WORTH MY SALT (MY FAMILY'S PRIDE AND JOY)

 

The River Basins of North Carolina surrounded by a prayer by Adrienne Maree Brown doodled by me.

Before the car even stops,

they burst out of the back door

arms wide, teeth sparkling.

Love demands we mimic their movements

mirror their joy.

We must transform our anxiety into hospitality,

our lack into abundance,

our vulnerability into armor.

We must welcome the grace dumped on our heads

unless we want to be ungrateful,

cast out, or ugly.

It's a dance we've always done

since birth or maybe before

so with a few cues, we join in.

The crescendo of nicknames pour forth, 

lighting our hearts up,  

pumping our limbs until

we find the familiar rhythm.

There's no room for ambivalence

 in the urgency of right now, 

we are all together,

 once again,

hallelujah.

The jubilation at laying eyes on slight bodies,

wrinkled hands on smooth cheeks,

grips on necks and arms wrapped tight-

it's so much.

Too much too look in the face.

Too much to wrap your lips around.

Your pride and your joy have come home again.

Did anyone ask the prodigal child 

where the hell he'd been 

or what he'd been thinking?

How he could abandon them

to silence and withdrawal?

How he could take all that they loved 

away into the chaos of his whims?

No.

They feasted.

The Bible tells us so.

So we do the Lord's bidding.

With biscuits and black-eyes,

new potatoes and first tomatoes,

some ham, sliced thick and fried.

Fair trade for the gifts she's toted with her.

Whispy blonde heads and swaggering smiles

 cover for lavender shaded eyes and skinny spines.

The questions are begging but there is pound cake

and cool-whip and sugar-laced wild berries, 

steeping in their own blood.

If there are answers to be given, 

I can surely keep them until we're full up.

I am the smartest of us all-

they made sure I know it-

so that I know it is my job to learn and learn well.

I did (I do).

What did I want them to ask her?

The coffee is dripped and the cigarettes are lit.

The ring around the table invites confession.

Now is the time-to see what is real.

To notice what is missing.

To show them who she is when we are apart.

If only I wasn't so heavy.

Weighed down by dust and lard and sour-smelling shame.

If I could take a breath, I might steer them

towards the sickness.

If I could clear my head, I might know how to

explain to them her riddle.

I am almost able to live up to my birth.

Almost worth my salt.

I look at my brother, long eyelashes brushing

freckles as he struggles to lift his lids on Grandma's lap.

Her arm patting his back begs him to rest with her

where the shape of love is a seat at the table.

He will hurt himself to get even one more second.

Me too.

Belonging is the payment for our pain,

gluttony the balance of our sparseness,

rest the cost of mania.

I force myself to forget my queries,

stun my brain until it gives way,

close the door on the scales I just can't

make balance.

No questions tonight.

No righteous judges or hung jury.

Just three generations holding the knife's edge-

shared bread to tide us over.

The breaker masquerading as my mother

will decide to exile us all again.

This tide always turns.

Hissing sands still allow the withdrawal.

I am the smartest of us all-

they made sure I know it-

so that I know it is my job to learn and learn well.

I did (I do).

On reunion nights like these,

I learned to forget the questions

that would lead us dangerously close to the truth.

I learned to forget the bad decisions

and misplaced concern,

forget that it takes (at least) two to tango

but that a whole mob can get away with murder.

Forget the hunger, focus on the weight.

Forget the chill, eyes on the prize.

The big hello, the belonging and smiles.

The pride clutched tightly as if it is an honest reward

 for a job well done.

Those big greetings, bombastic starts, and outsized

moments always felt like the promise of a lifeline.

Until my grandparents were planted in

darkness.

Until my brother met them there.

Until the breakers stopped coming back to shore.

Until I was smooth as glass on the surface,

all my waves buffered in my depths

all my salt heavy on the floor.

I am the smartest of us all-

they made sure I know it-

so that I know it is my job to learn and learn well.

I did (I do).

It turns out, we mostly just live up

to the expectations of our origin stories.

Mine had expectations so high

that it destroyed their pride and doused their joy.

I tried several iterations of a life

lived the way I was told it had to be.

Then...almost on accident...but mostly because

I became who they wanted me to be....

 I decided to remember the questions.

To pull it up from the deeps

the things that were heavy and twisted.

I pulled a lot of muck into the light,

spread it around and bleached it in the sun.

I have a lot more answers to some of those questions

and I have been at sea ever since.

Unmoored but not adrift.

Saltier some days than others.

The questions I wanted to ask them then

are the ones I want to ask all of us now.

Are you proud of yourself?

Sorry.  Sorry.

Don't answer that.

 I know you aren't.  

That's not the real question.

I sometimes can't help my home-training.

I'll try again, less directly, more softly.

It's not your fault, it's the ocean we swim in.

We all learn to drown even while 

they say they're teaching us to swim.

Let me come alongside a minute

and say this without even accidental sharpness.

What I really want to know

is whether your pride was worth the price?

Does the reprieve last long enough

to hold the anxiety at bay?

Will you hurt yourself to get one more second

of that beautiful lie?

Or have you found a different way to be free?

This is a message in a bottle.

Some water is living and some water is dead

and the only way to know for sure 

is to taste it.

Well seasoned is well fed.

 

ALL IN FOR WHAT? (THE TENSION IN BELONGING)

"I wish I could be like you" she said to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You're all in.  You're committed. On board with the whole thing."

I laughed out loud which is my general response to anything

confusing or dangerous.

We were discussing a lot of things that morning but 

in this particular moment we were talking about church

and her impression that I'm 100% all in and committed

 to the place we sometimes worship together.

I mean...I currently love and respect the humans who 

do their work out of that beautiful, light-filled space.

But I'm a church organizer's nightmare (sorry-not-sorry).

I don't want to be in the cool group, rarely want the t-shirt, 

barely wear the gang-signs of groups that I've

been involved with for my whole life,

and have at least six different ways to take a conversation

from the weather to a more lively topic that will 

NOT fit with the monthly sermon series in under 10 seconds.

I distrust most systems created by humans

(since we are absolute jackasses whenever anyone gives us 

one little bit of power)

but I am particularly prickly about church.

At the risk of being misunderstood,

I'm going to share what I said that morning to my friend

in a more cohesive, thought out way that 

I'm sure still manages to be inflammatory.

You braced yet?

A gang-sign I can still wear proudly

I'm not a 'fan' of the church.

Take that in every way you can take it.

I don't 'belong' to the church.

At least not the way people are using that word nowadays.

I wish I could be as simple and committed as my friend 

imagines me to be but I doubt that will happen this side of heaven.

I'm always ALWAYS reconsidering and relooking...

recovering and resetting.

Even if it looks like I'm the same as I was last time

you looked at me, I've done a circuit of 

checking and double checking a score of things

before I'm able to sit still for a hot minute

inside the walls of an institution.

When I describe it, it sounds like I'm a frantic

and anxious border collie checking the locks.

That's not the right image except for the notion

of relentless persistence it pulls up.

That part feels accurate because that is part of who

I am and who I will be.

Human institutions that have even the tiniest bit of power

seem to morph overnight into toxic havens where greed and pride

conspire in a shame-powered vitamin shake.

I just can't put much trust in human institutions

but especially not when they're prone to do everything in GOD's name

without anyone auditing their mistakes.

I recently had a session with my spiritual director

where I started out with this idea of belonging and we riffed

on that for a smattering of minutes.

I cannot 'be' in a place for a 'long' time.

I'm always holding in tension these two ideas-

to be (alive, alone, breathing awake)

with longing (dreaming, hoping, wishing).

I am present and then I am imagining who we could be

and then I am present again.

The tension between those two states feels holy to me

because when I hold that tension I can find intention.

I can't quite express it with words,

I might be able to sing my part of it in harmony

with something else.....but pinning it down is difficult.

I can feel

the pendulum moving between the two states... a spark of the DIVINE,

a kind of beacon that points me towards

where I can really be LONG.

Doodle I did to try and explain this metaphor to myself

Where is that?

Where do I belong?

I have a short, simple answer

that is clear and obscured at the same time.

I belong to GOD.

I find church (community)

wherever two or more are gathered

and I trust that we are walking

each other home to our Maker.

I do it intentionally-this seeking out other people

as if they are mine because I think on some level

we all belong to each other as much as we all belong to GOD.

Some of us don't know it or have forgotten it.

Some of us resist it and reject it.

Some of us know it and then try to hide our 

hearts and minds inside a church thinking the work

of tension is over now, that we can let go and let...

something else take the wheel of our intentions.

We decide to only BE and forget to LONG.

We replace the tension with 

walls and rules and hoops to jump through.

That always,

somehow,

end up keeping out the people

who could break our hearts enough

for us to squint through our tears

and see the reflection of GOD.

From Brene Brown's Atlas of the Heart

GOD is much much bigger than the church,

or really any box on earth

and refuses to stay inside any limits humans assign.

I sometimes worship GOD in church

but I don't now (and have never) felt particularly bound

 by the lines of any church.

I love and care about people who I know through 

meeting them in church

but not more than or less than the people I've met worshipping

GOD in a field while weeding or singing loudly

or sharing a meal or a coffee or a heartbreak.

I work with the church when it aligns with what my Boss 

tells me to do.

When my Boss directs me elsewhere, then elsewhere I go.

Finally, I attend and serve at a church who is led by people

I trust and respect who are not asleep at the wheel.

It is working hard to become what it says it is-

a place that connects the disconnected,

that provides safety for those who are badgered and weary,

and a place that is open and transparent when there is concern.

That's really all I can ask for it to be-

a little part of a bigger body, working to reconcile

wrongs and heal injustice one intentional step at a time.

It's not a place where everyone can be for a long time

but it is a place that accepts those who have never quite

found community among the righteous.

That little body aligns with my instruction from GOD

pretty often but not perfectly.

Not every time.

Not with perfect pitch or soft comfortable repetition.

I can be there longer than I can be in other places

but I won't be there forever.

A long time is not the gift of humans.

It's part of the joy of this ride that nothing is forever.

I'm not all in in the sense that I've given over 

the tension and discernment that is mine to steward.

But I'm all in for GOD.

Here's a prayer that the holy tension

between being and longing finds you

and lights you up.

Whether it's a spark or a blaze,

I long for you to be

exactly who you are made to be.

 

 

UNBOUND (REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE)

sometimes it helps me to remember that my father is just a boy

who got stuck behind a shield of silver cans 

afraid to to push past the smoke 

in case someone mistook his desire 

for comfort 

with his absolute terror 

of the fickleness of joy

sometimes it helps me to remember that my mother is just a girl

crinkled eyes and dimples, 

haloed with golden curls

embodied desire born wedged between generations 

unable to give her the foundation of delight

that would set her free from depravity

sometimes it helps me to remember that my grandaddy was just a boy

barefoot and wild in the frozen camp of his forefathers

his mother knit him a coat of pride and championship

because she had no other resources 

to keep him warm and fed

assuming his tender-hearted generosity 

would survive the wrapping

sometimes it helps me to remember my great-aunt was a mother

her grief at her own mother's passing

inseminating her with motherless children

 washed ashore at the foot 

of her enchanted hill 

until adolescence 

ransomed their innocence 

to the tide of maturity

sometimes it helps me to remember my brother was alive

slipping fearlessly through the rails 

to stand on the edge

laughing in the faces of our old people

marching barefoot through the yellow jackets

to savor the grounded fruit

before educating all of us 

on the consequences of shame 

with his long goodbye

sometimes it helps me to remember that I am unbound

a gentle aggregation of cells and magic

currently enjoying a sabbatical 

from the vastness of the Universe

until I'm called back to dissolution

 by the urgency of the stars

Art by my talented daughter @lilbean_lad on instagram

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY (WHEN GRIEF OVERWHELMS)

There's a kind of human magic that happens

when we think about the years since an event

that opens a little bit of a door in our souls.

Anniversaries are special-

they help us remember where we've been,

think about our progress forward, 

or count our blessings like a dragon on top of treasure.

Some anniversaries are for celebrating

with cake and candles and off-key singing.

Some anniversaries are for reflection,

tears, and regret.

Some are layered with bittersweet-

like the birthday of your family member

who died years ago.  You still celebrate them

and all that they brought to the world

and you mourn the loss of them

at the same time.

The world is having a complicated anniversary right now.

There's a lot of shared grief that is loud and large

and deserves to be honored.

We're all marking time on a calendar

where something SIGNIFICANT

and TERRIBLE occurred

even if we're not all agreed on the specifics of that event.

The changes that have occurred over the past two years

have rocked our collective reality

in ways that will likely be studied and debated

by graduate students and pundits

for decades to come.

While the shape of the new us is unclear

and the reckoning of the impact is still

being tallied, there is no doubt about at least one thing.

We've changed.

Who we were in March 2020 is not

who we are now.

A really lovely cemetary in Chester, Vermont

While we're talkin about anniversaries,

let's be clear with each other about who is at the party.

Whenever there is change,

there is grief.

Grief the worst kind of party guest.

She's rarely listed on the guest list because

no one would intentionally invite her.

And yet, she is the 

required plus one of all kinds of A-list attendees-

like Joy and Love.

They will not show up without her by their side

so if you want them to come to the party,

she's coming too.

More than ever right now,

we are swimming in grief that we don't know how to

process or even see.

The world that we knew is on fire-

and the smoke that is coming from those fires is grief.

With smoke actively pouring from multiple places,

hanging thick in the air,

even people that are far from the conflict

will experience trouble breathing.

You are breathing in grief on every inhale

and breathing it out again on every exhale.

Even if you've stopped watching the news,

stopped socializing with people different than you,

stopped allowing new ideas to actively enter your universe

you're still living in grief because it comes 

along.

It just is.

The Chapel at Dog Mountain 

I found a post that I wrote in late 2019 

that talks about the inevitable dance

of grief and love.

It is helpful I think but probably more 

optimistic than most of us need right now.

What do we do when grief is too much?

When it has blocked out all the light

so we can't even find the balancing joy or love?

What do we do when we get buried by it?

I wish I had a 3 step solution to hand you.

Something nice and tidy to help you

move through and away from the amount of 

overwhelm that is in the world right now.

I wish there was a super secret cure for heartbreak

that would take it all away

and not send you deep into addiction of some form.

Sorry friends.

There is not a cure.

Grief is an inevitable, integral part of being human.

Kate Bowler knows a lot about grief.  

There are only a few things that I know that help 

when the grief is so thick that

it chokes you and none of them are quick or fully effective.

So take these next paragraphs with a grain of salt.

The smoke is still billowing, there are major

fires in the world and we do not yet

know when the fires will be tamped down in our collective life.

Even after the fires are out

it may still feel hard to take

 a deep breath for a while.

Maybe forever.

It never really leaves us-we

just learn to breathe again and see the sunlight

while we walk with the memory.

It's a terrible and beautiful thing how 

resilient we can be.

Eventually.

One thing I know to do with grief

is to sit with it, name it, get to know it.

Make space at the table of my life for it.

This is especially important for new flavors of grief

that seem to show up and need claiming.

Who knew I would grieve seeing people in passing

in a breakroom?

Or the small joy of a friend's new lipstick color?

How about greeting a toddler with a hug?

Petting a stranger's dog?

Singing in groups without anxiety about everyone's

vaccine and health status?

These things are so dumb and inconsequential

and yet I've named them so I can grieve their loss.

I may never get some of them back.

I have heavier things that I've had to name

and make space for in my life these past two years.

How about the grief I have at accepting the systems

that I thought were safe

are in fact dangerous for so many?

Immigration, traffic stops, healthcare, dress codes-

all have built in bias that are gentler to me

than to many others.

Or my naive assumption that we could

all understand and accept basic science?

Or that we had a shared expectation

that journalism included fact checking

and balanced viewpoints?

Even the basic definition of freedom

and justice must be grieved.

When I name it, it becomes more clear

and condensed;

less a bogey man, possibly a mortal.

Naming grief and sharing it (each note on the wall is for a pet who passed away)

Another thing that may help with grief

is to share it with someone else.

This is not a universal prescription though.

It may feel impossible to ever share it.

Not everyone deserves your grief or 

is a safe place to share it.

Don't make the mistake of believing that

finding someone who can share your grief is

like finding a unicorn though.

While, it takes a particular perspective to sit with another

who is carrying heavy loads of grief

there are many special people out there who can do it.

If one of us is a unicorn, we're all capable of being magical.

Let someone help you remember who you are.

Speaking of our collective magic-

It might be helpful for you to help someone else.

Someone who has similar grief to you

or someone who's grief is wildly different than yours.

When it feels like you can't breathe,

you can be sometimes be resuscitated 

by being of service to someone else who is struggling.

Reminding them to take a big breath in

and let it out for a beat longer than they took it in

can soothe your own injury just a tad.

ALL of our hearts are capable of breaking

which means ALL of our hearts are capable 

of holding more than we thought.

Help someone else remember who they are

and you might find a bit of yourself.

Fuel for a symbolic burning

And finally, a thing that is helpful is creating a ritual

to honor the fire that started the change.

A monument?

A parade?

A small token that you wear around your neck

or carry in your pocket?

A day you mark on the calendar?

You get to decide how to memorialize

the change that has occurred.

It's a useful step because it reminds us gently

that this is not the end of the story.

There is a before the thing that happened,

there is time while the thing was happening

and then there is the after.

If there is a ritual where you know

you'll touch back to this place, this feeling,

this loss-then you don't have to actively

carry as much of it with you sometimes.

You might not be there yet.

It's okay to be where you are

and to be mad at everyone who is ready

to start marking at least some of these

changes as past tense when there is still

smoke choking us in the air.

It's ok to be ready to memorialize some parts 

of the change and not others.

It's all ok really.

No.

REALLY.

Wherever you are in this season

I'd like to offer a toast on this anniversary.

Raise your glasses or tip your hat

or bow your head with prayerful hands.

Receive it or don't as you feel called

or send me an angry DM about how out of 

touch with the world I am right now.

My anniversary is ultimately about me

and my perception of how I understand WE.

Here's to two years in a new reality.

May we learn our lessons and need fewer of the 

same kind in the short term.

May we remember what is like to not be able to breathe,

may we witness that everyone is surrounded

by smoke and death and grief

even in the middle of light and birth and joy.

May we be just a little less rigid,

a little more kind,

and able to share what we have without fear.

May we remember that we belong to each other.

Whether we want to or not.

Detail from a tombstone in Chester VT