent being charged for it?

Interesting thought and I think I'll try it.

On the same but slightly different note, I've tried to change a little of my thinking about money and things too. Instead of saying, "I need ___," or even "I don't need ___," I have tried saying, "I already have everything I need to do this." In particular this week, I have an event to attend. Usually I would go right out and buy a new item of clothing or two to wear. But once I approached my closet with the attitude of adequacy, I was able to put together two or three outfits that I liked.

I'm feeling particularly optimistic right now. I went to see my dad's empty house on Friday. It was just an echoing shell of a house, void of life. I felt sad but also thankful that we've moved the precious things to our houses. When I got back, my cat, Audrey, was mopey and her foot was swollen, but she's so much better today; it was just a cut. My writing is on fire, major revisions and new ideas and positive feedback the fuel. With all this goodness going on, I'm grateful. I'll try to extend my gratitude to Progress Energy and Time-Warner Cable. The fuel bill? That'll take some time.

What a Difference a Day Makes

One year ago yesterday, my dad had a normal day. One year ago today, all that changed. Here's a story I wrote about that day.

STAIRS

One: The doorbell rings. Your feet hurt a little as you walk from your bedroom to the stairwell and down the top stair. It’s Friday, it has been a busy week, and though the weekends are lonely, on Saturday you will put on your favorite gray corduroy pants and the red flannel shirt we gave you for Father’s Day, watch ball games and talk to some of us on the phone. On Sunday you’ll put on a suit, go to church and sing in the choir.

Two: The second stair, like the first, is fairly easy even though you are in a hurry to get the door, to pay the man who worked in the yard today. The money you pay him is so appreciated he always says, and though he does only a so-so job it is worth it because you are helping him. So many people you’ve helped through the years: giving donations, tutoring, baking pound cakes, sending get well cards.

Three: Three times a month you deliver meals to shut-ins. You, eighty-eight years old, get in your car and knock on the doors of those too old or too tired or too sick to fix food for themselves. You feel so fortunate as you walk down their stairs and sidewalks to drive to the house you’ve lived in for sixty years. “Three,” you think as you count your way downstairs.

Four: On the fourth stair you falter, grab the rail with a veined and arthritic hand. You re-balance and move on. Four times this month you have gone to funerals of friends; you know how fragile life is and how “like that” it can all be over.

Five: On the wall beside the steps is a picture of our mom, dead now these twenty-five years, with whom you had the five of us. Five children with children of our own, lives of our own; we don’t need you that much anymore and you try not to need us either. You keep the bad news from us: questionable doctors’ reports, high blood pressure, low energy, knees and back that ache as you move to the sixth stair.

Six: The knocking at the door has urgency now that you can detect even without your hearing aids in. We talk too loud when you wear them, too quietly when you don’t, make fun of you by saying, “Huh?” to each other when we think you can’t hear us. “One minute, I’m coming,” you call out as you move one stair closer to the bottom.

Seven: Your mother just died seven years ago. Maybe you’re only now beginning to feel free, an adult without a parent to answer to. You could live to be as old as she was—a hundred and one. You move carefully to the next stair.

Eight: Eight seconds it has taken you to get to this stair, eight seconds that your life is still productive; it’s still a time when you’ve never missed a Rotary meeting and go to work every day and sit in your chair in your house, yes, lonely but gratefully self-sufficient, so glad to be alive. And then for some reason you will never understand, you’ve miscounted the stairs—was it when you stumbled on the fourth one?—and your foot hits only air and you’re falling in a twist, landing heavily, awkwardly on the worn brown carpet. The pain is engulfing you so you can’t think and groans issue from somewhere inside you and the knocking at the door is more insistent; “Mr. Lewis? Mr. Lewis?” is muffled in your ears, but you can’t reach the doorknob or even the deadbolt key, and somewhere behind the pain, as frightening as what has happened to your body, is the certainty that you have counted your last stair.

Staying Calm

Right after Hurricane Fran wreaked havoc on our neighborhood, I became a mild hoarder. My children will attest to the fact that I stocked water, batteries and canned goods until the shelves sagged. I didn't want to use any of them because I was afraid we'd need them in a crisis.

That was 1996. It has taken me many years to be able to go into a grocery store and only buy what I need for the week or the month. I can only just lately let go of my fears for my children who live in big cities and who travel freely by plane, train and car. I don't worry obsessively when I get on a plane to go somewhere. I feel safe with money in banks and a few stocks.

I don't feel glad about the death of Osama Bin Laden. As a fellow blogger said, he was a cockroach, and if you kill one, there are ten more skittering around in the background. And the weather does seem to be more volatile lately. So it is very difficult for me, with the recent devastation caused by earthquakes and tornadoes and the increasing tension in the world, to keep my former unhealthy feelings at a distance. In my most worried moments, I think of survival again: moving away to a place where I can homestead (where though?), cashing in, going off the grid.

I love the interplay of life so much though that I think I would be miserable. Even if I felt safe.

I try not to watch too much world news, I steer far away from fear mongering bloggers, I meditate and breathe deeply. I go to my yoga and writing classes and distract myself by reading novels and magazines about psychology and spirituality. I go to work, live day by day without thinking too much about the future. It's a conscious effort.

I would love to hear how some of you deal with your stress over what happens around us. Fear is one of the things that keeps this world in turmoil. I don't want to participate in that.

My Easter Week

This could almost be one of my "Week in Pictures" posts, but I feel compelled to say a few words. It's been quite a few days.

Last Saturday, many tornadoes ripped through our state. For the first time since Hurricane Fran picked our street as Ground Zero, I experienced fear over the weather. I took the cats and went downstairs to an interior closet (in Fran we had to go to our dirt basement). I was so thankful I had bought a battery operated radio as we lost power an hour or so before the storm actually hit. My husband was a few blocks from this cemetery:




We were safe, thank goodness, but many others didn't fare so well. It's a reminder of our helplessness in the face of the weather.

In her usual schizo way, Mother Nature showed her beautiful side this week too. We spent a couple of days in Southport. The weather wasn't the greatest, but when you end a day looking at this, it's hard to whine.



I got up early this morning and drove to Greensboro. The choir was wearing new robes, thanks to the wonderful donations made to the church after my dad died. We had a moment of silence in his memory, and the choir members showed us after the service that each of the robes has a tag in it that says, "In memory of Ken Lewis." We were touched.



At my dad's house, everything is being readied for the estate sale. In the room where the dining room table groaned at Christmas and Easter, a card table holds dishes and silver that we didn't take. The kitchen counters are covered with pots and pans that were used to prepare his famous potato salad and pimento cheese, ham, turkey, beans. Pound cakes and pies. It's sad.

And saddest of all are the things he collected that we don't want. On this table there are newspapers announcing the end of WWII, Kennedy's death and other important events in history. He wanted us to want them, I guess, but we just can't take everything.



There's the high chair that my mother bought when my daughter was born. All of the granddaughters sat in in at one time or another. We're not taking that either.



And then there's the room that I can hardly bear to enter: his bedroom. The bed is dissembled, against a wall in another bedroom. His television and stereo lie in pieces on the floor. The books he was going to read have been shelved in the den. And the thing that is the very hardest is the sight of his clothes and shoes, neatly hung and lined up, ready for another day of delivering meals or singing in the choir or going to work.



The next time I go in the house, strangers will be looking through his things. Next will be the time when I walk in the empty house. God it's hard to say goodbye.

Weekend

(This photograph was taken at a previous exhibit.)



Friday night was the reception for the new photographs we hung in the Long View Gallery. The theme was renewal. You know how when you go grocery shopping and you're thirsty you buy a lot of drinks? And when you're hungry you buy more food than you would normally? I must be tired because three of the photographs I chose to hang were of sleeping people.

Saturday was the day I began the physical dismantling of my father's house. I brought back four or five pieces of furniture and boxes and boxes of photographs, Bibles, news articles, scrapbooks, etc. Last night, this is what my dining room looked like:




I had to get rid of a piece of furniture to bring one back. And in order to accomodate the large amount of archival materials, I had to clean out some cabinets. I got rid of bootleg tapes and old clothes and reorganized spaces to make room. The furniture looks beautiful in the new places, and I feel so happy about my choices.



It was a very emotional couple of days, made all the more so by the death of a very dear friend. In honor of her, I'm ending this post with a poem by e. e. cummings that was part of the gallery exhibit:


I Thank You

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any--lifted from the no
of all nothing--human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

--- e. e. cummings

Springing forward

Mother Nature is acting like she's in menopause: hot one minute and cold the next. But I know that spring is within sight.

I haven't posted lately, but there are good reasons.

First, it felt ridiculous to post about mundane things in the face of the disaster in Japan.

Second, I didn't have any idea what to say about Japan except that it is a tragedy of not just national but international proportion. And I feel helpless in the face of it.

Third, I've been crazy busy.

Even now, sitting here, I still can't think of anything important to write about. But I wanted you to know that I haven't forgotten my blog. Or my readers. Stay with me. I'll be back to being frivolous soon enough.

Joy and Sadness - a quote

"All joy is the same, arising from an identical Universal source; every sadness is unique, rooted in its own particular circumstance."

Weekend with Friends

I spent this weekend with seven friends from high school. Two of them I haven't seen since college. We caught up on our families - the deaths and births, marriages and divorces. We caught up on our jobs and retirements. We talked about rifts and repairs in our family dynamics. We played games and ate good food. We shopped. We walked dogs and rode bikes.

In high school, there was this person. Mamie. I had some characteristics that were good. I was outgoing and did well in school. I was a friend to a lot of different kinds of people. I wasn't beautiful, but I think people probably thought I was cute.

But there were some characteristics that weren't so good. And rather than go into them, let's say for the record that I've spent a lifetime working on those negative quailites. And let's say the one that arises whenever I "go back to high school" is insecurity. About a lot of things.

But these friends are friends for life. And throughout the weekend they let me know that they loved me - then and now - and that they're proud of the changes I've made. They didn't expect me to still be the person I was then. They allowed me to be the new and improved, grown up me.

I'm grateful for their friendship. It's lasted for over forty years for some, almost fifty for one of them. Their unconditional love is amazing, and I am renewed for sharing this time with them.

Help Me, Fellow Writers!

Fair warning: This is not a post with pretty pictures!

For the past two Wednesdays, and several days before that, I've been working on submitting some of my stories. I had no idea how complicated it would be when I made this sweet little notebook:



Inside, I put together a neat chart that showed Date, Title of Story, Publication. I was ready to get my work published.

First I took this wonderful 4 1/2 page list of publications that my writing teacher, Angela Davis-Gardner, gave me. She was kind enough to narrow the list down to some of the more promising of them.



Then I went on the internet, visited each publication's website and printed out their submission guidelines. Easy breezin', right? WRONG! It has taken me another two days to go through a small number of them, highlighting what they require. Some allow online submissions; some don't. Some want cover letters, your name, address and serial number (!) on every page, the editor's name in the address. Some don't want any of that. Reading periods vary drastically. Out of the twenty or so I got through, I didn't find two publications with the same guidelines. So I put sticky notes on them with the key requirements like specific reading periods, online or snail mail, and if they particularly like flash fiction. I write a lot of flash fiction.



On some of them, I noted on another sticky note if I had a story that I thought would especially fit the magazine. And every time I did that, all I could think of was the manuscript sitting in my writing room, looking like this:



Yep, needing revision before I could send it out anywhere.

Finally, the revisions were calling me loudly, saying, "I can't go out looking like this!" So I went and printed out a few of them and started in with the blue pen.

And now the day is done and my brain is mush.

If any of my writer friends are reading this, please give me hope and/or advice. I'm feeling like the mother of an unruly teenage daughter with a list of demands. I need to know that this is temporary, and that at the end of it, just as with my daughters, I'll have something that is smart, beautiful, and income-producing.

Writing Workshop!

The week my dad went back to the hospital for the last time, I was enrolled in a week-long writing workshop with our 2010 Writer Laureate, Zelda Lockhart. One day with her was enough to show me that she was an inspiring and innovative teacher.

I had to leave after Monday to go to Greensboro and never made it back to the workshop. I decided that I was going to find a way to work with Zelda again, and organized a weekend with her at my house. I put the word out and we ended up with eleven women.

Zelda asked us to bring a favorite book of poetry, a book of unposed photographs, and music. The first night we drew a museum of objects that represented various areas of our lives: obstacles, fears, inspirations, mentors, etc. We did a ten-minute free write, packed our stuff and ended for the night.

Saturday morning we started right in, reading our work from the previous night. One of Zelda's strengths is that she takes notes while we read and points out what she calls "opportunites" - places where we can expand our work.

Using randomly chosen words from our poetry books, photographs, and objects from our museum we wrote two more free-writes. I have some great raw material. I need constant inspiration for my writing to stay fresh. These workshops are crucial for that. Teachers like Zelda are vital to the process too.

I realized this weekend that my father's death has freed something in me. I was self-conscious of both my subject matter and ability. I worried that he would be offended by some of my stories, many of which have characters crafted around real people. Many of the characters are based on him.

Meeting with a magnificant facilitator like Zelda and an inspiring, talented group of women like those at my house is an awesome experience. I'm filled with gratitude for our two days together.

Meditating on Opposites

My "Can I Do It" challenge this year was to commit to an exercise program. Using The Kaizen Way, I asked myself what I could do that I wouldn't resist.

I signed up for two yoga classes, one beginning and one more advanced, and a meditation class. This was a lot of commitment, but I have stuck with it. The beginning class starts my week off with gentle exercise, and the advanced class pushes me.

The meditation class, though, has been the one I love the most. We have learned many forms of meditation - guided, counting, breathing, walking, chanting. Most of them I was familiar with, but last night we tried something new for me.

We were to start out with a word that might have negative connotations for us and then think of its opposite. Breathe a few times on each of them. Sit with them. Then move on. Naturally, with all that has gone on with me lately, the first word that came to my mind was "death". So I then thought, "Life". Next because of my dad, my cancer, and my friend's cancer, I thought, "Sickness," and of course, "health" came to mind.

But the last one didn't go exactly as one would have thought. The word "sorrow" popped into my head. And as I breathed into the word, "gratitude" arose big and important. And for the rest of the meditation time, I breathed into the fullness of how gratitude could be the opposite of sorrow.

In practicing that form of meditation, I experienced a situation where my rational mind wasn't in control anymore. I felt peaceful at the end of the meditation, and again gave thanks for where I am with all that has happened in the last few months.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I was thirty-one years old when my mother died at fifty-five. It was the occasion of my first real faith crisis: where was she now?

Heaven was my hope, and I weighed what I considered her goodness and her shortcomings, wondering if God would find her wanting. I wanted to believe that I would see her again, that she was sitting next to the heavenly throne surrounded by those loved ones who had gone before her. But I'll be honest: my religion wasn't all that reassuring that this was the case.

My thoughts around this are different as a fifty-nine year old. My faith has matured and been fed by myriad sources. I don't feel I'm dealing with just a heaven or hell option. The God of my understanding is Love personified and perfected. He is not judgmental - after all isn't this what was asked of us - and his adoration of me is unconditional. He knows that my essence, my heart, is good and that the rest of me is trying to catch up.

What I know is this: There is something that is uniquely me. I call it my spirit, but there are other names for it. And I know that the spirit that is me, the spirit that was my mother and father, the spirit that is my dying friend, will not die. That it will live on in some form or fashion. It may be only as a memory, it may be in another life form, or it may be in heaven. I don't have the "final answer". Nor do I have to anymore.

I get comfort from this belief. I don't worry about how life adds up, whether the good outweighs the bad. This is good for my grieving, good for my living, and it'll be good for my dying.

Thanks be.

Going Away Party

I drove to the grocery store today, that most mundane of tasks. On the way I passed a teenage boy yawningly walking his dog, a few runners, children playing in the park. I passed a church where people stood in the door hugging and greeting each other, anticipating their spirits being lifted. The lines at the store were so long, people buying chips and beer and wings in preparation for the Super Bowl. I bought convenience foods and fruit and milk. Eggs and bread. Ho hum.

Meanwhile my friend is dying.

We went to see her today. At her house, she was holding court. She is always the person living life to the fullest. When my husband's band plays, it's not a party until she runs into the room and on the dance floor where she and her husband dance with proverbial wild abandon until the last song plays. She rides horses, reads book after book, sails and sits on the porch of her beach house. On New Year's Eve we are among a tableful of guests that she treats to a catered dinner. At midnight we all kiss each other on the lips and laugh and dance.

I shared with her daughter that my mom died when I was young too, and she said, "Yeah, we've been robbed." I remember her son, one of my favorite children in Mother's Morning Out. My friend would drop him off with a huge hug and kiss and let him know she'd be back soon. He would sit quietly for a few minutes, not crying, but tears falling down his cheeks. God he loves his mama.

Over the course of her illness, I've sent her many cards, called and emailed. I didn't realize how she'd come to expect this reaching out until she told me the other day that she was upset when she didn't hear from me "on Monday". Turns out I'd inadvertently gotten in touch most Mondays. And luckily for both of us, the mail had come late Monday, and one of my cards was in the mail. It mattered, she said in her email to me that night.

I've cried as much in the past eight months as I've cried as an adult. My heart is breaking that I'm losing this dearest of friends. I don't think the party can go on without her.

A Smile

There's something I can't get off my mind about the moments before my dad died. We were all standing around his bed, listening to the steady in and out of his breath. The pace of the breathing had not changed for days; it was the same as when he was on the respirator, in and out, labored. It was the only constant in the room as we moved in and out ourselves, going to get coffee or make a phone call, grabbing some fresh air or a cigarette. Our emotions were ragged and over-worked.

The doctor had said that all of his brain function was dead, only those things controlled by the brain stem kept going. This is what I found on the internet about brain stem function:

Activity in the brain stem is important for:
- bodily activities essential to survival, such as changes in heartbeat and breathing,
- initiation of a set of reflexes;
- the focusing of attention;
- patterns of arousal (that is sleeping versus waking).
If the brain stem is damaged, a person may lapse into a coma or even die because of its control of functions essential to survival.

Finally, as loud as any noise, the breathing stopped. We all stood there thinking, Is this it? And then he breathed a few more of those rhythmic breaths. In and out. In and out. And I'm not sure when in the time that he breathed some more and the time that his breathing stopped forever that this happened, but I looked at him and the smallest smile was on his face. The same smile that is in this picture.

I've only asked one sister if she saw this smile. It was much later, days or weeks or maybe even months after his death, but she says she didn't see it. There were other things, distressing things that happened right away to his body, and she remembers those things clearly.

It's corny, I know, but I like to think that in the seconds before his death, he sensed or saw something that made him happy. It comforts me that he was looking forward as we were saying goodbye.

Letter Writing

I'm trying to be more consistent about posting, and meant to write this yesterday. I'm having a writing workshop at my house next weekend, though, and a houseguest as a bonus, and was busy getting things ready. The time slipped away, and soon it was time for meditation and yoga classes, both of which wear me out!

I keep a notebook of cards and letters that I send. On Tuesday, I counted how many I'd sent in 2010 and it came to over 200. This doesn't include thank you notes I sent for the many kindnesses done to me and my family after my father's death.

I love to send correspondence by US Mail. There's an anticipation between the time I drop the letter in the box (I'm very picky about which mailbox; there's one in particular where things seem to be delivered in a more timely fashion) and the time the recipient finds it in their mailbox.

There are three kinds of cards I usually send. The first are store-bought. They range from funny to solemn. I love going into gift stores - Anthropologie, Urban Outfitters, and Accipiter, a local store - and picking out funky packs of cards. I love letter-press cards. Here's one from a pack of R Crumb's art that I bought recently:



I also make cards. I use Japanese paper, magazines, punches, books of sayings, and stamps to create cards that are either particular to a situation (like a birthday) or can be used in a more general way. This card was made using one of a pack of leather frames I found in Tuesday Morning and a magazine picture:



And of course, I have my photographs. I put them in Strathmore Photo Frames. I might choose a sunflower if I want to send get well greetings, or a peaceful coastal scene for a sympathy note. This particular photograph is a favorite of my friend Nancy Olson of Quail Ridge Books. Nancy is kind enough to carry my cards also.



I send cards for birthdays, sympathy, encouragement, special occasions like graduations and anniversaries, thank you notes. I use a nice card to send donations. There are some people I write every couple of weeks to let them know I'm thinking about them.

All of this is not to pat myself on the back. Writing these notes makes me feel good. And in going through my father's stuff, I know that the letters are one of the most valuable things we've found. They tell stories of young love between our parents, relate encouraging words to us as teenagers and young adults, demonstrate remembrances of birthdays and holidays. My children's notes and letters to me are plastered on bulletin boards and stuffed in cabinets and plastic containers. My middle daughter makes art cards and these are on my refrigerator and in drawers for safekeeping.

Email has almost replaced snail mail. I'm personally trying to keep the art of letter-writing alive. It seems important, vital, crucial even, to keeping our history something tangible to be passed from generation to generation.

Remembering

Cleaning out my dad's house is an emotional roller coaster. My family is there in the tangibles, but very absent in reality. We've found Weekly Readers, constellation projects, old letters written between my parents, our fragile, falling-apart scrapbooks and theirs.



We've pored over pictures, identifying those we know and wondering about those we don't. We agonize over tossing the ones we can't identify; I've been to too many thrift stores and berated families for giving away their pictorial histories for strangers to go through. But now I understand. We've folded and unfolded sweaters knit by my mom, afghans and shawls made by our relatives. We know we can't keep everything but deciding is difficult.



It's understandable that the pictures and clothing and letters would bring out our deepest emotions, but sometimes grief springs from the oddest places. After a day of cleaning out the hard stuff, we decided to go through my dad's food cabinets, boxing cans for the Food Bank. And in the back of the cabinet, there was this:



It was a grocery bag with eight jars of pimentos, used by my dad to make his famous pimento cheese. He always had a container ready when we came home, extras to send home with my sister and for people who were sick. When he came to visit, bringing oranges and newspaper articles and DVDs of must-see recorded shows, the pimento cheese was always there too, in a Styrofoam cooler.

When my grandmother was ninety-nine years old, she had her pacemaker replaced. And on the day my dad went to the grocery store and bought those eight jars of pimentos, he displayed the same hope for more days of living, more days of sharing his pimento cheese with us. And that, dear friends, is the sort of thing that does me in.

Birthday

Yesterday was my 59th birthday and I try to think that every age is the prime o' life! It might be getting a tad bit harder as I inch toward six decades of living on this planet.

My family believes in birthdays, so my day was filled with chatty conversations with my children and my siblings. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of work done!

Something that I didn't anticipate was how my birthday would trigger a deep sadness about my dad. He always sent a store-bought card with their sentimental messages, signed simply, "Love you, Dad" or "Love, Gandan" (what the kids called him). And he called, one of the first of the day, to sing Happy Birthday to me.

A friend of mine leads grief support groups, and I told her the other day that I was going to start compartmentalizing my sadness. Say, at seven o'clock each night give myself permission to think about my dad in an effort to organize my grief. "Let me know how that works for you," she said, without a hint of sarcasm or judgement. But she must have known that grief can't be corralled, and that it will hit me when I least expect it. Like my birthday.

I had asked my daughter who makes books to make a cover that I could use for my essay notebooks. I take notes about others' writing in our writing class, so buy these little gems by the dozen when they're twenty-five cents at Target.



She went above and beyond my expectations. This is the cover that she made:



Isn't it gorgeous? I'm trying to think of other ways to use those black notebooks so I can show the cover off.

She also made two others. The first is cloth (her favorite) and the other is leather and suede. Maybe at my next writing workshop I'll take all three, show off a little.


It was a good day, all in all, and even grief has a place alongside our happiness, as I said in the last post. And I have a whole year, full of promise, waiting for me. I'll start right in on it today.

I'll Take "Happy" for $1000, Alex

Last year (but not too long ago), I read this post on DailyOm about analyzing our happiness. In part the post says:

"Those of us on the path of personal and spiritual growth have a tendency to analyze our unhappiness in order to find the causes and make improvements. But it is just as important, if not more so, to analyze our happiness.

"Recognition is the first step in creating change, therefore recognizing what it feels like to be happy is the first step toward sustaining happiness in our lives. We can examine how joy feels in our bodies and what thoughts run through our minds in times of bliss. Without diminishing its power, we can retrace our steps to discover what may have put us in this frame of mind, and then we can take note of the choices we've made while there."

After reading this, I wondered, "Do we need to analyze our unhappiness at all? Why not just concentrate on all the things that make us feel good and leave it at that?"

So I took the question to my blogger therapist friends.

First Joseph Burgo, PhD:

"I agree that it's important to take a look at our own happiness and what triggers it; I especially agreed with the point made about choices." He goes on to say, "I encourage a kind of neutrality in that way -- what you feel is what you feel, and all of your feelings have value and meaning. I think striving to have certain feelings is what leads to wordy thinking where we try to talk ourselves into those feelings; it also promotes a dishonest relationship with yourself because you've decided in advance that some emotions have more value than others."

Then I posed the same question to Virginia S. Wood, Psy D. Here's what she said:

"We always ask, from the very first session, what the person has tried in the past and how that's worked for them. And whenever a person reports the slightest, most fleeting improvement, we want to know, 'What happened?' And we take that tiny spark and help them fan it into flame." She adds later in the email with regard to a specific patient, "We analyzed her happiness, even though at the moment she was quite low on the misery-happiness scale, relatively speaking, and learned something new that she could not only amplify in the moment but can also use later." And, "Unfortunately, I would have to say that the majority of psychotherapists, as in mainstream medicine, focus on fixing what's wrong. But there's a sizable minority of us out there who see whole persons, and focus on their strengths as well as their troubles."

I have reached my own conclusions from my "investigation":

1. All of my emotions have equal weight. To cry is as important as to laugh.
2. It is helpful to examine our happiness and try to re-create it.
3. I shouldn't over-think when it comes to my emotions.
4. My happiness and unhappiness come together to make me a complete person.

I know that sometimes I get what I would call "a good feeling". When that happens, I take a moment to think about what is making me feel positive. Usually it's something I've written or a photograph I've taken, or maybe something I've done for someone else. Sometimes I get a guilty feeling or "bad feeling" and I think about what caused the negative emotion. It could be something I've said that was inappropriate (I do this way more than I'd like to) or maybe a regret I have. And I know that in both cases, there is a little voice in my head that either directs me to "do it again because I like that feeling" or "don't do it again because I don't want to feel that way."

Thanks to my experts for helping me think about this post. It really gave me pause, seemingly a no-brainer at first, but on closer inspection, not quite so simple.

Looking ahead

The other day, I had a revelation about why my life seems to speed ahead now. I live my life a month at a time, sometimes a quarter of a year at a time.

I had my calendar out trying to make plans for a writing workshop I've scheduled in February, set up an art class in March, a new gallery opening in April. There was a whole third of the year in my head.

As an accounting person, I have to do this at work too: January 31, February 28, March 15, April 15 and 30th...and so on through the year. I'm planning my job a quarter at a time.

I do this on a monthly basis too. I write down all the definites: writing class, yoga, birthdays, doctors' appointments. Then I look at the blank days and nights and fit in dinner with friends, trips to Greensboro to deal with my dad's estate, R&R weekends at the coast.

The time flies.

We all know how it was when we were young. We lived one day at a time, the anticipatory moments few and far between. Birthdays, vacations, Christmas. They took forever to get here.

So is it that my life is too busy? That I have to schedule too rigidly? That there aren't enough big things to look forward to, just little moments of happiness in the sea of obligations?

The time is precious now - I'm almost 60 years old - and I don't want to waste any of it. I want to think that I'm making good use of my days and weeks; I just wish they went by a little less quickly.

NOTE: The photograph is of one of my daughter's handmade datebooks. An excellent way to keep up with the year. You can find them at Rockpile Bindery