PRETTY COOL!!

I did it on the back of a horse. And that’s saying something. For I have seldom been on the back of a horse. But, there I was on a family outing, nose to tail on a trail through some of the most beautiful mountains of Colorado. The vast sky, the mountains reaching beyond the imagination and I was there with the family riding horses.

It suddenly dawned on me that we would be flying out of Denver International Airport the next day.  We were to fly on Southwest Airlines. For those who don’t know about flying on Southwest, you can check in online 24 hours prior to departure and when you do, you are assigned a section for boarding. The hope is to be in the A section so you can board and find an isle or window seat and not have to sit in the middle between strangers. We were not going to get signed in early enough to get good seats if we had to wait till be got back to the house.

Then Deb said, “You have an SWA app.  You can check in now.”  And sure enough, while riding on the back of a horse, I opened the app, looked at the clock on my phone and exactly 24 hours before our departure, I clicked “Check in” and we made it—into the A group!!

I remembered my friend who is in the tech business telling me some 15 years ago that the internet and the digital world was going to change everything.  And he was right. We are all so instantly interconnected that it is sometimes overwhelming. We can keep up with each other, find long lost friends, order groceries while flying across the country. 

And there are lots of opinions as to whether all this connecting is good. For indeed, people walk around texting and Skyping, lost in music fed directly into the head. We can find out about anything anyone has ever thought about and become consumed in a virtual world while missing the physical world around us.

I know that this digital world has a lot of good and a lot of bad in it.  I know that we can argue how we are changing and whether it is healthy or not.  But, that day, there on the back of a horse, enjoying the beauty of the season and the love of my family, when I was able to connect and get a seat just like that, I have to say, “It was pretty damn cool!!”

MORE THAN WE KNOW

I found it and was moved. I was looking through the Moseley Suitcase* at the recent Moseley family reunion. And there they were—love letters.  There in a crumbling scrapbook were envelopes and inside were 2 letters. They were the first love-letters my mother and daddy ever wrote to each other. They were written in 1934.

And they were such a treat. For they revealed young and flirtatious people whom I never knew. By the time I knew my parents, there were five children to feed and love. These letters were written during the depression and before the second World War. I did not know them till the war was half over and they were trying to make ends meet. 

And what was cool about these letters was that I saw my parents as human beings who were not parents. They had not been changed by the deep responsibility that love of children calls forth. They had eyes for each other that had not been tempered by the reality of war and struggles to raise a family. They were young and playful.

As I read those 2 love letters, I was moved to tears. These were people whom I had known all my life and yet, were people I had never known. I was sad that I had not known them and was so happy to meet them now. For I saw an innocence and a delight that all young people need. And I saw that my parents were far more than I knew them to be.

Maybe that is important for us all to remember. Every one of us is more than we know—more than we can know.  Each of us is a collection of experiences that have shaped us but experiences that are unique and hidden from each other. Maybe that is why looking at each other with eyes of grace is so important.

* (The Moseley Suitcase is one piece of luggage that contains remnants of my parents’ life. This brown fake-leather case with a green strap holding it together was created by me and my siblings when my mother died and we disposed of her furniture. The suitcase contains old photos and scrapbooks and reminders of my parents’ life. The suitcase has been carried from house to house where we can all delve through the memories.)

LOVE OF AN IMPERFECT MAN

Hiking around the back roads of northern Wisconsin. Rainy and 60 degrees.  I heard it before I saw it. A car straining against a hill. I then saw evidence of it in the smoke from the exhaust. Then it appeared. Old but not antique. Out of shape and rusting. The aroma of the exhaust found my senses and I was immediate transported.  Stigler, OK. 1948.  Images careened through my mind: my grandparents place; an old frame house; a big vegetable garden; a back porch with a wash tub where we children bathed; and an old Model T  Ford in a dilapidated shed.

And the exhaust smell of pre-leaded, pre catalytic converted gas opened my memory data bank and there was my Granddad. Ball-headed, red faced, portly. And I remembered how he would take us kids in the old black Model T down to the gas station. There in the corner of the shop smelling of oil and sweat was a gum ball machine. For a penny you could get a gum ball and in most machines, if you were lucky, a trinket.  But there in the back roads of Oklahoma was this machine that spit out not only some gum, but often as many as 3 trinkets for one penny.  A bonanza!

I remember my Granddad sitting in a chair in the back yard. And I would sit on his knee. It was a wooden knee—part of a wooden leg that he had all the time I knew him. He would laugh and seemed to enjoy me.  I felt loved.

Later in my life I would discover that there were characteristics of this man that I might not appreciate. Hints from the past held rumors. I don’t know which of them were true. But at that point in his life and mine, there was a love shared—a love that passed between us. And I am grateful for the love of that imperfect man. 

And I guess that love from an imperfect man prepared me for life. For I have discovered that any love I give is from an imperfect man. And any love I receive is from imperfect people. And I am grateful that the giving and receiving of love does not require the perfection of the giver or the receiver. Because love does not require perfection, I can say that I have been greatly loved.

GOOD ENOUGH MOTHERING

I saw a recent Facebook post by a young mother. It was an article talking about how hard it is to parent these days. The culture offers us minute by minute advice on how to raise strong, healthy, creative, sensitive, thoughtful, intelligent, athletic, well-rounded children. The stress can be overwhelming and the guilt can be debilitating.

When I read the article I was reminded of the psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott who studied child development. He believed that central to the health of a child is the way she is held.  The mother’s holding is important in that it creates a warm and safe place in which the child might navigate the changes in her life. He calls this “good enough mothering.”

Jacqueline J. Lewis interprets Winnicott this way: “[A] mother creates a holding environment for the child as she cradles him in her arms and creates a safe place for him to grow. This holding environment is increased with time and space; it becomes a cradle, a playpen, the next room, and eventually the weekly phone call between a parent and an adult child. Thus the arms-around feeling of the holding environment becomes the transitional space in which a child develops; transitional space is also the space for adult living, learning and playing. It is the space in which art, creativity and religious experience occur.” (The Power of Stories)

There are many things that our culture offers our children and so many of the young parents I know work really hard to make these available to their off-spring. But, I sometimes wonder if the stability of a holding space isn’t the most important. Parents, whether men or women, create a container to help children hold their energy and spirit so that they can work out how to live in the family, the neighborhood and the society. Children, regardless of our ages, need people who can help us hold what is sometimes the chaotic emotions of growing and changing.

So parents, hold on and stay present. Our children need the “arms-around” feeling that can help them discover their own way, their own strength and their own direction.

IT JUST DOESN'T FEEL RIGHT!

Many of us have done it. Many of my friends are doing it now. And to a person, they frequently comment, “It just doesn’t feel right!” Many of us get to a place in our lives when we are called on to parent our parent.  Because of the blessing of health care, many of our parents live past their mind’s capacity to allow them to live independently. The ones on whom we counted to provide a compass for our actions by their standing firm in who they have been are now not able to hold the center of their identity or stand on their own.

These people who have been “there” in our psyche even when they may not have been there in physical form, lost their mental or physical agility that was characteristic of them (and thus our relationships with them) throughout their adult life. We are now in a position where we have to do things for them and make decisions for them that are for their well-being.

And we discover that they don’t take giving up their freedom anymore than we liked someone taking away our freedom when we were younger. They rebel. They resist. They get angry and strike out. They too are feeling scared and confused even as they lose their ability to navigate the relationships of their lives.  And when I talk with them, they are saying the same thing that their adult children are saying: “It just doesn’t feel right!”

So what do we do? Unfortunately the answers are as awkward and confusing as the answers to effective parenting of children. But, as with young children, respectful conversation is central. Even if there is limited cognitive capacity, it can help if they feel you have some idea that they are losing so much of who they are. And realizing that we are losing so much of who we are in relationship to them helps us be more graceful with our own feelings. Hard decisions will have to be made and anger and resentment will undoubtedly be part of the equation. But, just like your parent had to courage to make hard decisions for you, it takes courage to make decisions for them. 

Sometimes in the midst of these tough times, “It just doesn’t feel right!” So, showing up and offering forgiveness to each other is really important. Even if we don’t feel right, being in it together can help. And remember, touch each other tenderly. When we were young, even when things weren’t working well, a warm embrace could ease the pain.