Finite Disappointment, Infinite Hope

"We must accept finite disappointment, but we must never lose infinite hope." - Martin Luther King, Jr 

" "Hope" is the thing with feathers - / That perches in the soul - / And sings the tune without the words - / And never stops - at all -"     - Emily Dickinson

It's difficult to refrain from wailing and railing against the malevolent forces at work, but sound and fury are not helping me. The best advice I've heard in the five days since election results destabilized our country was to express gratitude for the men and women who sought to protect dignity and equality of all people.  We don't do this enough and risk those people feeling alienated and unappreciated.

Inspired, I wrote the following text to my family:

"As we come to the end of this crazy week, I want to say how grateful I am for all of you. For your support of equality for all people, your moral compass, your intelligence and integrity. Most of all, kids, I am grateful for your father, who teaches his sons a masculinity that isn't threatened by women and treats them as equals, and who shows his daughter how to be strong and self-sufficient. You are all worthy of strong and true partners like your father is to me. Let's continue to look out for people who are not as fortunate and realize that a better world for them is a better world for all of us. Love,  Mom."

Hope, I've heard, is not a strategy, but it is a fuel. I don't know and can't predict the future, but I hope that good things (currently hidden in the shadows) await us, and that we can resist hate and anger to work toward achieving those good things. May you all be well, and thank you for your efforts to contribute light, dignity and hope to the world.

A Flood of Gratitude

One of my swimming friends, an amazing athlete (national champion masters swimmer, biker and hiker) sees an acupuncture specialist about thirty minutes from my house. My ears perk up whenever Kathleen mentions her appointments and the great results, but the drive time had kept me from following up until recently, when I got information and made a first-time date.  Wear and tear from the high school swim season plus general fatigue and incessant nerve prickling in my scalp helped me focus on a plan of action.

D. did not disappoint. Traffic was bad and I made it with just two minutes to spare - cutting things much closer than I like - but my heart rate subsided and I could draw a deeper breath within ten minutes of my sitting down. No one else was in the office, and I unburdened myself of medical history, current emotional and physical challenges, and desired healing. 

In our discussion it came out that I blog and meditate for self-healing when not overly busy, but of course I jettison both of these therapies (at the time I most need them) when my schedule gets crowded. She gently prodded me to get back to both, hence this first blog post in many weeks. Letting myself go off the rails without the support of two stabilizing influences seems short-sighted and destined for failure, and yet it often happens. 

When D. treated me, dimmed the lights and withdrew, I felt a flood of gratitude rise from somewhere in my core and flood upward and out through my tear ducts. I lay in the darkness with acupuncture needles in various locales, weeping for no discernible reason except for this strange and lovely feeling of gratitude.

Since my visit last week I have had much more energy and a more positive outlook. I'm going back on Wednesday (before our high school league championships), hoping not only for my own peace and optimism but that some of the joy will rub off on my girls, helping them to swim best times and hit their goals.

Incredible Coaching Opportunity Ahead

For the past six years I watched the girls' and boys' swim teams at our local high school with avid interest, noting the splits and times of my older two children as well as the performances of their friends and teammates. In the stands I would bite my lips and either sit on my hands or clap hysterically, trying not to shout random instructions that would be caught on Rob's video but never heard by swimmers in the water. 

It was a poorly kept secret in our family that I was an ardent fan, not at all cool and removed as I tried to play it.  I have nine years' of coaching experience between high school and Masters teams, but my kids already had coaches and needed me to be Mom, instead.  So I threw my passions into the booster club, planning banquets, wielding stopwatches as a timer and working the scoreboard. I tried to hide my over-the-top passion for stroke technique, streamlines, starts and turns, keeping my post-race comments to "You looked great, I'm proud of your effort."

But the crazy swim geek in me doesn't need to hide any more; I am over-the-moon excited to say that I will be assistant coaching for the girls' team this year.  We have a terrific staff, extremely talented and hard-working girls, and every opportunity to teach great technique and love for the sport. I'm in chlorine-scented heaven, especially since my own swimmers are now off at CU and happy to give their blessing to my pursuit of all things swimming and coaching.

Sitting in the registration meeting last night with an auditorium full of girls, a sense of rightness filled me like helium - I had to hold onto my seat to not float away.  I've never been so sure of a new job - a new anything - in my life and I am grateful to the universe for opening this window when I thought the door was swinging closed. I also appreciate the new head coach who brought me on board. Time to openly wield the spreadsheets of splits and times, to jump up and down on the pool deck at meets, and to obsess over relay combinations and meet strategy. I can't wait!

Gratitude Vs. Despair

 "As we approach the holidays dominated by losses, uncertainty, and human depravity, we can still be open, in a gentle way, to noticing what is good in our lives, who or what is holding us, a child's smile, a poem, someone's love, perhaps spirit." - Thandiwe Dee Watts-Jones for CNN

"And when the weight of the suffering in the world feels like too heavy a burden -- this world that's so impossibly beautiful and unbelievably sad -- I remember the advice of Edmond Burke. 'Never despair,' he said. 'But if you do, work on in despair.'" - Sy Safransky in a November letter to subscribers of The Sun

Every night, before reading soothing fiction on my Kindle, I write at least five items in my gratitude journal.  The number five has some significance, a high enough number to force my brain to recognize good fortune, perhaps.  And it works, generally, inducing a surprising sense of well-being before I lose myself in fiction and then dreams. Themes emerge and reappear over the years, gratitude for friends and family, health, children's accomplishments and resulting growth and self-confidence, my husband's equanimity and hard work.  I know that I am extremely fortunate, but at times (like the present) my personal stability does not outweigh the cares of my community and country.

The weight of suffering in our poor, mishandled world threatens to sink all those who are paying attention. Health care workers barely have time to breathe or eat, let alone plan a Thanksgiving meal and Zoom with family. Corrupt politicians have lied and misled millions of people into believing an alternate reality, one where the virus doesn't even exist. Perhaps because of these lies, this inability to live in truth, the coronavirus map gets darker by the day as public health officials invent new shades of red or purple to convey the seriousness of the pandemic.

As Sy Safransky noted in his letter to subscribers of The Sun, this world is both "impossibly beautiful and unbelievably sad." This Thanksgiving week as we muster brave smiles for our families, count our individual blessings, and pray for those who need divine assistance, we inhabit both sides - the beautiful and sad - simultaneously. My emotions swoop and dive, my determination to make the holiday special for the children buoys me for a morning of frantic to-do's before I crash and nap to escape the despair that comes on suddenly, like a food coma. 

It's not really gratitude vs. despair, not "either/or" but rather "both/and." The emotions run on different tracks at the same time, and I have a foot on each train (a difficult feat for someone lacking in flexibility and coordination).  On the gratitude side, I give thanks for every one of you and know you are all so vital in this complicated web, this world that is struggling. We must keep going, working on through despair, taking time for gratitude when we can and believing we can somehow maintain our balance through 2020 and get to the other side.

Camping Gratitude

Marry an outdoors woman. Then if you throw her out into the yard on a cold night, she can still survive.
-W. C. Fields

I paused in my run last weekend, exhaling steam in the cool, moonlit morning. Two deer stopped and stared, no doubt wondering at this ungainly, dirty, and ill-dressed creature who dared to run down their road. After short analysis, they turned and bounded in opposite directions into the woods. I just grinned like a fool, having run by two mountain lakes and greeted the morning at a heightened elevation of 8,300 feet. Though sleep had been elusive I felt invigorated and optimistic. I knew the campfire would be lit and the hot water ready for coffee when I returned, and no greater joys could exist that morning, except possibly to share the day with loved ones.

The full moon was just disappearing when I returned to camp. My husband brandished the last two bags of oatmeal like a man possessed. "You're lucky you got any," he claimed as he handed them over, "the kids were HUNGRY this morning." I examined our happy, grubby children as they sat, full-bellied, amidst their friends. The oatmeal was gone but remains of toasted marshmallow outlined their lips and coated the tips of their noses. My late-night wet wiping skills had obviously been inadequate. They bragged to me that they had slept in until 7:30 (!) and then raced off into the woods to defend their fort against the 'stray teenagers' that were imaginary foe and fort-destroyers for the weekend.

The greatest gift of camping, besides the close-up view of moon and stars, mountain sunrise and sunsets, campfire singing, and shared meals, remains the wild play of the children. Disappearing in one grand troop or in two or three smaller pods, they happily moved logs, brandished sticks, invented obstacles (and wild animals) and - most importantly - rarely returned to the adult hangout all day. Their freedom was broken only by meal times, a hike around the lake, and a few bouts of kayaking. These activities were hardly limiting, as the older children ran ahead exuberantly on the hike and could man or partner their own kayaks. The younger children were a different story (especially on the hike) but still amazingly functional and certainly happy to be in the mountains with their peeps.

I keep a gratitude journal beside my bed at home and really missed having it in the tent this weekend as I had so much to add each night. When I got home - tired, dirty, and bent on unpacking - some of the finer details escaped me but I did write down 'camping,' and 'friends.' I scanned the entries for the past few weeks and noted that "friends' enter into my gratitude practice quite frequently, supporting everything I have done this summer. For example, I have "health and good triathlon - support of friends," "great trip to Cape Cod, visit with friends," "Rob's safe trip to Ohio, help of friends with the kids." As summer winds down I will be sad to say good bye to camping, to swimming outdoors, to children's freedom, but I continue to be grateful for the presence of friends in our lives and for their participation in the fun fall adventures to come.

Wonder and Gratitude

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton

Thanksgiving comes again this week, carrying its yearly reminder to be grateful for health, family, friends, and well-being. Each year I attempt to instill gratitude in my children, frantically wedging a doorstop of thankfulness in the revolving door of "but he got more!" and "when do I get one?" and "he looked at my cereal box!" The annual prayer of thanksgiving for a completed harvest resonates today even though many of us are far from crops or food animals. We have other bounties to count and cherish, and I have recently found that opening myself to a sense of awe, wonder and mystery helps me to see my blessings in a whole new light. I've accumulated a short list of people and events that generated a sense of wonder in the past weeks:

I am in awe at the patience of my husband with the children. On Saturday he played eight games of Candyland with the youngest in conjunction with a simultaneous game of Settlers with the oldest, followed by a series of football routes in the backyard with our older son. His focus on the kids and his ability to stay cool amidst temper tantrums, petty injuries and constant requests for his time just amaze me. Yesterday he kept me from missing my one day of work per week as a teacher at the Science Museum as he worked from home in the afternoon to watch our sick child. Wonder at his gifts multiplies my sense of thankfulness for his presence in our lives.

My jaw hung open in wonder as my oldest child performed her solo in the fourth grade musical last week. Alone on stage with the plain curtain for backdrop, she sang the first eight measures with the microphone off, her voice all but muted in the large gym. The music teacher gestured for the music to stop, the microphone experts to correct the problem, and for my daughter to pause - all in front of a silent audience of more than two hundred parents, friends and relatives. Problem fixed, music re-started, she began again, her lone voice a bit tremulous but on key and supported by perfectly rehearsed gestures and inflections. I can only wonder at her self-possession and inner steel.

I wonder at deep friendships and the commitment shown by those who constantly make me a priority in their lives despite pressures and problems of their own. I wonder at the perseverance of friends and loved ones who are ill, whose grace and humor and love for their own families keeps them going past the point of endurance. I wonder at the full moon, clean water,snow on the mountains and the sound of the choir in our new church building. Any of these can move me to tears with the sweet pleasure / pain of recognition that the moment is so fleeting. All the more to be grateful for sharing, touching, hearing and seeing those amazing parts of our lives that would be invisible except for wonder.

Wishing everyone a Happy and wonder-full Thanksgiving.