My Thanksgiving

This year I traveled to Cleveland for Thanksgiving to meet my new friend's family and friends. My friend used to be in a rock band, playing lead guitar. The band-leader/song-writer was Kevin McMahon, who went on to form other bands, including one called Prick (yeah, I know). In this video he's the guy singing and swinging on the perch, wearing the black bird suit. We spent half a day in his studio, listening to old cuts from the original band and jamming. (Well, I didn't jam, I listened and bopped around a bit).

Can I just say that this is kind of different than participating in an ecumenical Thanksgiving service at a local main-line church?

(Technical difficulties prevented me from posting the video itself -- the link should work).

My New Favorite Song

So I'm a little late to the party, as usual. This one is for a special friend. You know who you are.

Parties

I threw myself a birthday party tonight. It was fun. 8 interesting women joined me, most of whom did not know each other. There were lively conversations in all corners of the house. Then when we all ended up in one room eating, we covered such topics as:
*prostitution
*political wives and the choices we all make behind closed doors about the public faces we will present
*breast-feeding
*adoption
*the choice/circumstances to remain childless
*Obama-mania
*what kids are down-loading on their ipods
*at what age we began drinking (ranged from 12 to 21)
*the age at which someone first kissed our breasts (ranged from 14 to 32)
*the last time someone kissed our breasts ...

OK, that last one was just me. Feeling sorry for myself. Anyhoo ...

Other fun birthday parties I remember:

Age 5 -- my first big party with hats, games and lots of friends. I still love the photos from that one -- I graduated from high school with everyone who came to that party. Isn't that wild? Small town midwest America.

Age 12-ish? A taffy pull. Probably my favorite childhood birthday party.

Age 21 -- no party, but I was on a work-camp in Jamaica on spring break from my jr. year in college.

Age 35 -- again, no party, but finally pregnant and happy as a lark.

Happy Birthday to me.

Tomorrow I turn 45.

It is interesting for me to think of my last two birthdays. On my 43rd, I was happily married (or so I thought), just completing a 6-month course in Martin Seligman's positive psychology, working part-time in a church where the long-term beloved pastor had died exactly one month before my birthday, nearing completion of a two-year course in Gestalt Pastoral Care, considering a move to North Carolina and generally enjoying my life immensely. Given what transpired over the next several months I sometimes look back and wonder if I was completely deluded.

But I know I wasn't. I was genuinely happy then. I remember that birthday as one of my best. I was rested and renewed after leaving my previous church (the one where I burned out) 1 1/2 years before. I was feeling excited about the possibility of a move near my parents. I was delighted with the courses I was completing and wondering how that learning might be integrated into my new life. I was grateful to the church where I had landed for the way they opened their hearts to me in the midst of their grief.

By my 44th birthday, I had moved and left behind all my community, I was unemployed, my marriage had fallen apart and my career seemed dead to me. I was as alone as I had ever been. But I was also relieved. The week before my birthday, my husband moved out (at my request) and I received two job offers and two more interview offers. I decided to go ahead and take my current job. So while everything was new and uncertain, life held possibility and relief from the end of the longest, hardest 8 months of my life.

Now it is a year later. I've been at this job for a while. I've been single for a while. I've started to build community. I've gotten used to being a child living near her parents again. I've taken a first stab at dating (yikes!).

There is so much for me to be grateful for. I'm a homeowner. I have a decent job. I'm meeting interesting people. I live in a great neighborhood. I have loving, caring parents. I have a beautiful, resilient son. I am making ends meet. I have a reliable car. I have a sweet dog. I live in an amazingly beautiful part of the world and an interesting little city. I have a good friendship with my ex. I have a supportive board of directors at work. I am physically healthy and mentally on the mend. I am competent and capable and likable much of the time.

Life is nothing like I imagined it might be two years ago. Nothing. Not a thing.

And I cannot imagine what my life will hold one year from now. At all.

I would like to be able to go back and pick up the pieces from that 43rd birthday -- the joy and wonder and hope I felt then. But the two years in between have been full of learning and humility and grace that need to be better integrated before that old joy can re-emerge, I guess. I am not unhappy. I am often able to laugh with ease. I feel connected to the people around me. Most days I can believe that more goodness and mercy lie in wait for me.

And so, I begin my 46th year of living. More humble, certainly. More wise, perhaps. Living, day by day, on faith in a way I could only hint at when life was easier.

*image "Humility" by Chidi Okoye

December diary

*Holiday party at my retreat ministry last night. A board member had prepared a ritual of jumping over brooms for the boss and myself. She jumped toward the door. I jumped toward the office. It was a nice event and good to ritualize the big threshold each of us is crossing as she moves into a part-time consultant role and I move into the director's seat.

*Today, however, she was in a predictably foul mood. This is not an easy process for her -- letting go of the reins of the organization she created. And she is not entirely letting go. I am stepping in with my eyes wide open. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. Que sera, sera.

*The boy and I made an advent wreath together and have been enjoying lighting the candles and eating by candlelight each night that he's here. We have a deck of Advent discussion cards that we read from, which has been fun.

*I'm interviewing folks for the office manager position which will begin when the boss moves out and I get her office. Nice people. But I need someone with better computer skills than I've seen so far. Anyone out there want to move to Asheville for a low-paying, part-time job in a beautiful, funky little city? You'll have a great boss!

*My Christmas tree is up -- little organic one from a neighbor (have I mentioned that I love my neighborhood?) -- and it is mighty cute if I do say so myself. Also, white-light snowflakes on the porch.

*School situation with the boy's teacher has not really improved, so we're making the best of it by compensating at home. However, I made a new friend recently, who used to teach and is married to a teacher and they both were entirely appalled by my son's teacher's methods and the principal's defense of them, so I did feel somewhat justified. No need to go into details here, but basically she's all about punishing children for not reaching perfection on certain benchmarks. Not satisfactory passing grades. Perfection. Long-term punishment. We're talking months. There is not one person to whom I've explained the situation, except for the principal, who is not completely appalled. The neighbors/new friends/teachers really want us to take the issue to the district office, as they find her practices "bordering on abusive," but ex and I don't really have the energy or stomach to follow through on it.

*In spite of everything -- move, divorce, shitty teacher, sensory integration issues -- the boy is doing very well. He seems like a happy kid. A parent I don't know stopped me on the sidewalk the other day to tell me what a good boy he was. Out of the blue. It made me so happy to hear that from a stranger. He is a good boy.

*Ex and I continue to get along exceptionally well. And on those days when it makes me wonder whether we should make another effort at getting back together, we'll have just enough snippiness to remind me of certain character flaws that I really don't want to deal with again. I take them as little signs from God. Really, I do.

*Have tried out a couple of other churches recently. Yes, I've become the All-American church shopper. Met a lovely Episcopal priest this past week and she and I are having coffee next week.

*Life is good. In spite of crazy boss and mean teacher and loneliness and other things I could complain about, the truth is, life is good. I am healthy, my son is healthy, my parents are near-by and supportive, my separation is going smoothly, I am employed in a flexible and meaningful job, I live in a great neighborhood and I'm making some lovely friends.

Empty and Full

Life these days is both empty and full and I am sitting uneasily in the paradox.

Full: work is busy and constant. I never feel caught up. There is always something more I could be doing. I'm just keeping up. There is planning for next year and evaluating each program and improving the website and working with board committees and reorganizing financial records and working on advertising and ... and ... it's like parish ministry without the fun stuff. No worship leadership, no pastoral counseling, no sacraments, no rituals for life transitions. I miss that stuff. That would go in the empty column.

Full: being a single mom. I'm the one responsible for making sure he's fed, bathed, rested, well-balanced, to school on time, to bed on time, all homework done. I have to make sure there are groceries in the fridge, clean underwear in the drawer and money in the bank to pay the mortgage and the health insurance and so on and so forth. Even though his dad has him a few nights each week, I am completely responsible when he's with me -- nobody to pass off any of the responsibilities. Also: full in the sense that this really is the best part of my life. He's my dear, even when he's infuriating. And honestly, he's a wonderful boy. Funny and helpful and smart and sweet.

Full: homeowner and pet owner. Again, it's just me and with these responsibilities I don't get any breaks any days of the week. Every day, I'm the one to walk the dog and vacuum up the dog hair and make sure the furnace works and the lawn is mowed and dishes are clean and the cat has flea medicine and they both are fed and watered and the toilet works and is clean. No landlord, no husband, just me.

Full: having my parents near-by. Full in the sense of wonderful to get to spend time with them each week and full in that I'm spending time with them each week. Watching Dad descend into the land of unknowing and unknowable is hard. Watching Mom care for him and lose her companion of 55 years is harder.

Empty: my sense of what God wants of me. My sense of call. What am I doing here besides taking up space? I know I am called to love those around me, to be in the moment. I wish that could be enough.

Empty: my social calendar. I have no social life. Really. None. I keep thinking I should make an effort in this department, but all those "full" notes above leave me little time, energy or money. I miss having friends, but finding the time to make new ones is tough. And I'll confess, I'm kind of picky about friends. When my time and energy is limited I want to spend it well. I don't suffer fools gladly.

Empty: my bed. Big ole fecking king size one, too. Enough said.

This sounds whinier than I intended. What I mean to say is that life is kind of mixed for me these days. This is a hard time, I won't deny. I long for clarity. I'm tempted to find a palm reader and get some fix on what the future holds. But here I am, in the present moment (wonderful moment, according to Thich Nhat Hahn, but as Jerry May once said, "Yeah, Thich says present moment, wonderful moment, but sometimes the present moment just sucks.").

Empty. And full.

Rainy Day Thoughts While Waiting for a Friend

If you had asked me a little over a year ago (and you wouldn't have, because I wasn't in the blogosphere yet), I would have said I had five really close friends: one from jr. high, one from high school, one from college, one from my seminary years (though not from seminary) and my husband. None of those folks lived near me, other than the hubby.

Over the course of the last year, I lost my husband. He's still a friend, but obviously the friendship is strained and will never be as intimate as it once was. I also had one of my closest friends fall away as we both endured pretty hard life transitions and did so very differently. I have been wondering whether to reach out to her again, but I know that I do not trust her as I once did. Another friend (see yesterday's post) is now closer in distance, but her own life difficulties have made it harder to stay tight. That might change. And with another friend, we've simply fallen out of touch from years and years of not seeing each other and rarely speaking any more.

That leaves one friend. She's coming today for a visit so I'll be out of touch for a few days, probably.

I'm starting to make friends in this new city. It is a slow process at this stage of adulthood. Not like college or grad school when you can sit around for hours shooting the shit. We all have jobs and mortgages and kids and parents to care for. Our lives are busy and we sneak in walks or talks over coffee when we can. I have lived in eight places in the past twenty-two years. Now I feel like I'm starting over in so many ways -- career, relationships, place, sense of self.

On Sunday the sermon was called "Sweet Surrender." Using the Martha/Mary passage, the preacher talked about moving beyond doing or being, beyond action or contemplation, into a kind of surrendered living where we practice daily allowing our lives to be shaped by the spirit, so we learn to know instinctively when to be in the kitchen working and when to be sitting at the feet of Christ listening. Last night I was reading Sue Monk Kidd on this same topic: surrender. Using the image of the caterpillar beginning the work of the chrysalis, she talked about "diapause," a process where caterpillars can actually put off the timing of the cocoon for up to a year if they don't feel ready yet to leave behind the caterpillar life. How hard it is, she noted, to really let go of who we have been and surrender into a new life, trusting God to shape us into who we might become. We let go a little bit and then grab hold of some old security again. Bit by bit, we let ourselves be changed. Or we don't.

Surrender is not my strong suit. Yet I long for this next stage of life to be God-driven, God-shaped, God-fragranced. I long to let myself be surprised by the workings of grace. God, save me from being Martha when I need to be Mary, and when the nurturing, sacred work of Martha needs to be done, let me do it gracefully. Amen.

Shopping, Redux

Just spent the weekend helping a friend get settled into a nearby city to start a new job. She has been stuck in a horrible, god-forsaken place for the last seven years, during which time she grew deeply depressed, as well as physically ill. I'm so delighted that she's out of there, has an interesting new position at an area college and is within easy driving distance for weekend visits.

Some of you will remember my post on shopping. Being with this friend was an eye opener. During her depression she became a compulsive shopper and her new place is piled floor to ceiling with her purchases, most still in their boxes or with tags on, never opened, never used. Four coffeemakers, for example. Close to a hundred new towels. She realizes this is crazy. She said to me, "I hope I'm never that sad and lonely again."

Yeah, me too, my friend. Me too.