Category Archives: The Space Between

How the Life of Pi Changed My Life

*Spoiler Alert for those who have not yet seen the movie, The Life of Pi.

Last Saturday was a tough day. It rained. Hard. I fought. Harder. I cried. Hardest.

I replied to a text sent by one of my best friend’s asking me how I was doing. I told her the truth. I wrote that I’d just spent three hours lying on the floor like an infant begging for God’s grace and that now I was going to a movie by myself for sweet mercy.

I haven’t been eating lately. After those emotionally draining hours, I was suddenly starved. I felt like a wet rag; limp, red-eyed, tear-soaked and heavy with pain. All I wanted was something light and soothing to fill my empty stomach. Something soft; and kind and easy in my senses. There’s a popular Chinese restaurant next to the movie theater that serves these amazing dumplings and steamed buns. There’s a window right in front where you can watch a staff of Asian men dressed in white prepare these delicate morsels.The wait is always over an hour, but I thought if I hung out in the bar, I’d snag a lone seat and be out in time for my movie which started in an hour. I waited awhile. I was going to miss my movie if I waited any longer, so I left and found the first place that could serve me warm food, quickly and allow me to be done in time to see my movie.

I was not supposed to see The Life of Pi on this night. I was supposed to see The Life of Pi last weekend, but as I approached the ticket counter two weeks ago I changed my mind at the very last second (for I don’t know what reason) and saw Silver Linings Playbook instead. SLP was a great movie, and just what I needed that night. But last Saturday, I was definitely going to see The Life of Pi.

I read the bestselling book by Yann Martel many years ago. I remembered the premise. I remembered being impressed by the ending, but I wasn’t ecstatic overall. I wasn’t ready for all the layers of meaning and messages about God when I was 25. But now, I was more than ready.

I ended up at an Indian restaurant eating a creamy, soothing  Tikki Masala with a slight hint of curry and a side of warm garlic naan. I sat at the bar staring in a daze. My eye happened upon a lotus flower. I’d been thinking of lotus flowers lately and this reminded me, once again, that I must call my friend, the wise yoga teacher who wears a lotus flower around her neck, so that she could explain to me the meaning.

I ate in a hurry and literally ran to the theater. The only seats left were the seats way up front, or the single seats in between couples. I didn’t want to crane my neck at a 3-D movie so I sat in between strangers. How fitting, I thought. I’d spent the day feeling so lonely I might as well sit in this theater surrounded by couples with nowhere to lean.

Soon after the movie started there was a scene of the writer and the adult version of the protagonist, Pi, beginning to tell the story over a lunch of curry and naan bread. I was still tasting the warmth of my Indian dish on my lips and this made me smile. Not only was the movie adapted to be about a writer trying to capture a story, but they were eating what I still tasted. I settled into the thought; that I was exactly where I needed to be in that moment. I’m sure this was a result of my emotions being raw as white bone because I was ready to receive whatever was coming to me.

The year, God has been trying to teach me to surrender. I know this. Just look over the body of work here and it is clear how I keep coming back to one simple theme… letting go. My trip to Nicaragua was a pinnacle of this message, and while I was there a month ago, I picked up this postcard that now sits wedged on the edge of my bathroom mirror. It’s my daily reminder of what I know I must do.

shakti cards

Even though I am fully aware that this is the message Life/ God/ The Universe is trying to relay to me, I have not fully understood, until last Saturday night. I am finding that even when you understand a thing about life, it’s not the same things as knowing it.

The protagonist in The Life of Pi, is about an Indian boy and his journey in faith. As a child, and in present day as he’s relaying this story, he claims himself to be a Hindu, Muslim and Catholic. His parents each believed differently, his father, the eternal pragmatist, put his faith in science; his mother is a devout Hindu. Pi’s family owns a zoo in India that has fallen on hard times. They are now transporting all the zoo animals to North America on a Japanese shipping boat and Pi and his family are along for the ride toward a new life in Canada.

The writer whom the adult Pi is relaying the story to, does not believe in God. When the writer asks him how it is possible that he believes in so many different religions, Pi says, “Faith is a house with many rooms.”

The writer says, “Then there’s plenty of room for doubt.”

And the adult Pi says, “Yes, on every floor.”

This metaphor reminds me of a Halloween house party I went to in college. It was in one of the large, old, craftsman style houses. The kind that are more tall than wide. When you enter, it feels like a maze of small rooms and corridors. There were so many rooms that it was hard to figure out where you wanted to be. To add to the confusion, everyone was in costume. In the basement there was a loud DJ playing techno music. In the kitchen, a bunch of fraternity boys holding cups around a keg. In another room, dread-locks sticking out of knit caps surrounding a hookah. I found some rooms that seemed empty, but in the darkness I heard moans. There where rooms where the only girls congregated and still others that were merely functional and of course there’s always that one guy in the corner playing acoustic guitar. Even the front porch had its own feel packed with the claustrophobic and smokers. This is how I view faith, as one big party.

In my life, Jesus invited me to this house party for the purpose of introducing me to God. Of course, God and I, we hit it off smashingly. To this day, I can sit for hours talking to God, just him and me. But sometimes, I must admit, when the music is too loud I can’t quite hear what he’s saying. There are often miscommunications.  It’s just like when you’re at a loud party and someone is smiling at you while talking, but you have no clue what they are saying so you just nod your head and smile back.

Sometimes God is saying, “We need to leave, the house is on fire!” And I’d sit there with a big smile on my face nodding like I know exactly what’s happening. Then I smell smoke and all the sudden I’m really interested in knowing what God is saying to me. That’s usually when Jesus steps in to translate over the noise. When I finally understand what God was trying to tell me via Jesus, I look to God for confirmation. He always gives me this knowing nod. I do as he asked and then ask for forgiveness for not listening the first time. Of course, God always forgives. He’s a gracious host.

I often stay in the room where Jesus is the DJ because he plays some sweet beats that I really love. But sometimes, I’m not in the mood for those tunes. Sometimes I want to chill out with some Bob Marley or I need to talk to my best girlfriends and I have found peace and happiness and wisdom in those rooms as well, because God, he loves Rastafarians, too… and frat boys, and claustrophobics and even the dark, empty rooms where no one seems to be. So I call myself a Christian. I certainly believe in God and I believe in Jesus. I do not, however, believe that Jesus is the only way to meet God.

In the movie, little boy Pi comes upon a priest and the priest explains that Christ is God’s only son and God loved the world that he allowed his only son to suffer so that we might understand God’s love for us. Little boy Pi questions this fact. It doesn’t make sense to him. Frankly, for a long time it didn’t make sense to me either. Like little boy Pi, that logic didn’t sound very good to my little girl self.

The Japanese ship wrecks and Pi is the only survivor stranded on a life boat with a zebra, a orangutan, a hyena and a Bengal Tiger. From here, everything is a profound metaphor for life and our relationship to ourselves, adversity, and God.

Soon, it is just Pi and the Tiger on the life boat. All the others suffered and were killed and eaten by one another in fear and hunger. Pi is a vegetarian so he did not eat these animals. The tiger, whose name is Richard Parker, did.

It is clear to me that Richard Parker is a representation of Pi’s ego and/or adversity. He must now face down this force in order to survive. The entire journey is a test of his faith in God.

His situation seems insurmountable at first. The tiger is fierce, relentless, wild, veracious and a strong carnivore that can easily over-power a skinny, vegetarian, Indian boy. Pi works hard and builds a raft outside the life boat to put distance between himself and Richard Parker. He obtains some supplies and a booklet on survival from the life boat’s hull. The booklet is a metaphor for any sacred text, such as the Bible. He uses the information in this booklet not only to survive, but to devise a plan to outsmart the tiger by making him sea sick. When the tiger stumbles and gets weary, Pi tries to over power the tiger with aggressive behavior. The result of this has only angered the tiger more. Pi realizes that this strategy does not work; that adding anger to anger does not produce the desired result. He realizes that the booklet, although it has much practical information that ultimately contributes to his survival, does not contain precise instructions for exactly what to do when you’re trapped on a life boat in the middle of the Pacific with a hungry Bengal Tiger.

Pi then decides to win Richard Parker over by giving him what he craves most, food. Pi reasons that if he gives Richard Parker food, the tiger will see no need to eat him. Pi is unable to keep up with the demands of a tiger’s appetite and soon, the tiger gets greedy. Not only does he want Pi’s portion of the food, but he wants Pi. The tiger jumps into the water to catch his own fish and comes after Pi on his raft. It doesn’t matter that Pi has fed him, he doesn’t discern Pi’s generosity from his need to survive. Pi then climbs onto the boat and the tiger is left clinging to the side unable to get himself over the edge and back into the boat. Pi learns that you cannot stand up to adversity by being 100% passive and submissive.

Now, Pi could be rid of the tiger if he just lets Richard Parker get tired enough and drown. Pi would no longer have to battle this demon. But then Pi must watch this beautiful creature suffer, and in turn, Pi will suffer with the pain of watching him die. Richard Parker does not deserve to die, he is merely doing what tigers do. Pi realizes that if he allows the tiger to die, a part of him will die, too. Pi understands that sitting by and watching another living thing die just so you can survive, is not the answer, either. Pi works hard all day and prepares his raft with more supplies for survival and then helps Richard Parker back into the boat.

Pi finally comes to the conclusion that he must learn to tame Richard Parker. Not with aggression and hostility, but with love and respect. Respect for the tiger, and respect for himself. He uses fish and a stick. He pokes Richard Parker and yells at him when he over-steps his bounds, but still feeds him and allows him space on the boat. He creates boundaries using love and respect. This works.

When you think his problems are solved, at least in terms of the tiger, a whale breeches next to the boat and all his vital supplies are lost. Pi reaches a point of hopelessness. He has no food, no water, no supplies and is still living with a hungry Bengal Tiger on a life boat in the Pacific Ocean. He says, “Okay God, I surrender. I just want to know what’s next.”

Of course, the surrender part is correct, but we can never know God’s plan. We will never know, “what’s next.” It is not a matter of Pi just accepting God as a powerful force and the determiner of his fate. Now he must know the meaning of letting go of fear and expectations.

Just as Pi and Richard Parker are both at a pinnacle of suffering, they wake up on the shores of a magical floating island. It is inhabited by edible roots, Mere Cats and pools of fresh water. Both Pi and Richard Parker have all they need to live. One night, Pi finds a human tooth inside a flower that resembles a lotus flower. As he becomes fully aware of his surroundings, he realizes that the island is carnivorous. Sure, the island would give him and Richard Parker everything they would need to survive, but it would also eat them. This island is a metaphor for the many ways in which we ignore and numb our lives; the panaceas such as drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, you name it. They will let us live comfortable, we can manage our hunger and pain, but they will kill us.

Pi realizes he must leave the island, or die. He works hard and prepares his boat, yet again, and then sets off onto the ocean to face down his greatest fears again. This is Life.

Next, they are hit by another storm and all is truly lost. There is no hope. Pi says in the midst of the storm, “God, I surrendered, I have done everything, what do you want from me?” Then, Pi finally accepts his fate. He knows he is going to die, he is seemingly no longer afraid of the tiger because he sits and takes Richard Parker’s large head onto his lap stroking it in an act of compassion, camaraderie and pure love. He has given up the need to know what’s next.

Lastly, they wash up on the Mexican shore, barely alive. Richard Parker disappears into the jungle without looking back and Pi is taken to the hospital. When they ask him what happened to the ship and everyone in it, he tells them the story of him and Richard Parker the hungry Bengal Tiger.

Of course they do not believe him. Who would believe this fantastical story of carnivorous islands and surviving on a boat for so 247 days with a hungry, Bengal Tiger? They say he is lying and crazy so he tells them a different story. He tells them a story of tyranny, cannibalism and murder. This is the story they believe as truth.

So the question to us the audience becomes, do we believe in the God we cannot see that is filled with magic and light and signs and wonder?  A God that is around us always, speaking to us, warning us, loving us, wanting us to trust him without question? The same God that brought me to see this movie about an Indian boy in existential crisis, after spending three hours myself begging for grace and mercy, with serendipitous curry on my breath? Or do you believe in the God of tyranny, cannibalism and murder? I left that theater knowing exactly what I believe and what God had been trying to tell me. I also had an idea of what I was supposed to do next.

The very next day, while sitting in a room where I have placed much of my hopes for my future, my eyes filled with tears again. I stared off into the corner. My gaze landed on the back of a wooden chair. The design was lotus flower. I still didn’t know what that meant. I looked it up, because at this point, I am sure it is vitally important sign from God. This is what I found: Lotus flowers represent rebirth. They represent hope. The represent magic and possibility. They take three days to bloom up through muddy, murky waters and when they do, they are pristine, untouched and beautiful, still.

By the time I left that room something had changed.

Since the moment I was lying on the floor on Saturday in the fetal position while the heavens opened up around me, while I begged for grace and mercy, then was given signs that I must not only surrender to His will, but I must give up the very thing I was hoping to find on Friday afternoon… hope, something profoundly shifted inside me. Come Saturday night, I gave up that wish for hope. I realized that hope comes tethered to the idea that you know what you want. That you are holding out for some kind of solution to your situation that makes you happy and fulfilled. I realized that hope is a panacea.

God sat me in that theater with naan bread in my stomach with no direction to lean because he wanted me to lean on him, without hope, without questions, without expectations. But he clearly told me I must still work. I must still prepare. I must not give up doing the hard things, but I must give up the expectation that they will bring me closer to what I want because there is only one person who knows what I truly want… and it’s not me.

If I can surrender, truly surrender and live without fear or hope for what I want, he will lead to the shores of salvation and they will never be what I imagine them to be… they will be better.

On this night God brought me inside the room of two artists, Yann Martel and Ang Lee, so that they could show me what I could not hear through Jesus’s sweet melodies or the words inside my booklet on survival. This is why I want to be a writer; because I know that stories change the world.

I know that many will be tempted to tell me I’m wrong. Anytime I talk about God I get those emails. People will point to Bible verses that speak of this truth, and I will tell them that I have read those same verses. But MY truth is, those words did not speak to me the way this movie did. I am not naive to think that everyone will enjoy this film and get out of it the same things I did. I was meant to walk into that theater last Saturday night and I was meant to sit alone and see the world this way. It was perfect for me but others may not have the same experience and that is okay because art is a subjective thing… but so is religion.

Faith, however, is a house with many rooms and God is the only host.

Amen.

Now scroll back up and look at what the woman in the postcard is holding… and the miracles continue to abound.

The name of the Indian restaurant I went to was MokSHA. I went to their website to see if I could get a picture of the lotus flower that I saw while there. This is what the name means: MokSHA-A Sanskrit term used to describe the attaining of eternal bliss or “highest happiness” by the soul… it’s a magical world, people. 

God, Grace, and a Wretch Like Me

MountainPose

Grace.

It was the word the yoga instructor asked us to think about moments before starting our 90 minute practice on Thanksgiving morning. It was the 12th annual Thanksgiving morning practice at my favorite yoga studio. The class is free, but donations are accepted to benefit a nonprofit organization and this year it was Yoga Behind Bar. It’s a charity that teaches yoga and meditation to an incarcerated population. A representative spoke on their behalf about the amazing work they do and how teenage girls in particular are benefiting the most from their efforts.

I sat in the back of a police car twice when I was teenage girl. The first was for under-aged drinking and the second was for trespassing. Not my finest moments, but neither was most of my teenage years. The years from 14 to 19 are my “lost years.” Back then I struggled mightily with depression, anxiety and impulsive, reckless behavior. I spent all those years hating myself for no particular reason, and then spent at least that many more hating myself for the things I did while I was hating myself.

How I wish someone taught me yoga as a teenager.

The word Grace, it unfurled in my mind like my mat under my feet. The first thing I thought was Redemption, followed closely by Forgiveness. But for the Grace of God go I.

I met God for the first time when I was 16. In my early life, religion was a concept that no one told me I should seek, and yet, I found it anyway. Perhaps more accurately, it found me. I started going to Wednesday night youth group at a local Presbyterian church when I was nine not because of my parents, but because my best friend who was going. For four years the two of us attended weekly classes, sang in the children’s choir once a month, and went to week-long camps in the summer. But a Christian, I was not.

In high school I attended Christian-based Young Life meetings. I even hosted one at my parent’s house. This had less to do with Jesus and more to do with socializing. When I was 16 I raised money to attend a week-long, overnight, YL camp in Colorado; also for the socializing. It was at this camp, perched on a roof top high above a blacked out canyon and under a Colorado starry sky, where I met God for the first time.

Per my modus operandi, being where the party was, was objective numero uno in my life; so were the fun activities listed on the brochure such as repelling, rafting and horseback riding. That’s the deal with these things. They attract you with fun and then slip in the Jesus-talk at the end for which you must sit quietly and tolerate.

Each night after dinner we came together and the main preacher dude stood up to tell us all we needed to know about being saved. I was skeptical, but also superstitious and naive so I listened, restlessly. At 16 I hadn’t made up my mind on all things existential and I had yet to find proof of a God. However, if you asked me then I would have said OF COURSE Jesus is my personal savior… you know, just in case the rapture was coming anytime soon or I be perceived as a social opportunist with no intention of saving my soul from eternal damnation.

One night the preacher dude said something that penetrated deep into the thick self-righteousness of my adolescent brain. He said (paraphrased), “The only thing you have to do to have a relationship with God is ask. It’s that simple. Ask and thou shalt receive.” Oh really?!? replied my snarky, skeptical, brooding 16-year-old-self. I took his bold assertion and made it my personal test of God. That night I’d ask. I ask as honestly and bravely as I knew how. I’d ask just like the preacher dude said I should ask and God had better bring it or I’m taking one step closer toward eternal damnation. At least that’s what I remember thinking.

Each night after the Jesus talk was over we were sent out into the darkened camp to find a quiet place to reflect and/or pray on what we heard. I usually headed for the small concrete slab in the middle of camp designated for the under-aged smokers; us sinners on the accelerated path to hell. But on that particular night, I chose to climb on top of a building that sat on the edge of a cliff side. The cliff dropped off into a large gulch with mountains stretching up either side like sentinels to a cave. The stars dusted the sky like perfectly spilt glitter. I looked down into this deep, black v-shaped gulch and up into this bright, celestial sky and I asked, quietly. Then I listened, openly.

My whole body responded in a way that I have never forgotten. An abnormal peace washed over me–abnormal because at that time in my life peaceful feelings were rare if not completely unknown. It felt like a tuning fork struck the deepest part of me and resonated with a pitch-perfect sound of Universal Truth. I understood, without thinking, that this feeling was real, and it was a hint of the Truth I’ve been seeking my whole, young life. I also understood, without thinking, that on a deep, intuitive level I was loved; that I would always be loved and watched over; that even in my darkest hours, I would never be alone.

What I felt in that moment is what I call God.

It is only in hindsight that I can interpret what happened that night. Now, I can see that the divine combination of the intention of my question, the stillness of Earth and mind along with the openness of my listening heart is what allowed me to not only hear God speak–but to understand what God was saying. I sobbed. I knew I was changed forever.  It would take years before I truly understood how, and years before I would feel it again.

I feel it now each time I go to yoga.

In this special Thanksgiving Day class we sang Amazing Grace. Grace. The one thing I have been offered so many times no matter how much I have failed. That thought and the cacophony of our voices together in that yoga studio overwhelmed me. The tears, just two of them, came so quick they did not linger on my lashes, but leapt from each eye and fell straight to my mat. My mat. My church. My holy place. My rooftop perched high on a cliff side below a starry sky.

It has taken years to realize that I have been given, and forgiven, so much in my life not because I asked for it–but because I learned to open up and listen. I have come to realize that the answers to all my questions lie in the silence of my open heart. It is that voice that I am still learning to follow.

Silence: how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.

What the Heart Knows

Life gets so messy. The older we get, the messier it seems. In 34 years my heart has been crushed, lifted, divided, lost, shattered and redeemed many times over. My heart; it is a weathered and worn thing that knows so much more than I.

I heard a saying once that having children is like forever letting your heart walk around outside of your body. That sums it up as best as anything I know.  I remember feeling this exact thing shortly after my daughter was born. It was both wonderful and terrifying in equal measures. I finally felt love in its most pure form, and I also knew I had no control over it whatsoever. What a dichotomous thing this parent/child relationship can be.

Both of my children have been difficult sleepers. Both were colic and both still resist sleeping as if it were the worst thing to ever happen to them. Who knows? Maybe in their world, it is? I have spent hundreds of nights holding them in pitch-black rooms humming, bouncing, shifting from foot to foot, willing them to sleep with my mind. Most nights I have taken this for granted: lost in thought of what still needs to be done that day.

But last night, as I held my 15 month old son’s limp body in my arms in his pitch-black room, I remembered the one thing that never fails to bring me into presence with him. He is likely my last baby.

As I stopped my mind from thinking about the laundry that must be folded and the dishes in the sink, I came–my heart came to be inside that room with him. There was no light and the only sound was the humming of a fan. I had no thoughts to distract me from that moment; it was just me, holding him–his heart wrapped in mine-all inside my arms. It was as complete a feeling as I can imagine.

He is not even two. His life is not messy. His heart is not fractured in the slightest way and he does not worry about all the toys he has yet to play with the next day. He is as whole and pure as each of us are when we come into this world. He and his sister, they are present with me always. Their needs are many, but they are basic and easily fulfilled. They do not fret about tomorrow or yesterday and this child’s perspective is a gift I get everyday.

While holding him I felt a quick pang of sadness that he will be my last. That my days of holding his whole heart in my arms are numbered. That there will be a day when I look at him and I know his thoughts and his whole heart are not in the room with me, but divided.

Knowing that these are things I cannot control, I tried to focus on something bigger than worry… this moment, and my gratitude for it. Grateful that I am able to hold all of him, his whole heart and mine inside my arms, inside one dark room, if only for a few minutes each night as he drifts off to sleep.

Holding your sleeping child in your arms is a powerful thing. I obviously don’t know this… but my heart does. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

The Gift of Six Minutes In Hell

A fuse that led to the fate of the rest of my life was lit and burned for five helpless minutes. In the sixty seconds that followed those five minutes, it reached its target and detonated my heart inside my chest. Now, I will never not know what that feels like.

As mothers, (which is the only side of the parental equation I can speak from) we have a thousand fears for our children. Some speak to us louder than others and they are different for everyone. I’ve got  two specific mother-fears that bully themselves into my brain when I’m preoccupied by how fleeting and fragile this life can be. They are my loudest fears because they render me helpless. I have a hard time feeling helpless.

The first of these fears is witnessing my child get hit by a car. The second, is my daughter being abducted by a pedophile. It’s horrible to write and horrible to think and in my most frightened moments I imagine these two scenarios coming true and just with the thought of it I am ripped down the middle like the pain of a never-ending childbirth. When I think these things, which is usually while I’m trying to fall asleep, I have to stop my thoughts, remind myself to breathe, and push those thoughts from my consciousness for fear that I will summon them into my life with the energy I put forth thinking about them.

As I write this, I am in the midst of one of life’s chaotic transitions. It’s a stressful time and everything is a jumble of confusing, painful circumstances that are out of my hands and that helpless feeling that I hate so much is all around me. I am in transition because I am learning powerful lessons about acceptance and control and I am spending my precious mental energy trying to learn them. At the risk of sounding  new-agey… I’m working hard to stay centered; to find my zen amidst the chaos that is unfolding and to focus only on what I can control which are my own thoughts and emotions. Simply put, I am trying to find joy and peace within.

Yesterday, I took both my kids to the mall. There is a play area on the third floor dedicated to families. The businesses include a well-situated cupcake stand, a Gymboree Gym and a children’s hair salon. Most of the space is an open play area with various things for young kids to climb which is all encircled by a half wall. There is only one way in, and one way out of this encircled play space. On the outskirts are the businesses and there is one back hallway with restrooms, a service elevator, and emergency exit stairs. Standing at any place on this floor, you can see everything else except the back hallway. It’s a petri dish, nice, safe place for kids to play where mothers and fathers can relax a bit. Naturally, we’ve been here dozens of times.

Prior to taking my children to this place, one of those personal issues triggered an emotional reaction in me. I wanted to talk to someone about what was happening because that is how I process, I talk to friends and/or, I write. Since the latter was not an option, I phoned some friends on my drive. Unfortunately, none of them were available.

When I got off the elevator to this play place in the mall, my 3-year-old ran immediately to climb on her favorite things and make friends. My 1-year-old son has just learned to walk so my primary focus was to follow him while he toddled from thing to thing making sure other children didn’t plow him over in the process. Every few minutes I looked up to make sure my daughter was playing nice and being safe. After ten or fifteen minutes of this I looked at my phone and realized that I missed a call from one my friends. I called her back at 1:28pm. During this call my son walked out of the encircled play place toward the cupcake stand, around the half wall, and toward the elevators. I followed behind him with my phone to my ear. I was on the phone with my friend for seven minutes and I had spotted my daughter once during that time. Today she was wearing a bright teal dress with a matching teal bow in her hair. She was easy to see in the sea of children on this busy Saturday.

On the seventh minute of my call I looked up to spot her again, only this time, I did not find her. I picked up my son and walked back into the encircled play area with him on my hip. I hung up with my friend to focus on my search. First, looked behind every climbing apparatus and inside every cubby hole. I moved on to the half walls then outside the walls to the cupcake stand, the hair place and inside the Gymboree Gym. I asked the ladies at the desk if a little girl in a teal dress walked in there and they said no. I asked them what I should do if I can’t find my kid and they dialed security. Five more minutes I looked for her and the panic was rising in me. The fuse was sparking and burning brighter with each passing second. By the end of the fifth minute I have checked the restrooms, over the ledges to the atrium and the elevators. Two security guards in black and white uniforms have arrived and they are asking me questions–How tall? How old? What color this? What color that? Name? I can barely think of those answers, but I get them out.

I know I need to call my husband but I can’t remember how to use my phone. I start to yell her name louder and louder. Brooke! Brooke! People are staring, but I do not care. As I turn to face the security guards again a man is walking up behind them. On the sixth minute he reaches out his hand and in them are my daughter’s silver and pink sandals. He says, “Ma’am, are these her’s?” I think I say yes but I can’t remember. The look on my face conveys that they are her sandals and the look on his face conveys something worse. His brows are furrowed in fear and concern. The next thing he says quakes my world and a bomb explodes inside me gutting me completely.

“I found them in a stall in the men’s restroom.”

I think I screamed. I’m pretty sure I screamed. Everything melted around me. Faces contorted into shock and I couldn’t tell if it was because I screamed or because they are processing what I am processing. My heart was beating from every cell in my body before this minute, but now the whole world pulsed. My body tingled like a limb that’s gone numb. I was holding my one year old son, but I could not feel him on my hip because I was feeling the weight of the world caving in on my head. I felt nothing and everything at the same time. It was both more real than any reality I’ve ever known and a complete out-of-body experience.

Details were flung at me and seared into my brain, things I never wanted to hear were flooding my ears and I was trying to make sense of this sudden sensitivity to chaos while trying to move by body in its numbness.  I remember wanting so badly for the world to just stop for a minute. STOP TURNING SO I CAN FIND MY DAUGHTER! PLEASE GOD FREEZE TIME UNTIL I CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT’S REAL AND WHERE MY BABY GIRL HAS GONE!

I don’t remember how I got there but I was headed to the men’s room. Before that, I figured out how to dial my phone and my husband was on the line but I couldn’t communicate to him exactly what was happening. All I could scream was “Someone’s taken Brooke!” A security guard reminded me that she’s not taken “she’s just missing” so I repeat those words to my husband hoping that his version is the right one.

Suddenly, I am surrounded by a million people and they were all in my way as I tried to make to the men’s bathroom in the back hallway. Now, there were not just two security guards, but what feels like a hundred. Black and white flashes were running here and there. They were asking me basic questions that I can not answer. As I pushed my way through or maybe they were letting me, I don’t know, my brain registers the service elevator, the emergency stairs. I fight back vomit that’s been inched its way up my throat the whole time. My husband is on the phone listening to my screams when all the sudden… there she is.

She bounds through the back door of the Gymboree Gym that leads into another hidden, back hallway with a woman I do not know. At the sight of that teal dress and her round, smiling face my body collapses against the wall and I fall to my knees with my son still in my arms. I’m scream-sobbing. I don’t want to touch her, I’m too scared. She comes to me, she hugs me, not the other way around. My son cries out of fear and my daughter wipes my face of tears saying, “Stop crying Mommy. It’s okay Mommy. You don’t need to be sad, Mommy. I went potty by myself and then I got trapped in that room!” She says trapped in an exaggerated, joyful way, like it’s a fun game she just played. The woman at Gymboree that called the security guards is trying to hand me a glass of water and my daughter says, “Here Mommy, you need some fluids,” and she pushes the glass to my face.

Isn’t that ridiculous!? In that moment my 3-year-old tells me I need some fluids?!? I want to laugh at the absurdity of the thing but I still can’t stop the tears and sobs so I just say, “Yes, baby, yes, you’re right, Mommy needs some fluids”

It took me an hour to stop shaking. It has taken me a day to wrap my head around this event and what God is not-so-subtly trying to tell me because if you’re me… that is the question that runs like an undercurrent through everything that happens in my life. For hours the one thing preoccupied my thoughts. I couldn’t stop thinking about the moment I was handed her shoes. I became obsessed with trying to articulate that moment and what my body went through. I wanted to label that pain, define it, put words to it and understand the power it had over my world in that moment. You would think a normal instinct would be to run from that horror, to numb it. In fact, that is exactly what I did when I got home with a bottle of wine and a pill or two.

In the wee hours of the next morning when I am prone to wake without reasons, when everything around me is quiet once more and my head was clear of booze and medication, something whispered from that space between things and told me that what happened was a gift… a blessing. Huh? Whatevs stupid, quiet, space, shut the ef up before I punch you in the throat you “space between.” That was my first reaction, but I think maybe there was some leftover wine in my liver doing the talking. When I calmed myself and began to drift off again, and the quietness returned, I came to understand what I was being told.

I was preoccupied with understanding the intense pain because it is a feeling I have never known, and now, will never forget. That feeling of white-lightening terror is a part of me now. I will forever know what my worst fear feels like because of those minutes.  I will never not know the sound of my life ripping in two. What a rare gift that is to be given? What an amazing experience to know this level of Hell and then come back from it unharmed? It’s nothing short of a blessing, really.

Just like there can be no light without dark, no tall without short, no here, without there, there can be no joy without pain. This dichotomy is one of life’s grandest Truths.

Because of the depth of pain in these minutes, the joy in my life will always be rimmed with that memory. Like a halo, it will amplify, expand, make brighter, more accessible, more plentiful–it will make my joy more ethereal than before this day, the day I was given the knowledge of how deeply painful life can really be.

I can already feel all of this after just one day. I look at her with new eyes. I look at the chaos that is still unfurling in my personal life with a new perspective. Don’t get me wrong, it still sucks, but I know definitively just how much worse it could be, and with that knowledge, I know I can bear the things I think I cannot bear. I know that I can find inner peace among broken pieces.

I was shown through my worst nightmare realized, the meaning, value and accessibility of my joy and I was shown that it is always right here, right now, if only I choose it. It was the lesson I have been trying to learn all along on a grand God scale.

Also, I know that in those five minutes of burning fuse panic and those 60 seconds of soul-crushing explosion inside my chest, there are Life Lessons that I will be deciphering for years to come; good lessons, essential lessons, gifts yet to unwrap. There will be lessons that I don’t even know exist that will come rushing toward me years from now when I see a little girl in a teal dress or spot some lonely toddler sandals on the floor. Depths of empathy, layers of gratitude, rivers of joyful tears and mountains of meaning topped with uncrushable strength will forever flow from these six minutes when my world exploded, disappeared and then returned to me through a hidden back door telling me to drink my fluids.

But today, today my lesson is joy. Real, simple, abundant joy… if only I choose it. That is what I learned today. Today. Today.

And fluids. I will remember to drink my fluids.

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro

Devotion

I have never written a book review, but because I loved this book by so much, I am inspired to write this.

Dani Shapiro grew up as an only child in an orthodox Jewish home in New Jersey. Her reserved, devout father died in a tragic car accident when she was 23 leaving behind more questions than there would ever be answers. Her relationship with her mother was complicated and tragic right up until her death of brain cancer when Shapiro was in her early 40′s. Early on, Dani splintered off from her Jewish upbringing, finding refuge, sanctuary and community in various places including her yoga mat and church basements attending AA meetings (although not an alcoholic).

She became a New York Times best-selling author, a wife, and like so many of us, got busy numbing herself stacking up accomplishments and material accoutrement.

Then she had a son, and also like so many of us, was changed forever. When her son, Jacob, was only months old, he was diagnosed with an extremely rare and likely debilitating condition called Infantile Spasms. Strangely, it is a rare condition of which I am partially familiar.

When Brooke was eight months old she developed a strange tick on her right side. It looked like she was bringing her right shoulder and her right ear together in a sudden, involuntary movement. Within hours of showing her pediatrician a video, I was at the hospital distracting my daughter with a dusty, leftover stash of rickety toys while they pasted a rainbow of electrodes to her baby-fine hair. Between the two appointments, I frantically Googled “Infant Seizures.” That is when I became familiar Infantile Spasms, which was the most tragic of all possible outcomes.

There is no definitive cure for IS although experimental treatments do exist. If IS is not treated immediately and effectively, it can erase your child from their own mind leaving irreversible brain-damaged. The probability of surviving Infantile Spasms without severe neurological impairment is 15%.

Our Pediatric Neurologist said he would call us as soon as he got the results, “no matter what time.” In our case, it was 7pm on a Friday night. To say I was afraid, feels wholly inadequate. I don’t think I took in, or let out a full breath that day. I busied myself. I chewed my lips and watched her and the clock like only a mother sensing trouble can.

We got the call and it was good, not IS.

But Shapiro and her husband received the opposite diagnosis. Through more than a year of intense monitoring and precise administration of an experimental medication, Jacob survived IS with a few developmental delays that he would eventually overcome.

Of all the tragedy and uncertainty Shapiro endured up until that point, it was this experience that felt like the locus of the book– the principal reason for the deliberate search for what she believes. Against such infinitesimal odds, why had this happened? Furthermore, why did Jacob survive? What would she tell her son when he was older? How could she tell him anything if she didn’t know herself?

Not one of us is immune these switchback moments of life. The moment when the horizon comes into view, but suddenly you are forced to take the path leading in the opposite direction. This disorientation leaves us looking behind us, yet forced to keep moving forward.

Ultimately, it is a reality we all face, the recognition that life is fragile, potentially tragic, and definitely out of our control. If we’re lucky, it is faith that shores us up against the storms. Belief becomes our safety net; religion our life-line, and for many, finding a community of like-minded people to help weather the worst of it. When you are a renounced orthodox Jew, a itinerate yogi and a non-alcoholic member of AA, where do go? What do you do? How do you define your beliefs?

Shapiro finds the closest thing to answers in the small spaces between all these things–in the moments of awareness brought on by daily rituals, mindfulness and setting intentions.

She is Jewish, but reads Buddha’s teachings to her son. She finds refuge in the practice of daily meditation, but also at synagogue on Friday evenings. She finds solace on her yoga mat and also in the mezuzah hanging to the right of her front door. She finds community in reading the Torah with a Rabbi, or in watching the leaves turn colors outside her window.

In the end, it is always a practice, a never-ending journey in finding peace in a world full of split second sorrows– creating meaning in a fraction of a second of breath and the seemingly inconsequential gestures of ritual and repetition, because they are reminders of the only thing that is… our intricate connection to each other in this solitary moment in time.

Life will always be switching back on us, each corner producing a new set of questions and rarely will there one answer for them all, more often than not, there are no answers. It is on this precipice of uncertainty and fear that we all must learn to find solace, refuge and community without closing our eyes to the view.

Because even when you’re afraid, especially when you’re afraid, if you keep your eyes open, it is still beautiful sight to behold.

Communing with Trees

Moss Covered Tree Trunk

I grew up traipsing through the woods. We called them “woods,” my friends and I, but really, they were just a dense strip of trees big enough to hide in when the leaves were full in the summer, and small enough to see to the other side in the winter. I loved those woods with its Maples, Birches and Oaks. The snap of twigs underfoot, the smell of damp dirt and sour, leaf decay, the belly scratches from tree climbing and then watching those same trees turn yellow or orange or red in the Fall;  those were some of my happiest moments as a child.

We created whole worlds in that narrow strip of trees. We built houses, hunted bears, kissed frogs and got poison ivy over and over and over again. I didn’t know it then, but we communed with those trees. We knew which ones could support us and which ones were better to just lie underneath. We knew which branches would keep us dry when it rain and which ones were best for swinging. We etched our names and the names of the boys we loved in those trees. We ate the wild berries and wore some paths right down to the roots. That narrow strip of woods was our playground in the summer and our pathway to our elementary school in the winter. We were as comfortable there as we were in our own homes.

I went for a run today on a wooded trail by our house. My infant son fell asleep in the jogging stroller and I took the opportunity to venture off-road into a clearing under a canopy of towering evergreens. It wasn’t the woods I remember from my youth growing up in the Midwest. Here in the Pacific Northwest, it seems more appropriate to call it a forest. Even when it’s not raining, everything is still wet here. A carpet of Chartreuse moss blankets anything standing still. Ferns sprout out of spongy, moss-covered tree trunks and the ground is thick with fragile, discarded, evergreen  limbs that are covered in lichen. The ground snaps everywhere you step and the dark needles of these trees can hide you anytime of year. I stood there, listening to the sounds of nature and communing with the trees.

This week we are refinancing our home. We’re signing a 30 year, fixed mortgage and in essence making a huge committment to stay put for the long-term. We moved here almost six years ago thinking it would be relatively temporary, but the real estate market changed drastically in that time and well, our plans had to change now that our house is worth much less than what we paid for it.

But I’m okay with it, with all of it. This home is where my children were born and now, most likely, where they will grow up for the forseeable future. (“Foreseeable future”…Ha! Isn’t that a silly phrase?!)

As we’re making this committment to deepen our roots I start to think of all the things my kids will grow up having in this neighborhood including the trail I ran today and that clearing under a canopy of evergreens.

As I stood there I imagined my kids playing there in a few years. I imagined what kinds of worlds they would create among these Firs, Cedars and Cyprus’. Would they have bears in them like mine? I wondered which trees they would climb and sit under and swing from and carve their names into. I imagined that instead of poison ivy Brooke and Brady will come home with sticky tree sap in their hair. My wild berries were red; theirs will be black.

I hope they’ll play here. I hope they’ll feel just as safe and free and at home in this forest as I did in my woods because as a parent I want them to have all the good things I had and more– better even. If this lush forest is any indication, they will.

But more than having a familiar forest to grow up in, I hope more than anything else that they learn to commune with trees…

…and they never stop doing it.

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Multi-tasking Master, Got Schooled

IMAG0086

I am a stay-at-home mother of two small children. That means, whether I like it or not, I am a master at the art of mult-tasking. I have cooked macaroni and cheese while breastfeeding a baby and doing the hokey-pokey. I have sung nursery rhymes while composing grocery lists. I have written blog posts in my head while running, pushing a baby in a stroller and listening to audiobooks. If I don’t do at least two to three things at once, I’m not sure I would accomplish much of anything.

Today, I woke up to a surprise gift– my mother-in-law was taking my toddler for the day which left me with just one child. Huzzah! If you’re not familiar with Mom Math, it works like this: take the number of children you have, subtract one and you can multiply your productivity by two. Subtract a toddler and you multiply it by at least a thousand. Subtract all your children and after your brain recovers from a temporary state of shock, it will be overflowing with an uncomputable amount of bliss. Anyway, upon hearing this news my mind was racing with all the things I wanted to accomplish today.

First, I went to the post office, then the craft store. Next, I got the car washed, picked up groceries and carried on a metaphysical conversation with one of my girlfriends via text. After that, I geared up for a quick run with my infant son and BOB… the jogging stroller. I had planned to listen to my audiobook and get my zen on while burning a few post-Christmas calories.

Just like I try to do before everything I do, I set out my intentions for this run. I’m a strong believer in intentions. I believe our intentions are what creates our experiences and if we’re conscious of our intentions, we can create the kind of experience we want to have. To me, it’s just a quick check-in with myself and what I hope to get out of an experience. It’s a reminder to pay attention, to become aware and present to the moment; to stop, listen and be grateful– to say, at the very least, thank you. Even with all I had going on, the running, the baby in the BOB, the book… in true multi-tasking fashion, I added one more thing to my list. To take a moment and be present in the middle of all that. Well, God had a different plan for me this day.

The run I take is a quick 2.2 miles through a wooded trail, around a small lake, through a blueberry farm and back again. It’s quite lovely and I feel so lucky to have such a wonderful resource just outside my doorstep. On Christmas Day I did this same run and I took this picture with my phone.

It was a typical, overcast, Seattle, winter’s day, but it was also Christmas, and so there was an extra-specialness in the air it that I felt needed to be immortalized by cell phone photography.

Today, God wanted to make sure I wasn’t doing anything but paying close attention to this world. On another typical, overcast, Seattle, winter’s day I rounded the familiar corner of my run and stopped, breathless and it wasn’t because of the running. It was because there was the most brilliant beginning of a rainbow the I had ever seen. I not only saw the red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple; but I saw the color that is often forgotten in the spectrum, Indigo. I stopped, took out my ear buds and took it in for a moment. Alrighty then I got my zen, now… moving on. I put the ear buds back in and kept running because I had an extra helping of whipped cream to work off, too. Multi-tasking master here! what! what!

As I got closer to the rainbow, my view expanded I saw that it was a DOUBLE rainbow. Suddenly, I felt like that guy on YouTube  that starts crying hysterically when he sees a double rainbow.

I immediately wished I had my phone because I wanted to document that shit. A DOUBLE rainbow? On an overcast, December, winter’s day in Seattle? No one would have believed it. But I left my phone at home to charge so I just kept running and listening to my audiobook because calories aren’t going to burn themselves.

As I rounded another corner, I saw ahead of me, the end of that rainbow. Okay, that’s it! This. Must. Be. Documented. I remembered that my iPod had video camera function that I have never used. I pulled it out, hoping to get a decent shot of this awesomeness.

And then… I kept running because the clock was ticking and I had to get back home and shower and start dinner and feed the baby…. and….fill-in-the-blank of any menial task that needs to get done.

Then God brought me to my knees. As I rounded another corner I saw a man coming toward me pulling a child’s wagon. It’s the same wagon I bought for Brooke last summer. It’s a plastic radio flyer with the canopy. Just so you know, those things are like $100. As I approached him I saw that he didn’t have a child in that expensive wagon; he was pulling a very elderly Jack Russell Terrier laying on top of brocade pillows. The look on that dogs face DID turn me into the guy on YouTube that cries hysterically over the double rainbow. It was one of the most profound displays of complete love that I have ever seen.

I stopped running. I stopped listening to my audiobook. I walked the rest of the way and stayed in that moment because I realized that God was trying to tell me something. He was trying to say slow down, stop rushing, take this in because it doesn’t get any better than this and because I am the greatest multi-tasker of all time and I have a few things to teach YOU woman.

And you know what I saw just before I got home?

It is not likely that I will stop multi-tasking anytime soon, but when it comes to God and this Universe, there are too many amazing things to be missed if I don’t stop and set my intentions so He can hear me. To slow down and remember to be present and at the very least, say thank you. Think of what I would have missed today had I not?

I might not have lost those calories in my body, but I filled my soul with so much more.

The Science of Spirituality

I’ve got this side of me that geeks-out over science. I have been known to wander aimlessly, by myself, in some of this country’s best science and natural history museums while on business travel. I visited Bodies: The Exhibit, twice, alone. I aced college level chemistry in high school and almost chose it as my college major until I realized how much math was involved.  Science = bueno, Math = no bueno.

I suppose I get this trait from my father who is a chemistry teacher and a science nerd to his core. The man wore a t-shirt imprinted with the periodic table of elements when I was kid. (A t-shirt I rescued from the donation bin and still have to this day.)  I seem to be genetically hard-wired with this insatiable curiosity about how my world works on an empirical, scientific level. The facts about life never cease to amaze me.

Then there’s this other side of me that geeks-out over the spiritual. The side that loves yoga and meditation and learning about religion. It is where these two worlds collide that my brain explodes into a frenzy of hyperactive, toddleresque-overstimilation and I want to pee all over myself like a nervous chihuahua. I could literally talk about this for hours.

Oh will you looky there, I went and created myself a blog wherein I’m pretty much free to talk about whatever I want so…

There are two theories in particular that I think about often as it pertains to science and spirituality. The first, is Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: The mutual forces of action and reaction between two bodies are equal, opposite and collinear.

The second law, is a law of physics pertaining to the conservation of energy. This law means that energy can change its location within the system, and that it can change form within the system, but that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

I know, sounds totally boring right? If you’re still with me and haven’t started skimming to get to the end of this snoozer of a high school physics lesson/ blog post, then stick with me and I’ll break it down.

Have you ever been to an open casket funeral? Have you ever buried the family pet? Do you remember the first time you saw anything that was dead? Do you remember how you felt when you first laid eyes on the deceased? It’s not my intention to stir up a bad memory, I don’t want you to think about the specific person, animal, or situation, but rather the physical experience of seeing it.

I was about six when I went to my first open casket funeral. Since then, I’ve been to more open caskets funerals than I care to recount here, but that’s not the point. My point is that when I saw that for the first time I wasn’t afraid, and I haven’t been afraid since. I wasn’t afraid to see death at age six because what I was seeing might have looked like something that used to be alive, but I knew, at a six-year-old instinctual level, that what I was seeing was not the same as a real person. The energy that animates life was missing because, (and this is the tie that binds it all together so let me be very clear)…

We. Are. All. Just. Energy.

When you understand that, you will start to see life in a whole new way.

We can feel each other’s energy if we pay attention. It resides in the silent, empty spaces between our physical bodies. Have you ever gotten “a bad vibe” from someone? Conversely, have you ever been instantly attracted to another? That’s your energy connecting with another person’s energy. On this instinctive level we draw to us like magnets the same energy we are putting into the world, which conveniently brings me back to Newton’s Third Law.

Newton’s Third Law says that each action (use of energy) has an equal and opposite reaction. To put it more plainly, Karma’s a bitch folks. What you put out into the world, comes back to you. It is up to you to choose what that energy will be. Will it be positive? Or negative? Will you give? Or will you take? Have you ever heard of the saying, the more you give the more you get? It’s true, because it’s science.

Now let’s take the second law, the law of conservation of energy. This essentially states that energy can never cease to exist, it merely changes form. So let me repeat just in case you didn’t get it the first time, We. Are. All. Just. Energy. We never cease to exist, we merely change form.

When our bodies fail us, when it’s time for us to leave the physical world, our energy (or soul, as it is more commonly referred to) lives on in another form. It is our bodies that stay behind. Where we go is the million dollar, highly debatable, unanswered question, but I have no doubt that we all have always, and will always exist in one energetic form or another. It’s true, because it’s science.

Furthermore, (and perhaps another blog post), I believe that all the energy in this world is connected through an elegant system of design that is far beyond my abilities to comprehend. At every moment our energies are speaking and perceiving, connecting and being acted upon by forces that we have yet to fully realize. That’s the spirituality part.

It’s true, because it’s science… and spirituality.

As Serious as a Panic Attack

The following was written one year ago in the middle of a panic attack. I had recently gotten fired from my job and was floundering. I was taking medication every night just to fall asleep. I was clearly depressed, but hadn’t admitted that to myself yet. This was right before I did. Every time I read it I am reminded how far I’ve come. If you have ever felt like this, please know, as I know now, that you have to keep asking the questions and more importantly, learn how to listen to your heart for the answers… because He is telling you everyday, in every way, where He wants you to be.

I’ve never felt so trapped in my life.  I’m prone to wild swings in emotion and so I’m not sure if what I’m feeling is accurate but I know for certain that it is real.  It is real because my anxiety always starts in my chest.  My heart pounds against my sternum and creates a full, heavy feeling like something is either sitting on me or trying to get out of me.  Either way, it’s suffocating.  I feel nervous, like the world can read my mind by just looking at my face and these thoughts are lethal, like bullets.  I try to control my bullet thoughts.  No dice.  They become obsessive and quicken to a deafening pace.  I shake on the inside.  My hands are steady and my legs aren’t moving but I feel like there’s an earthquake happening inside my body.  The instinct to escape and find safety is overwhelming.  “This too shall pass” My inner voice says.  “Hurry the fuck up” I reply. 

I know what a wild animal in a trap feels like.  Only I didn’t get caught, I built the trap around me one mortgaged brick at a time.  I think my original intent was to keep myself contained where I couldn’t be a danger to myself or others, like a prison of responsibility and status quo.  Even though it was self-made I think I would chew my arm off if it meant I could get outside.  But, like a prisoner suffering from Stockholm Syndrome I kinda like my walls; at least some of them.  They are a place to hang my hopes and dreams for safe keeping and they remind me of what hard work can do.  But they also keep me from seeing, let alone going outside.

 I sit with this feeling for a minute.  Questions start to bubble to the surface like thick, black oil.  Am I scared? The answer to that one is easy. Yes. Am I hormonal? I don’t know, but does that matter or is that just a convenient excuse to not take responsibility? Is this a crisis of the existential kind?  Am I being self-deprecating, self-righteous or just selfish? For sure I am confused. I don’t have any answers and that has always made me uncomfortable.  I have never lived easily in the space of the unknown or unknowable which is the essence of life in general.  For me, understanding and truth are as essential as breathing and right now I lack all of those things.  The anxiety in my chest, my heart, my center leaves room for little else including my lungs to breathe.  But breathing is the only answer I do have.  That’s not true. The other answer I have is that God is here and that I may never know all the answers but someday I will know the only one that matters and that is what my purpose shall be. And so I ask again, the only prayer I’ve ever asked… use me God. Use me.

I’m not where I’m going, I’m not where I’ve been, but I’m on my way.

The Space Between

I keep referring to this silly, (and maybe a little trite), phrase like I’m out to coin a term or something. I’m not. I just don’t know what else to call it without writing out, “the place consciousness lives” each time. I heard this phrase recently said by, wait for it……..wait for it…… OPRAH (imagine that). Before I heard Oprah say it, it was the title to one of my favorite Dave Matthews Band songs. Dave, a poet if there ever was one , sings:

The space between the tears we cry as the laughter keeps us coming back for more. The space between the wicked lies we tell and hope to keep safe from the pain.

The space between where you’re smiling high is where you’ll find me if I get to go. The space between the bullets and the fire fight is where I’ll be hiding waiting for you.

The space between what’s wrong and right is where you’ll find me hiding, waiting for you. The space between your heart and mine is a space we’ll fill with time.

The song itself is about the a relationship that has become tumultuous and damaged. They have started to play games with each other and fight like the wild-eyed beast you be. They even, go off like a devil in a church in the middle of the a crowded room. Dave sings about trying to find the place where the love still lives between them. The space between where they’re smiling high and the laughter keeps us coming back for more. Poor Dave just wants to live there… and so do I.

There are so many things in this world that are competing for our attention. I’m competing for your attention right now. Information abounds at our fingertips and it’s hard to know where to spend our time and energies and increasingly harder to know what’s real or not, more importantly, (as Dave sings), what’s wrong and right. These are, indeed, important questions to ask oneself.

Over the past year I have become convinced that the answers to most questions, at least my questions, lies in the silent space between all these things. The knowing part of ourselves that does not, and cannot speak in words but speaks none-the-less. Some people call this intuition, others call it consciousness. Whatever you call it, it’s the part of you that not only speaks, but hears and sees the world not with your ears or eyes, but with your heart and soul. It’s not always obvious or pleasant and it’s the wicked lies we tell about ourselves (our ego) that prevents us from hearing it because we hope to keep safe from pain.

The things I love to both read about, and write about, are the things that make us human. The things we all have in common because I believe we are all more alike than we are different.  Over time, and through writing, I’m learning to hear those things more clearly by listening to the space between, or my heart, to use another metaphor. Because I believe that, The space between your heart and mine is a space that we’ll fill with time.