The Balm of Time

March 22, 2019March 22, 2019 / Lisa / 17 Comments

I’m waiting for snow to melt so I can go foraging for cottonwood buds with a friend. The plan is to then let them steep for eight-to-twelve months, to make Balm of Gilead. Yep, almost a year. There’s a faster way where a crock pot can be used, but I like the idea of letting time do its thing.

Kind of like I write. Year three and just finishing revising the first draft.

I’m not normally slow in all things. But some things need time. Or at least patience.

Time flows like a river…with a big happy dog splashing in it

It took me thirty years to make it back to Scotland, to friends I love and places I also love. Yes, that’s a bit extreme, but hey, those thirty years actually went pretty fast. Twenty-three of them were spent completely enamored watching a little lump of baby grow to a nice young man.

A rose between two thorns? My husband’s sister took this photo which is why he’s sticking his tongue out…somethings you never outgrow.

I’ve spent ten years messing around with a couple little cancer bouts, taking my time to radiate and barf and then recuperate. The oncologist last week was thrilled with the latest blood work but not so thrilled, apparently, with other things we talked about.

Like grief.

You know, one of those things that people mistakenly say ‘takes time’ when in reality it’s there forever. She suggested I see a counselor and said that people who have been through cancer can have PTSD, and that maybe current grief is a trigger for deeper grief from those angry, sad, post-radiation years.

No thanks. Cancer treatments weren’t that bad, didn’t take that long, and were probably harder on my family than on me. I can see how they might have PTSD from putting up with me slamming doors and joyfully learning how to cuss.

She used to think her name was G*d-d*mn-it and would happily come running whenever I said it.

Think I’ll try acupuncture instead. I’ve done that before and it’s wonderful. And it takes time. And it’s something that’s been around a long, long, long time. When I did it before, I had time to step away from the rush of the day, to float with stories, to let go.

But in the meantime, here we are, watching life fly by way too fast. Trees were just dropping their leaves yesterday and now they are budding. Where did winter go? Now we move into spring and growing and renewing. Until tomorrow when it will be hot summer days, and the next day when it will be cool fall. That’s what it seems like anyway.

4th of July 10 002

Time flies, even when it moves slowly.

And so many things never change. When you realize how fast years have gone, you wonder what you’ve done to fill all that time. You wonder if you’ve wasted time. You wonder how to slow it down. You wonder how to fill the time left with meaning.

And then you realize time has flown while you ponder those things.

So you heave a big sigh, get your basket, and wander out into the woods for cottonwood buds.

And for that moment at least, life will slow down until it becomes just you and the tiny buds of a new spring in your hands.

Time between your fingers.

Sun dogs taken by my husband where he works.

Oh, the Drama!

March 8, 2019 / Lisa / 12 Comments

Years ago, a small boy in a small town dropped to his knees at my feet, lifted his hands to the sky and yelled at the top of his lungs, ‘I’m going to DIE!!!!’.

It was Halloween. It was snowing. His mittens were at home and his hands were cold.

And then my son said ‘B… gives full size candy bars!’ and they were both off and running, immanent drama forgotten. Until they came back and this little boy dropped to his knees again.

I believe that person still gives out full size candy bars. (Name withheld to protect his candy stash) And note this town is small enough that it doesn’t have city limits. Just one limit.

He had my full understanding and complete sympathy with the drama.

Years ago when my parents married, our new family needed a bigger house. In the process I realized I was going to be irrevocably torn from my boyfriend.

I was nine. He was my boyfriend because he always tried to catch just me when we played horses. You know, in the playground at school, where girls are the horses and boys are the horse thieves. And here I was being forced to move.

I knew I’d never, ever be happy again. How, you might ask, can I remember back that far? Because I wrote in my little diary ‘I’ll NEVER EVER BE HAPPY AGAIN!’

Yeah…I’m also not gifted with being able to read the future.

Yes, I wrote it in all caps. I meant it. So much, that when we moved I took my favorite pajamas and hid them behind the bedroom door. I planned to sob uncontrollably in the new house, knowing my parents would move us back. Those pj’s are probably still behind that door.

So yes, I understood the drama. Have I outgrown it?

Of course not. What self-respecting writer doesn’t live in drama? How else can we give it to our characters?

A couple days ago I was feeling overwhelmed and discouraged with the editing process of the current work in progress. At that point it was the worst thing ever written, etc., etc., etc. So did I get to work editing?

No. Instead I told my husband I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt joy.

And sniffled.

And thought, I should write a blog post about joy. Not happiness, but true, deep, joy that makes you feel almost incandescent. I’d been thinking about the difference between happiness and joy after I heard a speaker ask if what gave us joy aligned with what we did. I thought I could write about how joy has been missing for a long time.

Or so it felt at that moment.

My husband knows me very well. Instead of laughing, he said all the wonderful supportive things that needed to be heard.

My men know how to find joy, especially in Vegas.

This morning I drove to work very slowly. Luckily I was the only car on the highway. The music was blasting, it was just beginning to get light so the snow was glowing, and…guess what? I looked at the high mountains and the trees and thought, there’s a little incandescence glowing inside at all that beauty. I kind of think my inner joy was laughing at me.

So instead of writing a blog about joy, I decided I better write about the little dramatic child who occasionally drops to her knees and raises her hands to the sky.

She’s alive and doing well.

My husband’s view at work. His place of happiness.

What Do You Do?

February 23, 2019February 23, 2019 / Lisa / 24 Comments

I spent last week at a training. I was early to a session so sat with my crochet basket watching people (developing characters, of course). An older man introduced himself, shook my hand, asked me what I did. Understandable in a work environment.

He was the keynote speaker. And he talked for a couple hours about leadership, about how to change energy at work, about how we focus on what we do rather than who we are and what our stories are. Once he mentioned stories I started paying attention.

Afterwards, I pointed out that his speech had been about who people are and asked him why, then, when he’d introduced himself to me, the first thing he asked me was what I do.

I’m a mother

Granted, as I told him, if some stranger had asked me ‘who are you’ or asked me to tell them a story about myself, a big defensive wall would have immediately come up. Because it’s not normal in society to ask who we are. It is normal to ask what we do, and to judge and label and assume based on what that label is. On what we do.

Which really, has nothing to do with who we are.

I’m a wife

He told me I was observant (of course, that’s what storytellers do, and it was smart of him to compliment his audience), and said I was right about how people would react.

If stranger said, ‘tell me about yourself, tell me about who you are, tell me a story about you,’ how would you react? What would you tell them? Would you be able to answer immediately or would you have to pause and think? Not only because it wouldn’t be something you expected, but because maybe you also label yourself by what you do.

I’m a friend (who makes friends work)

Honestly, it’s also about words. If a stranger said to me ‘tell me about yourself’ I might feel my personal space encroached upon (in spite of this public blog, I am a private person). But I wouldn’t feel as defensive as if the stranger said to me ‘who are you?’.

But the two questions ask the same thing, don’t they?

He also asked us during the session to tell the person seated next to us what gave us joy, and to think about if the thing that gave us joy, that was our passion, aligned with what we did.

Does it?

Tell me a story about who you are.