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!

Sick Day Energy

 I have been home with a bug (norovirus?) for days now, and I'm really frustrated by it. Every time I think I'm better my body lets me know - nope, not there yet. Yesterday a friend brought dinner, a delicious looking home made soup, and my whole being recoiled at the idea of real food. I've been surviving on bread and bananas. Yesterday I had a sandwich (cheese on bread equals sandwich, right?) and so I thought I was on the mend, but anything with even a hint of flavor just turns my stomach upside down. The things that usually give me comfort - spices like cinnamon, or curry, or garlic - sound repulsive, and my energy levels are trash. I'm sitting here now with a rolling stomach, sipping on ginger tea (which I do not enjoy but is supposed to help).

So here I am, feeling guilty about missing work, but also glad that I'm not spreading it to my students and colleagues.

Last night I had therapy (online), a habit I picked up a few years back and gratefully rely upon now. I told my therapist (who is really quite amazing) that I feel like my sickness is more than just a bug, that it's a general dis-ease with the world, a weariness about how things are going. I can't look away from the wildfires in LA, or the state of US politics, or the school funding crisis, or climate change, or microplastics in the water, or, well, you get the idea. It often seems like the world is quite literally on fire, and I am exhausted by it all, and I feel like my body has joined the pain party.

Now, don't get me wrong. I still find delight in the world, and in my life. This isn't depression, and sickness aside, I'm still functioning. Work, friends, home, Tessa... there is a lot to be grateful for.

But I'm not right. The world isn't right. There is sickness in the air, and I don't like it.

I told my therapist all of this. I told her that the compliment I get the most is "you have such great energy!" (from strangers and friends alike - they do not compliment my wit, beauty, or sense of humor - ha! - but instead it's the same thing every time, about energy) but right now, my energy feels off, missing, broken in some way. My therapist asked me if I could feel it in my body, and I said... wait, yes! It's in the middle of my chest, and it's the size of an apple, and it's tight and really cold.

This is true, though strange. I feel like a surgeon could open me up and see it there, all my dis-ease, discomfort of the world, a ball of dark discomfort that is round and hard and taut. I can point to it, describe the size and shape of it, somewhere between my "breasts" (thanks, cancer) and under my sternum.

My therapist smiled, and said, "ahhh, somatics" and told me to place my hands over the spot, and to sit with it like it was a crying child, murmering "there there" and "I'm here" and "I see you."

My therapist and I go back eight years on and off, and I trust her, so though this made no sense to me whatsoever, I tried, I put my hands on top of one another over the spot, and thought the words. "Shhhh... I am here...." as if the thing inside me was a fussy baby in need of comforting.

Since I've been sick, I've been freezing cold, wearing way too many layers and covering myself with blankets and turning up the heat in the house but not able to shake the chill. My cold hands on top of the cold knot first felt... cold. But as my therapist talked me through the exercise, I felt a warm glow in my palms, shining into my chest, heat building. My eyes snapped open - what WAS that? - not in concern, but in surprise. My fingertips were still cold to the touch, but my palms were suddenly hot! Like, glowing with heat hot, like the kind of heat from holding a hot mug of tea.

"Ahh, that's the energy exchange, she said, smiling and nodding. 

"I feel like I'm getting reiki..." I responded uncertainly, looking at my hot hands, turning them over to see what had changed, and she said, "Yes, that's what it is."

Self-reiki? I didn't even know that was a thing. (Cue up the Googling.)

We talked more about the things I'm struggling with an how they all seem to gather in this knot in my chest, and how I feel like something's missing, and how I just feel like something is broken and I WANT TO FIX IT.

She smiled at me, and said, "No, you are in your mind. Be patient, and just sit with it. This is not a time of action, this is a time of rest. Just... be. Let the energy move. Hold it."

Just as a crying child cannot be logically convinced to calm down, we cannot intellectualize our dis-ease all the way. We need to sit with it, and give it a chance to speak its truth, and to let it gently fade, a child crying itself to sleep in our arms. As she said, "Let it shrink, and soften."

Not disappear. Soften.

I don't know if my stomach bug is related to my feelings of dis-ease lately - norovirus is not, of course, directly related to Donald Trump or wildfires - but I do feel strongly that when I'm in a state of dis-ease I'm more susceptible to illness, my immune system worn down.

I want to use action to get out of this feeling, to do some magic exercise that will make me feel better. "Give me homework!" I pleaded of my therapist when we first started working together. "I know what's wrong and I'm willing to do the work to fix it!" and sometimes she gives me exercises to try that have, as it turns out, been incredibly helpful.

This time, she said, "No homework. Just sit with it. Put your hands over the place where you are carrying it, and just be." I told her about all of my worries, about the things flying around in my brain - things we've talked about in the past, mostly - and she reminded me of the voices of internal family systems (IFS) and how they are there to protect me, but sometimes they don't know how to do that and their voices do not help, so she said, "Get out of your mind this time. Sit with the root of it. Just listen, and acknowledge. No responding, no fixing, just being."

So here I am, in my pajamas and bathrobe, sitting with it.

I struggle with the idea that everything happens for a reason - there are too many terrible things that happen to good people for me to feel even remotely happy about that idea. (Starving children? War? How can these things be for good reasons?) And yet... I can't entirely let it go.

One of the worst things to ever happen to me was cancer. But I am 100% convinced that if I hadn't had cancer, I would have stayed in my really bad marriage, and I never would have become the person I am meant to be. (I'm still working on it, but I've made progress.) The thing that nearly killed me is also the thing that gave me new life. I would REALLY like to figure out how to get the lessons without the near death experiences... but in my life it hasn't worked that way. And also divorce is one of the worst things that happened to me, but if I hadn't had my marriage, I wouldn't have Tessa, and I wouldn't be who I am now. If I hadn't married the person I married, I would not be in West Seattle (it was his dream location, not mine, although I fell in love with it and made it my home, and ironically he left as soon as Tessa graduated from high school). Many of my friends grew out of my location in West Seattle, and my love of this house - like it is a person, a true friend, and not an inanimate structure - only happened the way they did because I married someone not good for me, and because I got cancer I learned that I had the strength to leave him and create this new life. Out of the things that hurt the most, the most incredible healing of things beyond those things.

I have no idea why I had cancer and it turned out okay, and friends with cancer died. I have no words for that. I don't understand, because they wanted to live, too, and they deserved to live. Where is their lesson, after death? It's grossly unfair and so confusing.

But... I can't let it go, that my life is unfolding mostly as it is meant to, that all this pain is for some purpose, and that my dis-ease is actually my body just waking me up, and that if I listen carefully enough my sick day energy can teach me something, can heal something before it dissipates and my belly returns to normal.

Maybe I needed to rest, and this is my body's way of forcing that.

Maybe there is a lesson, still uncovered, that this will teach me.

Maybe this is a warning that I need to heed (about what?).

Maybe it's connected.

(Side note, I have a phone addiction like everyone else. Writing these words, I felt stuck... unsure of myself and what I was trying to say, so I picked up my phone out of habit, a distraction and soothing device. I opened the lock screen to the NY Times app I'd last been using, and found it blank. I got a blank screen: "There has been a problem. Close and try again later." Uhhhh... okay?! Maybe, um, it is all connected? I know there is no ACTUAL soothing to be found in my phone.)

So: I'm trying to figure out my own energy, to sit with it, and not try to hide it. I'm drinking gallons of tea (even though I don't like ginger tea's taste, it does seem to help), I'm turning to the page, and I'm going to bed early (like 8pm early....what?!) while I let this pass through me.

Sometimes, pausing, and sitting, and just being, is all we can do.

I feel like our nation is sick. LA is burning, beautiful Malibu and all those Barbie Dream Homes turned to ash. Men who are abusers - well documented as such - are rising in power, mostly unchecked. Somehow, "diversity" seems like a bad word to a lot of people.

And I know I'm not quite living my best life, either, neither my body nor my mind as healthy as I want them to be. I want to do better, to be better.

But I'm having a sick day, demanded by my belly, impossible to ignore.

I'm sitting here in my pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers, covered in a crochet blanket and sipping ginger tea, trying to figure it out through these words, ready to put my hands on my chest to feel the heat in my palms, and just... be. Listen. Sit.

No answers. I feel the energy of it, the warming tingle of understanding that there is something to be learned.

And I'm sitting now, with my hand over the center of my heart, trying to still my mind, feeling that hard, dark, tight knot responding to the heat that comes from nowhere and everywhere through my hands.

I don't understand, but I'm opening to the idea that there is something worth understanding that will reveal itself in time.

What about you? Does this make one single iota of sense to you? If so, you're my people. And if not? That's okay too, because... life is strange, and this is strange, and it's okay to feel strange together.