never talk to strangers, get to know them

As I walked the unfamiliar streets of Arlington, MA today I crossed paths with a 12-week old yellow lab named Leo and his human parent, Pat. Pat retired from a life in the produce business four months after his 65th birthday. That was just over 5 years ago. He looked remarkably youthful for a 70 year old. His warm brown eyes held my own, his hair shorn neatly to his scalp and his body fit and awake, simultaneously still and responsive. I would have accepted an invitation to come into his fenced yard and sit and share stories had he extended one. I believe he yielded to social norms and kept his invitation within his mind and heart. Nonetheless I felt pulled in and I likely made myself uncomfortable with my extending a casual “hello” from a passerby to the untracked minutes that passed between us over the fence, he and Leo in their yard, me out on the sidewalk.

I felt so enlivened after our interaction. Not for the first time I felt the stirring in me that I fall so readily into people – mesmerized by their humanness and delighted by their willingness to meet me. I don’t know whether I use the phrase “falling into love” within the conventional parameters but that’s my experience. I feel “moved”, stirred, and altered. I recognize each interaction as fleeting and that doesn’t bother me. It’s not about “collecting” people, for me it’s about being changed through our connection.

I considered my long and consistent history of moving from one locale to another and for the first time I began to consider the gift of my past – I have generally fallen into a common judgment that without a sense of geographical rootedness I somehow was a damaged being. But walking away from my time with Pat and Leo today I felt a visceral recognition that the quality of my interactions with people is determined by my presence in the moment rather than the duration of our time together.

The thought that resonated through my mind yesterday was that appreciation is the remedy for attachment; if I can appreciate what I am living and experiencing right now there is no desire for more. In fact, my desire to have and to hold dissolves any possibility of receiving what is so breathtakingly beautiful. Gratitude fills up any available space within me and makes it impossible for attachment to take root. Today I am cycling through the mystery with more grace and less fear.

dancing with demons

As I loaded up my car and said goodbye to my stepmother and father in Perth, Ontario I was taken off guard. My father embraced me warmly and as I stepped back he said, “I’ve always been proud of you.” It felt like a punch to my gut emotionally and I struggled with my tears, I wrestled to stay composed. Driving south towards Hwy. 401 which would return me to the United States I compartmentalized the experience; there is something too disquieting about sobbing alone on a Sunday morning drive away from my home and native land.

Later that night, over dinner with my girlfriend Sue in Arlington, MA, I related the experience and I was hit again by uncontrollable grief and sadness. I think what is coming to life for me through this journey is that as a child I fully believed that my right to exist on the planet was wholly dependent on making a positive contribution, be it to my tribe, my community, or the planet. In order to be welcome in the Kingdom I had to pull my weight and not put any demands on those around me. Now, I can hear your thoughts – “What a ridiculous notion! For God’s sake Martha, you’re a therapist, you know that’s a load of horseshit.” Conceptually, it’s true, I know that to be false. But my body’s emotional reaction to my father’s words attuned me to the fact that it’s still unfinished. Indeed, I believe many of the demons that visit me in the middle of the night carry the flavour of this early message.

These demons rise at 3am and rattle my bed (or Thermarest). They remind me that I have bills to pay and that I do not have a job (or a home). They tell me of my gifts and talents professionally and attempt to shame me for not making better use of my skills. Why aren’t I being of greater service to humanity!? What kind of person moves through the world so lost and unfocused, so unwilling to do a proper days work? With the exception of the year following my brother’s death, I have been working since the age of 12. I have loved working. It is immensely satisfying and provided me with a sense of self. I have grown not only my bank balance but my range of skills and sense of resiliency in the world. And now, this journey is threatening my sense of self and causing me to test out my fear that I may be dislodged from the Kingdom if I don’t pull my weight.

When the man who embodied this message for me as a child, not through his words but through his actions and choices, held me and told me he was proud of me I was metaphorically brought to my knees, the wind was knocked out of me. Something shifted internally and I will likely grapple with the fallout for some time to come. Nevertheless, I feel greater freedom today. I hold new license to express myself more from a place of internal integrity than from a fear of being exiled.

Tomorrow I catch a flight to Denver to ….uhmmm, well to spend a week working (and to visit friends). This also helps me quiet my demons, as well as pay for gas along the journey.

Increasing Your Mileage - Tip #58

You’ll need to prepare a few things before utilizing this novel way to improve your gas mileage. It helps to travel with a senior citizen who has a CAA or AAA membership. Be sure that the membership is Premier, not just any run-of-the-mill, “we’ll boost your dead battery” membership, but the full-deal: “we’ll put you up in a Holiday Inn until your car is fixed” membership. Otherwise you’ll trade gas savings for restaurant and hotel costs (not to mention towing fees).

I suggest you own and drive a mystery vehicle, one whose history and service record is missing in action. Like me, you’ll need to trade in a Toyota or Honda because it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to make use of this tip with such a reliable piece of machinery. To add extra excitement to the experience, travel on backroads and avoid the obvious routes through major centers. This will allow you to get to know people you’d otherwise never meet. I suggest looking for oversized trucks with gun racks and “W” or “NRA” bumper-stickers.

So, Momma and I were making excellent time from Cape Cod through Western MA and into Upstate NY. I was feeling kinda smug because I take pleasure (and lame ego-strength) from my ability to make such good time from point A to point B; it’s about bragging rights not comfort – if you want to make good time, don’t consume fluids and you won’t have to stop.

Final American city before crossing back into Canada (aka: Land of overly-polite Liberals who register their firearms and say “sorry”) “June” dies. By the way, I name my vehicles because I believe it fosters contact and therefore loyalty, not to mention it allows me to converse even without a passenger. Mom and I are stunned as we roll into a vacant dirt parking area with no vehicular power. Long story shorter, Mom pulls out her CAA membership card (Premier status) and I pull out my cellphone. Within 30 minutes a big truck comes and we’re relocated with June to a very sketchy looking repair shop on the outskirts of town.

I look around at the motley looking crew who are smoking and gazing under June’s hood; poking at the battery, the alternator, and feeling for the harness that connects the two under the engine. Except for the one woman present on the scene, there isn’t a full set of teeth between them. The woman, by the way, is in charge, and she is wonderful. Thank you to Theresa of Miller’s Auto in Watertown, NY. She’s a goddess and an angel. In fact, the whole crew is incredible although a little confused by imports. I heard “Fuckin’ Volkswagen” enough to understand their opinion on these sporty little contraptions. Four hours later I have a new battery, an old alternator, and a duct-tape-like piece of advice: “Go ahead and drive the rest of the way home, just don’t use your cooling system, your windows, your lights, or your radio. Oh and maybe don’t shut her off. You should be fine. Then get yourself another alternator.”

Trepidatiously, at 6pm we drive north out of Watertown towards the Canadian border. I miraculously reach my Peterborough VW repairman by phone (thank you Randy of Schnell’s Auto) and tell him the story. Randy says in no uncertain terms that I am to get my ass over the bridge and border crossing and stop and call CAA for a tow. And so, for the 2nd time in 6 hours June is loaded up onto a flatbed truck and Mom and I are stuffed into the front of a semi-styled tow truck with a driver who spends the next 3 ½ hours reminding me why I’m single. The 250km commute from Ganonoque to Peterborough lasts until near midnight but the driver is kind enough to not only drop June off at Schnell’s but he takes me and Momma to her home (thank you Len of Jack's Towing). In my delirium I wonder briefly if the Universe is trying to tell me that I am supposed to become a tow truck driver and move to Upstate New York.

In the end, while the trip from Cape Cod to Peterborough took 17 hours, I increased my mileage from 35 to 47mpg! And, even more valuable, I felt so cared for by 'strangers' along the way; a helpful reminder in the midst of darkness and confusion.

me, myself, and i all go to New England with mom

I met myself again this past week. Fear mixed with habit and fostered some desperation and frantic action. As is usually the case when I begin reacting to my inner clamoring for structure and security (and control) I found myself driving. Somehow getting in my car (combined with surfing the internet) is an action I slip into when I just need to sort out “what’s next”. I suppose I got a little dose of “going with the flow” – and then “Yes, that was lovely, now let’s get on with figuring out the next stage of my life.” So last Sunday, with my mother coming along for the ride (how sweet she is to humor me!) I made my way from Peterborough, ON through Montreal, QC down through New Hampshire and hotel’ed in Portsmouth. I had appointments over the next 2 days to view apartments and sublets from Portland, ME to Orleans, MA.

In my own defense, living out of a Volkswagen Jetta does get a little old after a while. Plus, I can drive 1000 miles in a day without breaking a sweat – perhaps long-haul truck driver was dismissed too quickly as a viable career. Two days in the car yielded some incredible scenery, a near miss with a Land Cruiser in NH (foreign and confusing traffic patterns to blame), fascinating conversation with a Tennessean who told tales of close encounters with a momma elk in Jasper, Alberta, plenty of philosophizing through windshield time with my mother, bad coffee, a bag of cherries, excellent family in Portland on their way to Rome for the year, a 1689 fisherman cottage in Ogunquit (I could not rent in a town whose name I mispronounced consistently), construction, construction, and roadwork. When all was said and done, on my way to the eastern tip of Cape Cod, I lost it in traffic, pulled off at the nearest exit and rented a cheap hotel room for the night.

There, in Dennisport, MA I found my proverbial Jesus. She came to me as the Atlantic Ocean and she received me, my demons, my bad habits, with non-judgment. My desperation to find myself and all the self-condemnation that follows on the heels of my quirky habits dissolved into the sea meeting with the sky and rolling up on the beach. Mom and I swam in the warm waters admiring the buoyancy of this salty liquid and then dried in the sun as it set to the west. As the moment completed itself I was left with no angst and the self-recriminating voice inside me was quiet; the beast asleep once more. I chose not to rent any of the viewed sublets and made my way back to Peterborough.

Ontario, Not so On-terrible

So, finding myself at an internet location is not so frequent as I would have supposed – little in the world of updating has been happening. Since my travels through the Midwest I stopped at my sister Jane’s home in western Ontario and enjoyed time with her and her family (however the camera was forgotten in my pack so no photos). From there I traveled east through highway re-construction projects to Central Ontario to connect with my other sister, Corry, and her brood. I’m struck by the way my brain has unloaded my memory of maps and highway systems of Ontario – I spent more than a dozen years living in different parts of Ontario and I still get lost making my way through communities across the province. To be sure, a map of Canada purchased in Colorado does little to help me make my way from one place to another! There is probably deeper meaning here somewhere.

Time with Corry morphed into a roadtrip to the Algonquin Park area of Ontario to visit with my girlfriend, Sue, from high school. Sue and her husband have purchased an “off the grid” waterfront property north of Huntsville which is beautifully quiet, treed, and private. The glamour girl I knew in high school has grown into a still-beautiful mother with a genuine appreciation for Nature. Swimming in the lake and listening to the loons from my tent helped me quiet my anxiety and frenetic activity and further clarified my yearning to be near more water and fewer people. Sue’s memory of our teenage years together afforded me the chance to integrate parts of my story I failed to know were still hanging out with slivers and fractures.

I have now landed for a few days in Peterborough, Ontario where I completed my undergrad degree at Trent University almost 15 years ago (how can this be?). My lovely niece, Alex, is walking a similar road to her namesake uncle and gypsy aunt as she enters her 4th and final year at Trent, though probably with greater centeredness and clarity of spirit than the previous generation. My mother has recently moved from her seaside home in Nova Scotia to also land in Peterborough. She wishes to enjoy the experience of community from a cityscape, abundant with people and opportunities – it is a delightful twist of fate that the two of us are moving in opposite directions simultaneously and able to meet in the middle and feel connection.

A couple of days ago mom and I drove to my Uncle Jack’s home near Alliston, Ontario for lunch and a visit. This time with my mom, my uncle, his wife Melody, and my cousin Leslie was a miracle for me. I had not seen Jack in over 11 years and I acknowledge that I was afraid of what he would think about my “flakey” life including my short marriage, subsequent divorce, unsecured career, and the current “magical mystery tour” I am choosing. I suppose he became a projection of my own inner-critic message that a nearly 39 year old woman should be more rooted and centered in her life. Instead, what I felt being around my uncle was not judgment but rather love and acceptance. I felt courage stir in me to be more authentic with him rather than guarded and I shared with him how he has always been such a significant force in my life – even through long periods of separation and distance. In many ways, he inspired me in my youth towards material and professional success but this has since evolved into a desire to live authentically, on my own terms. This is what I have learned from him.

I still don’t know where I am heading, I don’t even know where I will be this weekend coming. Somehow this seems like the point – to surrender my thoughts and plans of the future for a deeper connection to the intelligence of Life as experienced through the messages around me and listening also to the wisdom of my body. Staying in this moment and trusting that I will land where I need to. I would not have known that visiting family and friends along the way would have afforded me the opportunity to revisit some ghosts from the past. Connecting with these ghosts has provided me with some pieces of my personal puzzle, insights into moving forward with integrity and faith.

through the Midwest

I spent the last few days with lovely friends in Galena, Illinois and during that time enjoyed excellent beer, wine, food, fruit, laughter, coffee, conversation, and walking. Kirsten and I also took a one day roadtrip to Madison, Wisconsin to check out the city and the University. Nice place, large school, lots of water, and a laid back feel to the city. Kirsten's folks, Sandy and Ken, are the best of hosts because they love food, cooking, and their home is enveloping and offers spectacular views and vistas.

I'm missing the dogs but otherwise feel at peace with the process of not knowing. My existence feels akin to moving through a dark cave with a tiny flashlight beam to highlight the area directly around me -- there is no sense as to where I am going or where I will wind up. I cannot recall another time in my life when I allowed the mystery to be as it is without succombing to an intense need to know and to plan -- to focus my energies and actions on filling the space.

Less planning, more perfection. This be my mantra moving through the mystery with humour and faith.

being a morning person

I am grateful to my parents for supporting my religiosity by "helping" me to be a morning person. Indeed, nothing makes me lose my breath and words more than the stillness of dawn.

...of course, my transition through adolescence was not marked by said gratitude. That period was more about them learning how to give me a wide berth.

a story with images

I went camping with my bestfriends this past weekend. Kirsten, Angus, Gaia, and I hiked up to Murray Lake just outside of Georgetown, CO and spent a couple nights and days eating, walking, reading, and relaxing. Kirsten and I were seduced into the "feel the love" vacation mode of sharing our human food with the pups (helps clean up the camping pots too) and paid for it when we all climbed into the same tent for a cozy night's sleep.

Gaia (yellow lab) found her sleeping spot down the center of my body, apparently appreciating the puff factor of the full down, -20F sleeping bag. Angus (shepherd mutt mix) eventually carved out a place for himself, somehow managing to take ownership over a half of each thermarest by staking his claim over the middle of tent. The most memorable moment for me was seeing the power of canine intestinal challenge in an enclosed area on an unfortunately positioned nose.

transitioning

I am wondering if transitions are finite or fluid, whether I can mark the beginning of a time of change, or its conclusion. Today I spent a time in 'the field' working with the incoming Monarch field staff who will work with the incoming students from Germany. Such a sweetness to be with people who genuinely care about being of service to others. Asking myself to be somehow helpful to them so that they are solid and human, connected to each other for support and still available to the teenagers as guides.

Anyway, it was bittersweet to feel myself fully present and yet recognizing that on Monday I will begin my journey away from Colorado, from my community of friends and co-workers, and into the mystery of no plan.

My intention is to make the story of this journey available to you if you wish to hear it. No guarantees are offered around the entertainment value nor the level of depth of my insights. Perhaps there is an inverse correlation between the level of entertainment and the depth of my insights -- the more time I have to philosophize, the less likely I am to be rocking the foundations of my human experience. We'll see.

Thanks, mart