Travel as struggle and joy

 Yesterday Tessa filled her backpack with all of the necessary items for a month on another continent: hostel sheets, a travel clothesline and laundry sheets, flipflops to wear in (possibly disgusting) hostel showers, warm coat and raincoat. She's got a book and a journal, snacks and a water bottle. She's got her small daypack, chargers, a waist belt to store her passport.

She's ready! She's so excited, but she's nervous too. She's never done anything like this before, and she doesn't quite know what to expect. Will she get lost? Will somebody steal her phone? Will she be lonely? Is she prepared?

The answer to all of the above is "maybe." She won't know until she goes. I am certain that she will have deep joy and that there will be days filled with "wow" moments; I am certain that there will be days with blisters and missed connections, or whatever their equivalents are. I think she'll meet people in the hostels (is anyone else traveling in the off season? will the hostels be empty?) and make new friends; I think she'll have time alone and that sometimes she might be a little lonely. She went through a breakup a month ago, and in those lonely times will she miss him? Or will she kiss a stranger on a dancefloor, her eyes sparkling as she spins away?

What I remember most about my own backpacking adventure is the deep joy of understanding myself at a whole new level, my confidence levels rising to new heights as I learned that my place in the world was much bigger than I'd imagined. Some of that was because of the struggle, not just in spite of it. I pushed my own boundaries to go on the trip in the first place, back when to be a woman traveling alone wasn't nearly as common as it is now. I remember utter exhaustion: according to my travel journal, in 30 days I slept on seven overnight trains (never actually sleeping, mostly just sitting in an uncomfortable train seat and jolting along the tracks). I remember getting lost, meeting a couple unsavory types, getting a sinus infection and trying to figure out what would make me feel better in a country that didn't sell ibuprofen (and my shock that it wasn't common there, and new ways of thinking about the safety of some things that the FDA approved). I slept with one eye open in the youth hostels, never fully settling in because I was sleeping in a room full of strangers. I had the tiniest of budgets, so figuring out how not to run out of money was a regular issue.

And all of that is part of what made it so great, and so transformative. Without the struggle, it was just another vacation; with the struggle, it was a life altering experience. I wouldn't be me if I hadn't done that, as it shaped my worldview and my view of myself. My capacity is much larger than I had dreamed before then, and overcoming each small obstacle was a gift to myself that taught me that my limits were past where I thought they were.

These gifts came in handy when life kicked me in the teeth and left me spitting blood, pain, rage. When cancer hit, I knew a bit more about how to stand up and keep going. When divorce hit, I knew how to be creative in creating a new version of myself. In single motherhood, I knew how to create joy on a shoestring. I knew how to build community, find adventure, feed myself, manage a few bumps and bruises. 

And I knew that it was worth it.

I feel such delight that Tessa gests to figure out her own transformation on her own trip, done in her own way. I don't know what this trip will teach her about herself: I suspect that my learning wasn't actually that unique, and might have a universal application, but Tessa and I are different despite our similarities, and she will have her own joys, struggles, understandings, transformations. I suspect that when she comes home, I won't know parts of her anymore, and I look forward to getting to know those parts.

I don't know why the struggle is so important for our growth - wouldn't it be lovely if it was all friendship, sunshine, and unicorns? - but I'm sure that it is. I'm sure that both my daughter and I have capacity to overcome struggle, and possibly to laugh through it.

(Flashback: on my trip, a new friend and I took a train ride an hour away for the day, and then late at night we came back. The train stopped five miles from our stop and said, "everybody off, there's construction on the tracks!" and we were stranded late at night. I had my backpack on, heavy and cumbersome, and I hadn't slept in 36 hours. We walked - and RAN! - all the way back. I remember saying "running will get us there faster" and since my friend had a bike, I ran part of the way, my legs and lungs burning but filled with determination. When we got there, I recall laughing deliriously at the absurdity of it, exhausted by feeling proud.)

We do not need lives free of struggle, appealing though it may be. We need to know that when the train stops, we can manage anyway. We need to know that being lonely is a time for self reflection, not giving up. We need to know that we can tough out the sinus infection, take the detour, and find our way.

And how lucky to find one's way on trains and planes, going to concerts in Paris and London, shopping vintage markets and eating take-out in a park. How joyful!

Tessa will have struggles, but she's well prepared. I've showed her that the struggles are part of the story, not the whole story.

Single motherhood is not for sissies. Her dad is still in her life and he loves her and has provided child support, and I do not take that for granted, but when there is a decision to be made I am the one to make it. I've been the enforcer of bedtime and screentime (those days are past, of course) and I've managed medical appointments. I've helped with college apps, and job apps, and plane reservations. I've made a million meals, and I've driven carpool more than I can count. I've given her a safe and comfortable place to live, a fridge full of food, a place to invite her friends (and all the snacks required). I've learned to love thrifting as a way of bonding with her (plus I've found my own steals!). I've been the one to discipline, and the one to help her with heartbreak. I take her on vacation, and I hang the birthday banner and wrap her gifts and make sure that there is cake when the occasion requires it. It has been joyful, painful, wearying, and every moment of it has shaped me. We've navigated cancer and divorce and what came afterwards together.

She's ready. She'll master trains and buses and light rail and planes and such in no time. She'll visit places that I've been to, and she'll go to places I've never been. It will be harder than she guesses, but it will be better than she guesses.

She's ready. I'm ready. The whole lifetime we've been waiting for this. What joy, it's here!

I can't help but think of the Naomi Shihab Nye poem that I love so well: it is only because I have lost things that I know the true joy of kindness. The struggle got me here, so I'm thanking the struggle, too.

Kindness

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• 
• 

Naomi Shihab Nye

1952 –

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

From Words Under the Words: Selected Poems. Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author. https://poets.org/poem/kindness 

Feeling 22

 My daughter is 22 and about to go on a European backpacking adventure, attempting to go to 14 cities and 10 countries in 33 days. I'm thrilled to see her explore this adventurous side of herself, grateful that she has the confidence to go to another continent and stay in youth hostels and travel economy class on planes, trains, and buses, eating cheap food and putting in miles in her Converse with a backpack and a dream. She's newly graduated - the diploma hasn't even arrived in the mail yet! - and still figuring things out for the next phase of her life, but I can see how she is determined to have a life of meaning and hope, to avoid a life of "quiet desperation" even if I'm not sure if she knows the passage by Thoreau. I'm bursting with pride and enthusiasm for her, sharing her excitement and eager to support this grand adventure.

But this isn't about her, it's about me.

She is the exact age I was when I did a similar trip: 31 nights, 9 countries, 17 cities in the summer of 1992. It was a trip that changed my life, my entire sense of self shifting as I explored the world and my own capacities and limitations. My parents actually forbid me from going, telling me that I would get murdered, that it was a foolish idea, that it was a huge waste of money and time.

The "murdered" threats actually made me laugh. I was going to Europe, visiting cities like Paris and Brussels, hardly the dark underbelly of some war torn region or crime-ridden drug cartel run location. But I heard the message loud and clear: the world was a scary place, I wasn't equipped for it, and this was NOT how our family did things. It's true, this is not how my family did things. My family instead got pregnant as a teenager, had a shotgun wedding, and never traveled beyond Canada and the US. My parents never got to try on a bunch of careers, go out late at night dancing, or live in tiny apartments by themselves. My parents went straight to marriage and a baby, and they wanted me to do the same.

But I never wanted that. I saw how it was for them, and frankly it didn't look fun. My mother talked about her unfulfilled dreams with me, and my father's life looked bigger than hers because he was part of big projects and got to go to work with interesting people and sometimes do interesting things, but I didn't want either of their lives. I wanted to have a BIG life, one with music and dancing and interesting food and art and literature and so much travel. I wanted to meet people, to push my boundaries, to see the world and learn my place in it, not because I was born in a place and needed to live within those limitations, but because I had explored my options and chosen one.

I didn't entirely understand what I was signing up for, and while I pretended that my parents' threats didn't impact me, they did. I knew that I was on my own, that if something went wrong it would be reason for deep shame, that my hopes and dreams were foolish, that I was a disappointment to them.

Most of all, I understood how I was a disappointment, that they saw I wanted something different than what they had, and that this made them angry. They were ashamed of my desires for me, and labeled me foolish and selfish.

I went anyway. I had no idea what I was really signing up for - I had done so little in my life, and the small amounts I knew were all from books! I had never been to the movies by myself, didn't eat out by myself, certainly never spent the day in a city exploring museums by myself, and now I was getting on a plane to go overseas, where I knew nobody, where I didn't know much about anything... only that I wanted to go.

I bought a copy of Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and read it over and over, committing it to memory. I bought a money belt, and got myself a passport. I looked at a map and made myself a plan, choosing Paris because I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower; choosing cities in Germany where my grandparents had lived; choosing Edinburgh because it seemed full of dark castles like in romance novels. I wanted to see Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre... but mostly, I had no idea what to expect. I just wanted to go.

And I did. Filled with fear, half sure that my parents were right and I was an absolute idiot, I boarded the plane. A middle aged French man moved to the empty seat next to me and flirted, and I didn't know yet that it was okay to say "no thank you" and then, if that didn't work, to say "fuck off!" so I put up with him until he got up to use the lavatory and the flight attendant said, "Do you WANT to talk to him?" and I whispered "no but I don't know how to make him go away" and she made him move seats. I'm still grateful to her: she let me know that I didn't have to put up with bad behavior, that I could have what I wanted even though a man wanted something else. An important lesson, and I hadn't even landed yet.

As I recall it, 33 years later, the rest was magic.

I wept as I visited my childhood friend Anne Frank's house (because the children of literature were my friends - weren't they yours, too?). I accidentally wandered into the red light district in Amsterdam, and my eyes opened to a whole new world. I slept in horrible bunk beds using my pre-purchased hostel sheets, and I met people from all over the world; in Marseilles I went out to dinner with two girls from Mexico, a girl from Spain, an Australian man, and a German boy in addition to a college kid from Florida. We shared travel stories and tips - have you been here? Oh, don't eat that it's so gross... try this instead! - and laughed and connected, sure in our commonalities because here we were, young and alive and living life to the fullest on our tiny budgets.

I learned that I really don't like Picasso, but the Impressionists were just as wonderful as I'd hoped. I felt something sacred in a cathedral in London. I got sexually harrassed at Hoffbrau House (when I shouted at the man who grabbed my ass as I walked by, he just shrugged and said it was a beer house, what did I expect?) and I'm indignant about it to this day. I slept on a three masted schooner in Stockholm, and I took a Rhein River cruise (I can still hear "On your left, the Lorelei!" in the accented English of the guide). I saw Hamlet's castle, and Buckingham Palace, and the Mona Lisa and the Copenhagen mermaid statue.

But most of all, I saw myself. I saw that I was brave and adventurous, and that I had capabilities beyond my own understanding. I could show up on a night train in the early morning, find a place to spend the night, convert my money, get breakfast, make friends, and then stand in front of a wonder (architecture, or a vista, or a town square, or a painting) all before 10am, filled with freedom and energy.

I learned that I was likeable, that I could make friends with ease, and that there were lots of people out in the world like me, and that I wasn't crazy or alone to want the things that I wanted. I learned that some people didn't see these trips as a really big deal, because everyone they knew did them. My family didn't care much about music, art, literature, or architecture... but the world was filled with people like me who took absolute delight in them. I learned about workers rights through striking, and the different politics of different countries. I learned what people thought about Canada, and about America, as I met people from all over the world who opened up to me, and as I traveled from country to country.

I learned that a baguette with brie, cucumber, and tomatoes, purchased from a street vendor and eaten in a train station, could be the best food in the world. I learned that I would go without sleep gladly, taking regular seats on night trains so that I didn't have to pay for a hostel, was totally worth it if it meant I got to see something new and wonderful in exchange.

I learnt that I was strong, capable, and worthy of these adventures.

Life took so many twists and turns after that: I married the wrong person, and instead of the life of travel I thought I had claimed, I didn't leave North America for more than two decades. Cancer and divorce made my life small again, as I did the things that needed to be done to just keep the wheels turning... but I've never forgotten the lessons. I'm brave. I'm strong. I'm filled with adventures. Art, music, and literature matter. I can make friends anywhere. I am a born adventurer. I can put up with some discomfort if it means that I get to really live.

I tried to teach my daughter these things, too, even if I couldn't gift her with travel from an early age. I took her to local museums (more and more against her wishes, but I tried!) and we went to concerts. We dreamed of travel together, talking about "one day..." even though we didn't know if that day would ever come.

A few years ago, a family wedding from a beloved member, and I scrimped and saved and we went to Italy. It was just as good as I'd hoped - maybe better! We went to places I'd been before, and places I'd only dreamed of. We ate focaccia and pesto pasta and pizza, and we strolled through piazzas. We marveled at Botticelli and the statue of David, and we delighted in the duomos in Firenze and Siena. I saw it in Tessa's eyes - she felt it too, the wonder and awe and excitement of it.

And now she is 22, the age I was on my backpacking trip, and she's going to do the same things I did, but in her own way, on her own schedule, and her own sets of experiences. Eurorail isn't as much of a thing as it used to be - the short plane flights are so cheap, and I guess night trains are a thing of the past. (Reminder to self: re-watch Before Sunrise to relive all of this!) But she will travel light, alone, and stay in youth hostels. She will find adventures, and find out who she really is, and she will dream big dreams. I'm doing everything I can to show my support: buying her airfare, and helping her choose her routes, taking her to the Rick Steves' store to buy travel items and to chart her course. We're reading guidebooks together sometimes, saying "did you know?" and "isn't this cool?" and she asks me a million questions and I give her advice that is 33 years out of date and then we laugh about it and try to find something a bit more current.

(No night trains. Huh. Who'dathunk?!)

And the thing is... this just brings it all back for me, at exactly the right time.

Tessa's graduation from college has done something to me that I wasn't expecting. This feels like the first time since my twenties that I get to be an adventurer, too, taking care of myself and nobody else. Tessa is raised, for better or for worse. It is the great joy of my life to be her mother, but now is a transition to something new in my life where my primary role is to be myself, not to be her mother.

What a strange sensation!

I believe that it is a parent's job to carry their children (metaphorically) on their backs to adulthood, showing them the path and taking them as far along as they can go. But with graduation, Tessa is unfolding her wings and launching into the world, ready to fledge the nest and explore on her own, to create her own nest, to come up with her own plans. I've done everything I can to raise her well, but for better or worse, now it's her time to fly.

She's flying: getting on a plane(s) to forge her own path, to have her own adventures. She's sure that this is what she wants, determined to see everything she can see.

And as she launches, I feel my own lightness of being. She's not on my back, she's out exploring the world, and though I do NOT consider her a burden (she was my choice, through and through), I notice the new lightness. Carrying someone is hard work, and I am so much lighter - it is so much easier to move! Financially, physically, spiritually... it is time for me to look inward and say, "what do I want?" and not "what does she need?" and I can proceed accordingly.

Well, it was very clear to me as her trip started to take shape that I have incredible FOMO, and that my jealousy that she would be having these huge adventures was because I want adventures too. But this time....

I can. I will. I AM!

I booked myself a week long trip during mid-winter break. I'm going to London - a place I only went for twelve hours on my trip! - and I'm spending 8 days. I have tickets to Stonehenge, and the musical Six, and the Florence + the Machine concert. I'm going to visit the Jane Austen Center, the Bodliean Library, the British Library. I'm going to have afternoon tea and cream tea and just tea. I'm going to sit in pubs, and I'm going to go to museums (though my great debate is whether I go to the British Museum, full of stolen antiquities).

I'm going! It's booked, an investment in myself. It's the off season and everything is cheaper, and I'm staying in a decent hotel in the heart of things, still very inexpensive but a far cry from youth hostels. I'm going to wear my wool coat and carry an umbrella; I want to be a little bit sophisticated, not a train hopping twenty-something. No more night trains, I've decided to stay in the one hotel and use it as a launching pad for other adventures (Oxford, Bath, Paris?), enjoying the comfort of not having to haul a bag and of getting to know an area.

Because I'm going back. I'm not going to travel once a decade, I'm going to do it at least once a year. Eight days isn't nearly long enough for London, so I'll return soon enough. If I don't take the chunnel to Paris for the day, I'll just do a trip to Paris another time.

Suddenly, I've reconnected with all those feelings of being 22, of remembering that the world is vast, and that I'm just beginning, and that adventures await because I am a born adventurer.

I found my old travel journals (not hard, filed by year in a bookcase in my study), and I read a couple entries today, and I thought, "Oh! That's me!"

I've changed (oh, the drama about silly men that I allowed; I gave them my power too easily, not realizing that I was powerful beyond my imagination), but I'm still the same. Suddenly, I'm 22 again, willing to scrimp and save to go on trips, sure that the adventure is what I'm born to do.

And I am.

Tessa's graduation is a graduation for both of us. She has completed her education, and I have completed this phase of parenting, and we are both ready to launch. I find it poetic that she will meet me in London for the concert (and for a free place to stay for a couple of days), that we will celebrate her birthday together in the West End with dinner and a play. I find it poetic that we will travel independently of one another, in different ways with different objectives, but that we will meet up in love and joy and adventure, and share our stories with one another.

I don't need FOMO, and she doesn't need my FOMO. She needs me to keep showing her how it's done: she needs me to go on my own adventures too.

I am saying "Go! Dream! Have adventures!" and this is a far cry from my parents threats about what a terrible choice travel was. I do not think she will get murdered, and I hope she finds her own equivalent of a hot Australian to kiss in the moonlight on a beach by the Mediterranean (because THAT is a good memory). I hope that if a rude middle age Frenchman unwantedly hits on her, she'll say no until he leaves, but if that doesn't work she'll say "fuck off" and call the flight attendant over. I hope she discovers a painting that touches her soul, that she finds a street market with the perfect vintage souvenir, that she makes friends, that she is exhausted by her adventures but she doesn't care. I hope she connects with some new part of her own soul, uncovering strengths and stories that shape her for the rest of her life.

I hope I do, too.

She's 22 for another week, and I'm feeling 22 again, reconnecting with the girl I once was, resurrecting her, removing the dust shrouds and shaking her shoulder. "Wake up!" I whisper in her ear. "It's time. Let's reconnect!"

What a time to be alive. How glad I am to be alive to experience this new phase - cancer and divorce didn't kill me yet, after all, and my legs are strong and my heart is thudding and I'm filled with the longing and possibilities of all of it.

Nobody told me anything interesting about middle age, about what happened after launching a child into adulthood. But if someone asks me, this is what I will say to them:

It's your time to be alive. Take delight in what you've done, and then dig deep to reconnect with yourself. They are launching, but so are you, and it's GLORIOUS.

Take the trip. Write the book. Dance at the concert. Be weird in the way that suits you best: join the coven, pull a tarot card, swim in the wild ocean in Seattle in January. Call your friends and share what you're thinking, find out if they're experiencing it, too. Hear your heartbeat, solo after these years of parenting, thudding in your chest, telling you what you love, what you crave, what you desire. Listen to it.

And go. Go, go, go. You won't be murdered, and not you're not wrong for being filled with the desire to drink deeply of all that life offers, to push the boundaries, to try something new. If you're lucky, you can make some of your dreams come true. 

Skip the take-out, cancel the streaming subscription, put yourself on hold from any purchases except the most necessary. Use up the wilted vegetables in the refrigerator to make a boring soup, so that you don't waste them. Use your library card instead of your debit card.

And buy a ticket to Paris or Prague, Tokyo or Terabithia, Nigeria or Narnia. Remember what it feels like to be filled with wonder, to feel a song in your bones, to be made to feel small on the precipice of a canyon or feet of a wondrous building or in the face of an artifact that is filled with so much history. Bite into food that surprises you. 

Just go. Go, go, go.

It's your time.

Perfection

 I teach at a high school where perfectionism is an epidemic, and kids crumble when they do not reach their own (or their families') impossibly high standards. I do not envy these kids: too many of them have lost their joy; too many of them have forgotten (at such a young age!) why it's wonderful to be living.

I think of one of my jobs as a teacher as showing them what it's like to have a meaningful life, modeling to them what it means to live in integrity with one's self, and how to seek joy at every turn. Part of this is doing things imperfectly, and forgiving one's self even as one balances accepting faults and trying to improve them. I let the kids know how imperfect my life is - cancer, divorce, yada yada yada - and how joyful it is anyway.

Today is a joyful day.

I woke up to the "Besties" thread already lighting up my phone; Carolyn and Susan were texting before I was even awake, sharing the details of their lives with each other and with me. That's perfection: people who care about me, and who are brave in speaking their joys and sorrows. We chatted for a while in the early morning as I made and drank my coffee, and then we all went to our tasks knowing that the others were there if we needed them.

Because it's a day off, I went to the park and the beach. My imperfect life means that I missed a step in the dark and did something unpleasant to my knee on Saturday and I've been trying to baby it since then, but I felt up to a gentle walk today. I meandered the beach, taking in the incredible autumn light, the sound of the gentle waves on the pebbles, the calls of shorebirds and crows. A seal popped up and we held eye contact. The grandmother trees in the park stood sentry, the ferries came and went, the light snow on the mountains in the distance promised more to come. The leaves are no longer brilliant red and gold, and some of the trees are bare, but some trees still have soft ambers and browns, the gentle side of autumn, and the firs and the cedars contribute their rich forest colors.

The seal popped up nearby, and I made my way over the logs to get closer to her. As I got to the water's edge, I found a tire filled with Styrofoam - obviously a buoy lost its moorings - about six feet out. I found a long stick (almost a small log) and used it to pull the tire in, then rolled it across the beach, path, and grass to the nearest rubbish bin, and I felt like a small hero for saving the nasty Styrofoam from further degrading into the beautiful Sound, and for finding ways to fish it out of the water.

Three crows witnessed me, and I heard them speaking to one another in a language I rarely hear: purrs and gurgles in a song that was quite beautiful and soft, nothing harsh at all, and I was overcome with the beauty of the light on their feathers and the moment.

I ran errands, came home and raked the leaves from the driveway by the garage (I've been meaning to do that for a week!), showered and changed into an outfit that I love, and then made bread dough (which is now rising). I sat and journaled in my favorite cozy chair, and then I made tea and sat here to talk to you. I'll work on my book next, and then I'll meet a friend at the coffee shop. When she leaves I'll stay at the coffee shop a while longer, grading. (I've decided that my writing studio is NOT for work. The two will be kept separate!)

Tonight I'll make a big pot of vegetable soup to go with my bread, and I'll cut into my pomegranate to put the jeweled fruit into a spinach salad, and I'll curl up in my favorite PJs to read a book for a while.

This is a short work week because of Veteran's Day (thank you, Veterans!), and then there's only a week until the next short week and Thanksgiving. My work life balance feels manageable, despite the stack of grading.

This weekend I'm vising Alex in Pullman, and picking up Tessa in Ellensburg to join me. To have these young people in my life to spoil a bit is such a gift in my life, and I'm looking forward to a mini-adventure. Tessa will stay on Alex's couch so that they can go out in the evenings and I can go to bed at what I consider a reasonable time, and we'll eat good food and find things to entertain ourselves.

Speaking of good food: I have been sugar free since November 1st, and I'm so proud of myself. My body feels much better, and I'm glad I finally summoned my willpower to make this happen, because I deserve to feel good.

I did a spell involving a blue candle, incense, and crystals (labradorite for transformation, citrine for success, amethyst and quartz for clarity and higher self, fluorite for focus) invoking change for myself, and the change I asked for is for consistency in my writing practice. "The first thing the magic changes is you" and this is true for me: the intentionality of lighting the incense and candle daily (for five days), burning a piece of paper with my intentions written on it, and then sitting down to write does somehow feel magical. Is it the lovely scent of the incense, the fire of the candle, and the metaphysical properties of the stones... or is it all my intentionality in creating a small beautiful ritual that makes it feel easier to follow through on my dreams?

It doesn't really matter, does it? Because I'm here, and peaceful, and hopeful, and filled with ideas for my book. The main characters are named Margaret and Maya, and I hear them whispering in my dreams that they want to tell their story.

The calendar is filled with fun events, and with chores, in balance. I'm so grateful for the beautiful weather today that made me linger on the shore and take a million pictures on my old iPhone, spamming my friends with "isn't it just so beautiful here?" and "look at this pretty seashell I found!" (today it was a chiton, freshly eaten by some other creature, the inside beautiful bright turquoise and smelly). I'll have to face those papers this afternoon, and tomorrow my exercise will by necessity take place in the week hours of the morning in my basement, not in the sunshine along the edge of the forest and the sea, but that's okay too. I'll put on an audiobook and use my treadmill, and then I'll hit my yoga mat for a bit and I'll go to work in the dark feeling proud of myself. There is joy in that, too: in knowing that I'm doing my best, and that while I am not in the best shape at the moment I'm doing what I need to do to make my life the best I can.

Yesterday I saw orcas at Lowman Beach for the second time in a week, and my heart still leaps to think of it. Wordsworth felt it for "a rainbow in the sky" and I do like a good rainbow, but I swear it's got nothing on watching a wild whale swim by. I have good whale energy, and I see them often... is it because I'm lucky with whales, or because I'm always looking for them? Or isn't it the same thing?

I feel like the luckiest woman in the world lately, despite any evidence (there's plenty if you look) to the contrary. I know what bad days look like, having experienced a fair number of them (ha!), but this isn't it. This is pure magic, and I intend to honor it.

Perfect? I don't know what that is, and I think if we could define it, then perfection would shift and the definition would no longer serve. I'm not interested in perfection, which sounds absolutely exhausting to me (how could exhaustion be perfect?). 

But this? This is magic and love and gratitude and good will and hope and peace, to sit here on this five (six?) year old computer, in my pretty little basement office (that I've decided to call a studio, because it sounds so much more creative!), the sky soft blue and little birds fluttering by outside, candles flickering inside. I'm drinking tea that was a gift from Tessa, and it's got dried raspberry and lemon along with green rooibos, and I love it; it's even better in the mug from Orcas Island Pottery, with soft music in the background in a room full of plants and books and candles and light.

This is a beautiful life, even without breasts and ovaries, even without a family of origin or a husband holding me up.... or maybe especially because of that, because I know what pain feels like, and I can appreciate this gentle joy so much more because of that. 

"These are the good ol' days" sings Carly Simon, and Van Morrison told me there'd be "days like this." Khalid reminds me that "nothing feels better than this." Feelings come and go, and some days really stink, and I'll have those days again because life's like that. But in the mean time, I'm living in gratitude for days when perfection really doesn't seem that far away, and in deep gratitude that my mind will allow me to see it for the wonder that it really is.

The only thing that could make it better is fulfilling my promise to Maya and Margaret to tell their stories today, so please excuse me while I go meet them in the corners of my mind and bring them to life.

I hope that today you, too, are touched with magic and joy and hope, and that you're having a great day. But if today is on the other side of that equation, as sometimes life is, I hope that you remember that days like this await you, and that when you get there it will feel all the sweeter because you know the taste of sorrow.

Until next time, dear readers. Thanks for coming on this journey with me.

One month and two days

 If things go according to plan, Tessa will graduate college in just over a month.

I stand here in wonder and awe at her luminance, the magic of this moment in her life and in mine.

For her, this is something that nobody can ever take away form her. It belongs to her and her alone, and she gets to hold it forever. It is proof of what she can do, of her tenacity and resilience, her intelligence, her fortitude. She never liked school - I think she enjoys some of her classes, but homework was never anything but painful - but she saw it through, and I'm so proud of her that I'm bursting.

"Sit in salt water, light a candle for my daughter..." sings Florence + The Machine as I typed that last bit. Florence is singing of the pain of her miscarriage, and the "You Can Have it All" title is bitter.

But I wonder if  - miracle of miracles - in the end, I get to have it all. Of course, not ALL-all, but somehow, still, all.

I lost things along the way, "like salt in a weakened broth" says the poet Naomi Shihab Nye in "Kindness":

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

Oh, yes, I lost things. I lost my breasts, then my womb and ovaries, my femininity stripped from me and placed under a microscope, quivering in stainless steel dishes, cold and exposed. Then I lost my marriage - or did I ever really have it? - in what, at the end, felt like a purifying fire, the heat filling me where the surgeries had left me iced.

And then I lost those years of career, never to be regained. I lost financial footing, clawing at the shale slope and longing to find something solid like basalt or soft like a forest floor, looking down and fearing that I'd fall off the cliff face.

Sure that I was done - don't bad things come in threes? - I lost again, this time my family of origin, ugly words revealing what had been the truth for too long, shame flooding my body. Thank goodness for years of lifeguarding, so that I could swim with all my might to rescue myself, finding shore and gasping at the sea of shame that threatened to take away everything I knew about myself, shaking in the grief that I do not get a family the way I thought I would.

But every time I lost, I found again.

22 (nearly 23) years since I held my baby and knew for sure that this is what pure love looked like.

20 years since cancer, and I'm alive to see Tessa step into her womanhood in this new way.

12 years since divorce, which I feared would kill me in a new way, but was actually proof that I was a  phoenix, that I could rise and fly in ways I'd forgotten possible; years of showing Tessa how to live.

9 years since losing my family of origin, father first, then everyone else: mother, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins. One cousin did let me know that my grandmother had died but then had to call back, embarrassed to report that I was not welcome at the funeral. Years of teaching Tessa boundaries, and learning to parent myself as well as her as I sorted through the detritus of my upbringing and vowed not to gift her with its waste.

8 years since I returned to teaching, finding my way again in my career, using my education. Years of modeling passion and purpose to my daughter.

4 years since Tessa decided to go to college, and found her way in. Difficult years for her, but such a time of proving to herself something that she needed to know in her bones. And four years of remaking myself, with her living in an apartment on her own time a couple of hours away.

And now? Now, she launches. I have given her the best of myself, even when that wasn't enough, I think it's fair to say that I gave it my all, and that my commitment to giving it all to my beloved daughter until I draw my last breath is a thousandfold what it was that first time I saw her face, cradled her body, and vowed that there is nothing I would not do to protect her and give her a good life.

So she must launch, and I will too.

I am filled with a new energy lately, finding my footing more than ever, and I'm so hopeful that this next phase will be a time of kindness, of stepping into light and love.

When I first got divorced, I stood on the edge of Lowman Beach, and had the sudden clear vision that when I saw orcas swim by that beach, it would be a sign that I was ready for the next phase of my life, ready for love, and that love would find me. Since then I have run to the beach every time the orcas were nearby, and I have seen them many times since (it's one of my gifts!), but never from Lowman. I could spot them at Alki, or Constellation, or from a boat in the Sound, or from Emma Schmitz, or from a ferry or an island... but never from Lowman. Disappointed, I decided that maybe it would never happen, determined not to want it, but searching the horizon of the sea despite myself.

Last week I saw them from the shore, a crowd of us gasping in delight - "Did you see it? In line with the point, by the research boat! Oh, look, another one!" The man next to me loaned me his binoculars and I saw a fin so large I was sure it was taller than I am. And my heart beat faster - was it really a sign?

And then today I went to the beach again, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, looking for wishing stones and painting a little seascape in my portable art set (I remind myself that it was the process, not the outcome, that I was seeking, because I have no idea what I'm doing but it's fun anyway!). And then... was that a splash? Oh! And another! And running to the water line, talking to another woman, delighting in, yes! A third! Oh look at them, by Colman pool, how are we so lucky to live her, and now the sun is setting (so early in the afternoon!) and I can't believe it and oh I love orcas.

Twice in a week. Grateful to the tips of my toes, sure now that it's a sign (sometimes I'm slow, and I appreciated the confirmation!).

In one month and two days, my daughter's life changes forever, and she grasps what was hers to claim, her birthright. On her mother's side, she is the second woman to receive a college degree. I am the first, and it was hard for me (how DID I work 70 hours a week sometimes?!) and it has been my joy to make it easier on her.

And now we both launch into new things. She is all dewy skin and flat stomach and breasts that belong to her body and independence and dreams and determination and integrity and pure stubbornness and the deepest kindness. She has hopes, but she has fears too, and she will have to reinvent herself in this phase. She is ready, of that I have no doubt. She has wings; she will fly.

And I am launching too. Did the orcas bring love? Time will tell! But my writing is back on track, and that feels good. I'm exercising in the mornings. I gave up sugar for the month (exceptions for Thanksgiving!) and I'm on day 10 without it. Work is going well. I go to the beach on my day off, and I make Christmas presents for friends, and I go to live concerts, and I read stories and light candles and read tarot. I have friends who are good and true, and I have friends who are actually sisters. I have big dreams for myself, and peace about watching Tessa fly.

I never seem to do things on just the right schedule - I couldn't write this in two days to have a clean "just one month from now" because I'm not that tidy. I'm messy and on my own schedule, not right or wrong but mine, just the same as my daughter.

We have made it, she and I. We are well. It's messy, and sometimes it's scary, but it is also so jaw-droppingly beautiful. As she creates herself anew, I create myself anew, and I am inspired by her, and hope that I can return the favor.

I saw orcas, and I must mark the occasion. My daughter and I are well.

All will be well.

(And just to be clear, I think "mystic" is witch. Yes. And I loved her ever since learning the UU song by Meg Barnhouse, and I love her even more because of Florence's references.)

And speaking of Florence's lyrics....

I got to hold my daughter in my arms, and she did not die. And then I did not die, and I get to see her become a woman, to sprout wings bigger than mine, to surpass me in so many ways. And I get to playfully say, "you can't pass me yet - watch this!" and flap my own broken wings harder, to fly higher, because I have mended them over and over and I can still fly.

The crows don't get out of the way when I walk by anymore; I tell them how beautiful they are, and they strut near my feet, our eyes meeting. Their black glossy wings remind me that I can fly - and that I still have some magic tricks up my sleeves, because I am not done reinventing myself either.

One month and two days from now, she grabs the ring. It's my ring too, and how glad I am to share a copy of my own. Let her come into her power, and let me explore mine.

All shall be well.

Coven

In "The Prophecy" Taylor Swift sings, "And I look unstable/gathered with a coven 'round a sorceress' table" and... well, yes.*

To those who don't get it, I'm sure that it looks unstable... but what I'm realizing at this later part of my life is that nothing makes more sense than this, and that a lot of my sanity comes from such gatherings.

My entire adult life, gatherings of women have saved me. They saved me from giving up on my dreams in my 20s; they saved me from the isolation of new parenthood in my 30s; they saved me again in my 30s when I went through cancer; they saved me in my 40s when I went through divorce; and they save me now as the world seems more chaotic than I've ever experienced it before.

Gathered round dining room tables, we women have fed each other and our families nourishing food. We have tended to each others' wounds, and to each others' children. We found ways to make each other laugh and feel a little lighter when everything was heavy beyond bearing. We listened, we shared, and we cracked open and let the light in. 

Lately, I've added to my gatherings by going to women's circles: rituals that involve poetry, sage or palo santo, meditation, breathwork, tarot or oracle, tea ceremony, reiki, sound bath and council (always poetry and meditation and council, the rest rotate) in the company of other women. At Solstice I even hosted my own at my house, serving a seasonal meal by candlelight and each of us sharing what we are leaving in the dark and what we are bringing into the light. I've become friends with several of the women who regularly attend these events through Sacred Woman or New Moon Mama or The Jade Dragon, and sometimes one or two or three of them will sit in my living room with me to do a spontaneous circle, sharing what is on our hearts and minds, asking for guidance from the Universe, practicing ritual to ground ourselves, setting intentions.

If this isn't a coven, I don't know what is.

Next weekend some of these friends will join me for Imbolc, to celebrate the early signs of spring's awakening. We'll bring seasonal readings, we'll pull tarot cards with the question "What is ready to awaken in me?" to pair with the shoots of green coming up through the earth. We will bring our grief, and our dreams, and we'll cry when tears are warranted and we'll definitely laugh, and we'll bring a fiercely protective energy for one another: we will keep each other safe, honor each others' dreams. When we blow out the candles at the end, we'll go for a walk through the neighborhood looking for snowdrops and crocuses and buds on the trees, and we'll stand at the edge of the Sound, breathing in salt and listening to the waves. The whole thing will feel holy and true, and I know this because I've done it enough now to not be surprised by the reverence I feel in the experience.

I believe that this is how we heal each other, and that if we heal each other, we can heal the world.

The world is aching. Covered in plastic, burning, at war. We turn away refugees, ostracize whom we do not understand, and keep running faster and faster on the treadmill of life that demands we buy more, more, more, and then we spend hours and days and weeks emptying our cupboards of all of the excess that we do not need, sending it to landfills, so that we have space to buy more.

Enough.

Enough! I cannot stand it for one more minute, and I know I'm not alone.

I have enough material things. I need more connection, love, hope, magic, mystery, insight, dreams. And in these circles of women, I reconnect with something ancient within me, magic and mystery and truth combined.

The rulers of my world have put women in a secondary place, but I'm starting to see that I have powers that they have forgotten, and that women are tapping into that more and more.

My intuition is - how do I describe it? Shocking. Accurate. Amazing. Wonderous. I have stories - so many stories, often with witnesses. The close people in my life have learned to trust me when I say I know something unknowable, because over and over that intuition has shown itself to be truth.

And when I'm in tune with myself, when I connect to that thing in myself that has no name... anything is possible. Anything at all!

It's the season of the witch, and not just when Lana del Rey sings it (but also then). Wicked resonates because we are tired of being told that there is something wrong with us, when we know somewhere, somehow, deep within, that the thing that they say is the worst is actually the best of us, and defying gravity doesn't seem so impossible anymore. We're willing to look unstable if that's how the world wants to see it... but we will gather with the coven round the sorceress' table... which is to say, MY table.

Women have deep wisdom about healing, diplomacy, and how to tend to the needs of the world. They call it "women's intuition" because we've got something that defies logic but is at least as true as science, maybe more. We have the power to create an entire human being within ourselves with just  a speck of sperm too small for the eye to see, should we choose to. We can bring ecstasy and light, or we can bring a storm.

And we do it all the best, the most, when we are in tune with the moon and the sun and the stars; when we feel bare earth beneath our feet; when we breathe in the salt air and the damp forest. We do it best when we make things with our own hands - nourishing meals, or poetry, or blankets, or pottery, or stories, or soap and candles, or quilts, or clothing, or murals and portraits or anything else we care to bring into existence through the air, our minds, our hearts. We tend to forests and gardens, growing herbs or saving small worms and spiders, moving them out of harm's way. When we lead nations, children thrive, and the hungry are fed.

We are flawed, too. We can be jealous and angry, and we are just as capable as any other person of getting lost in our own lives, making it from one glass of wine to one take out coffee to one meeting to the television, without ever feeling or giving. We are broken, too.

But when women tap into their own power, the world changes.

My little coven is growing, and we are healing ourselves so that we can change the world. We are unraveling intergenerational trauma so that we will not pass ours to anyone else. We are working on our right livelihood. We are making soup, and giving hugs, and listening, and diving into the ocean on a 39 degree day (true story) to remember who we are and connect with the natural world and WAKE UP.

Sometimes, we're burning bay leaves, or carving "TRUTH" into a candle before we light it. That won't be enough unless we do the hard work, so we're also going to therapy and journaling and trying to do better; we're voting and rallying and gathering supplies for the displaced, hitting "donate" and going to the park to plant trees.

Is it any wonder that witchcraft is the fastest growing segment of religion in the US now?

I'm new at all of this, just a few years in the making, to the point where I'm finally comfortable saying "oh yes, I'm witchy!" (an adjective), and next I am working on, "I am a witch" (a noun). I'm working on getting over the belief or the fear that to say that I'm a witch will not only bring ridicule, but also invite persecution. Swift was right when she said, "I look unstable..." but looks can be deceiving. It's wisdom, not instability, but the world is judgey and scary and everyone knows what a witch hunt is.

As I meditate on my daily question and pull a card from my favorite tarot deck, eyes closed, heart opening, curious, I can't tell you how many times the card has reflected the exact language of a conversation I've just held with a witchy friend, almost verbatim the words that I had been pondering, reflected back at me. Kismet. Magic. Delight. Truth.

I shouldn't be surprised, because sometimes I just know things... I see clearly the path before someone. I can't explain it, but then, I can't explain how lots of true things work (ranging from how televisions work to how a crocus knows just the right time to come up in early spring). The world is full of miracles and magic, and my own life is testament to that fact. While not everyone will believe this, sometimes things are true, and this is one of them.

I keep thinking about the Wordsworth poem:

The World Is Too Much With Us

By William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

So here I am, trying not to lay waste my powers, to see Nature and myself as one, to become in tune in the sea and the moon, to let go of those things that don't serve me, to take enough but not too much.

I'd rather be a pagan...

I'm a witch. I'm listening, and I'm trying, and I'm out of the broom closet.

* I'm pretty sure that Swift is a witch, too. That song appears to have brought a new love to her life!