A room of my own

Am back to Day One in my Making a Change for Good daily journal.  Mind so full of Dad's 04/22 birthday, didn't give it a single thought.  And I am happy to be starting fresh.

Maybe because I am feeling refreshed.  A renewed beginning feels welcome.  Not a new one - what I bring to my current journal writing brings everything that came before, along with a fresh awareness.

I am a woman in search of a room of my own.  In all the homes I've lived in over the years, only two rooms gave me a sense of peace welcome belonging - the kitchen at Cherry Lane & the living room at Woodland Road.  And both of them were communal rooms.

We all need a room of our own, even if it's only our mind.  Which is the place where I've been least likely to feel a sense of peace welcome belonging.  Until now.  

It all - the Great Awakening - started with a calendar I coordinated for a wonderful woman, a pleasant acquaintance, who moved far away.  Seemed to me that having a calendar crafted by a range of her friends would make her feel more connected to a community that loved & missed her.  And it was a great idea.  Which never happened.  Every obstacle loomed up, keeping it from ever coming to completion.  To this day, I don't know where the file with the artwork is.  Felt like the hells in full battle array, keeping a wonderful outreach from happening.  The power of resistance felt downright tangible - this loving idea was never going to happen.  And it hasn't, over 18 months later.  

Sheez...

Other illustrations of my inner struggle are out there, but none so bold, so visceral as the calendar.  Something in me resists resists resists.  And it is real.  And it is as vulnerable as it is visceral.  

Visceral - that word worked its way into this posting.  It was as right as it was unclear in meaning.  YES, my deepest self really IS connected to finding a sense of wholeness.  Because "visceral" turns out to be the exact right word for where I have been.  It doesn't mean basic fundamental primary, which is what I sort of assumed.  Far from it.  When something's visceral, you feel it in your guts. A visceral feeling is intuitive — there might not be a rational explanation, but you feel that you know what's best.  Yep, that sums it up.  You feel like you know what's best.  Even when it's the polar opposite of sanity, as has been my experience.

Here's my 04/23/14 logical rational sensible reality in its simplest form - what's best for me is having a room of my own.  A room where I feel a sense of welcome, of belonging, of being at peace with myself & the world.  


As my John would say, getting to stripped-down-to-essentials awareness took as long as it took.  He taught me there's no slapping time schedules on getting clarity, all we can do is summon up the energy & will to set aside obstacles & obstructions.  

Maybe it's finally time to have a room of my own in our house because I've finally made a room of my own in my heart.

Two of a kind

Happy birthday, Dad!  You would have turned 103 - if you hadn't died at 61 years, 11 months & some days.

The two of us always had an interesting relationship.  Never, not once in my memory, did you ever side with me in a disagreement involving Mimmy.  Never happened.  Yet, by the time you died - when I was barely in my twenties - it had dawned on me that while I never felt like you gave me the affection & strong support you did my older sister, I got your respect.  Didn't take me long to realize that, to me, respect trumps affection any day.

Our challenge was that we were, in many ways, two of a kind.  We both loved being there for people, lending a helping hand, being generous with our time & money & resources.  Where we differ is that Dad liked taking care of people, whereas my joy is in nurturing them.  Dad didn't seem to have any concept of helping his children develop independent lives.  Just wasn't an issue for him. My guess is that he saw a father's role as being there when his children needed him, to be there in ways his own father never was.  It's doubtful the idea of emotional independence ever occurred to him.

We shared straight-shooting ways, which aggravate some as much as they please others.  It's a quality that stands me in good stead in my marriage.  As has our shared trait of appreciating others for who they are, rather than what we want them to be.  From what he showed & shared at the end of his life, Dad suffered no illusions about what made each of his children tick.  What a gift that was, realizing he knew.  

Out of calamity - the business where he was a v.p. burned to the ground, the owner didn't rebuild - Dad started his own, Lockhart Lumber.  It was just turning a serious profit when he died and, without benefit of his unique vision, fizzled after his death. 

My present to myself on Dad's birthday is to make him a very silent, ever-present partner in older2elder.  May his many legacies guide me in moving it past a whisp of idea to a reality, and may I have the time, energy & wherewithal to make it something that goes beyond my unique vision of warm responsive engaged elder care to a new culture that transforms olders & their families, their communities, their everything.

Happy birthday, Dad - - may your inspiration & my focused work bring many happy returns!

Fully expressed

I recently wrote on another blog,  Luther posted his 95 theses on the church door at Wittenburg; maybe I should write out my own Declaration of Independence to post on the sliding doors of every senior residence ~ ~  I hold these truths to be self evident - that all older others are born with the divine right to live as independent a life as they possibly can manage.  

Put another way, I believe & always have that we are all meant to be - at every point in our life - a fully expressed human being.  Of course, such a reality would come attended by the not-easy-to-experience consequence that people wouldn't present the false faces & fake pretenses that make life easier to move through.  

We'd have to be ourselves & experience others as their genuine, fully expressed selves.  That would be challenging & exasperating & sometimes gosh awful, but isn't that what life's meant to be? 

Not that it's been my experience.  Certainly not within my birth family, where the polar opposite is more the norm. 

My family has quite a few members who zone out anything contrary to their personal, preferred view.  They come by that naturally, from Mom, who would leave a room rather than hear anything contrary to her preferred beliefs or simply rewrote uncomfortable realities to suit her version of what should be.  There are a lot of people, especially women of her generation, just like her.

   
Many years ago, a young relative shared her belief we're supposed to remain pleasant & personable with family, working through any issues with friends, who don't present potential emotional land mines.  Present a false self to  ones we hold dear, be your true self only with people you can count on not trampling your feelings.  Gosh, I hope she grew past that (to me) limiting belief!  

Nothing tops the brother who remembers heading off to college at the earliest possible moment, shaking off the dust of home, ever to be independent of his toxic family, never to live again under the same roof.  It was strangely illuminating, even liberating, realizing how utterly & completely we live alternate realities.  

Last night, three loose threads - something I read, something I'd said, something I'd written - joined together to produce a blazing AH HA! moment. 

• In the afternoon, at a Current Events discussion at a grannie client's senior residence, someone warned the group to tred softly criticizing the president, because I would not like it - seizing the educable moment, I explained how criticism of any of my convictions are welcome WHEN they are backed up with specifics, not just a general unsupported slam.  

• In the early evening, I blogged a personal declaration of independence -  I hold these truths to be self evident - that all older others are born with the divine right to live as independent a life as they possibly can manage.

• In the late evening, reading in bed before John came up, came across the statement that we are each called to be a fully expressed human being. Almost leaped out of bed with joy & clarity!

YES!  We are each called to be fully expressed human beings at each & every point in our life.  The great AH HA! was realizing that belief has been part of the warp & woof of my life since...  well, forever.  

Rewind back to my early teens...   Praise be, for a link to A Thousand Clowns, a film my sister introduced me to in my early teens!!

The scene I most cherish is between Jason Rhobards' non-conformist writer & Martin Balsam, his successful brother.  Murray Burns paints his businessman brother as a sell out.  His pragmatic sibling, in a wonderful speech, stands tall as he sets Murray straight - he may twist & turn within "the rules," but  every day, in everything he does, he's proud to be the BEST possible Arnold Burns (starts at 7:38). 

That speech hit home with me at 14 or 15 years old, stays with me still, as does a line from Murray -  "You gotta own your own days and name 'em, each one of 'em, every one of 'em, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you. And that ain't just for weekends, kiddo."

Two things I'm going to celebrate by heading down to Be Well Bakery & Cafe for a cafe au lait & a yogurt parfait - we are ALL meant to be the best version of our most fully expressed self, every moment of every day however challenging that might make life ~and~ Murray was right in this - we gotta own our own days or else the years go by & none of them belong to us.

Disappearing acts

Yowser!  One of the gals at King of Tarts Bakery commented, "You're disappearing."  

Thought it was a reference to our absence from our favorite bakery.  Then it hit me ~ she meant ME, my willowier appearance.  My gosh, it's true - am losing weight  & it shows!! 

Yeah, I changed my eating habits to bring down my blood pressure, not to trim down.  Wondering how things might accelerate if I make INTENTIONAL  changes to trim down my flabbo physique?  

Hmmm...  

There are about 5.5 months between now & our 25th wedding anniversary.  Going to give myself a special something to go along with my special someone.

No, not a specific weight loss.  But a shift in life habits, a focus on "for better" goal planning & achieving while ditching "for worse" habits that hinder happiness.  Talk about a priceless gift! 

So - for the rest of April, take a morning walk.  Before hitting the bricks, do breath work.  Start my day at the best time for me & Sky - 5:30 a.m.  It's not a matter of having to compel myself to do what I don't care about;  those are three things that feel like a natural fit, once I get out of my way.

How many other disappearing acts wait in the wings to play a role in my transformed selfie?

Pathways

"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” 

Can't remember a time when I didn't want to embody Emerson's words, forsaking the well-worn paths for the unexplored, the to-be-discovered.  But am realizing that really doesn't describe me at all.  I do love the back road, the rambly country lane, the big city side street.  And I am well-versed in super highways & multi-lane interstates.  It's the balance of the two that makes life interesting AND manageable.  

When I whisked a grannie client down to the Chart House in Philadelphia, we took the rambly 2-lane roads route UP TO the last bit, when we swung onto the Vine Street Expressway.  And we took I-95 home, when it was dark & there weren't any runners along the Kelly Drive or dozens of racing shells on the river.  It took both types of roadways to make the evening a delightful success.  

So, too, with life.  It is important to go off the well-worn path, to blaze a new trail, but whether it's on the one or the other, having a goal in mind is essential.  Which is not how I once understood the Emerson quote.  Maybe it was due to putting too much emphasis on "where the path may lead," thinking it was a call to forging ahead to some unknown destination.  

One thing I've learned over the years is that my ultimate destination is be open to surprises along the way, to redirecting my footsteps, to keep an eye out for the better direction, be it on a popular highway or a barely visible trail.  But blazing TOTALLY new paths?  Am thinking more & more that it's romantic, but highly impractical.  Be open to it, be willing to whack away when necessary, but to prefer it to going where others have gone before?

Sorry, Ralph - doing it your way left me stranded too many times. Give me good roads with a worthy destination & good companions along the way. 

Transformer

Interesting experience, transforming.  Feels like one of those toys, where something that starts out looking like one thing can be turned into something entirely else.  

Okay, am still working out how to get the pieces of the one thing to click into the new, bigger, more awesome whatever.  

But I’m getting there,  literally bit by bit.  

Keep running into ancient road blocks - like, signing up for the ACA a month ago, but let myself get discouraged having problems getting through to the folks who arrange payments, so am still not really covered.  Such an old old old never-worked habit, this not completing dumbness.  Just one way to get past it - go in the right direction.

Just like a child working to figure out the toy transformer, just going through this process is entertaining enlightening informing.  But I've got to keep working at it. 

What if...

... I don't get the funding to go to Omega?  Was taking concrete steps to make it possible actually enough to glean major benefits from just those few actions?  Is it possible taking seriously all the five workshops can offer, not just in my head & heart but in my gut, puts me in a pretty fabulous place, even if the reality is that I don't go?  Is that what my soul meant when it told me the benefits WOULD happen?

Yes, yes & yes to all of the above.

If funding doesn't come through, then I'll apply for early Social Security & put that money to work.  It won't make Omega possible, not even one of the five workshops, but it will allow me to do an immense amount of transformative work right here in my own back yard.  It can underwrite two sessions a month with the great Kim Vargas, just talking - no issues, just inner clarity.  I can take meditation & laughter yoga & QiGong sessions at the Resiliency Center for almost nothing.  It can underwrite tutoring in improving my blogging skills.  It can underwrite developing language & skills that are within sight but outside my grasp.  Good reasons to opt for the early, less $$ pay outs.  

Impossible to express what good it did, just writing funding request letters.  Not requests that whined about "I need $ to survive," but "Looking for a loan to do AB&C to help me do XY&Z - but am going to do XY&Z no matter what."  

THIS is what the last four years have been about - getting to a place of abundance, where dreams of connection & community & change-making seem to be streaming out of my finger tips.

What if funding for Omega doesn't happen?  I'll do what I can with what I have where I am & experience the wonder of it all.  

Reminds me of the first Monday after meeting John.  Every Monday night, I basked in blues at Temperance Houseday nights for blues.  After our first date, Saturday night, John asked if I wanted him to join me at The Temp.  Explained to him that while it would make me happy if he came, I was going to be happy whether he came or not.  

I'll be happy if my funding requests come through but yay or nay the deep work will happen, no matter what.  Powers beyond understanding are at work, and I am grateful.  And already at work.  No "what if"s, just NOW.