The "F Word"

My mom was known for the phrase “that was a FINE thing” in reference to something beautiful, wonderful, or delicious. She would go on a rant about something she was excited about and say “that was a FINE thing.” She would do this so often that my best friend from high school referred to “fine” as the “F Word.”

Working thru the grief of losing my mom have been a journey.  I have found myself appreciating the fine things in my life. I find myself being increasingly grateful for the little things and looking for the beauty in the world.  I have found an increased sense of optimism as I find myself more focused in the present  moment. I also have found myself less blocked creatively. I feel like I have settled more into myself and my personality and I really value that gift that working thru this crisis has given me.

I fully acknowledge that the state of the world is NOT a fine thing. There is a lot of awful, terrible, inhumane, un-american nonsense going on. Understatement of the year (although give it time. It’s only January). I find myself overwhelmed by it all. Sometimes my grief of processing how I live my life without my mom combines with the grief of what sort of fresh hell has been set upon us and I find myself overcome by it all. So this week I have started to monitor how I take in all the news.

I’ve found that it’s easier for me to consume the news by listening to NPR or by talking about it with a friend in person. That way I can yell. I thoroughly enjoy sassing back at the radio as I drive to work.  I have also started to monitor my facebook intake. I schedule Facebook time rather than find myself compulsively checking it. That has made all the difference. I have found myself more grounded in my day to day activity and focusing on maintaining the peace within so that I don’t get consumed by the desperation.

So I keep reminding myself that I’m doing fine. Sometimes that means the lukewarm state of “fine” other times it’s the peaceful calm state of “fine.” It depends on the moment. Being in a state of fine does not mean being that dog in the meme that doesn’t acknowledge the fire that is burning around me. It means taking a breath and doing what I can do put out the fire.  

Being authentically myself and bringing joy where I can is a FINE thing.

Continuing to do the job I love is a FINE thing.

Creating work with friends is a FINE thing.

Eating delicious food is a FINE thing.

Having time to read and make stuff is a FINE thing.

Standing up against injustice is a FINE thing.

There are so many FINE things that can be done.

So as things shift in the world. I will continue to nurture the inner flame of the fine.

I look for beauty

I look for the divine

For although there is darkness

The light will shine

And that’s a FINE thing.

(Yes I drew a flame in a peace sign. I am flamboyantly UU)

On Snowflakes and Vulnerability

This week I have found myself focusing on being more heart centered and less in my head. I find that when I get caught up in the news of the day my mind tends to run and I get caught in the anxiety of the world. I also work at a desk all day and have been driving more so I don't always engage with my body. On Thursday I went in for my massage (Megan Mackie at Community Chiropractic is awesome by the way). As usual although my mind felt like 70% sunshine and rainbows that day my body was a tense ball of stress. By the end of the massage, I felt a lot of the tension break and I felt more connected and open with my body. I laughed and I cried as we talked while she worked on my neck. I felt so much more alive by the end.

On Friday, on my lunch break at work I listened to this Tara Brach lecture entitled "The Revolution of Tenderness." Watching this called me back to the relaxation I experienced the previous day. In it she talks about how many of us act from our minds rather than listening to the wisdom of our body and our hearts. I felt so much more focused into myself and letting myself experience whatever emotions were coming thru rather than resisting them.

Saturday gave me so much hope. I didn't get to march but I the train ride to work was packed with awesome women heading down to the march. The energy on that train was so positive and inspiring. It's one thing to know on the surface that there are so many people that want to work for a more positive world, it's another thing to see a train platform full of people presenting this positive energy.

My goal as I move forward is to continue to relax into myself and be the positive person that I am. I will continue to be honest with myself and other people and work to listen to others as they share their thoughts and fears.

There is slang going around where bleeding heart liberals are dismissed as "snowflakes." I actually really love this label and would like to reclaim it. Frankly I think being a snowflake means that you operate from a heart centered place rather than being trapped in the mind (what I call an ice pellet). So I wrote this poem.

Snowflakes

I am reclaiming the term snowflake

Not just for people in my bubble

But for all of us

For our truest form is the snowflake

When we share our soul for all to see

When we embrace our gifts and flaws

When patterns form and crystallize

Into a unique constellation

So others may stare hypnotized

As we gracefully fall to the ground

Being a snowflake is knowing the soul

When the snow storm comes we all fall together

United in our beauty

But we aren’t always snowflakes

Sometimes we become hardened in the cold

Hardened by our fears and anxieties

We build a shell

In that moment we are an ice pellet

Rudely flung in someone’s face

Eventually, we melt we go back into the cycle

Ice pellets can be snowflakes

Snow flakes can be ice pellets

Some have more capacity to melt than others

In warmer climates we are the drop of water

That unites with the great river

We go with the flow as we are guided

Uniting with larger streams

We evaporate condensate

Precipitate again and again

So let us float gracefully on the air

Our hearts open reflecting on the unique patterns of others

Let’s cling to each other in clumps

As the temperature rises.

Turning the other cheek sucks sometimes...

So this week I have felt both focused in my work but also sort of unfocused emotionally. I find myself  being conscious of when I am overwhelmed by the news and focusing more and more on what i can control. I had a great discussion with a friend and she said something super profound. “Kindness is a more permanent revolution.” This is my new favorite mantra. It seems so obvious but the way it’s worded seems to perfectly resonate.

So more and more I am focusing on maintaining my default level of  “relentless optimism” and finding ways to just be open and be kind.

I’ve always been “relentlessly optimistic.” That’s a term my mom was quick to point out about be. She admired that trait as she was far more skeptical about human nature.  I’ve always believed in the good in people, even when they were jerks to me. I’ve become more aware of human nature as I’ve gotten older so my philosophy has become “Yes Gail, everyone has God’s light inside but some of them are hiding that light up their butt.” I don’t like the term garbage humans; there are certainly ignorant humans who perform garbage actions. That doesn’t make them any less human but I am frustrated when I'm in those situations my reaction is to do my best to respond with love and pray that they figure out their sins on their own journey. Turning the other cheek sucks sometimes.

I am so deeply saddened and frustrated by all of the things that I hear in the news. I don’t understand how so many people in power can be so seemingly unenlightened to the true nature of humans or at least have the decency to really stand in the shoes of the people whose rights they are taking away. I truly think that if they understood on the fundamental spiritual level that we all have inherent worth and dignity they would realize what matters.  

I think that the golden rule is also psychological programing. We should treat others like we want to be treated but what often happens is we treat others how we treat ourselves. When I am feeling guilty and picking on myself I will sometimes lash out or quick to judge the actions of others. I have found that the more that I forgive myself and treat my mistakes like inside jokes rather than things I pick on myself for forever, the more I am able to forgive others.

I’ve always been a fan of of the idea of “seeing God in the eyes of stranger.” The idea that when we do good deeds we see Jesus in each other’s eyes. We feel the sense of “the one soul.” For me, there is a sense of also seeing my mom as well. As she is part of that one soul as well.  So I think the more I am tapped into this center of love and the spirit, the more I see it in others.

So I plan on focusing on maintaining my inner resilience and optimism, offering a listening ear and a crying shoulder when I can and generally letting this little light shine bright like a crazy diamond. I also will start to look for more ways that I can participate in direct action as well as ways that I can help within my community.  

I can’t control other people's actions but I can control how I respond to them and control what I put out into the world. I will move forward and take things day by day.

Epiphanies

One of the things I set up for myself in this writing goal is that if I make Sunday my writing day then I always have the option of using the sermon at church that day as a jumping off point. So that's what I'm doing today. (I go to Second Unitarian church in Chicago).

So today the sermon was about the Epiphany. The story of the three wisemen was used a jump off point for the general subject of epiphanies.  Enjoy!

Epiphany

These are the moments

The “this is the moment” moments

The moment when something is revealed

When we deeply feel the answer

To a question we may not know how to ask

When we are filled with a sense of the sacred

All this time we have followed a star

Whether we recognized the star for what it was

Or whether we just did what we needed to do

Little clues have led us there on the way

The fault line beneath us is shifting

But we may not notice until the earthquake

These are the moments of spiritual jet lag

Where the world has fallen down around us

And we find ourself awake in a foreign land

We stand up and survey the landscape

We pick a road

When the epiphany comes

We don’t pack up our discoveries and put them back in the attic

There is so much to learn from what has been revealed

The star burns brighter and we follow it onward

As we open our hearts to new discoveries

Along the way.

The Flame Burns On

So many times

I rise from the ash

Called into a new form

By the same song

Little by little the truth is revealed

I cast off what I need to heal

When life crumbles and I start to melt

Into the uncertainty of the new turn

I hold onto the love around me

I look for lessons I can learn

Epiphany after epiphany

Answers are revealed

I find a sense of peace again

As the road leads me onward

I focus on each step

The path right now is clear

In the distance I see  a dark forest

But I focus on the journey a step at a time

Fueled by the flame that burns brightly inside.

Happy New Year!

Well here we are in 2017. We made it. Hooray! 

This blog is one of my New Years Resolutions. I have no idea how Blogger works formatting wise but I'll find out! My  goal is that I write a weekly thing and post it. Said weekly post can be a rant, poem, song, whatever. The idea is that I write the things and people read them and that becomes a habit. 

So originally I was going to do a whole big year in review but I realized that simplicity is key. The dumpster fire of 2016 was not kind to 60 something year old rockstars. Well my own personal 62 year old rockstar aka my mother died in August after an 11 year battle with Multiple Myeloma.  Coping is a complicated roller coaster and I am thankful that I am an artist and can use the things I am talented in to process. So here is a poem:

New Beginnings

Telling this story is the reason we have poetry
I don’t want to bore you with the order
The facts swirl around
Come in random flashes 
How can I explain watching for a last breathe?
Hanging onto each moment and knowing that we’re at the end?
The beauty of the love of friends?
The outpouring of support?

Waves of grief
Days full of insanity and lack of sleep
Of deep feelings unexpressed
This was the year I became an adult
Because I officially became an adult
Sitting at my mom’s kitchen table editing her obituary
That she had saved as a “fill-in-the-blank” on a convenient jump drive.

My life flashed before my eyes
As I watched hers 
In the picture slide show I had to nearly
Bribe myself to prepare

But in the madness
I also found my soul
I mean it was there the whole time
But the fire burns so much brighter
Because I need the strength

I’ve always believed in something
Some sort of spirit
God, universe, mystery, whatever
The beautiful thing we can’t see
The still small voice inside

She was rational
she believed in order, patterns, people
Things that she can see
So rationally the new thing to do
Is to believe in her

She is in the unseen now
She is part of that beauty now
She is one with the great mystery
She is spirit and deep memory
Anyhow “mom, how do I deal with this thing?” 
Is a totally legit prayer
So this is one of the ways that I pray
Like spiritual tech support
I was plugged backed into the system
Like I needed some rational guiding light
(Unitarian Universalists, amiright?)
Besides her voice was already the wise voice I hear
to guide me thru life
That's how mom's work. 

Grief is hard
It's my hidden stress now
A mess of feelings
And my survivor mode is strong
So I sometimes lie to myself
Hide the sadness in a corner
While I plod on like some superstar
"Writing like I’m running out of time"
Yeah "I'm not throwing away my shot”
Whatever? 
But then something knocks me down
And I realize
Nope. Time to “Wait for it.” 
It’s “Quiet Uptown” and I’m gonna go cry now. 

Hamilton references aside
I wake up every morning and I write and
I am thankful for the beautiful day
I look out the window and 
Send love to the people standing at the bus station
Across the street

I do my best to live in the moment 
I do my best to remain positive
Despite all the negativity in the world
Despite all the scary things I remain positive 
My light shines
Creativity flows out

I am ready for new beginnings
To look at 2017 with new eyes 
That shine bright with the wisdom,
The pain and the knowledge of the past year
I put one foot in front of the other
Live day by day
And hope this New Year
Will have gentler lessons to teach.

(photoshop credit: Chris Terry)