I had an essay for this title and as I was doing a little clean up, I accidentally highlighted the entire essay and the text was somehow deleted. Within a split second, blogger.com in its infinite wisdom, saved the now empty post on it's own without my having a second's chance to hit undelete. It's this neat little, save as you go, feature. Only tonight, it wasn't so neat. Just two days ago, I had deleted the original essay from my Facebook notes, figuring I no longer needed to keep it. It was a darn good essay.
Given that this is an essay about going with the flow, when faced with the choice to delete this title or write a new essay, I chose to write a new essay rather than keep the irony to myself. Only not right at the moment. I think I'll go have a glass of wine and get back to you. Just kidding. I'm tired--I was just moments away from breaking for the night--and so I will pick up with a new day and a new attitude and see if I can write you an even better one. (Read on.)
Note: I rediscovered the original essay, which was archived elsewhere (whew!) and was written in September of 2005, a few months after my brother Michael died at age 53. Michael was hospitalized as my ex-X2 and I were in the middle of a move from a home we loved to another, brought about because of my total disability. Sandra Loverin, the daughter of my mother's best friend and a childhood companion of mine, was the first person who came to visit on the day my brother died. Sadly, Sandra received a cancer diagnosis the day after Michael's funeral. This essay was written with all that and more in mind and what follows is a lightly edited version of the same.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I discovered cross stitch, and using my own original designs, I went about doing what most of us with a new hobby do: I made stuff for everyone (and I mean everyone) I knew. One of my earliest works was the stitching of two similar sayings for an often anxious friend.
Rule # 1: Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Rule # 2: It’s all small stuff.
If you can’t fight and you can’t flee, flow.
Needless to say, I haven’t always followed my own advice.
The imagery I’ve used to cope with the vagaries of life has been that of a surfer. I anticipate the incoming wave, hop on my surf board, and make every attempt to ride the wave out. This has been my idea of flowing. And although I’ve come to appreciate, when I grow tired, the value of taking a breather now and then by sitting on the beach under an umbrella or treading water just beyond the waves, my sense has been that I am only fully alive when I’m riding the wave.
Weather forecasts, however, are not always accurate and waves are often unpredictable. Many, many times I’ve been taken by surprise, tossed around and ended up nose deep in the surf with a mouthful of sand. Now and again, after particularly harsh conditions knock me off my feet, I’ve been tempted to stand in the surf and scream at God for taking my surf board out from under me; however, I’ve always suspected that God would yell back, “You ever heard of body surfing?”
But what do you do when the waves crash upon the shore during a class 4 hurricane? When a wave swallows you like a tsunami that shows no evidence of retreating? When there’s no shore to rest upon or no safe place to tread water? What do I do when there is so much big stuff going on in my life (i.e. serious health issues, disability, deaths in the family, cancer diagnosis of family and friends, a move) that the small stuff begins to feel big? When I feel overwhelmingly overwhelmed?
Up until now, my wave imagery has allowed me to have a sense of mastery over my life, and in theory, it has also given me permission to take time out when I’m weary. And I’m weary. For the past three years, I’ve been doing as best I can to keep my head above water in my own slowly retreating tsunami, while in the last month the winds from various hurricanes have been tossing me left and right, and forward and back, slamming me into the detritus. As of late I’ve learned that when it is too much of a struggle to surf and there’s no shore in sight and treading water is a waste of valuable energy, I’ve obviously reached the useful limit of this life metaphor.
Since the first wave of the tsunami, the idea of surrender has been just outside my grasp like a long forgotten song that I can’t seem to remember or a life line that I can’t keep a hold of. Last week I surrendered. And I surrendered again this week. And while I haven’t given up on the idea of surfing (I have, however, given up on the idea of surfing until I am utterly exhausted or surfing in a hurricane), I imagine that I’ll be surrendering a lot in the weeks to come.
This is not to say that I’ve given up and resigned myself to drowning. I am surrendering in the way a white water rafter might surrender after having her raft swept out from under her and down river. In a situation like that, more often than not, it is best to go with the river’s flow because preserving energy may be the best lifeline. By surrendering to the idea of surrender, I’m learning that when I can’t fight, when I am bone weary and have no where to flee, and when I can’t anticipate the waves let alone ride them, I can always flow, no matter the length of the river.
Perhaps the fight/flee/flow saying needs to be revised thusly: Let go, let God, flow. Or even: Flow, and when you can’t flow, fight or flee. Perhaps the saying doesn’t need to be altered at all: sayings, like different life metaphors, are appropriate for different times in our lives.
Who knows what hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis lie ahead in my life? That's not for me to worry about. My job is to Love Life Back despite the vagaries of living, to continually discover ways to say "Yes" to my universe. To rest on the shore, paddle beyond the waves, surf (board or no board), and surrender (but not give up) to what is.
Addendum: Fast forward to July 2011 when I added the essay's last paragraph, and you'll find me mostly recliner and bed bound with M.E.
In 2006, a year after I wrote this essay, Sandra lost her battle with cancer, within days of her 50th birthday. In a little more than a year, I'd lost the two people who greatly influenced my life and defined my childhood. A year and a season after Sandra died, my ex-partner, someone I loved with my whole heart, left me for someone 20 years my junior. Other family members passed over some time during each year of this five-year period and have continued to depart this life every year since. (All my love to them and theirs.) . . . . . . . . . I'd like to say I handled all of what happened over the course of those five years gracefully. Riding, as I was, on waves of grief--over the ongoing losses that come with disability, the loss of relatives, my brother's death, and Sandra's death, a loss that hit me with far greater impact than I had thought could be possible--, with my arms opened wide in my willingness to understand and accept what life had to teach me, I'd also like to say that I surrendered easily and behaved gracefully when confronted with the possibility of losing my ex. What I did, however, was handle that disorienting and heart-wrenching loss as easily and gracefully as I could.
I became unmoored, which is not necessarily a bad thing. In my unmooring, I was reminded of what I learned while Falling Down The Rabbit Hole early in my disability. A lesson I captured in words in case I should ever need to remind myself of what I knew to be true. When your world is breaking apart, the ground like an earthquake beneath your feet, and you feel as if you are going to fall off the face of your world and slip between the cracks, resist the temptation to hold on tight. The grace of God, and everything for which you may, one day, be thankful for will be found hidden there beneath the cracks.
By including that particular life lesson here, I know it may appear as if it's a lesson finally learned. However, in sharing that kernel of a personal truth, I'm well aware that life lessons are sometimes "learned" many times over as we go through the difficult process of catching and then adapting our behavior to match what we know to be true or most life affirming. That is, even when we think we "get it," it may take us a while to actually get it. And even then, life circumstances have a way of teaching us to "get it" from an entirely different angle, allowing us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the lesson.
We never graduate from life school; we just matriculate to new lessons and advanced courses in the same.
By including that particular life lesson here, I know it may appear as if it's a lesson finally learned. However, in sharing that kernel of a personal truth, I'm well aware that life lessons are sometimes "learned" many times over as we go through the difficult process of catching and then adapting our behavior to match what we know to be true or most life affirming. That is, even when we think we "get it," it may take us a while to actually get it. And even then, life circumstances have a way of teaching us to "get it" from an entirely different angle, allowing us to develop a more nuanced understanding of the lesson.
We never graduate from life school; we just matriculate to new lessons and advanced courses in the same.
Ripples can turn into waves T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Grief Wave T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Honor your changing thoughts & feelings T-shirt (also mug, coaster, stickers, etc.)
Fortitude is my forte T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Fortitude is my attitude T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Gospel T-shirt (also available in a black T-shirt)
Don't just survive, Love Life Thrive T-shirt
Dragons are angels in disguise T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Even the bad stuff in life T-shirt (also available in a white T-shirt)
Grace of God T-shirt
Yes to the Universe T-shirt (also available as a mug)
Right now I am learning different lessons, or at least taking the experience and going a different way with it.
ReplyDeleteLike you, I am disabled, and with the same malady (bummer!). But It think it is teaching me a different set of lessons. (I don't really think we are supposed to be learning the same lessons, just what we need for ourselves.)
The wave metaphore does not work for me, although I do see how it worked for you. My metaphore is 'Learning to Be in the Now'. My growth is going in a very Zen direction.
When I was younger, I was noted for being active all the time. Mother often complained that I had no patience whatsoever.
Yet, at the age of around 8, I went outside to our mamoth borthfeeding area and sat very still for a very long time, with my hand out-stretched and full of peanuts for the wild chipmonks. I never tamed any of them, but I did get them to eat from my hand -- after one of them bit my little finger (Hard!). I never knew if he was testing me, or if he just had confused my fingure with a peanut.
Sitting there, with my arm outstretched until it became numb, I waited until a small furry, bright-eyed creature would slowly and jerkingly come closer.
I think that may be my metaphore, waiting, with outstretched arm, waiting for what will come, trying not to move so as to not scare it away, knowing it well may bite me, but waiting for the wonder.
just a thought.
LOL! What part about being on surf board is not being in the now? That's sort of the point of being on the board. If you take your attention from the now, you lose it. So not such a different lesson. :) Of course now, I'm surrendering more, not getting back on the board... a more laid back approach to the now.
ReplyDeleteI love the metaphor at the end... your hand outstretched waiting, knowing what you get might be hard or soft, bad or good, whatever... that's it isn't? Being receptive to what's coming. If I am ever well, I hope this extra lesson in receptiveness stays with me.