Feeling the Feelings

I have a couple of blog posts in the pipeline and I internally debated which one to post today.  Both have my usual positive bent because most of the time that’s where I live.  I’m an optimist, a glass full and overflowing “this too shall pass” girl who strives to look for the good in every day.  If I am feeling blue, I generate a list of things I’m thankful for.  If I’m sad, I focus on all the reasons I have to be happy.  If I’m upset or irritated, I take a walk outside and breathe in the fresh air and exhale the anger or frustration. 

Today I’m blue and sad and maybe even a teeny bit angry.  I would usually keep telling myself that I need to snap out of it.  I would sternly remind myself that I need to stop moping, stay busy, listen to upbeat music, go for a walk, watch some inspiring videos, tackle a project, or read a funny book.  I may not be able to change my circumstances, but I can sure control how I respond to them. 

I sent a message to a friend earlier in the week that I was struggling a bit and was looking to be cheered up.  This person usually always has a way of making me laugh with their offbeat perspective and similarly quirky sense of humor.  I didn’t get back the comical message I expected.  Instead what this wise friend said, in essence, is that sometimes you need to live in the struggle; that sometimes you need to let yourself feel whatever it is you are feeling.  That may mean just hanging in and hanging on until it works its way through.  Sometimes, it seems, forcing yourself to be positive only prolongs actually dealing with the feelings.  Working up a false sense of optimism is like putting a ferocious animal in a cage and going about your business without considering the fact that at some point you’re going to have to let it out.  It may sit in that cage and calm down, or it may only become more dangerous the longer you wait, but it will eventually need to be freed. 

Today I’m allowing myself to feel whatever it is I’m feeling without trying to whip up a batch of fake positivity or platitudes.  I know there is truth in the idea that I need to accept those feelings, let them ruminate a bit, and then let go of them.  In the meantime, this same friend offered to commiserate and hang with me there in the darkness.  It was not comic relief, but it was a more important kind of benevolence that reached all the way into my heart.  That kindness did more to make me feel hopeful than any joke could have.   

I don’t know what you could be feeling today, but know that it’s ok to feel it.  It’s also ok to reach out to a friend.  Sometimes just what you need to hear comes from unexpected places. 

The Happy List

Recently an episode of a television show I like to watch introduced me to the idea of a “happy list”.  The premise was that one of the characters had just been through a cancer scare and had finally gotten a clean bill of health. She determined that she was now going to reprioritize her life and spend more time doing the things that genuinely made her happy.  She was no longer going to set aside those things and get caught up in the stress and busyness of life.  She declared that the saying, “life is too short” was true and it was time she made a “happy list” and began ticking off the things that brought her happiness. 

I happen to believe that there is a difference between happiness and joy.  Being happy is often a temporary condition depending on circumstances.  Lots of life events and moments can make us feel happy.  Sunny days make me happy.  At the moment I can’t exactly remember what those feel like, but I know sunshine makes me feel great.  Many of us think that if we just had a new car, or a vacation, or more money, or…… then we would be happy.  Joy is something deeper.  It’s an inner contentment that doesn’t change with circumstances.  We can be internally joyful even when we go through hard things. Joy is a mindset, a permanent deep feeling of the soul.

I’ve been struggling with the January blues this week, so while I know that my joy is still deep down in me somewhere, feeling happy seems like it might be helpful as well about now.  So, I present my “happy list”.  These are some things I can do or think about that make me happy even if it’s only temporary. 

 

Three things I’m good at:   writing, creating, planning

Three favorite vacation spots:  Hawaii, Oregon Coast, Western Canada

Three favorite movies:  Rain Man, Leap Year, Good Will Hunting

Three things I want to try or do again:  ziplining, horseback riding, hot air ballooning

Three things to do for fun:  outings with friends, wine tasting, camping

Three favorite books:  Small Great Things, Unbroken, The Day the World Came to Town

Three favorite activities: walking on the beach, taking nature photos, hanging with my grandkids

Three places I want to go: Italy, Outer Banks, Ireland

Three happy foods: fish tacos, loaded homemade BBQ burger, salsa

Things that always make me smile:  beautiful sunsets, hummingbirds, babies

Three best times of year:  summer, summer, summer

 

What’s on your happy list?   

In Search of Sunshine

Often this time of year in the Pacific Northwest we get a long spell of gray and foggy skies. This, in addition to the very short spans of daylight, takes its toll mentally.  Not to mention any names, but some people get grumpy.  All attempts to remain cheerful go into hiding with the sun.  However, I made a promise to myself and those who have to live with me, that this year I would not openly whine and complain every day, and I would do my best to remain optimistic about the fact that spring is still two months away.  As of yesterday, I failed.  I humbly acknowledge that I feel all done with January.  

I have readers from all over the world, and I know a number of you are currently feeling done with the heat you are experiencing.  Feel free to skip the rest of this posting.  For those of us stuck in seemingly endless gloomy days, I'm sharing some photos of my favorite atmospheric phenomena with hopes that they return soon.  So here's to 56 days till the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere!  (Click on the first photo for a sunshiny slide show!)

When Kindness Wins

"If the terrorists had hoped their attacks would reveal the weaknesses in western society, the events in Gander proved its strength."

Books are my preferred form of escape.  In this age of all things technical, the availability of things to watch makes it easy get absorbed in the screen.  But I still love to plop down with a book with real pages.  I usually have several on the go at any one time, but sometimes there will be one that I can’t put down so it takes priority.

Someone recommended a book to me a while back, but it wasn’t until September of last year that I got it into my Amazon cart and placed the order.  It arrived right away, but I still had a few others I was reading, so it went to the bottom of my “current reads” pile.  I was struggling to get through one of the books in the pile, so I moved this one up the list.  Once I started, every other book got set aside.  The book is The Day the World Came to Town by Jim DeFede.  I was especially interested because Jim had once been a staff writer for our local newspaper, The Spokesman Review. 

The Day the World Came to Town is the story of 38 jetliners bound for the United States from all over the world on September 11, 2001.  That monumental day in history was the day that the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York were levelled by airplanes taken over by terrorists.  Another crashed into the Pentagon and another, directed toward the nation’s capital, was brought down in a field in Pennsylvania.  It was that day that stopped time.  Once it was understood that these acts were intentional, US airspace was closed.  There were over 4,500 aircraft in US airspace that immediately had to find places to land. Suddenly those 38 jetliners headed for the United States had to be rerouted. 

One of the available airfields was a large former military airport in Gander, Newfoundland.  When it opened in 1938, it was the largest airport in the world.  After World War 2, it became a refueling hub for commercial airliners and private jets from everywhere.  When panic ensued after the US was shut down, Gander offered a place for so many planes to safely land.  And so they did, with their 6600 passengers and crew members.  This is the story of how the small town of Gander, with its approximately 10,000 residents, became refuge for each and every one of those passengers and flight crew members stranded far from home and their original destinations in the US. 

The author did so much research and so many interviews to capture the stories of only a few of those passengers as well as the people of Gander and surrounding towns who dropped what they were doing to welcome and care for 6600 people who had no place to go.  They provided shelter, food, clothing, blankets.  They opened their homes for people to shower and have a hot meal.  They emptied their cupboards and closets.   Local businesses emptied their shelves.  Gander residents loaned their cars, telephones and computers to these strangers. The people of Gander embraced their role and gave up their own comfort to help in any way they could.  There are too many stories of remarkable kindness to even begin to tell them here. 

I was so moved by this book.  It’s not a literary monster.  It’s written simply and factually.  The short chapters skip from person to person as their stories are told.  Most of what happened in Gander was basic human decency.  But what made it so unique was that the friendly little town in a remote part of Canada that few visited stopped life to take on an overwhelming challenge and did so without blinking and with extraordinary kindness and compassion regardless of race, religion, or language barriers. If you’re looking for something to remind you that there’s good to be found in this troubled world, this book will provide just that.  It’s uplifting and inspiring and just the kind of positivity we need in the world today. 

The Dream Lives On - Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Today is a national holiday here in the United States to commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King.  As I read about him and listen to his words, I am struck by the fact that he was assassinated at only 39 years old.  I know some pretty amazing people in their thirties, but few have come close to having the impact of Dr. King.  He was gifted and called to speak on behalf of the poor and for the cause of peace.  He was controversial in his stance about the Vietnam War.  He divided public opinion and willingly put himself in the crossfire.  He was a minister and an activist and the spokesperson of the civil rights movement.  He participated in and led protest marches for blacks’ right to vote, desegregation, labor and other basic civil rights.  He won the Nobel Peace Prize for combatting racial inequality through non-violent resistance. 

His “I Have a Dream” speech was not written into the text of what he planned to say on that day in 1963 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.  But the words that came to him in that moment are the words that we all know and remember to this day.  Here’s an excerpt:

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

So today I want to recognize the contribution of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who followed his heart and his calling in order to transform the minds and hearts of people in our country.  May his words continue to resonate.  

The Power of the Pecking Order

We have an overgrowth of wild turkeys that wander our neighborhood and insert themselves into populated areas.  They are ridiculous birds with very small brains who parade around, hop over fences and then can’t figure out how to hop back.  They can fly, but usually don’t.  They just strut around, scratching the ground for insects, and making a lot of noise.  They multiply quickly.  A female can raise two broods between spring and fall and very often there are a dozen or more baby turkeys in each hatching.  They grow to be huge, so there aren’t a lot of predators that reduce the adult turkey population, or at least few that are willing to take on a giant herd of testy birds. 

Because of all our recent snowfall and lack of food supply, a very large rafter has gathered in our rural neighborhood.  We’ve counted as many as 80 that have chosen to form a community.  They have an interesting habit of sending smaller, younger members into the trees to shake down the berries that have lingered since summer.  The bigger, older citizens scurry around at the base of the trees gobbling up (see what I did there?) the fallen fruit.  The cooperative arrangement seems to work pretty well for them. 

Every so often a member of the turkey community gets singled out and pushed off on their own.  I understand natural selection and survival of the fittest, so this comes as no surprise.  These outcasts wander around alone without the protection of the larger group.  It seems with turkeys, once you’re out, you’re out and not welcome back.  It’s much easier for a single bird to fall victim to predators and they usually disappear after a time. 

Although we humans are supposedly much higher on the intelligence scale, we see this happen in people groups, too.  Like-minded people form “rafters” in which there can become a pecking order.  We’ve all probably experienced the feeling at some point in our lives of being the odd man out.  The ostracizing can be subtle or obvious, but you know it when you feel it.  Sometimes you know why you don’t fit, and other times not so much.  As we evolve and mature, we come to accept that it’s ok not to fit into every group or situation.  We hopefully have gained the confidence to move on without feeling rejected and find where we do fit.  But perhaps some feel like once they’re out, they’re out and the pain of rejection and loneliness is all too real.

In recent years, and especially since Covid and subsequent responses to it, a lot of interesting interaction in people groups has moved online.  Friend groups form over common interests and people who think alike form alliances.  If you disagree or think differently, you become the odd turkey out.  With the protection of our screens, exclusion is easier with the simple click of “mute” or “unfriend” or “delete”.  And in case you haven’t figured this out yet, a non-response is definitely a response. 

I’ve made a number of good friends in the online world, but I mostly keep a safe distance from groups who have strong opinions on topics that I may or may not disagree with.  I know people who thrive in those environments, but I also know people who look for acceptance and don’t find it.  I’ve also been working on reducing the time suck that online platforms can become.  I want to continue to live in the real world with face-to-face conversations and interaction with the nature around me.  I want to continue to check in with my online friends regularly, but check out of sites and groups that have a never-ending cycle of information or conversation that tends to keep us from living the life we have in front of us.  Don’t be afraid to reduce the noise, tune out and then tune in to the space you’re in.  Find your “real life” community, even if it ends up being a bunch of turkeys. 

Watching for Potholes

Every so often, we’ll be humming along, things are going well, stressors are relatively small, worry has taken a backseat and life is, well, good.  “Your blessings are many and your troubles are few” according to a longstanding Irish blessing.

Maybe it has to do with having a few years of life experience, but when I’ve had too many of those easy going days in a row, I begin to start waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Because that’s the natural rotation of life, correct?  A life’s journey is like a road that is sometimes wide and smooth and straight, but also contains areas of tight switchbacks and steep hills and valleys.  When we’re on a nice long, straight stretch of highway, we cruise.  And then we hit a series of potholes.  Those who traverse Spokane County roads this time of year know all about those.  

I had one of those pothole days yesterday.  None of what happened was a giant train wreck, but it had a lot of hazards and little fender benders along the way.  The day started with our furnace dying in the middle of January and just continued to have splashes of unpleasantness scattered throughout.  When you start the day freezing cold before you’ve even had your first cup of coffee, you might have a clue that it could be a challenging day.  And it was.  All day long. 

I began to feel the irritation and impatience churning like a slurry in my gut.  And the worst of it was that I was home alone and couldn’t even vent or take it out on someone else.  The best of it was that I tend to clean when I get grumpy so at least the day was not a total waste.  By the time my husband walked in the door, I had adjusted my attitude to a mild simmer. 

At one point in my afternoon, I recognized that I needed to take a break, and even though I was already cold, I stepped outside, closed my eyes and took some deep gulps of cold, clean air.  I cleared my thoughts and exhaled all the grumbly irritation.  A young whitetail doe wandered past.  I could hear the trickle of a small stream of unfrozen water from our backyard water feature.  Suddenly the events of the day seemed a little less critical.  I was reminded that “this too shall pass” and that there were still things in the day for which to be thankful.

This will not be the last pothole day.  We fall into them on a fairly routine basis.  Hopefully we remember to just breathe, let the churning go, and remind ourselves that things will work out.  Life lessons can sometimes present in the form of a broken furnace.  But the lesson really is that we can own our responses to the potholes so that maybe they just become speed bumps that we can slow down and navigate without major damage to our peace.  And maybe, with a little extra focus and attention, we might even be able to avoid some of the big ones. 

Vertical Vision

As a kid growing up on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, we were taught to walk with eyes down and shoes on.  We had cows, horses, chickens, and the occasional wild animal and they left random calling cards everywhere.  Stepping in fresh manure can be rather unpleasant with or without shoes.  We also had snakes - rattlesnakes and bull snakes and garter snakes.  I had a couple somewhat close calls with rattlers over the years, so paying attention and watching where you were walking was important.  I mostly still look down when I walk out of habit and maybe I’ve saved myself some tripping accidents.  Or maybe it’s an introvert’s way of not making eye contact with someone who might want to stop to chat when we’re not feeling social. 

As we walk with our eyes down, or glued to our phones (I still don’t know how people manage to walk and text at the same time), we miss what’s going on around us.  There’s a lot to see on whatever path we may take in a day.  We should want to be aware of our present location and where we are going.  Navigating walking in the day to day requires horizontal vision, not only to be looking straight ahead, but allowing our peripheral vision to clue us in on what could be coming at us from the side. 

But there’s another kind of vision that is almost more subconscious.  It has to be because if we all walked around looking up there would likely be a lot of collisions.  I call it “vertical vision”.  It’s what gives us the ability to look past this moment, this day, this event, this trouble.  It reminds us that there is someone bigger than anything we are going through at any particular time. 

Remember being small and lying in the grass looking up at the sky?  Remember the magic of tall trees waving in the breeze, and blue skies and fluffy white clouds that formed into shapes of magical things?  Did you ever have those moments of sprawling in the bed of a pickup truck on a starry night and seeing a sky so full of stars that you were overwhelmed by the vastness of the universe?  Remember how the cares of the world just melted away because that moment in time reminded you that there is so much more than whatever happened in your day and the cares were small in comparison?  The concept of looking up for many of us may have to do with the fact that we think of heaven as being “up”, somewhere beyond earth’s atmosphere, where God hangs out. 

I believe there’s great benefit to getting outside yourself and remembering to look up.  It helps with perspective.  It helps us to be more optimistic and hopeful.  It reminds us that looking down or horizontally can keep us stuck in the day to day struggles.  Looking up acknowledges that there’s something bigger than all of us.  Give yourself permission and time to “look up” every day.  Sometimes that means finding a place to get quiet and close your eyes.  Maybe what we’re looking for isn’t what we can see "up there", but guidance from who we can’t see.

Speechless

I'm interrupting your regularly scheduled programming to say......10,000 views!  Who would have thought that this little venture would end up here?  I’m in awe that so many of you would care to read my ramblings.  A thank-you speech seems rather underwhelming in comparison to what I’m actually feeling about this milestone, but I also don’t want to pass up the opportunity to show my gratitude.  So many of you have encouraged, supported, discussed, and given me positive feedback.  If anything I’ve written has inspired you, or made you think, or given you hope, or made you smile then I’ve done what I dreamed of doing.  Thank you all so much – for once I don’t have words.

I have a new project in the works that I hope to complete in 2022 and I have some ideas for what else I might attempt down the road.  In the meantime, I have quite a few blog posts, short essays, and poems bouncing around in my head.  If you choose to continue to read along, you will see many of them.

Thanks for being a part of this “flipside” of my life.  If you’re in a place where you have a dream or an opportunity to try something new, don’t pass it up.  It’s a little scary, but life is too short not to take a risk now and then.  It might be one of the most rewarding things you’ve ever done.  

Generous Grace

If you happened to catch CBS Sunday morning recently, Faith Salie, a CBS News correspondent, did a short expose on grace.  She pointed out that grace has become a popular catch phrase in recent years.  Society talks a lot about extending grace in these challenging times.  For many of us, the concept and understanding of grace came in our Christian upbringings.  It was the idea of unmerited favor by a benevolent God.  The word also came to define a physical attribute that some of us were born with and others not so much.  The best dancers in my early dance classes were “graceful” while others seemed to have two left feet.  “Grace” became a popular name for baby girls after the actress turned princess Grace Kelly, and the name had a resurgence of popularity in the early 2000’s. 

After our son passed away, I coined the term “grace for ignorance” for people who meant well but said things that were not helpful and sometimes even hurtful.  They said them with the best of intentions, but they did so without having the experience to know they caused more pain than comfort.  An example would be “I’m so sorry you lost your son.  You’ll be able to have more.”  Or, “I know exactly how you feel.  I was devastated to lose my great aunt last year.”   I would thank people who said such things, though in my head I was thinking, “you have no idea”.  But I came to understand that you can’t quantify loss and it’s better just to extend grace than try to explain it and hope that life would never teach them the difference. 

Although the world talks a lot about grace these days, I think perhaps it has become something more to say than do.  People actually seem less patient, more intolerant, with anger or irritation bubbling beneath the surface like a big, black, internal tar pit.  Some of us get mired down in the dark side of life, and it’s hard to extend grace when you’re not feeling like you’ve been offered any. 

So what does grace look like in these complicated times?  Perhaps it’s smothering the tar pit with patience, tolerance and kindness – unmerited favor, undeserved grace.  In order to be able to do that, we have to work to keep our internal peace and love for others whether they are loveable or not.  And then it starts with small things – a smile, a kind word, an offer to help.  Sometimes it takes bigger things – letting someone go first, overlooking offenses, keeping your cool when it would be easier to bite back.  It might involve trying to understand where someone else is coming from – not necessarily agreeing with or condoning their behavior, but offering a hand instead of a kick to the curb. 

I have a feeling that practicing grace as a pattern of life likely produces long-lasting ripples.  We’ve all heard of those lines at the drive through where people pay for the person behind them and it continues for several cars.  The idea of “paying it forward” starts with adopting grace as a part of your character that you can grow internally and it produces a whole crop of grace that nourishes not just one person, but a village.  Grace isn’t something that can be forced, it starts in the heart, with tiny seeds that each of us can plant in ourselves, then water, fertilize and harvest.  Farmers of grace, so to speak.  In the right conditions, a well-raised crop of grace can feed a lot of people.  “Remember this: whoever sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will reap generously.”  (Luke 6:38).  Generous grace sounds like something we could all use more of.