Gratitude and Grief

I've been enjoying my Friday morning yoga class, so when the teacher announced she'd be hosting an extra class on Thanksgiving morning, I signed up, figuring it would be a good way to stop and breathe for a bit on what was sure to be a hectic morning.

The class was titled "Flow with Gratitude", but when we started, she, with her characteristic care for the whole person, gave us permission to not be feeling grateful. I'm not sure why her words made a difference for me, but after she said that, I was able to feel all the other emotions riding beneath the gratitude I was feeling that morning.

I found myself in touch with my gratitude that I am still here, despite my bout with cancer and that near miss on the freeway a few weeks ago. I am thankful I have people who love me, food aplenty, a warm and sturdy house to live in. I have candles to light the darkness.

But I also found a whole pile of grief I'd been trying to ignore. I miss my people who have died. I cry for the health struggles of my friends and family. News of discord clangs loudly in my feeds, and my heart hurts for people caught in the world's pervasive and invasive web of violence.

All is NOT well.

And that has always been true. With life comes death and struggle and learning and steps forward and steps back. Following the flow of the class, holding both my gratitude and my grief in my awareness, I found an elusive balance. 

Not all is well. True. But some things are well. And, perhaps, it is because both are true that I am able to be thankful. Perhaps.

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!

Hello, Sylvester!

From the time she was little, my daughter wanted a dog. A dog who would love her best, a dog to walk and to hug and to be her companion. I tried, when she was in high school, to fulfill her wish, and adopted Binky, a small poodle. Unfortunately, Binky was not in on the plan, and decided he was my dog, NOT her dog. She'd take him for walks, and he'd drag on the leash, not wanting to be separated from me. He slept in my room, and was my constant companion as I moved around the house. His happiest welcome home dance was reserved for me. *sigh*

So, after Kate finished grad school and moved to California, she figured it would be a good time to try again. She bought Sylvester as a puppy. This time, I wasn't around to mess things up, and sure enough, Sylvester was a good dog for her. She and Lexi LOVED having him around, and he was her dog. He loved going for walks with her; his happiest tail-wagging welcome home dance was reserved for her arrival any time she arrived back after leaving the house. Dog life was good.

Then, this fall, Kate's work routine changed. She's away from home for another thirty minutes to an hour each day, and Sylvester started getting stressed. He'd passed his I'm-OK-home-alone threshold, and started licking himself raw and showing other signs of anxiety. Kate tried her best to help him adjust, but the one thing he needed, more people time, was the one thing she couldn't give him right now.

Wanting to help, I offered to let him stay with me for a while. It'll be a year or more before her schedule eases, and since I'm home a LOT more than she is these days, I thought he might be happier here. She didn't want to let him go. (I didn't want for her to have to let him go.) But he was not living his best doggy life the way things were, so she sadly started looking at ways to get him here.

He's too tall to travel in the cabin of an airplane, and air cargo transport is very, very stressful for dogs. We thought about meeting halfway, in Albuquerque, NM. Trolling the internet for options, I found a site called Citizen Shippers. Yup. It turns out you can Uber your dog across the country.

She pulled up the reservation form, and put in the from / to addresses, along with a short description of Sylvester. Within thirty minutes, she had over 20 bids from people willing to drive the dog here for a reasonable fee. (It ended up costing about the same as it would have for us to meet up halfway.)

A week later, Sylvester was on his way. Three days after they picked him up, he arrived on my doorstep. He was tired, confused and thirsty, but, as a pleasant surprise, not overly stressed.

He's been here for just a few days, and is starting to settle in quite well. He's still confused, but he remembers me from my visits to California, and is starting to accept me as a good-enough substitute for HER. I'm rather liking having him here, but Monster does NOT agree.

Monster took one look at Sylvester when he walked in the door, vaulted for the top tier of the cat tree, and there he's stayed. He comes down to eat and drink at night after Sylvester is safely penned upstairs with me for the night. I'm sad for him; I don't know how to help him be more comfortable. I am hoping time will work its magic, and they will decide to ignore each other. At least they're not fighting; I figure that's a good sign.

I'm pretty sure this will work out well in the long run. Kate is no longer worried about Sylvester. I am happy to keep him here as long as she needs me to; he is a good dog. And Monster will eventually decide he misses his box with water, and come down from his perch to establish his rightful place at the top of the household hierarchy. I hope.

All The Leaves Are Brown

And the sky is gray. I went for a walk, on a winter's day. 

But I'm not actually dreaming of California at the moment, which is where I depart from the Mamas & the Papas (for those old enough to know the song).

Rather, I am in the process of snugging in for the winter. Our fall warmth hung on for an extra week and a bit, but when it decided it was done, it was done. Over the course of just a few hours one rainy afternoon, the temps fell from the seventies to the thirties, and there they've stayed. Shirtsleeves to heavy coats; go directly to winter. Do not pass jean-jacket weather, do not collect $200.

I have been pleased to find my mood has not dropped in line with the temperatures. I think getting people back in my life on a regular basis really was the key to begin moving on from the bridge between here and there, from liminal space. The women I've met at Woodside have begun to connect into a loose-knit posse. Just once, we've even gathered outside the gym! It's been good for my soul.

Since I didn't have to spend as much of it combating a sinking mood, I had energy, before the cold hit, to finish up my outside fall wish list. Now I'm able to sit inside, look at my yard, and just enjoy the changing scenery, without having the drumbeat of undone chores echoing in my head.

I thoroughly enjoyed my walk through the park yesterday. The crowds have disappeared with the warm weather and taken most of their carelessly discarded debris with them. With many of the people gone, I heard more birdsong as I walked along the trails. I'm not sure if the birds are singing more, or if I just had more bandwidth to pay attention to nature because I wasn't not cussing at (and picking up what I could of) the trash. Either way, it was lovely.

I've also had the luxury of getting to ease into the time change. If I'm tired at nine, which just last week was ten, I go to bed. If I don't want to get up in the dark, I don't have to - I can just lie in bed and doze and watch the sky turn light, even if I'm done sleeping. (I gotta admit - I really like the part of my life where I don't have to rush out of the house in the morning.)

This year, I don't feel so sad as I wave goodbye to the growing season. I'm not afraid of the coming dark. I am looking forward to the season of candles and warm soups and stews. Of hot tea before bedtime and quilts on the bed. Who knows, maybe we'll get some snow, and I will have a great excuse to have a snow day, and pull out a jigsaw puzzle.

The trees have started their winter's rest. This year, I think I am ready to try to join them.

Close Call

It was an ordinary afternoon, one day last week. The sky was clear as I drove home from my weekly karate workout. (I run katas with a friend of mine in Blue Springs.) The cars on the freeway were moving at a good clip, I was in the center lane. I knew it was one of the last nice days of autumn, and so I had the top down as I drove. I was content, listening to the radio, enjoying the wind in my hair.

Then.

As I began to catch up with an older black pickup, the back loaded with big black trash bags full of somethings, the wind and a bump in the road caught one of the bags, and it flew from the back of the truck to land on the road in front of me.

Time did its stretchy thing as I gripped the wheel and looked to the right and to the left, only to find moving to either lane was not an option. A quick glance in my rearview mirror told me there was no one immediately on my tail, and I quickly braked to avoid running over the obstacle which had landed squarely in my lane. 

I'd managed to slow down enough to maneuver safely around the bag when I heard the blast of a horn. My mirrors showed a large black pickup with a lift kit barreling down on me - clearly the driver hadn't seen the bag in the roadway, or the flash of my tail lights as I braked. *ARGH* I switched my foot from the brake to the gas, and was able to accelerate just enough for him to have space to swerve around me, narrowly missing my bumper. I don't think I was breathing as I braced myself and ran directly over the bag, which gave way with a small thump.

It was full of clothes. Not glass, or metal, or wood, or, or, or, or the multitude of objects which would have caused serious damage to my car. Clothes.

I gave a huge sigh of relief as time returned to its normal rate of passing. Close doesn't just count in horseshoes and hand grenades after all.

I caught up again with the offending black pickup as I drove to the nearest exit, where I could safely stop to assess the damage to my car. The truck driver, an older white man, was clearly clueless. His hands locked on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, he had absolutely no idea the chaos he'd almost caused with his failure to secure his load. *sigh*

The damage to my car is slight - there is a small dent in the bumper and the license plate is bent. 

The damage to my spirit is taking a bit of time to repair - my heightened awareness of the fragility of 'normal' has yet to appreciably drop. It could have, a moment later, if I wouldn't have, if the second truck hadn't blared his horn - I've been awake several nights trying to quiet the voice of it-might-have-been.

It might have been, but it wasn't. And I'm beginning to realize that if I spend the next few weeks acutely aware of all I almost lost, it is not such a bad thing. While I'm doing better these days, I still sometimes catch myself ruminating on all the things that are wrong in my world, and forgetting to be grateful for the things that are right.

The incident was a stark reminder of what I think of as my Libby Lesson: Don't let fear win. Remember to Live today. It is the only day any of us have.

In the wee hours of last night, when the voice started its litany of doom, I managed to turn down the volume by beginning a second list, one enumerating the good things in my life - and drifted back to sleep shortly thereafter, a smile on my face.

Good Is.