The wonderful process of reading to write: As I’m preparing to get started on chapter 3 of Everyday Annunciations–the chapter on how people might find a way to reinvent their sense of identity and meaning after great loss—I’ve returned to the considerable literature about growing into one’s true self (as Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, and James Martin put it, among many others). The general consensus is that this is a process of subtracting: of stripping off all the self-bolstering layers of titles, achievements, status that have protected against feeling like “nobody” and listening, noticing, more fundamental qualities and responses innate in a person’s particular, divinely-formed nature. Only when we accept the risk of realizing that underlying, loving essential self, Thomas Merton wrote, can we ever hope to become “saints” with a small “s”: the people we’re created to be, unique people who do uniquely-suited work.
Once all this would have made me feel very nervous; these days, though, as somebody who’s been working with all kinds of people in hospice care, the idea strikes a chord. This morning it reminded me of what it felt like to walk into a very basic dementia group home last week and work with a disheveled (despite her nurse’s best efforts) confused woman who was very, very nervous and achingly sad. I came simply as another human being, without the resume I’ve worked so hard to assemble, without the bulwark of titles and awards and long publication list, just a pair of compassionate hands. As so often happens in this business, the grace of empathy and affection welled up, and I listened and reassured with honest attention. As I massaged her hands and fingers she spoke of her fears (mostly delusional—she’s safe and well-cared-for) and I comforted her; I gave her the hugs she requested and let her call me “honey” and tell me she loved me and told her I loved her. And in that moment the latter was true. Who knew?
How life hurts when it changes out from under us. But how mysteriously, even gloriously, it moves us farther along the road.
Something Beautiful in My World: This weekend I spent several hours on the hard labor of digging deeply-rooted grass out of the top one of these raised beds, work that involved a sharp shovel and spade fork and lots of heavy lifting. It’s been fallow for more than a year, rampant grass and thistles overwhelming any possibility of planting, and last year I just didn’t have the energy or will to cope as the old widow’s helpless darkness won for a while: there’s nobody to help me! I’m 72 and can’t do this. Soon all my gardens will be unusable just like this one.
Saturday morning, though, sanity dawned: you walk/hike/ski 1200 miles a year, girlfriend. Of course you can do this. So I did—and cleaned out weeds from the garlic box and bulb box too, and planted a few perennials in the latter for summer bloom.
And here are the results. So far those cosmos seem to be deer-proof, as advertised, but we’ll see: my deer are undeniably their VERY much true and self-actualized deer selves.
