Life

What I learned this week

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

Here’s what I learned this week
as I was walking my feet to nubs
back and forth and forth and back:

Stark white walls can be a canvas
inviting to the artist
as they consider
layering color over dreams
if only in their mind’s eye
and not actually on the walls …

Or white walls can be barriers
distancing
distracting
implicit “don’t”
explicit “don’t”

Clean and tidy is welcoming
but perfect is a myth

We are all in this together
except for those who aren’t
who distance themselves
by work
by study
by importance
or by
class

We are all in this together
and still
we walk, wheel, scoot, or crawl alone

What I learned this week as I
moved
in and out of
public and private spaces

is the importance
of a baseline understanding
neat and clean takes work

from everyone

I also learned, as I tried
to throw away cut flowers
who insisted on losing their
petals all over

Shedding them willy nilly
like the clumps of fur that show up on IMG_1529
the floor each morning from
nocturnal cat play

when I am trying to clean them up!

I learned that sometimes
in the process of cleaning up
you make BIG MESSES

Know what else I learned?

(that I wish I knew when my kids were littler
and when I was little to medium-sized?)

Here it is:

Messes are okay

They indicate that people and beloved pets
and even beautiful cut flowers that die
slowly for our pleasure
have been here and
experienced something with us

And that something is     life.

And guess what else I learned this week
as people needed and pulled me
with them to places
I hadn’t been in some time?

I learned that I’d rather live in the smudgy-walled
messiness
of my tidy life

than to have the perfect blank canvas
that holds but does not
reveal
the work of living
with others.

Coping

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

So, here’s the other thing that happened at church on Sunday: We are still a church that does Joys and Sorrows–out loud.We are a smallish church, membership of about 100; general attendance is about 75 to 80. So, I’m leading the service and leading the Joys or Sorrow–prefacing it by asking people to state their names and briefly share their personal joy or sorrow. First woman up decides to share that her husband’s cousin recently passed. You know, had she stopped there, I don’t know that I’d say anything.

But she didn’t. She talked about what a valiant fight her husband’s cousin had put up and that she had died with her mother and siblings around her. Even if she had stopped there, I think I would have been fine.

But she didn’t. Then she said that her husband’s cousin died of Lupus. Lupus. The disease that both me and my eldest daughter have recently been diagnosed with. The disease that I consider a nuisance and not life-threatening. I suppose had she stopped there, it would have been a little weird and my daughter and I would have looked it each other for about .3 seconds (as we did) and check in with each other later (as we did) and that would have been the end of it until we could talk later.

But she didn’t. This woman then began to praise her husband’s cousin for the valiant fight and how she had held a good attitude when several of her fingers were amputated and then again when she lost a leg… and then I absolutely stopped listening. I looked at my daughter, saw the tears brimming, then closed my own eyes and my ears against it. And I thought of the other young woman in the congregation who recently shared during another Joy and Sorrows moment that she had been diagnosed with Lupus in the last month. I didn’t look at her.

I held the microphone as others shared their joys and sorrows and went on with the service. We came home; I took a nap; then my daughter and I went out to run errands and we talked through this experience and what she was going through these days. The ironic thing: she had just, on Friday, checked a book out from the library about Lupus and decided that she was going to start take it on rather than ignore it. We talked about the betrayal by our bodies and we talked about how this requires us to be more certain about other things: like how to make choices and how to understand when we need to ask for help. Talked about spiritual and physical disciplines we could be practicing. It was a good talk.

Then, on Monday, I saw her in passing as she headed to a Faith in Action meeting at church with her father–and I shared with her my other secret tactic for surviving. I told her that what was really going through my mind as this poor woman (and seriously, I do feel empathy for the woman who died and those who were affected by her death) was being eulogized unceremoniously. Don’t judge, but here’s what played through my head:

My daughter and I shared a good laugh; her father judged. And we put a new tool in our coping arsenal. Lupus Ladies, unite!

Colorblind

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

It was early and I was driving youngest daughter to basketball practice. It was early, and yet the grayness of the dawn was lifting just enough that the sun was bathing the trees with this golden light that was more than delightful–it was … divine. I was drinking up the colors of this spectacular fall day, when a bumper sticker on the car in front of me caught my attention. It was hard to read, as most bumper stickers are, but I finally discerned the words laid one over top of each other. “God is” was in a black script overtop the rainbow-lettered word “COLORBLIND.”

“Dude,” was all I could mutter (because it was, afterall, very early). I looked back up at the sky, where the light reached up even higher in the seconds that had passed since I last looked. I looked at the trees, some still holding tight to their gold and fuschia leaves. The gray was lifting even higher and I saw that the sky was going to be blue that day. Grass was still vibrant green below, not yet the dying, still holding the light of the sun.

“Dude,” I thought again, “I think your missing something.”

I know what the bumper sticker is supposed to mean: God doesn’t see the color of people’s skin. And if God is what you believe in and God loves us all equally, I suppose this could be seen as an affirming, loving statement.

But I think it misses the idea that color surrounds us, giving us the richness of a midwest fall, and the striking beauty of a Sedona afternoon (thanks, middlest sister for that image showing up on my phone earlier this week), the sunset over Catalina (thanks for that image, you who shall not be named). You get my point. Skin color should also be considered a part of the palette, a part of the body of work, as it were. It can mean nothing other than a richness of depth and hue, but it also can indicate a richness of variety in culture and in point of view.

Color brings a  wealth my heart holds dear. I can’t imagine God planning it any other way. I can’t imagine a world where god would be, could be, colorblind.

Home

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

I just checked the publication date on one of my dearest, dearest volumes: Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg. 1990. Yup. That makes sense.

I found Natalie in a little independent bookshop (remember those?) in Flagstaff, Arizona, when I went with my husband on a business trip around our first anniversary. He went to meet with clients and I took a walk and found the bookstore, found the book, went back to the room and took a long hot bath while reading and lost myself completely.

Here was a book about writing, about spirit, about attending to details, about love, about Buddhism, about … everything I didn’t yet know I was or would one day be emphatically infatuated with.

The book is, quite frankly, a mess. I remember when my grandmother died when my oldest daughter was 2 and I took with me to the memorial service the blanket that my grandmother had made for her when I was pregnant. Well, I took what was left of the blanket with me. As my tribute to my grandmother, I held it up and showed those assembled the tattered pieces of flannel that had once been sewn back-to-back, but now clung to each other by one, double-stitched seam. But held-together, it was. I don’t remember what I said, but I remembered I cried and so did others, but it was something about how love endures, in the rags of things that give us comfort.  No, it couldn’t have been anything that profound.  If it had been after the movie “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” I’d have told people that the blanket had been “loved up.”

When I pick up my copy of Wild Mind, I’m reminded of that blanket. It is all loved up. The spine is cracked and peeling and there are little sticky notes and scraps of Orders of Service stuck in all over the place–at least a dozen places marked for permanent reference. Hemingway quotes are underlined; whole chapters are dog-eared together so I know to read them all.

I thought of this book today because there is a chapter/writing exercise on “Home” that I often go back to–a reminder that we carry ‘home’ with us, in many ways, and that ‘home’ isn’t just the walls that surround us. 

These days this is good for me to remember.

Why do I live?

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

That’s the UUSalon question this month, taken from the trailer for Harry Potter 7, Part 1.  In the clip, Voldemort asks Harry why does he live. I can only guess at the context in the trailer, but from my knowledge of the books and movies, the question is meant to reveal that Voldemort has thrown all he has at Harry, and even succeeds in killing him at one point, and yet, Harry lives. Why?  How can this happen?

The answer for me at this moment is “why not?” I don’t mean that to be flip, but I also see my life as one without a true sense of purpose or direction. I get up each day and do the best I can at what’s in front of me, but I don’t have a grand vision to complete with my life. Unlike Harry, I don’t live to save the known universe from the most powerful force of evil. Or do I?

There have been times in my life when I would have preferred not to live. Even times when reckless behavior would indicate that I was actively seeking to not live. Those times are long behind me, but I wouldn’t be here now without them. Then, I chose to live, whether I realized it or not at the time.

My father always said he was going to “go out” his own way. With what I now see as a false bravado (is there any other kind?), my father announced more than a time or two that he would rather drive off a cliff than die slowly. And then he did neither. Two months before he died, before the extent of his cancer and condition was realized, he and I sat in my parent’s living room and he asserted his bravado once more. “I’ll take care of it,” he said to me. My mother was in the other room with my daughters. I wish I remembered his exact words, but he told me he’d stock up some pain pills and do it himself. Six weeks later he was sure he was ready to keep fighting and take more chemotherapy; but he ended up going into hospice, instead. He didn’t “take care of it.” He couldn’t have if he wanted to and my mother wouldn’t have helped him. Though she did all she could to make the end of his living as comfortable as possible, she wouldn’t help him that way.

Why do I tell you this story? Because watching my father die this way made me realize that in so many ways, we live for no reason other than because we can or because we don’t really know what else to do. I think of the Rev. Dr. Forrest Church’s theory that our mere existence is, itself, a miracle. With all the permutations that we could be (based on the number of sperm produced, etc.), the odds are against us being exactly who we are right now from the get go. And each and every day offers opportunities for us NOT to live any longer. We live partially out of luck of the draw, partially out of sheer will, but mostly out of what Dylan Thomas called the “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower.”

I watched my father, who was so certain he would be able to discern when it would be time to finish his own life and yet, from my vantage point, when the time truly came, he chose the hope of life in the elixer known as chemotherapy when the rest of us said, “are you sure?” And then a series of events landed him in the hospital where this choice of chemo or not chemo had to be re-examined because in order to be strong enough for chemo, he would need to go to go to a nursing home for weeks or months. He chose not to pursue chemo because he wanted to go home. Be home.

I cannot complete this response without thinking that the choice to live or not live is really a luxury for me. I’m watching a small group of young people who are related to me who have been to Iraq and back; to Afghanistan and back. I listen to one say he would rather do anything than go back once more–that the human mind and heart cannot take repeated immersions in combat. I hear his fear that he won’t know who he is if he goes back once more. Not that he will die, but that he will live with all that he has seen, all that he has done, and he is not sure he can hold any more of those visions. What he needs now, more than anything, is to find his way home with all that he holds. Why does he live when so many young people returning from combat are choosing not to. Why do I get the luxury of answering this question from a hypothetical when, for him, it is a minute-by-minute real-life decision.

Because of genetics, sheer luck, and that force that through the green fuse drives.

Vague post about being (grumble, grumble) human

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

What happens when you pat yourself on the back? Rotator cuff injury, that’s what. Even, apparently, when the patting is metaphorical.

I’ve been wondering how I have been able to manage all of it so well (please, if you don’t know me, understand that I really don’t mean that, but I also do). “All of it” being life’s struggles and disappointments. What I’ve been wondering is how I (of all people) manage to keep putting one foot in front of the other when others get stuck. This is, of course, the flip side to wondering how all those other other people can manage a family, a career, graduate school and some sort of fitness regime that may or may not include a triathalon while I can’t seem to clean out one cupboard in a week’s time.

But when I ponder my life and recent and ongoing events, the one thing I’ve been able to say is that, for the most part, I’m able to maintain some sense of perspective. I don’t spend a lot of time in the “why me?” mode because I can rationalize that it really isn’t about me, it’s generally about something out of my control, like cells mutating. My personal theology is probably less God-centered than it is centered around the idea that what is is what you have to deal with and it will all work out … eventually and not at all in the way that you had planned. In short, life rocks and you roll.  Not “why me?” but “what’s next?” (Credit Forrest Church for that.)

It sounds very haughty. And practical. And do-able. Until it isn’t.

And right now, it isn’t. Well, of course it is doable, I’m just sort of angry and sad and full of wishful thinking for a different result. Vague much? Yes. Right now I am. I’ll just say we are facing yet another medical issue in my family and I’m just a little tired of it. So, today, just for today, I roll around in the knowledge that I am smug when I think that this living thing is easy and why shouldn’t everyone be as smart as I am. Because truth is: I’m angry, and sad and full of wishful thinking. I am, alas, human. And I’m dealing with THAT reality, as well. Which, of course, humbles me back to a greater understanding of why others get stuck.

All will be well … sometimes it just takes a little pinch of time to get there.

Sisters … and worship without music?

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

So I haven’t done as much “ketching up” as I thought I would do this week. Except with my sister. You can read and about her take on our visit here and here (though I think she is incredibly biased and has to play down the fact that I am her younger sister by only posting incredibly unflattering photos of me). If that was all I did on my vacation, I’d be content. I forget how much I enjoy her company and crave being “sisters” when she is gone, so this visit was one I will treasure. (Here’s my take on the visit … not really, but I was reminded.)

At one point, in the midst of a heated game of “dice” (aka 10,000, aka a lot of other names), she and I were sitting next to each other and my eldest two sat opposite us, making fun of us for our loud and energetic play. And one said something like “you know we’re going to be like Mom and Aunt Nita some day?” and the other one said “I hope so.”  High praise. And it is enough.

Next on the list: preparing a sermon without a music director.  Which bums me out, but alos forces me to be a bit outside the box. I’ve been interested in reading blogs about making worship more relevant and I know that one of the best answers is through music and I would love it if we could do this, but am not sure we can. We have a great music director who leads the choir quite well, but what he doesn’t do well is lead the congregation (because he is playing the piano or organ while the congregation is singing), and I would love it if we had someone in the church who could/would do that part of it. But, alas, I gave him permission to take the day off, so this is all my doing–this service without structured music thing.

I know we’ll be singing “Come, Come Whoever You Are” a capella, perhaps even as the prelude, and I know I’m going to ask some people to bring drums for parts of the music, but beyond that, I’m still trying to figure out how the whole service will roll out.  We can probably squeak out “Spirit of Life,” as well.  Knowing me, we will sing rounds which can be good without accompaniment. I may ask kid 2 if she wants to play the piano during the offering.  Getting there.

But, the music is only a part. One of the things I’m aiming to do in this service is speak to the whole congregation–meaning being relevant to all ages and all understandings of UUism–and that’s the harder challenge than doing music without help.  Because, well, music is such a huge part of doing that sometimes.  So, I’m without my crutch.

Maybe I’ll just show that video …

Ketchup Day 1: Success on most fronts!

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

I’m really impressed that I was able to do almost all the things on my list of daily goals for myself on my first “workday” day of my Ketchup vacation: I cleaned the bathroom, I did a little bit of work-work (a very little bit, I am pleased to say), I walked (more on that later), I dined with fine folk (more on that later), and I made food (some new, some old, and some the ususal that came out unusual). The things I didn’t do were: write and do church work. I’d say that I didn’t pray, but prayer is so much more than a written or uttered contemplation and so, after a more thorough description of the day, I’ll let you decide if prayer was in there, or not.

First thing (after coffee and blog-reading) was getting the bathroom cleaned. Second thing: three daughters and I got dressed and headed out to the Indiana State Dunes to visit my sister (Juanita), her boyfriend (Mike) and dog (Peanut) in the campground there. It was my first time to see the RV that has been their home for 9 months and I was quite impressed with the setup.

We decided to take the dog for a walk and explore the campground. We headed toward the lake which is a trip akin to straight up through the woods, then straight down on the sand. With just a minor amount of wondering if our old hearts would survive the trip UP the steep hill and many wooden stairways, we made it over the hill and I have to say it was a gorgeous day to view the lake. After all the storms we’ve had in the area, the lake and sky looked like their mother just scrubbed their face with oatmeal. Shiny, bright and blue, and the sand was mostly clear of debris (a shirt or two dotted the sand).

Head-injury child was the first one up the mountain and down toward the lake, followed closely by girl 1 and girl 2. Poor Peanut was on a leash and had to go at Mike’s pace, and oh was his snubby little tail wagging, waiting to get at the water. The water was cool on our toes. We hadn’t planned on swimming, so we just walked in as far as we could stand it, and Peanut found himself swimming a few times, trying to be where the girls were or chasing a rock or seven that Mike skipped over the lake.

We went the longer, but flatter route back to the campground, then rallied for a trip to find lunch. I told Juanita not to blog about lunch because it was less than stellar–but, being Monday at 2:00, it was what was open. After lunch, I brought them back to my house where the kids entertained Mike by showing him some Wii games he hadn’t yet seen.

Then it was time for dinner making–and this is where it gets good. Juanita had asked for Taco Night–meaning what I call “Mama Tacos.” Nothing special, but tacos the way our mother made them and even though, between us, we are nearly a century old, we still like ketchup (yes ketchup–used to be “hot ketchup” but I can’t find that anymore) on our tacos. There is a sweetness to the food rendered such that is less about taste and more about memory and though it appalls most who view it, it is not something we are willing to give up.

In addition to tacos, I made a black-bean refried mashup thing I’ve been making and that husband and daughter 2 like quite a bit, but I’ve made it too much lately and am a little tired of it myself. I also made guacamole and, while I was worried it was a little limey, there wasn’t a speck of it left at the end of the meal, so I guess it turned out fairly tasty. (The beans, on the other hand, we have plenty of!)

For dessert, I made my first-ever blueberry cobbler. Juanita had picked a ton at her last RV camp (apparently set in blueberry fields where they urged people to pick away). On their own, the blueberries made a tasty dessert, but baked into a cobbler, they were divine. I made the cobbler-novice mistake of thinking that the cobbler, itself, would be enough, but was taken up by the cobbler-experienced for presenting such fare without ice cream!  A not-quite-half-gallon of vanilla with chocalate pieces was delivered to the table with a scooper with the less than generous “Here’s your Ice Cream!” (This last delivered ala Mel Brooks’ High Anxiety … “here’s your paper!”)

We laughed, we ate, I cooked, I cleaned. And now, I’m off to make blueberry pancakes for those who will be golfing later this a.m.  We’ll see what other new experiences there will be for Ketchup, Day 2.

Ketchup Vacation

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

Yesterday was my first day of vacation and it started with an 8:00 breakfast meeting about church; the remainder of the day was spent doing serious, deep cleaning on three of the four rooms we use the most: kitchen, dining and living. Today, after church, I’ll concentrate on the bathroom.All this is prompted by my sister’s once-a-decade visit that begins tomorrow.  My sister and her boyfriend will not be staying with us. They bring their own home (read more about that here), so having the house spotless is not really necessary, but it is kindly to try to limit the amount of cat hair they will have to suffer while here.

While I won’t be going anywhere during this vacation, I feel like this is a “spiritual ketchup” vacation–one where I catch up on all the things I’m sorely remiss in: like sleep, dental appointments, haircuts, cleaning out cupboards and closets. You know the drill. This is the kind of vacation that will help me get my spiritual house in order, not by seeing new and inspiring things (unless you count the back and bottom of the refrigerator), but by getting my physical house in order. I’m feeling the need to clean out the clutter for good. Unfortunately, I have kids.

Fer instance, when I think of my youngest, I get the mental image of Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoons. But in my image, she is not trailed and consumed by a cloud of dust and dirt, but by a series of gadgets and gizmos and, well, can I say it simply? crap?  She is a crap trap.  Add to that the fact that she is the recipient of hand-me-down clothes from not just her two sisters, but the neighbors and some cousins. She could clothe an entire village out of her closet–and that doesn’t count her drawers.  So, one of my efforts over these few weeks will be paring down her clothes collection to that which is required and adored–all else goes to that unnamed village.

I don’t want to spend the entire two weeks cleaning, though. I want also to have meals and/or drinks with people I haven’t seen much of lately and who I miss woefully. I also plan to get some exercise and hopefully build a routine which can be sustained once I return to work. And I plan to write. And to cook–and to learn to cook one new thing or one new WAY to cook.

And, though I have been directed not to by many people, I will, most likely, work a little. I will not respond to email during this time, though those who would require a response know how to get me if they NEED me and I trust them to use their judgement on when I am NEEDED. But there are some projects that need to be done but also need me to be away from the office, in comfortable clothes and with a cuppa* near me, in order to get them done. But I’m not as committed to this course of action as much as all the other stuff. Work and my relationship to it, is part of my spiritual development and if I can do a little now to provide a buffer when I return, I have no issues with that.

All that said, I’m grateful to my husband and those kids who helped to get these rooms clean yesterday. It is a great start to two weeks off, knowing that this work is done. And as I write this long list of “to dos” I realize that what I really want to do is plan each day so that they all have the following components:

  • writing
  • walking
  • preparing food
  • eating food (and hopefully with good company)
  • cleaning something (this cupboard this day, that closet the next)
  • laughing
  • praying (which is, truthfully, part of the “writing”)
  • church volunteer work
  • maybe some work work

*Note that I didn’t say what’s IN the “cuppa”. 🙂

A slowing

Posted on by TinaLBPorter

I left the house a little early this a.m., not much, but enough that when I turned down a road I take every day, I had to look twice and brake hard so as not to hit a pair of deer crossing the road.  One darted off to the right, the other headed back to the left and then stood at the side of the road and stared back at me.  Seconds … maybe three … but she stared at me and I at her and we regarded each other with a mix of fear and awe.  Well, at least that’s how I regarded her.  She turned her back on me and walked back into the woods, the way she’d come, separated from her companion who lurked somewhere off on the other side.

Not sure why I’m writing about this, but it was a good way to be back in the world.  Slowly. Staring at me, she made me realize that my world is too small sometimes and sometimes it is just the right size.

I am grateful for this beautiful moment in a life sometimes harried without purpose or reason.  A slowing.  That’s what I got, today.  A slowing–and it held me all day.  And for that I am grateful.