Ooops!
As you can probably see, I missed a week! Sorry about that.
My life has been… hmmmmm… full is a nice way to put it. Bursting at
the seams is, perhaps, a more real way to explain it. (And even that is
the rated G version of what I want to say…) A lot of work, every single person
in my house has a lot of work right now, from us adult-types to the kid-crew,
all of us are burning the oil fast and furious. And the day feels so
short. It is short, right? Dark before we know it. I would
say, perhaps, that my household has NOT transitioned to fall with a tremendous
amount of grace. Very klutzy. We are very klutzy and confused over here.
But we are muddling through...
One of the things I keep telling my kids (especially my son, who is
really struggling to find his joy right now, in the midst of a tough 7th grade
workload and looming puberty, oh boy oh boy, and also my middle daughter, who
is hard at work wrestling with anxiety) I keep reminding them that it is up to
us to find the moments in our day that make us smile, laugh, hope, and bust out
with energy. Part of that seeking is, perhaps, shifting our schedule or
routine. But part of that seeking is also a perspective shift.
Much easier said than done, I know from personal experience---we all do---but
it is so so vital to do all the same.
My very cool yoga-therapy teacher taught me this two minute grounding
exercise. It's a sort of coming home practice. I sit quietly for a few moments
and simply feel what I am feeling. Then I name the feelings, a sort of
calling out to them, a validation of them. And then I figure out where they
reside inside me. Most of the time they are right near my heart, but
sometimes they are lower, like in my belly. I sit like that for another few
moments. Then I viscerally place myself in the here and now. What
do my feet feel? What do I hear? What do I see? And then I
get up and go about my day.
This is a bit of that perspective shift. Simply being. Not
trying to fix or argue with or hate wherever I am at. Simply being.
Or here is another version of this perspective shift. My very cool 6
year old daughter* grabbed her hula hoop last night (the kid is a champion
hula hooper!) and told us all ("Ladies and gentlemen," she said, as
she turned the lights off while we were eating dinner, "come join me in
the Circle of Love…") to stand in a circle holding onto the hula hoop
with both hands. She then instructed us to go around the circle, each of
saying something we liked about the person to our right. If we managed to use
the word love or heart in our statement, the person we were
talking about got to stand in the middle of the hula hoop! Well, we
dropped dinner and engaged in this Circle of Love activity…and it was, as you
can imagine, kind of stunning.
(Until the two older kids got inside the hula hoop together and began
bumping bums. Then it wasn't as much stunning as chaotic and nutty… our
standard in this household…)
The point is, though… well… okay, so I recently came across this very
cool TED talk by Louis
Schwartzberg, and he showed a short video called The Happiness
Project.
The Happiness Project is the point. If you haven't watched it, I
urge you to watch it here, below.
The young girl in the video says: the path, it could lead you to a
beach or something…and it could be beautiful.
And the older man says, you think this is just another day in your
life, it's not just another day, it's the one day that's given to you
today…it's given to you, it's a gift. it's the only gift that you have right
now.
Yes. Those are the points.
The video kind of wrecked me. In that good, breaking-down-so-there-is
finally-space-again kind of way.
My friend Sarah
Tomp wrecked me this morning too. I asked her to read
a manuscript of mine that is almost ready to go out into the world. One
that I am too close to, at this late stage, to have any real perspective on.
Sarah's perspective is one I cherish. I trust it, I believe in it, and
it always teaches me something about myself, and about the world. Her
perspective on this story was no exception to that. And exactly what I needed
right this minute.
Sarah is the point.
Sarah is the point.
And then she sent me this poem. It is the point too. Yes yes yes.
Permission Granted
You do not have to choose the bruised peach
or misshapen pepper others pass over.
You don't have to bury
your grandmother's keys underneath
her camellia bush as the will states.
You don't need to write a poem about
your grandfather coughing up his lung
into that plastic tube—the machine's wheezing
almost masking the kvetching sisters
in their Brooklyn kitchen.
You can let the crows amaze your son
without your translation of their cries.
You can lie so long under this
summer shower your imprint
will be left when you rise.
You can be stupid and simple as a heifer.
Cook plum and apple turnovers in the nude.
Revel in the flight of birds without
dreaming of flight. Remember the taste of
raw dough in your mouth as you edged a pie.
Feel the skin on things vibrate. Attune
yourself. Close your eyes. Hum.
Each beat of the world's pulse demands
only that you feel it. No thoughts.
Just the single syllable: Yes ...
See the homeless woman following
the tunings of a dead composer?
She closes her eyes and sways
with the subways. Follow her down,
inside, where the singing resides.
David Allen Sullivan
With gratitude, you all.
Tam
*My 10 year old daughter and 12 year old son are pretty cool too… :-)
Beautiful poem. Beautiful post. I am so grateful and happy to know you.
ReplyDeletexoxo
Cindy
This whole post is amazing - in that Oh my God kind of way he's talking about in the video.
ReplyDeleteSerendipity on the poem, for sure!
xo,
Sarandipity (doo dah)
Thanks for the poem and the post, Tam! May we each find those moments of joy throughout the day.
ReplyDelete