you choose your way
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thank you
I began this post with the intention to say,
Thank You.
And in this moment, I take a deep breath and choose to remain focused on my intention. Because even as I stare at news that causes my brow to furrow, my throat to close up and my eyes to scrunch in search of understanding, there is something else spied from the berth of my vision.
I began writing this blog every other week in January of 2017. And so in this January of 2021, I have had the chance for 4 beautiful years to write for you. Over 100 times. And for me. To have your eyes read my words. And in that time, in some way, I have been connected with people that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Regularly. With the flow of ideas toward your considering head and heart, we have met each other in some space made by our togetherness.
I suppose that is where we can continue to grow. You. Me. All of us.
We read and hear about other’s experiences and thoughts. We listen closely. We watch. We allow different ideas to resonate at the level that we can understand. Have compassion. Provide whatever opening our own heart can muster.
Not to change them.
But to heal us.
Us.
And in bringing ourselves back toward a center – a center of knowing and not knowing all at once – we will discover what is meant to be next.
I am grateful for your eyes.
I am grateful for your hearts.
I am grateful for your choice to pause here with me for the last four years.
May I offer to others the same gifts that you have offered to me.
Thank you. Deeply and truly in this New Year of 2021, thank you for this opportunity to be with you.
It is so. very. very. good to be with you.
Take care. And let’s remember to exhale sometimes,
Rachel
what do i know?
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oh, see that sparkle?
Before the story share for this week, let’s jump ahead for a quick second. A final call to join me this coming Saturday, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m., for a virtual therapeutic yoga class and share session for whatever holiday gooble-de-gook is making its way through your brain and heart. This time together is as much a gift for me as it is for you, so instead of a class fee, please make a donation to a charity of your choice.
Grief, Grit, and Gratitude
All levels therapeutic yoga class and share session
Saturday, December 19th
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Zoom link here for session (live 15 minutes prior)
RSVP appreciated to rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com
All levels therapeutic yoga class and share session
Saturday, December 19th
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Zoom link here for session (live 15 minutes prior)
RSVP appreciated to rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com
And moving on to the Now…
—
—
Our kid. The 10 year old. He almost asked THE question this weekend.
No, not that question.
The other question.
The Santa question.
And I wondered as I saw the train coming down the tracks, what would I say? How would I explain the discrepancy between “is” and “ought” on this since birth belief?
And then it hit me.
The magic.
I would explain to him that Santa teaches us magic.
In a world that is filled with it but forgets to notice it.
Santa teaches us earth shaking, bone rattling, heart shivering magic.
Because as we age, that thing that we now call serendipity. Or chance. Or coincidence.
Is actually a falling of the dominoes.
A law of attraction.
A knowing of the Web before we know.
What we need.
How we need it.
“What the hell is she talking about?” someone might say right about here.
May I present my case.
Last week, I desired a treat. A treat of a sweet bread to be specific. I desired it on Tuesday. I desired it again on Wednesday. But I made the conscious choice to refrain and planned to wait until Friday morning to buckle myself into my minivan and drive down to La Farm Bakery to stare at their piles of carb loaded amazingness (croissants and muffins and pain au chocolat, oh my) and pick the ONE that called to me for a new home.
In my belly.
You see, I have learned (when I remember) that delayed gratification increases the joy, the indulgence, the sitting deeply into the moment with a choice and not an impulse.
And so, I waited.
Over and over on Wednesday, I wanted that treat. And I thought,
“Friday morning. You can get it on Friday morning.”
Over and over on Thursday during the kiddos’ virtual schooling, I thought,
“I want that treat.” And then the response, “You can get it on Friday morning.”
Just wait.
And then.
Thursday evening.
My children run across the street to enjoy their weekly date with our 90 year old neighbor. They roll her trashcans up the driveway and park them in the garage for her. They race up the three garage stairs and into her house. They greet her with grins and chirps of hello (or so I imagine as I’ve never witnessed this long standing ritual). They skip to her pantry and choose their menu. They exchange pleasantries and answer the wise woman’s questions about their week. They canter across the white linoleum floor and around the corner into the green carpeted sunroom. They sit in their special places – my daughter in the recliner arm chair and my son on the end of the couch with the built in side table and cupholder. “Fancy skylights” overhead and glass surrounding them in display of the deeply wooded backyard. They eat a plateful of cookies and candies and drink Sprites. They watch shows that she has taped for them. They pop up, say thank you (I *think* and pray they say “thank you”) and they race each other back out the garage door, down the 3 stairs, across the street and blow in our front door.
SLAM!!!
But this week. Something different.
They are carrying something across the street for their return trip. A bit more careful in their steps and a bit more mindful as one opens the door.
“A COFFEE CAKE!!!” Ru exclaims in her top octave. “She made us a coffee cake!”
“She did!” John echoes. “And her house smells amazing! It was so nice of her!!! Look, Mom!!!”
I stand at the top of our foyer stairs. They hand me the tea ring cake on its paper plate covered in a tight sheath of plastic wrap.
I grin ear to ear.
My sweet bread has arrived.
And an evening early.
Friday morning’s treat is here.
And I did not go get it.
I just waited.
I waited and Magic arrived on my doorstep.
–
So, no. My son did not ask THE question this weekend. But if he had, my response would have been.
“Magic, kiddo, is very real. It is all around us. But we tend to miss it because we are going so fast. So far. Magic answers us throughout our days. Santa is a big and bold and loud way to learn magic when we are children. As we age, magic camouflages in the hubbub of life. So, we must be quieter too. But magic never fades. It never leaves. It is always there. Waiting to be noticed and held dear and danced in just like the joy of Christmas morning surprises.”
Yes, that is what I will say.
Because that is what I feel.
And that is what I choose to believe.
The childhood magic of Santa is a doorway. You all probably walked through that door. Me too. You are in the realm of magic just as I am. Just as they are. Just as we all are.
May we be still enough to see it abound.
With love and gratitude in this heartbreaking and joyous life,
Rachel
come practice with me
As I re-read last week’s blog post after it was published, I giggled at myself. Nowhere – absolutely nowhere – in the email subject or header line did I mention the fact that there was an actual class offering included.
oopsie.
Email marketing folks for sure rolled their eyes knowingly at my novice oversight.
Self-awareness junkies may have thought, “Well, that makes sense. If she is so in the “I don’t wanna'” head space, then of course she didn’t mention her teaching in the subject.”
And all of this is true. But the part that makes me smile at little ol’ me here and now is that 7 days later, I DO wanna’. Fortunately for me, last week when I wrote, I trusted that my boat would come around the bend and the rapids would settle and I would be able to see the landscape again instead of dodging rocks this way and that.
Ah, the river.
Ah, this raft.
Ah, the sights and sounds on the banks surrounding.
And so. Once again, I invite you…
this time with not only open heart but also aligned mind.
Please join me on Saturday, December 19th to move, breathe, listen and – if desired – to share what is swirling for you this holiday season. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. I am not charging for the session but donation to a charity of your choice is encouraged – whether $5 or $50, please spread your good intentions.
Grief, Grit, and Gratitude
All levels therapeutic yoga class and share session
Saturday, December 19th
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Zoom link here for session (live 15 minutes prior)
RSVP to rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Zoom link here for session (live 15 minutes prior)
RSVP to rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com
Forward this invitation along to anyone who comes to mind. To anyone who braids grief, grit and gratitude throughout their days. Just like me. Probably just like you. Just like so many whom we know and hold dear.
Take good care. Now and always,
Rachel
i don’t wanna’
I don’t wanna’.
I don’t wanna’ write.
I don’t wanna’ do yoga.
I don’t wanna’ go on a walk.
I don’t wanna’ meditate.
I don’t wanna’ eat healthily.
I don’t wanna’ clean the playroom.
I don’t wanna’ travel.
I don’t wanna’ have a migraine.
I don’t wanna’ make a decision on my kids’ school for next semester.
I don’t wanna’ feel that spot in my back.
I don’t wanna’ have that racing heart sneak into my day.
I don’t wanna’
I don’t wanna’
i don’t wanna.
And, I don’t wanna’ teach.
Or share.
Or write. (I think I already said that one.)
I don’t want to be in service to anything else.
I want to do what I want to do.
I want to feel good AND to do whatever, or NOT do whatever, I want to do.
bah.
This game is the pits.
(But you see what’s happening, right? I’m writing. I don’t want to write. So, I’m writing about not writing. shhh… don’t tell me. Let’s keep going.)
I don’t wanna’ is a well practiced art form for me.
“I haven’t written in a week,” I say to my husband who has popped upstairs for a few minutes during his lunch break. “And I don’t want to. At all. I wrote everyday since May for at least 750 words but now I don’t want to do it.”
“huh. Like exercise,” he observes.
“Exactly,” I respond. “It’s just like exercise. To the point it is something I know my body loves and needs to feel its best, and yet I fight kicking and screaming to not do it anyway.”
Screw it. The things I know are “good” for me. The talking. The sharing. The truth telling. The writing. The eating well. The good rest. The outside. The Being Here Now with the godforsaken guaranteed sooth saying of the sun, the trees, the wind and the hard packed earth.
Screw it.
I don’t wanna’.
What a funny and unrefined segue to an invitation to spend time with me. But that’s what is next. Because, my well practiced “I don’t wanna'” tantrum doesn’t mean “I’m not gonna'”. Those are different words altogether, see?
“I don’t wanna'” tends to be a sneaky way of me fighting all that is. Finding my last “ROAR!!!!!” to take back control with my mighty stiff arm to reality.
and.
“I don’t wanna'” is a harbinger of my grief. For the messy “is.” For the inescapable “ought.” For the crash of two currents moving from opposite directions toward center.
“I don’t wanna'” tells me I’m getting closer. Closer to more truth.
The truth that states clearly and directly,
“I don’t want this current truth to be The Truth anymore. I’m all done now, please.
Next Act.”
Next Act beyond the pandemic. Beyond structural racism. Beyond my kids’ lives turned upside down. Beyond my own business twisted into a pretzel. Beyond my nephew’s death. Beyond the epidemic of suicide. Beyond the suffering of the world. Beyond my fears of doing more. Beyond my tired. Beyond my busted up heart. Beyond beyond beyond…….
Oh….. Look there. Out the window. The birds are picking through the roof leaves, browned and dried, for small bits of water. Finding the sustenance in between the death. The decay. The memory of what lived before.
Right. So, let’s do that.
Let’s “I don’t wanna'” Grinch it with our Grief – our tremendously unholdable grief, our small pebbled grief and all sizes in between – and let’s allow whatever transformation to come of its own accord.
Perhaps Gratitude.
Perhaps Grit.
Perhaps Grace.
Join me on Saturday, December 19th to move, breathe and share. Or, if you desire, to sit, stew, settle and sort through. All is welcome. RSVPs are appreciated but not required. The session is free but donation to a charity of your choice is encouraged – whether $5 or $50, please spread your good intentions.
Please forward this invitation along to anyone who comes to mind.
Grief, Grit, and Gratitude
All levels therapeutic yoga class and share session
Saturday, December 19th
3:00-5:00 p.m.
Zoom link here for session (live 15 minutes prior)
RSVP to rachel@pureresilienceyoga.com
See you soon. I sincerely hope.
Rachel
don’t break the rules
A text message from my husband to his family late last week includes:
“I’m grumpy today.”
The subsequent replies from my husband’s family read along the lines of:
“What!? Don’t be grumpy!”
“There’s no point in being grumpy.”
“What’s up with you!?”
“There’s no point in being grumpy.”
“What’s up with you!?”
And his well meaning father the next day (in all seriousness) says to him over the phone,
“I’m really worried about this grumpy thing…”
hmm.
(Insert my single eyebrow raise here.)
(Insert my single eyebrow raise here.)
To all this, I say,
Pshaw
Pshaw
Pshaw.
Grumpy is a thing.
So is rainy and cloudy.
And we don’t tell rainy and cloudy it’s wrong for being here.
So bring on the grumpy.
Bring on the tantrums of frustrated.
Bring on the “WTF?”
Bring on the “Heck, yeah!”
Bring on the steaming rage.
Bring on the tears of bottomless grief.
Bring on the fits of giggles.
Bring on the furrowed brows.
Bring on the “eh – who gives a crap?”
Bring on the joyous revere.
Bring on the flurry of fountainous feeling.
It’s all shades of nature.
It’s all a flavor to taste and let go of.
It’s all a sliver of being here.
Sure, you don’t have to add tinder to the flames.
But you don’t have to smother them either.
Trust them. Let them burn down their kindling.
Turn to coals.
Cool to ash.
Go on with your grumpy self.
All of you is welcome.
Journey on starship,
Rachel
what do you see?
I have some words that I wrote in a journal years ago,
There is no comfort in growth,
And no growth in comfort.
hmm.
Curious words I put together.
I suppose they are partly true.
But they are not the whole truth. (Is it ever really?)
Because if we can allow ourselves to trust the growth, to know that it is uncomfortable but that we will emerge from the other side changed, transmorphed, evolved in some way big or small – but in all ways important – then we can find some shade of comfort in it.
The growth then lives beside the comforts.
The growth – and discomfort – is not the only visitor to this room of Now.
The sunshine and the moon flow. The dirt and the breeze breathe. The warm fire and the cooling, smooth waters swirl. The aliveness of nature and humans all around us churns now as for time immemorial. A soft blanket; warm and perfumed bath waters; the taste of a meal made with love and care; the words of a wise teacher; the sound of a familiar song; the company of a friend or stranger with kind, seeing eyes; the space between the branches in the trees towering above; the magic knowing of a plant that contracts at night and opens in the morning; the photographs of days gone by filled with joy and innocence; the hot cup of tea; the relics of past travels on a shelf.
Look around you.
Right now, look around.
All of this lies side by side with the growth.
With the change.
That is ever there from seed placed in dirt spun into fruit suspended in air.
Supported by the grace of comforts that feed from bottom up into
saplings
and top down into
tendrils.
There might not be comfort in growth and there might not be growth in comfort.
But there is – undoubtedly – comfort surrounding growth and – as we evolve this awareness and trust – growth in our deep knowing of comfort.
Look wisely. Look quietly. Just wait. See more.
Take such good care,
Rachel
dragon riding
Ruthie is beside herself tonight. Which means wailing like a wounded animal in the next room,
“I want Mama, I want Mama!”
I can understand how one might roll their eyes at these words on this page while thinking, “Oh, another temper tantrum from a kid.” But this wail is different than a cajoling or manipulative wail. This is the sound of sheer terror. The pit of darkness. The thick woods of deepest night.
It is also the sound of pure emotional meets physical meets mental exhaustion.
The triumvirate directs the dive.
After a few moments of my eyes on the Zoom screen but my heart cast into the next room with my daughter, I tell my Racial Affinity Group* that I need to step away for a few minutes. This terrified, cornered animal needs me more. She needs me most.
I walk in and sit down beside her on the bed. “Can I touch you?”
A barely perceptible nod. She trembles, she heaves, she gasps for breath, her body convulses, tears stream down her red face from her saucer like eyes. Her gaze no sooner finds me than tears away to look at something more solid. Less unpredictable than a human. The soft quilt on top of her bed, or the solid wall behind her, or the flat plane of the clean white ceiling above.
She writhes and moans. In our ancestors’ time, someone might have called her possessed. I call her a feeler. Of big stuff. Of the world inside her little paper skin and bird bones. It twirls and dances and every once in a while it also winds like vines around those bones. She gets caught. Even as another wind of intensity blows in through her pores, she clamps down. This armor she adorns locks tighter around her, the pressure builds, it inches toward explosion…
With no way out.
A dragon. Born free and flying this way and that. Heat on her bare back. She is riding it, this dragon. It is terrifying as she dips and dives.
Trust her. I must trust her.
I know this place.
You see, I am a dragon rider too.
I am a feeler. I am “emotional.”
I am emotion-all.
I am made up of them all.
And so, I feel them all. Deeply and richly, emotions coarse through me.
So they do in my children. So they do in my Ru.
“Ruthie, you feel a dragon inside of you right now. It is real and it is huge. And you’re doing a great job being with it. I’m here with you.” I sit. I watch. I feel me while she feels her. My hand lightly upon her leg.
Her eyes connect with mine but she is still in a twist, a violent fight for air above the thrashing waters in her mind and heart. My voice comes out steady and clear. I speak to her whole being, not just her eyes. “I will come back Ru. You can say anything you want to me or to Daddy, you can throw anything, you can do anything, you can hit anything and I am still coming back. When my call is done at 9:00, I will come back here. Do you understand?”
She holds my gaze. She nods.
A solidity begins to return to her liquid self.
I can feel it coarse through me as well.
The ground is returning for this little being.
“Do you want me to get you Foster to cuddle and my soft blanket for while I am gone?”
She tries out her remembered voice, “Yes. And could you open my door?”
I nod. “Should I turn on your birds sound to keep you company?”
Her head moves gently up and down.
I open the door and see her big brother standing there. I ask him if he’d be willing to come sit with her. This trembling, recovering dragon rider.
“Yeah, of course. Can I bring my book?” he asks with the alertness of a meerkat. Ready to sit vigil by his warrior sister is this warrior prince.
Ru nods.
He goes in. I bring my childhood polar bear in the red striped sweater, Foster. The soft blanket that my sister gave me three Christmases ago. I kiss Ru. With all of my love and my heart, I kiss this warrior princess on the forehead. She sighs gently and allows the bed to accept her more deeply. More lovingly into its give.
An hour later, when my call is complete, I return to her room.
“Did the dragon move through?” I ask. She shrugs and gives me a side eyed glance so I continue, “I guess it is back in the egg now, huh?”
“No,” she says with her eyes directly on mine, “it’s back in its cave.”
She smiles. A perfect hint of lilt to the lifting corners of her mouth.
“You did a great job, Ru. The dragon is big and scary when it flies inside. I feel it too sometimes. What helped you when it was flying around?”
The quiet timid voice creeps toward me, “Having three people around me – you, Daddy, and John. And my door open. Because I get scared when it’s closed.”
“mmm…” I nod. “I feel so alone when the dragon flies in me. I’m glad you know that having others close by helps you be with it.”
She nods.
She is clear on this.
This point is important, you see.
We are. Together. She and I. (You and me. Them and us.) Feeling the world take its hits. Letting them build up. Using this game changing power we have. The power to feel. Harnessing the invisible, wing flapping, tree crashing creature that can fly through uncharted waters and over unmapped lands of our inner (and outer) terrain.
We have work to do, these little feelers and I.
I will not shut them down.
I will learn their craft and we will fly together.
We have work to do.
For this big, bold, beautiful, broken world.
May we each do our work in our very own fire breathing, scaled belly, dipping diving and free falling kind of way.
Ride high and rest low, fellow dragon rider.
Take good care,
Rachel
*As outlined in Ruth King’s exceptional book Mindful of Race, a small group dedicated to investigating and transforming our individual and collective racial habits of harm.
how this tumbleweed finds her brakes
Nora is practicing her letters.
In virtual school.
Sometimes it is smooth as the chocolate silk pie I used to make with my Grandmother.
Sometimes it is torturous like the pitchfork my father accidentally put through his brand new loafers as a child. (My Grandma was not pleased with this.)
Repetition. I get is as a teaching tool. I really do.
But damn this way of practicing the damn letter “A” over and over and over again. Leaving it and returning again. Day by day. Page by page.
Nora collapses chest on table. She holds her forehead in her hands. She rolls her pencil across the table. “I don’t WANT to do it anymore!” she deflate whines.
Me either, kid. Me either.
But A is where you’re at.
Dot. Mountain side. Mountain side. Bridge.
And where am I at?
I want to make mountains move with my words. And with my actions.
I want to find THE action that will change this whole pretzel mess of a world with its conflicting minds and opinions.
With its common ground of desire for safety and security.
With its scitter scatter explosions over how to get from A to B, let alone A to Z.
And I want it done yesterday.
For now for later and forever more.
Hmm… tricky order I’ve put in at the counter. (Especially because this appears to be a “make your own” sandwich shop. No full service in this place.)
Sometimes I just want to lie down beside Nora as she hangs on the table.
Sometimes I do.
Out of gas. But I can’t be. Because this heart’s still a-tickin’. So I’ve got work to do.
But I can press pause. I can quit. For 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 30 minutes. Or a day.
I can quit if I need to.
Quitting isn’t a problem. For real.
Not coming back is a problem.
So I come back.
r-e-a-c-h
GRAASP
pull(llllllll)
I am dragging myself across this wasteland veiling alchemy.
All the while finding ways. When I can. To go wider. To go broader. To go higher. To go further out than these four walls. Than this sometimes prison of a body and whirligig of a mind.
Learning again.
(Uh, what am I learning again?)
To be here. To practice not leaving when it is time to be here. To practice not escaping when it is time to be here. To feel the burning in my ears. The boredom. Seeing my Nu’s deep brown eyes. Hearing Ruthie’s soft thin voice. Allowing John’s belly sighing and eye rolling commentary on life. My chest cinching like a pair of shoelaces being pulled to a for-sure level of security.
Just practicing. Being here.
Finding my way. Finding our way.
Repetition.
Dot. Mountain side. Mountain side. Bridge.
Quitting when it’s time to quit.
Returning when it’s time to return.
In the vein of Mother Teresa,
the work is not to do great things.
It is to do small things with great care.
I am moving with great care. I am thinking with great care. I am holding this world – and myself in it – with great care.
May I be held in great care.
May you be held in great care.
May we all be held in great care.
Go gentle on the brakes now. Easy does it as we find our way.
Rachel