Cultivation

Birthdays.  They're not my favorite.  There are too many in this house.  And spaced poorly to boot.  I should've been Jehovah's Witness when it comes to birthdays...I'd rather skip them.  I crumble under the pressure of providing a sense of celebration or fanfare.  Presents are always difficult.  I hate spending money for the sake of spending money.  I'm not a buyer of wants...I'm more of an as-needed shopper.

So this is what I offer:  Dinner of your choosing.  Cake of your choosing with our neighbors.  Presents: TBD by birthday person.

I love offering birthday meals.  The food I make -- I put love and good feelings into it.  It tastes good. I choose my ingredients with care and consciousness.  I put them together not by measurements, but by feel and by intuition and, most importantly, by taste.  Our time together around the table is another kind of gift in my book.

And cakes -- I love the birthday cakes of our past.  Each one has been a testament to where each boy was in his life at that time.  We were stuck in Batman for many, many years.  Honestly, I'm glad those days are mostly over.  How many times can a person make a Batman cake?  How many different ways?  Batman.  The Batman.  Batman Beyond.  Lego Batman.  You name, I made it.

My personal favorite birthday cake?  Glad you asked.  It's simple.  No brainer.  Carrot.

Which brings us to carrots.  One of our favorite books in this house is The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss.  If you haven't read it, here you go:

We first heard about the book from a song.  It's available here.  Well worth the listen.

So we've been reading this book and I've been thinking about that type of dedication to an eventuality that has yet to reveal itself.  It takes faith.  It takes determination, perseverance, effort.  The cultivation of something from almost nothing; the regular maintenance of a patch of blank, with merely the hope that something develops; the every day exercise of plucking out that which isn't fruitful to make space for that which is -- the task is daunting.  

And so I ask myself:  What am I cultivating?  Daily in this life, I know I'm making strides in a direction.  Most days, I'm not sure where to.  Hourly, I'm course correcting, redirecting -- my energy, my focus, my attention.  Each minute, I'm aware that there's effort involved; trudging along feels like work.  

But I found my carrot -- one of many -- the other day.  It popped up right before my eyes.  And it looked like this...

My morning was busy and full of errands.  Groceries for birthday dinner.  An agreed upon present to be bought.  More groceries for glorious cake.  And in the middle of all those errands, as I was walking to my car, my cart full up of ingredients for a life well-lived topped off by a huge, gift-wrapped, luxurious present, I passed a man.  With a sign.  "Hungry.  Homeless.  Anything helps."  We made eye contact, with a knowing head nod, as I passed by to my car.  

As I started unloading my goods into my car, the conversation in my head sounded like this, and LOUD:  I am the single mother of four boys.  I have three, four jobs.  I work tirelessly to provide for my family.  What is my obligation to him?  Am I only feeding his dependence on hand-outs if I give him something?  Should I give him food instead of money?  What's my responsibility here?  To my kids?  To a stranger?  What's the right thing to do?

I turned from the cart back to my car when I heard a voice.  "Boy or girl?" I looked back.  There he stood.  

"Excuse me?"

"Boy or girl?  The present?  Whose birthday?"

"My son."

He reached for his pocket.  Retrieved a dollar.  

"No," I said.  

"Yes," he replied.

"I can't," I insisted.

"You must," he responded.  "I want to do it."  Stuck the dollar under the ribbon on the huge purple package.  

"No," I repeated.

"It's what I want to do with what I have.  Makes me happy."

I stood in stunned silence as he turned and walked away.

Carrot.  A bigger carrot than I could have ever hoped for.  That day's yield...far greater than expected.  

Self-Defense

I saw you yesterday.  I was thinking about writing you all morning.  I needed to hear your counsel, but then I got quiet enough and heard your voice in my own mind.  And then I realized I didn't need you after all.  You'd already taught me what I needed to know about the situation I found myself in.  

Running couldn't wait yesterday.  For two days in a row, I came upon a minute when I knew I needed to leave the house and be on my way.  The cacophony of ruckus in my own mind was too loud, too continuous, too debilitating.  I needed the quiet and calm that comes from the open road.  The rhythm of the road has a way of knitting me back together in an orderly way, so I can recognize myself again.   

I realized yesterday that in this world there are door-lockers and non-door-lockers.  I'm definitely I'm a non-door-locker by nature.  If I do lock a door, it's a decision.  A conscious decision followed by action.  It's nothing I habitually do.  I don't ever have the sense that I need to protect the things on the other side of the door.  I may protect the people on the other side of the door, but I'm generally not a protector of things.

But here's the thing.  In my life, I'm attracted to the door-lockers.  Like opposite magnetic poles attracted to the door-lockers.  And not just one -- my life is full of door-lockers.  People who take measured steps to ensure their safety and the soundness of the insides of their homes.  I walk around in their lives like an observer at a zoo, seeing how they set up barriers to entry, protect their inner sanctum.  And it's foreign to me.  

I've always thrown my door open, really with reckless abandon.  I welcome in all sorts of people and invite many of them to take up residence inside my very own heart.  For the most part, it's worked out well.  People have come and rearranged my insides, the furniture of my being, with and without my permission, and in the end I was better for having the inner makeover.  People have come in and made my heart their home, and I'm delighted that they've stayed.  Some people, however, do have larcenous souls, and their stays beyond my unlocked doors have proven costly and upsetting, like vandals and thieves.  

I've enjoyed learning from the door-lockers though.  They take steps to care for themselves, offer up the simplest of resistances to unwanted entry.  One of them told me once that safety is no accident.  He was aware of what his end goal was -- safety -- and how to get it -- keep the doors locked.  The simplicity of this idea eludes me.  Just like other simple ideas.  I was in my 20s before I learned that it's easier to keep your room clean than get your room clean.  I was in my last semester of college before I learned the classes were there to be attended, not avoided.  I didn't understand the value of a made bed since it would just be unmade later, until someone told me by that logic, I should never eat again because I'd just be hungry again later, too.  

But the simple ideas of this world are sinking in.  They're growing in their appeal.  It's tough work cleaning up after vandals and thieves.  Door locking might be in order. 

And that's what I heard when I got quiet enough.  I heard you say I shouldn't be surprised at the state of the state because I'd invited it in.  So I went straight home.  And locked my door. 

Country Roads

Part II. Early morning to text to one of my dearest friends:


"Oh, and the notions of 'blindness' and 'guidance' have come up several times today as well. Just food for thought.


"And in the middle of the night, #4 (my youngest son) said, in his sleep, "Now THAT was tasty." I'm not sure what it means, but I think it might be the secret of the universe."


And then I went running.


I have a few favorite runs, but my favorite of all is a meandering country road, a loop near my house. I run it as often as I can. Today, when it came time to turn off the usual way, I kept running. As I passed the road, I thought, "I guess I'm running it backwards today." Sometimes, I have to let my feet do the deciding. Sometimes they know best.


Here was the lesson...


On this route, I always run with the flow of traffic. It breeds a certain kind of faith, running in the direction of traffic, back to oncoming cars, on a country road. It's a kind of blind faith. It's a trusting that the cars traveling at 60 miles per hour aren't going to veer slightly into the bike lane and hit me. I've needed to grow this kind of faith. I've needed to trust in that which cannot be seen. I've needed to cultivate the sure belief, through compounded experiences, that I will be taken care of.


But there's a flip side to this kind of faith...it's kind of passive. Not in a zen way either. It takes the responsibility I can shoulder and puts it in the hands of someone else. It has value, this kind of faith. BUT it also has its limits.


So today, I was facing traffic head-on. If a car was going to hit me, I was going to see it happen. It was frightening. Seeing the dangers coming toward me. Feeling the powerlessness of other people's actions. Being open to witnessing, continuing on, and following through. And it was a different kind of faith I felt being born today, a guiding faith -- a faith that I can accept my life, I can accept those challenges, I can accept those separate passing beings without necessarily altering my course. I can assess those seconds as they pass, make worthwhile decisions, and take responsibility for myself and my actions, my reactions and alter my course as needed, if needed.


I have run this loop for years. I couldn't count the number of times my feet have been on that road. We are old friends. I have come to rely on her for the certainty I know she provides. She gives me space and security to be. But today, she challenged my very notion of self. Today she showed me a new part of me. Today she gave me a glimpse of the woman I am -- new to taking responsibility for herself in a lot of ways; new to feeling confident and capable; new to having certain faith and newfound trust in the world around me. Today it was like meeting a new friend, with new perspectives and new offerings.


And this is the way it works for me...some ideas, emotions, feelings, words are circling in my brain or in my heart, and as I pass the miles, they reveal their meaning. 


So 'blindness' and 'guidance' have shown themselves. Now I'm just waiting for 'tasty.'