Embodied Experiences Expand Perspective (I Swam Every Day)

 

I decided I would swim every day we were there.

That was Sunday night, after we arrived and ate dinner at the little cottage we were renting along a private lake. The kids hit the water that night, but John and I sat on the shore watching – grateful to have arrived, grateful for a moment’s distance between us and four kids. 

I didn’t swim that night, but I promised myself I would, every day, for the rest of the week of vacation. And I did. 

I swam because I remembered, vaguely, my spiritual director saying something about swimming being a spiritual experience. I swam, despite the fact that my daughter called out in semi-sincere astonishment every time I slipped off of my teal green float to glide through the murky brown water. “Look! Mom’s swimming!” she cried, as though she had spotted an endangered species or witnessed a rare comet shooting through the night sky. Every afternoon, I swam, and my kids circled me like piranhas, staying within a five-foot radius despite the depth and breadth of a 50-acre lake at their disposal. 

// 

Swimming immerses us in an alternate reality. The body, heavy on shore, is lighter and sleek. And yet, a swimming person often looks very close to drowning. The human body, even afloat, sits low in the water. The open mouth, pulling in air, hovers just inches above the surface. 

Swimming reminds us that the difference between sinking and floating lies in the smallest adjustment of posture. In the water, we don’t have to do great things to make waves that ripple far and wide. 

Maybe some of this is true on land as well. 

// 

I swam every day of our summer vacation, even taking my turn at jumping off the plastic floating dock, plunging into the cool darkness, and coming up into the light with my sinuses filled with water. Swimming back to shore, my head low like a crocodile, I remembered the little girl I once was, the one who “swam like a fish” in the cool, brown lakes of central New York. I thought about how major changes in movies and books are so often heralded by immersion in water, a baptism via rain or river. I prayed quietly then, words slipping through my heart as my body slid through the water, that some change would cling to me, some doorway to a new beginning, even as I bid the lake farewell. 

I swam every day.

Questions to Carry: Is there a change you long for, a baptism into something new you can't quite name? Is there some way you could pair your longing with a small, intentional, embodied practice - like swimming or sitting on a swing or gazing at a flower? Perhaps your perspective would be broadened if you committed to one small immersive experience on a daily basis - even just for a week.  

Shedding

Coco is shedding her winter coat in great, black clumps that glob onto the living room carpet and blow like tumbleweeds under the kitchen’s ceiling fan.  Twice a day now, we are vacuuming our rugs, emptying the canister between runs, watching matted dog hair and dirt drift into the kitchen trash.

In the evenings, after work, I change into old clothes and call her out onto the front porch.  We both sit on the wooden floorboards and I pull our dollar store pet brush slowly through her wooly black curls.  

It’s satisfying and soothing all at once, the way I imagine brushing a horse must be.  When the brush is full, I pull the clumps off, gathering a growing pile to mark my progress, my accumulated success.  

Tonight, I cornered our tomcat, Blackie in the green grass and gave him a good brushing too.  He took it with equal parts purring and complaint. 

A friend admitted awhile back, after her elderly dog died, that she was elated to be freed from the extra mess – she would not be getting another dog.  I know, for a lot of people, pet hair is reason enough to refrain from ownership.  My own mother battled dog hair with a broom and dust pan, like she was battling the devil itself.

It does bother me – the hair, the dirt, not to mention the litter box’s stinking mess.  But, still, I know those few minutes each evening are some of the best of my day – some of the purest, the simplest - stroking and gathering, shedding what no longer serves. 

The Thrift Store, With God (What I Gave Up & What God Holds)

Photo by Artificial Photography on Unsplash

God and I went to the thrift store last week. 

It’s was the first day my kids were back in school.  Although I often go thrifting with the aim of stocking my kids’ closets, I breezed right through the children’s section of the giant store with barely a glance.  The image of them each boarding the bus that morning in new shoes, shorts and sneakers was still fresh in my mind.  

The day before, I had been struck by an unexpected wave of resentment at the wealth of new clothes they had and their apparent lack of appreciation for it.  It wasn’t just the clothes I resented, though, it was the time, the sheer amount of resources, I sent their way this summer, particularly during the last grueling weeks of August.  You see, this summer, I gave up.

I fought hard, in the beginning, to make room for my writing and working life to continue.  Hard, like, wearing ear muffs in my office while my kids mimicked the rooster by my window and practiced playing the recorder outside my office door.  When working with them at home failed, I took them to a free day camp program the next town over, freeing up two precious hours, three mornings a week.  But it wasn’t enough.  The pressure to drop them off, drive home, and dive into writing with little to no transition proved unwieldy. 

By early August the impact of my evening and weekend work schedule at the library became clear.  In summers past, those were times I could steal away to my office write.  This summer, I traded those hours for a small but much-needed paycheck.

Then came August, with two birthdays (twins!), several days of single-parenting while my husband wrestled the engine in and out (and in and out again) of his rattle-trap pick-up truck, then several days more of single parenting while he traveled for work.  All of this, right around the time the day camp ended. 

I gave up.  I let go of even pretending to keep the semblance of a writing life together. 

At first it sucked and I was sad and mad and had All The Feels.  But then acceptance came along like a breath of fresh air and it felt so good to not be swimming upstream, to accept that there was neither time nor energy for more.  I lived in the reality of the last weeks of summer with four kids.

I cut hair. 

I bought shoes. 

I participated in a round-robin of back-to-school night events and organized a mounting pile of supply lists and schedules. 

I took them to the pool and praised every new trick they learned. 

I washed load after load of towels.  

It was what it was.  

But, after I loaded them onto their buses, when I went to post the traditional first day pictures online, I felt, again, the loss that accompanies ‘giving up.’  I scrolled through images of friends releasing new books into the world.  I read updates of others heading off to new jobs teaching in local schools.  I had nothing to post except for a few candid shots of my kids decked out in new gear, ready to face a new year.  “This is what I did this summer,” I wanted to write.  “This is what I’ve been working on.”

It seemed both sad, to me, and simply, remarkably, true.

In the post-bus quietude, I messaged a friend, “I’m trying to process what I lost/gave up this summer.”  Then, I shut up the house, pulled on my sunglasses, and headed to the thrift store with God. 

Like an awkward parent and teen tackling difficult subjects on a shared commute, God and I find it easier to talk at the thrift store.  Something about strolling the aisles of color-sorted clothes quiets and opens me, creating a place of listening and attention, which God and I both recognize as prayer.

That’s how God and I found ourselves sifting through hangers of winter coats and blazers, discussing ‘what I lost’ this summer.  It occurred to me, as I perused tan corduroy coats from the nineties and multi-colored ski jackets from the eighties, maybe I was being a bit melodramatic.  I paused, with my hand on the shoulder of a pea coat and considered the possibility.

Was I being melodramatic? 

Yes, perhaps I was. 

I turned to God, then, for an opinion. 

God said, without skipping a beat, “Yeah, you get that way sometimes.”

I stifled a snort of laughter.  Of course, God knows me.

With acknowledgement came acceptance.  I felt free to feel the loss – both real and exaggerated - and to trust that it too would pass.

God reminded me, then, of how it works between the two of us.  “All the things you give up, I hold,” God said.  “There is no part of who you are that ever has been or ever can be lost.”

How could I have forgotten that simple truth?  With it comes incredible freedom – freedom to hold on when the time and space are right; freedom, even, to fight for what I want.  But, freedom also for letting go when time and circumstances demand it.   

I felt lighter as I moved on to rows of skirts and blouses.  God wandered off into the aisles of handbags and shoes (God does that sometimes).  We said we’d meet up in the car on the way home, we find that’s a good place for talking, too.        

  

Mail Worth Crossing the Road For . . .

Our mailbox sits across a busy state road from our house.  It's an old metal box equipped with a nifty yellow flag that pops up whenever the door is opened.  This way, we can tell at a glance, whether the mail is here yet.  

I never cross the road unless that flag is up - it's that reliable.  But sometimes, when the yellow flag beckons, I brave traffic, rain or snow only to discover a handful of junk mail - a flyer from a credit card company or a weekly bundle of local retailer flyers.  Those days, I feel disappointed, and like a little bit of a sucker.  I was looking forward to something good - or at least something useful, but instead I risked my life for a few pieces of paper that will go directly into the recycling bin.  

Maybe you know the feeling?

What if I could promise you one piece of mail each month that didn't disappoint?  I want to invite you to sign up for my newsletter, Quiet Lights, where you'll receive more of the same writing you've come to expect here on This Contemplative Life.  Quiet Lights is bi-monthly (during the school year) and has slowed to once a month over the summer.  

No spam, no junk mail, just a few good words straight from me to you.  Sound good?  You can sign up right here to get the latest post :

Subscribe to Quiet Lights

Now, if you'll excuse me, the yellow flag is up across the street and I've got my fingers crossed that it's something good today. 

Communion (A Seminarian's Perspective)

During Seminary, another student and I, interned at a tiny, historic, Methodist church in New Jersey.  She was Methodist, I was not; but we were both welcomed into the fold in equal measure. 

The congregation was small and aged and the thing they appreciated most about the few sermons I gave was how well they could hear my voice and how clearly I enunciated.  The thing I appreciated most about preaching there was how the cleric’s robe covered me from head to toe, obscuring my feminine figure, rearranging me into a blank slate of black polyester.  Only my flat, tan shoes and the bottom of my dress pants showed and only then when I stepped out away from the pulpit, which was not often. 

My fellow intern, a heavyset single girl, shorter than me and rounder, also wore the robe while speaking.  On other Sundays, though, she dressed to the nines in strappy dresses with tight waists and full skirts like the ones housewives are pictured wearing in magazine ads from the 1950's.  She completed the look by pairing the dresses with impossibly high heeled shoes, the height and skinniness of which, caused her to teeter and totter precariously.

She didn’t seem at home in those dresses and matching shoes and I wondered why she wore them.  But I also probably didn’t seem at home in my drab business-casual attire that I’d purchased specially for the internship and possible future interviews.  Neither of us, I guess, were entirely at home in ourselves or our pastoral positions, which I suppose is the plight of many an intern.   

The small church was traditionally built, with old wooden pews and a long center aisle that led to a kneeling rail and altar.  Each service began with a processional from the narthex, down the center aisle, to the altar where candles were lit while the organist played. 

One of my most distinct memories of that church is of watching my fellow intern make her wobbly way down the carpeted center aisle with a plate of communion bread in hand.  The plate was wide, flat and loaded with bits of bread and she was so precariously perched in her heels that I felt for sure she was going to wipe out at any moment, scattering the body of Christ across the dense carpet.  I held my breath as she mounted the altar’s two steps and exhaled when she finally set the plate down. 

Having grown up Baptist and turned Anabaptist, the rituals of the Methodist church were foreign to me and struck me as overly formal.  I longed for something more personal, less prescribed.  I imagined with equal measures of horror and delight, what it would be like if she simply dropped the whole plate.  Some part of me longed for the broken body to spill, even just once; for us all to have to deal with the sudden beauty, the surprise of Christ spread among us in such an earthy, unscripted way.  

My colleague never dropped the host, but crumbs did often fall as we handed the bread to the congregants kneeling along the rail.  No matter how rigidly we try to contain him, Christ is always breaking through.  Mercy and grace scatter everywhere like crumbs, and who we are and who God is, is always being revealed.  Christ is always spreading out in our midst, disrupting our scripted ways, like the beige shoes and dress pants of a young woman sticking out beneath her robe, like a young woman in a flared out dress and heels making her wobbly way up the aisle, truth that cannot be hidden or disguised. 

Gumption (Initiative, Courage, Spunk)

(now THAT'S a moustache . . . )

(Lately, I've been having fun playing with words that strike me and writing a little about their definition and use.  I love words.  This post is an old one tweaked from the winter of 2012, back when I had three littles at home and drove my oldest to school every morning.  It was a challenging time, to say the least.)

Gumption noun

1. initiative, aggressiveness, resourcefulness

2. courage, spunk, guts

Gumptious adjective

See above definitions.

Every day, while driving my daughter to kindergarten drop-off in a van stuffed with four children that I’d wrestled, wrapped and carted out one-by-one, I saw him.  Sometimes it was on the way to school, sometimes on the way back home, but always, he appeared on the edge of the horizon; regular, predictable, like the sunrise. 

I found him consistently fascinating.

He ran along the side of the road with a loose, loping gait.  Drooping athletic pants swayed as he pressed forward, one step at a time, his arms bent, hands in front of him.  A hat, or more often a white visor, and white gloves completed his attire. 

But the thing that struck me most was his moustache. 

It takes a certain kind of moustache to attract the attention of a driver passing by with a van full of noise and need at twenty miles an hour.  Maybe you can picture it without me having to draw it out in fine detail, but I will tell you it was brown and heavy yet, well-trimmed. 

He was a regular Tom Sellek, my mustachioed man.

Something about his regularity, the predictability of this sighting, this crossing of paths pleased me. 

That, and his moustache.   

It takes a little gumption to sport a moustache like that, don’t you think?  And I guess there are times when we could all use a little gumption.    

When's the last time you noticed someone's gumption or displayed a little gumption of your own?  I'd love to hear about it!

The Core: Physical Therapy & Prayer (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

It’s my second day of Physical Therapy for lower back pain.  I lay flat on my back on a green, cushioned table.  My knees are bent and I lift my pelvis in and out of bridge pose ten, twenty times.  “How does that feel?” the therapist asks.

“I feel it pull a little in my lower back,” I say.

“Are you using your core?” he asks.

I pause and listen to my body.  I hear no answer.  “What do you mean?” I ask.

“You want to be using your transverse abdominal muscles to lift,” he says, “not pushing up with your legs and back.  That’s why your back’s tweaking.  It’s not about how high you can go, it’s about using those muscles.”

I turn back to my body and try tightening my lower stomach, the soft section where my children grew.  “Hello,” my transverse abdominal muscles whisper as if waking from a long nap.

The therapist goes on to tell me that the lower abdominal muscles, commonly referred to as the "core," act as a natural girdle keeping the pelvis and spine in alignment.  I wonder, as I redo my bridges, how I can go through years of my life completely disengaged from my core?

//

A week later, I lay belly-down on the long, green cushioned table, my face pressed into an oval opening.  My shirt is lifted, my back exposed, and a therapist works slow circles in the muscles of my lower back.  Later, cool gel holds pads in strategic position and wires send electricity buzzing into tightened muscles coaxing them into surrender.  A layer of warm towels is laid on top, a timer set, and the therapist busies herself in another part of the room.

With my face in the hole, I close my eyes, I open them.  My contacts drift across my eyes and the world around me is slightly out of focus.  Conversations float through the air and I tune them in and out like radio stations. 

The electrical stimulation on my lumbar spine feels like hundreds of tiny ants dancing, their feet on fire and it’s not an altogether unpleasant sensation.  I open my eyes, I close them.  I rest and think of the woman waiting on a long-desired pregnancy.  I pray.  I think of the man who is dying and his wife.  I pray.  I wonder who I am here in this place.  At Physical Therapy, I am muscle and bone, slouching posture, weakened core.  But, beyond that, am I young?  Am I old?  Am I mother, daughter, wife?  I listen to hear what my life will say.

//

After the timer goes off, the pads are removed and I flip from stomach to back.  Knees bent, I practice “fall outs” and “ninety degree presses” counting slowly from one to thirty on each side.  My mind drifts, and thoughts go in and out of focus but I return again and again to tightening the core, attending in each moment to that inner space.   

This, I know, is what prayer is, a centering practice, a movement in which, putting aside all else, we tend to the core.

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

The Awakening We Seek (#SmallWonder Link-Up)

#SmallWonder friends - I set the linkup to automatically post last weekend since we were out of town, but it didn't work!  I missed connecting with you all. Today I'm re-posting something from October, 2013, back when the twins were just two years old and we were living in a small rental apartment and waiting to find a home.

*   *   *

To see the world in a grain of sand,

and to see heaven in a wild flower,

hold infinity in the palm of your hands,

and eternity in an hour.

- William Blake

The whole world is dripping and gray; water runs through the streets and pools in the Quick Stop parking lot across the road.  In this light, the apartment walls are dingy, ashen, crisscrossed with shadows.  Every corner of the house is filled with piles; it feels like the stuff in our house is also pooling together mirroring the puddles outside.  Here I sit, waiting for a miracle that will move us into a brighter space.

//

The twins threw noodles down through the cast iron vent in the floor the other day, noodles from a box they scrounged from the pantry and tore open like the little wild things they are.  Laying on their bellies now, peering through the grate that leads to the basement below, they're pleased and excited to recall where the noodles have gone. 

"Hot-hot," they exclaim, "Noodles!"

Everything, to them, is an exclamation point, everything extraordinary - the sun, the clouds, the rain, the discovery of their own shadow following their every move.  In their eyes all the world is a miracle, the finite infused with the infinite.  To us, they are the miracle, these little beings whose minds see no clear divide between the ordinary and extraordinary.  I envy their capacity for wonder, their openness to the love of what is.

//  

All our lives, I think, are spent seeking an awakening, a return to that same unity of vision.

*   *   *

Welcome to the #SmallWonder link-up.  

What if we chose to deliberately look for small moments of wonder, the small sparks of presence, of delight or sorrow, of true humanity in which we meet God?  

That's my proposal - that we gather here each week to share one moment of Wonder from each of our days.  You're invited to link-up a brief post about a small moment of wonder.  Don't worry if your post is too long, too short, or not just right - you're welcome to come as you are.  

While you're here, please do take a look around and encourage at least one other blogger with a comment.  Thanks for being part of our community!  

Do Not Despair (Holes, Laundry, and Dead Mums)

Six boys scanned the yard from late afternoon until dusk.  They walked with their heads down, six pairs of eyes scoured the not-yet-green grass.  Each step bore silent anticipation, nervous chatter bubbled up around their listening. 

When the metal detector beeped, they cheered and rallied around, shovel in hand.  Not-yet-green turned muddy brown as they dug holes haphazardly throughout the yard. 

Holes, all through the yard; potholes, ankle-twisting pits, mower-wheel-swallowing craters.

That night, after getting groceries and returning a movie while listening to a radio talk show dissect presidential politics, my husband arrived home agitated.  He was in a state as he filled me in on the groceries, the politics, the hole situation.  The way he talked, our yard was a war zone, the site of asteroid and comet landings, a grand canyon of potential grass laid to waste by six boys and one shovel. 

It was dark out, I had no way to confirm or deny, so I accepted his wild eyed assessment at face value.  Holes, everywhere.  And politics on the radio on top of it all. 

We complained about our ruined lawn and ruined country, feeling old beyond our years and went to bed early.  But in the dark, our minds raced and nerves jangled.   

//

I opened the door to the bathroom closet today and found laundry piled knee deep. 

I shut the door tight and left the room. 

All day that pile grew in my mind’s eye – waist deep, chest deep, until I was drowning in it.  Add to it the pile a mile wide in the twins’ room, the remains of the stomach bug laundry waiting to be folded and there’s nearly enough laundry, I’m sure, to fill in a good many of the holes in our yard. 

//

Something about those holes and the laundry remind me of the dead mums I wrote about on Monday.  Last fall they were a riot of burnt orange and red, waving their hands in the air all along the side of the little house.  But then cold weather came and they died back.  Flowers rotted, leaves shriveled, curled, brown until all that remained were the ugly husks.  Those bare, brown bones rattled at me all winter long, untidy, a reminder of unfinished business and I stared back at them from the kitchen window.  There was no door to shut on them. 

At the first whiff of warm air and sunshine, I marched out to attack the brittle branches like they were my mortal enemy.  I cut my hands on them, eager for the pleasure of their demise.  Take that, mums!  I snapped and twisted, conquering one small corner of disorder as if its tidying might hold the key to life.

Mid-twist, though, I noticed what hid at the base of each frail and failing branch – small, ruffled, green leaves, the beginnings of next year’s joyful riot.  Here I was, like those boys, finding treasure in the dirt (minus a hole, of course).  I continued to twist and break, more respectfully now, looking no longer to rid us of the dead, but looking for signs of life. 

//

The morning after hole-mageddon, I looked at it from a different angle and with new eyes I saw more than holes.  I saw my son excited to impress boys his own age, thrilled to have an awesome toy for once, to be the envy, the star with a shovel in hand.  I saw the treasure in his delight and it made the holes less glaring.  Walking outside later in the day I was surprised to find most of the yard still intact.  It would take six boys more than one evening to dig up two acres of land. 

//

There’s so much to fear, so much to overwhelm in this life.  The bones of things unfinished rattle at us, hard work is easily undone and more hard work awaits.  This is so very true.  Fear looms large at night, in winter, in the mud-before-spring season of despair.    

Do not despair, little ones. 

God is always doing something new, do you not perceive it?

Go dig a hole.  Tend your garden. 

Do not believe fear's whisper in the night.  

The good work of our hands, the feel of the earth between our fingers, the labors of love for a household, these all remind us - treasure is buried everywhere.  Even, maybe, at the bottom of the laundry pile.  

Open the door, dig deep, look again, always.  Treasure is buried everywhere.  Do not despair.