Grand 4th, yes it was.
It was a good day. Let's requalify that, more than good. Sure, we did the grilled burgers, boiled corn, whipped up a bowl of potato salad that would have made my mom proud. And yes, we shot off bottle rockets from the porch, did sparklers on the patio, watched the best of the best city firework displays we've seen yet and went off to the back house at the end of the day to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark. And yes, there was the practically mandatory second handing first thing in the morning, if only for the sake of the great deals and half price tag sales.
But more than that it was a revelation that no matter what happens in my life from here on out that staying here, here in this house that has become my own personal Waterloo, in untenable. Finally, I came to realize that it's time to go.
I have been looking for new jobs for awhile now. Saw and applied for a position in Woodland, have seen the dearth of librarian positions in the Treasure Valley area and have come to realize, too, that that might not be the route I am supposed to travel. So I woke this morning and told myself "to hell with it". I will go the distance with the travails placed before me and then go from there. But what is clear to me is that this house, this house well dusted, picked up, squared away, is a haunted house and to be in it, without my kids and all their noise and messiness, is not a life well lived.
Yesterday was Independence Day. I am not too sure where life is leading me, but I know that four years ago when I had a chance to act and change my life I took a different path, one that led me to this place of self revelation. What I know from the bottom of my heart is that I am not good at standing on my own, not when my family is five hundred miles away. Sometimes it takes a national holiday to see things clearly. That, or a mess of burgers, a wonderfully fun and careworn old family film, bottle rockets off the porch, or having my children fight for the right to sit next to me while the rockets red glare fades in the night.
Salud!
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Not until the well runs dry
Loss. The biggest and the most painful part of living. A constant reminder that we can't hold on to everything no matter how hard we want to or try. We are always and continually working towards losing something or someone. Losing comes in all fashions..simple, like losing keys or a phone number. We age and it gets more complex..we lose our looks, our hair, our way, our ideals, our sanity. Along the way we lose ourselves, family, time. It's never ending, even as we try to build our lives and make the experience more permanent.
As the minutes slip away we lose track of time and worry and wonder where it has gone. We hold onto things as if material things matter, knowing, in our hearts, that, in the end, all those things go away anyway, end up in a refuse heap, or on someone else's shelf or in a thrift store for others to grab and hold onto.
I think of all the times in my life, both good times and bad, and know that I wouldn't, in my wildest dreams ever want to live another year like I did last year. But wishes count for nothing in this world and I know that it's possible, most like probable, that the heaviness can and will visit again.
Hell, no one likes to lose. No one likes a set back. No one wants a bad time. We like to think if we pad ourselves with enough things and activities and people we can stave off loss of excitement and fun. If we say the right things, take the right medicines, go to the right church, get the best degree, walk the correct number of miles a day we can hold off the world, death, divorce and ursurous credit card bills. If we eat right, exercise and get enough sleep we will hold off aging and fat. If we read the right books and take the right classes and marry just right we will hold off poverty, stupidity and boredom.
If, if, if. What if we stopped worrying so much about the inevitable and looked at the moment we're living in, instead? Instead of thinking about that pie in the sky, about the things and love and time we're planning on getting, let's get into the moment we have right in front of us and then let it go as the next one comes along and live that one too, as if they were the only moments we'll ever have.
Loss. It can be all so heavy. I had to go down to Hemet last August after my mom passed away. It was sweltering, easily over a hundred degrees every day that I was there. I was in the midst of dealing with grief, impossible family members and all the while close to passing out from the heat and dehydration. I slipped into a juice joint one afternoon and while waiting for my drink found a book on the shelf, Be Happy, and somehow it was a better fit for my thirst than that 16 ounce Jamba Juice I was waiting for. I bought it, took it home and marked it up and marveled at it's simplicity.
Quote books are legion, but that one really captured my imagination and the moment I was living and reminded me of a very important point that I was somehow missing in the hustle and bustle of my life and that is life is short. We have so little time and so much to do that dwelling and living in the past, that grasping onto things instead of moments, holding onto stuff instead of people, is contrary to the job at hand. The "job" we have is to live. Now. In the moment. To find ways to be happy. It hit like summer lightning: I had things to do and the time to do them was now and getting shorter all the time.
Hitting fifty, being estranged, losing a parent, loosing an inheritance, letting people go that I didn't want to let go of, finding out how to live in that peculiar "alone" state has all been very sobering. Finding myself as I lost myself in the aisles of pawn shops and second hands was inevitable, but also a revelation: I couldn't fill up my life with the stuff that I enjoyed. My life could only be filled again with selflessness. So I gave myself a mission....feed folks, find things for friends, give and take and receive and then give back again.
In accepting loss as part of my life I found myself whole again. I found satisfaction in giving instead of gaining, in letting loose of things instead of grasping onto them. I found my heart once again in the feeding and filling the bellies of friends. My time in the kitchen, burning moments behind the stove in a state of caring, fed my soul.
Anymore these days I think that losing is almost a better thing than winning. We find out more about our true character, our strengths, our weaknesses when we take it hard in the wallet and in our hearts. I would rather know what it feels like to be in the midst of snot slinging drowning loss and rise above it, than to be of a constant self sure "winner" mindset and not be prepared to take that hit.
I found that you can't hold onto the ship as it's going down and not expect to drown. You gotta be able to let go. Swim away from the wreckage, kick hard and reach air and grab that flotsum floating before you. No one said saving yourself would ever be easy.
I watched When We Were Kings the other night. The way that Ali learned to take those hits, endure those body blows, as he held fast against the ropes helped him to refocus the pain, helped him to be a champion. How Foreman was able to rise above his loss in the ring made him a better man, too. I think that I will look at my losses as the best thing that ever happened to me, and move forward a better man. One that can look the world and my life and my love as something that has to be appreciated here and now. Given away. There is no tomorrow. Only now. Don't waste a moment. Live.
Salud!
As the minutes slip away we lose track of time and worry and wonder where it has gone. We hold onto things as if material things matter, knowing, in our hearts, that, in the end, all those things go away anyway, end up in a refuse heap, or on someone else's shelf or in a thrift store for others to grab and hold onto.
I think of all the times in my life, both good times and bad, and know that I wouldn't, in my wildest dreams ever want to live another year like I did last year. But wishes count for nothing in this world and I know that it's possible, most like probable, that the heaviness can and will visit again.
Hell, no one likes to lose. No one likes a set back. No one wants a bad time. We like to think if we pad ourselves with enough things and activities and people we can stave off loss of excitement and fun. If we say the right things, take the right medicines, go to the right church, get the best degree, walk the correct number of miles a day we can hold off the world, death, divorce and ursurous credit card bills. If we eat right, exercise and get enough sleep we will hold off aging and fat. If we read the right books and take the right classes and marry just right we will hold off poverty, stupidity and boredom.
If, if, if. What if we stopped worrying so much about the inevitable and looked at the moment we're living in, instead? Instead of thinking about that pie in the sky, about the things and love and time we're planning on getting, let's get into the moment we have right in front of us and then let it go as the next one comes along and live that one too, as if they were the only moments we'll ever have.
Loss. It can be all so heavy. I had to go down to Hemet last August after my mom passed away. It was sweltering, easily over a hundred degrees every day that I was there. I was in the midst of dealing with grief, impossible family members and all the while close to passing out from the heat and dehydration. I slipped into a juice joint one afternoon and while waiting for my drink found a book on the shelf, Be Happy, and somehow it was a better fit for my thirst than that 16 ounce Jamba Juice I was waiting for. I bought it, took it home and marked it up and marveled at it's simplicity.
Quote books are legion, but that one really captured my imagination and the moment I was living and reminded me of a very important point that I was somehow missing in the hustle and bustle of my life and that is life is short. We have so little time and so much to do that dwelling and living in the past, that grasping onto things instead of moments, holding onto stuff instead of people, is contrary to the job at hand. The "job" we have is to live. Now. In the moment. To find ways to be happy. It hit like summer lightning: I had things to do and the time to do them was now and getting shorter all the time.
Hitting fifty, being estranged, losing a parent, loosing an inheritance, letting people go that I didn't want to let go of, finding out how to live in that peculiar "alone" state has all been very sobering. Finding myself as I lost myself in the aisles of pawn shops and second hands was inevitable, but also a revelation: I couldn't fill up my life with the stuff that I enjoyed. My life could only be filled again with selflessness. So I gave myself a mission....feed folks, find things for friends, give and take and receive and then give back again.
In accepting loss as part of my life I found myself whole again. I found satisfaction in giving instead of gaining, in letting loose of things instead of grasping onto them. I found my heart once again in the feeding and filling the bellies of friends. My time in the kitchen, burning moments behind the stove in a state of caring, fed my soul.
Anymore these days I think that losing is almost a better thing than winning. We find out more about our true character, our strengths, our weaknesses when we take it hard in the wallet and in our hearts. I would rather know what it feels like to be in the midst of snot slinging drowning loss and rise above it, than to be of a constant self sure "winner" mindset and not be prepared to take that hit.
I found that you can't hold onto the ship as it's going down and not expect to drown. You gotta be able to let go. Swim away from the wreckage, kick hard and reach air and grab that flotsum floating before you. No one said saving yourself would ever be easy.
I watched When We Were Kings the other night. The way that Ali learned to take those hits, endure those body blows, as he held fast against the ropes helped him to refocus the pain, helped him to be a champion. How Foreman was able to rise above his loss in the ring made him a better man, too. I think that I will look at my losses as the best thing that ever happened to me, and move forward a better man. One that can look the world and my life and my love as something that has to be appreciated here and now. Given away. There is no tomorrow. Only now. Don't waste a moment. Live.
Salud!
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