I shop Natural Life when I need color and something boho. Which is often. I like the vitality and vibrancy that comes with all they sell, including their cute tool boxes.
As well as selling wanna-be hippi clothes, they post a daily thought through their Daily Chirp email list and on social media. They are as life-affirming as their clothing.
Been thinking about this phrase, "We Rise by Lifting Others," often attributed to Amanda Gorman, yet originated with Robert Ingersoll.
Call it Karma, good intentions, manipulation, golden rule, it is something I believe in and have attempted to practice all of my life.
This has been my motto for the last several years of me life, besides the statement, "We're all just walking each other home." This has been essential as I've worked with those living, dying, and trying to live, in the hospital. It's not my story - it's my patient's and client's, and I have given my very best to hold hands with my clients and listen to them as they've walked their paths while in the hospital and beyond.
Perhaps my most powerful set of rules to live by is a series of three statements I created way back when I was in my teens - "Be Fair, Be True, Do No Harm." These have guided everything, and I mean everything, I've done in my life. Maybe the most poignant and powerful example of this is when I divorced twenty years ago. While I wanted out of my marriage, I really truly did not want to hurt my ex or my children. Of course, we all had wounds, but these were not given intentionally, and I have worked so hard to live my life doing no harm and carrying no harm.
I've always felt a thrill of adventure and, "I Dwell in Possiblity" by Emily Dickenson has given me the push/guilt to always reach for more, be excited for the next . . . . I'm tired!
However - always the caveat - these past four years have been so very very hard. And while I've lifted others, journeyed with others, and been fair, true, and not hurtful, I've realized I have hurt myself. All the emotions of hurt, rejection, fear, anger, anxiousness, betrayal, frustration, and more I have either pushed aside or swallowed. I've worked through many situations that have caused these emotions, but I haven't been very good about giving myself the grace necessary to heal.
I have spent most of my life making sure others felt valued and accepted, giving out, and yet struggling to reach in. For some reason I've felt like if I could do more, be more, have more (education, experience, property), I could prove to "whomever" that I was of value, that I did have worth, and then all the profound hurt I've felt would leave.
This past weekend, while trying to get some of my ya'ya's out of me, I realized, again, I don't need anything more. I AM ENOUGH! I am good enough, good enough, good enough. I have reached my "Rest and Be Thankful" summit and now I can settle into the peace this journey can give me as I savor the beauty around me.
My statue of Quan Yin sits on my night stand, relaxed, eyes gazing on the open lily she holds in her hand needs to be that reminder to relax, look at where I've been, what I've done, and relish this time of peace.
I've written these thoughts so many times, they're on my mind constantly, yet my affirmation for the time-being is this - ENOUGH, enjoy what I have, enjoy where I'm at, and settle.
Enough.
I was asked to give a blessing at tonight's Vigil of Remembrance, honoring those who died during the CoVid pandemic. I had a difficult time finding words to fit into the 5-7 minute time frame I was given. So I stopped at 3.5 minutes, and I feel pretty good about it.
I recently
retired as a chaplain for Intermountain Health, working during CoVid times at
Utah Valley and Intermountain Medical Center, supporting caregivers, those
dying (or surviving), and their families and friends. (These days I have a
private counseling practice, often helping others journey through their own
stories, their own illnesses, their own suffering.)
I’ve kept a
blog for the past 12 years. On Jan 6, 2022, I wrote:
Over the past 2 years I have witnessed more than 100
hospital deaths.
And my
role, really, when it's all said and done, is incidental. I don't administer
medications, monitor oxygen levels, deliver feedings, change sheets. I stand
quietly, always available, always out of the way - I like to think that I am
the defender of their story, the one who is present, who sees the entire story
unfold, and validates - the dead, the living, the caregivers, and the real
events, not statistics.
This evening
I honor those stories, shared, and not, spoken, and held deep inside one’s
heart. Stories of valor, honor, defeat, exhaustion, coming together, tearing
apart, surviving, dying, hurting, carrying, remembering.
I bless
those caregivers who woke up each morning not sure what they would be facing at
work, and then walked with faith and love as they cared for those dying and
their families. And then went home and cared for theirs. Blessed are the ones
who bore witness and hold these stories close to their hearts.
I bless
those families and friends who spent days and nights in the worst world ever –
that of the unknown, anxiously pacing floors distances away from their dying
loved ones, hopeful and fearful each time the phone rang with an update, and
questioning their faith in doctors, medicine, Higher Power, and feeling
helpless when being helpful was their go-to. Blessed are those who loved and
lost and continue to love.
I bless
those who passed away from CoVid without being able to have any last words,
hugs, kisses, hand-holds. Blessed are they, for surely they did not die alone.
I bless
those who boldly, timidly, bravely, exhaustingly, respectfully, cleaned bodies,
buried other’s sons and daughters, husbands and wives, parents, and then went
home and cared for the living among them.
I bless
those of us who are still reeling from these memories; wounds can take years to
heal, and CoVid fears are still all around us. May we be blessed to remember
our people and find our place of belonging in this time of longing. I bless their stories live on in all of us. I
bless that we all may find light and love in the past, in the present, and as
we move forward into the tomorrows we are blessed to have.
Receive this
blessing. It’s for you. Then pray it for someone else.
The Lord bless
you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you,
and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and
give you peace. Amen
Numbers
6:24-26
I've had several chances to journey into my inner-consciousness this past year. Although I've uncovered so very much, I want to focus on that of my title - No More Angles, Only Curves.
This picture has been one of my favorites since it first came out in the New Yorker in May, 2000 (I loved this so much I purchased 5 copies of the magazine, just to have this cover). So rich, and so sad. I wanted to be both! The earth-mother: voluptuous, nurturing, flowing, rich. I also wanted the business woman's life: refined, tight, precise, fitted.
At the time, I saw the business woman looking at the mother with disdain and fear, as if she'd catch whatever she had if she moved any closer - "Ooh, keep those children away from me; I cannot have them getting graham crackers/dirty hands/snot/spit-up on this one-of-a-kind custom-tailored dress." I saw earth-mother looking slyly at the working woman with a sneaking suspicion that she had it better, had more, yet had a sinister secret, "Oh you poor soul, you know you want what I have, I dare you to touch one of my babies."
I was going through boxes of years of files earlier this summer, when this print popped from the folder marked "Articles, 2000," and forced me to pause. Just days before I was decluttering, I was meditating when the thought came to me that I was out of my peaks and canyons, pinched, angled, sharp, cold, business'ed phase, and moving into my curves, rolling hills and voluptuous valleys, softer, cushier, flowing, let-it-be phase.
This May 2024, Ronda saw the picture quite differently than the May 2000, Ronda did. Nurturing, to self and others, the ability to be in two places, live two lives, care for two very distinctly different lifestyles, while yearning for what the other has, knowing the time and season is not theirs.
And with that - I realized I truly have had all the experiences, emotions, roles, encounters I dared to dream I could possibly have. In the early 90's I had a powerful nurturing amazingly talented woman once tell me, as a young mother trying to go to school, build a home, rear children, and save a floundering marriage while also being an active member of the community and church - "You can have it all, Ronda, you just can't have it all right now." I have, loving them equally.
I'm very much looking forward - it's been a tough journey these past 15 years, and while I've given it my all, my very best, in fact - all of me; I'm finished the angles, sharps, pointed, pinching. I've had it with bureaucracy, corporate America, patriarchy, and stereotypes that have served a part of me well and yet closed another part of me right off (more of that later). I'm enjoying the curves, rolls, wanderings, creating my own windy path, choosing who I want to travel with and where I want to go - maybe even pushing a baby carriage (or hitting a golf ball) with a grandchild or ten.
It's been a very long time since I've written. And it's not that I haven't had anything to say, but I've had no words with which to share my thoughts.
Retirement, 3 weeks in England, home in the summer - the very best place in the world this time of year.
My thoughts run rampant - in fact, I can't get my brain to stop, as much as I've tried. My thoughts vacillate between "be present, stay present," to "what's next, who's next, how am I going to get all of this done," to "breathe, in due time."
My goals - finish psylocibin education, take grief and anxiety courses, grow my Wren House Counseling practice, have been in spurts and stops as I've made time for dates with grandchildren, morning walks with friends, dinners and swimming and visits with family, decluttering (mind and home), deck "davenport" conversations with Scott, a nap or two, trying to not feel guilty, and healing. Connecting, I guess, reconnecting.
Healing - this has ultimately been my mantra:
If you don't know what to pursue in life right now,
Pursue yourself.
Pursue becoming the
healthiest, happiest, most
healed, most present, most
confident version of yourself.
Then the right path will reveal itself.
Even though I know what I want to do, "not now" has been my answer, and the realization that I really must take time to heal from the past thirty+ years of go go go, let it be, let it go, move forward, don't think about it, it will go away, stay quiet, be true, don't talk, speak up. Years of living under the dictates (and threats) of big business (and cancer) have left me weary to the bone, more exhausted than I could have possibly understood until walking away, stopping, reflecting, and then realizing the f*'ing impact of all of this - shame, blame, guilt, fear. Being able to breathe has even been difficult some days, and taking the time to process and heal has become my summer. And although I'll be awakening for some time, the journey, the process, is becoming a bit easier.
Truthfully said, this has been my summer - and I'm good, and my words are returning.
My favorite meditation, mantra, reassurance, peace-giver.
Loving Kindness Meditation
May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be safe.
May I live with ease.
May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you live with ease.
