Dancer Down: an unexpected seclusion

The morning of August 7 was unusually bright and sunny. A series of personally difficult life challenges had come to resolution and I was filled with immeasurable joy. Driving to my dance session that morning, I felt glad to be alive. Normally an experience like this would have made me eager to dance, but I had a vacation coming up in two days and things to do in preparation. I didn’t really want to go, but the body can get rather lazy. Like the tin man in the Wizard of Oz, it can come to a rusty impasse. I didn’t want that, so I drove on and arrived—all smiles—without a hint of the disinclination I really felt.

Jane, my teacher/partner, was not her customary, cheerful, and optimistic self. Something was off. Normally we will match each other in body-spirit whether we start out that way or not, so I didn’t think to question, nor did I state the truth of my disinclination. Undaunted by the disparity, I was confident we would find each other eventually, and so we began as we often do, moving in our separate spheres, performing for each other. Midway through the hour Jane put on the album I’d brought with me: Picture, by Night Ark (a quartet of musicians known for their fusion of instrumental jazz with tradition Armenian tonalities). Little did I know: I was about to meet my Waterloo.

I felt this hypnotic, seductive rhythm as a call of connection to the culture of my ancestors, hidden deep within my DNA, and my joy quickly increased to excitement. Although far beyond my improvisational abilities, I threw myself into moving interpretively to this hauntingly beautiful music, without the willing consent of my aging hips, and in a manner I think may have looked something like my little diagram drawing.

Within minutes, there was an audible a POP sound, followed by white-hot, searing pain! I knew something had torn inside. Groaning, I crumpled to the floor, where I stayed motionless and incoherent for several minutes, as the shock of the experience overtook reason. Time lost dimension and I was swimming in painful slow motion—a curious 4th dimension of my customary reality.

Having spent much of her life as a professional dancer with a collection of her own dancer’s injuries, Jane sprang into action, as I laid there in stunned disbelief. Prone to responsible problem solving and somewhat stunned herself, she tried her hardest to get me to consent to an ambulance ride to the nearest hospital emergency room. There was no way I was going to see the inside of one of those buses, before my time was up! Absolutely not! I took ibuprofen and arnica and continued to try… unsuccessfully… to reach my partner, Judy, by phone as well as text message.

As an InterPlay leader of 20+ years, with a talent for cleverly overcoming roadblocks, she reassessed the situation and applied InterPlay’s signature principal of incrementality to moving things along. She would suggest a move and I would try it. Little by little, I was miraculously on my side, then sitting up, then standing on one leg, and then leaning on the back of a chair. Using the chair as a walker, with Jane cheerleading, I hobbled to the elevator, out the door and into the car. Within 10 minutes, Judy arrived on the scene and drove me to an immediate care facility, where we learned that no bones had broken, but the pop had indeed been a tear, requiring weeks of rest, ice, pain medication, and a walker, along with patient acceptance of the situation (a challenge for me).

A stunned state of shock persisted for the first week, deepening as Judy and I felt our way around and through the daily realities of a crippling injury—a disability of unknown duration—to a person of a certain age. This was something I couldn’t accommodate without anticipating a measure of public chastisement. Had I been a bit too pleased with myself for having a fairly agile, old body? Perhaps I’d pushed it beyond reason…colored too far outside the box? Won’t people think I fell and broke my hip, like many older persons before me? But I knew I hadn’t crash-fallen; Jane taught me a dancer’s fall and that’s the way I went down.  Still, the idea haunted me and I didn’t want the humiliation of being thought of as a silly old lady playing at dance in her old age. The truth is: if I could have been anything in my life beside a visual artist, it would have been a dancer. To dance now, even past reasonable age, has been life affirming. All things considered I was even pretty good at it…for an old lady. 🙂

It wasn’t until a follow-up orthopedic appointment 10 days later that I learned my pop had been an avulsion, i.e., a tearing of the Sartorius tendon where it attaches to the iliac spine area of the pelvis. (The Sartorius is the longest muscle in the body, resolving in a tendon attaching to the pelvis.) This accounted for both the bone and tendon pain I was experiencing. No bone chips, no fractures—just a painful separation between the tendon and its point of insertion. I was assured that it was a common athletic injury—particularly in football—one that occurs when the muscle is stretched beyond its capacity. Well, I clearly did that, without doubt…but football? That was worthy of a laugh out loud!

Laughing or crying, in 3 weeks I would begin a course of physical therapy that would help me regain 95% of my former function. My inquiring and restless mind finally had an understanding of what had happened and a course of action. Between the relief I felt with the diagnosis and prognosis—along with the homeopathic care I knew would hasten healing—I returned home ready to welcome this secluded time out as an unexpected gift.

The story continues…

looking backward / going forward

Every now and again an old friend or acquaintance will come to mind and I wonder what they are doing now…where they are. Sometimes I Google to find out. Maybe it’s a way of measuring the length of my days in years? Some time ago I found an artist friend through Facebook that I’d known a dozen years ago and wrote about the encounter in my June 13, 2012 post, art then / art now. A few weeks ago I reconnected with another friend through Facebook that I’d known in the glorious, early 1970s (when some of us were still young and others, not yet born). That was great fun.

Last week…in a more serious mood…I looked for a person I’d known six years ago in a cancer support group. I’d been thinking about him for a while. I wanted to thank him for all the invaluable help he’d given me—help that changed the course of my recovery for the better. We both have a form of incurable lymphoma that can capriciously become active or lie inactive at will. I’ve been in remission for five years and wanted to know how he was. I Googled him, and found his name in connection with a cancer support group’s phone listing. I called and was delighted to find that he is a survivor and continuing with his cancer support mission. It felt good to send a message of thanks and affirmation. Many cancer survivors like to pay it forward, including me.

A few days ago, I thought about two persons I’d known from my days in the art world.  Despite that association ending badly, I Googled them hoping to find an avenue for constructive reconnection. To my dismay, I found pages and pages of articles linking them and the gallery to fraudulent misappropriation of federal grant funds from 2004-10. I was shocked and wanted to know what had happened. I began reading the articles. When I got to the FBI Press Release dated December 14, 2011— what I considered the most reliable—I stopped to take stock. My partner and I had known these women for many years. Until my last show in their gallery in 2002, we had considered them close friends. The exhibition—Inheritance: art and images beyond a silenced genocide—was a production showcasing Armenian-American artists and the Armenian people. It was nearly a year’s work and a major undertaking for me as artist, curator and producer.

A few weeks before the exhibition opened, our tax preparer urged us to ask the two women for an accounting of the money contributions that had been donated toward funding the show. Asking for an accounting touched off a firestorm of angry accusations toward us, and threats to cancel the show, which put me in a state of ongoing anxiety for the two months of the show’s run in the gallery. Naively, we assumed the contributions that came in from our contacts were earmarked and set aside. We had virtually no understanding of non-profit gallery operations at that time, and no idea of the potential threat this request to the gallery directors would be.

Historically, the gallery had been an important outreach to the community and an alternative for rising artists to the traditional, market-based gallery system. I do not know how the current situation happened, when, or why it happened. I only know my own experience in what would be my last show there. It had been my labor of love. We were fortunate to receive in-kind donations that included a four-color catalog, marketing/advertising help and a marvelous array of catered, Armenian food and drink for the opening reception.

Everything was in order, but the enmity that ensued—the demands and constant threats to close the show at a moment’s notice made a basket case of me for most of that time. Trust was broken on all sides. What had been friendship for many years became a battleground and a living hell. I didn’t understand it then and mourn the emptiness of it all now. I am sorry to have lost the friendship we had with these two very interesting women, but in light of this new information I am thankful to be on this side of current events…thankful…but still sad to have all that collateral damage sitting in the roadway of my past. I cannot think of it without great regret for relational carelessness and wasted time.

Looking back, I remember the government shutdowns of arts funding hitting the small enterprises hardest. I am not excusing anyone or anything, merely seeing two sides of what has become the vanishing coin of the power-elite. I have compassion for these two people, regardless of circumstances, because I knew them at their sincere best…maybe not as deeply as I’d thought, but well enough. We are all looking for our way…our path in life. I am sorry about detours and sink holes and broken pavement. I do not know where these women are today, or how they are coping. There is nothing online past December 2011, so I assume the allegations are still pending. I am a bit of an idealist. I love resolution and reconciliation. I would like that with these two, but I dare not dream of it. I don’t really know how to swim with the bigger fish and my skin has not yet hardened. ~¿

Waiting

an unexpected sabbatical

I’ve been on something like an unexpected sabbatical since my last posting on this blog (June 13, 2012). My world has turned round and round, upside down, right side up and sideways. The sale of our Frank Lloyd Wright house took on shady tones and bogus proportions that finally were unacceptable to us. When asked to reduce the price to less than half its worth, it took us only a moment to flatly refuse in unison. We shifted gears, reclaimed the house and promptly put the smaller house—our downsize house—on the market instead.

July and August were full of heavy packing, lifting, and moving—box- by-box, carload-by-carload, all day, every day until Two Men and a Truck came for the furniture at the end of August. We were not just moving our living quarters; we were moving a studio as well. Despite having either sold or given away lots of things during our move to the smaller house on Audubon Road, the volume of stuff was staggering. I started the job with gusto mid July and ended with a torn meniscus in my knee shortly before the actual move. Since I had didn’t have a lot of experience with physical injury, I paid little attention. There was a job to do and a goal to be reached.

We were excited and full of hope at coming home and starting over. Thinking to put the past behind us, we planned to live in the spacious old house in a new way. We’d done a thoroughly beautiful renovation on it and lived there for seventeen years before moving to Audubon Road. It suited us in many ways, but there were some rooms that just never felt right to us, no matter what adjustments were made. We concluded that we’d been trying too hard to live there in a more formal FLW, prairie style. So the plan was to use the rooms in a different way…color outside the lines, so to speak. The most notable change was our decision to keep the 23 x 15 foot living room clear for large gatherings of friends and family, music and dance events to accommodate our current interests. We call it the ballroom. Here is a shot of the southwest corner of the room, showing the expanse of oak throughout and a great dance floor.

Once in the house, we felt an immediate sense of being at home…as though we’d been on assignment somewhere for four years and finally came home. It was glorious and it was fun. This was where we belonged, without doubt. The tenants we’d had were good people, but despite the arrangement we had made with them, they really had no investment in the place, so we had a lot to do in addition to the changes we needed to make for ourselves. The house spoke to us and we returned the greeting a hundred-fold, but my knee was steadily worsening and I was unable to dance. The big beautiful music/dance room stood waiting. With my oncology appointment looming (always a point of anxiety), I began a generalized worry pattern that pretty much centered on the idea that dancing was all over for me. I’d been too proud of my ability, so I thought; my body was now showing its true colors.

Finally, at the insistence of my very good friend, whose dancing days made her an expert on injured knees, hips and other parts, strategic to dancing health, I made an appointment with an orthopedic doctor. The MRI confirmed frayed meniscus in my left knee, a product of aging wear and tear, made worse by packing, schlepping and cleaning on hands and knees with relentless determination to leave the little house pristinely ready for the market. The doctor suggested surgery or physical therapy that would strengthen my quadriceps enough to relieve the pain.

I chose physical therapy and came home feeling hopeful enough to meet with my dance teacher for some gentle, stretching, body movement. It had been nearly three months; yet, under her direction, I was amazed at what I could still do. I was floating on cloud nine after she left. It was time for lunch…still floating,  I placed a piece of my favorite Middle Eastern lavash in the toaster while I went about searching for something in the pantry to go with it. (This lavash is very thin and needs only thirty seconds to heat.) While six feet away, standing on a stool in the pantry, something bright caught my eye: serious red flames shooting up from the charred lavash toward the wooden cabinet directly above. I told myself to stay calm and get to the toaster before alarm bells (or worse) went off. I got quickly down, protecting my knee, I lunged forward, jamming my left foot into the leg of the stool I’d been standing on and sustained a spiral break in my toe and an enormous hematoma. I hobbled to the toaster, unplugged it and carried it (still flaming) out to the yard, all the while telling myself I had not broken anything. The kitchen was smoky. Windows went up, the fire alarm got disabled and the pain increased; reason returned: I had broken a left toe, a very sore left foot and a damaged left meniscus. Agony! Bad luck! Misery! No dancing for me now, for sure! My glass was not half-empty…more like nearly empty.

Ice, ice and more ice. Ibuprofen. Homeopathic Arnica and Symphytum. It was two weeks before I could wear anything but a “glamorous” orthopedic post-op shoe and four weeks before I could manage a shoe with a big cutout on the side. I was limping along with a cane, feeling awkward and immensely unlucky to say the least. The doctor said it could take three months to properly heal. After six weeks, with the help of my cut-out shoe, I started physical therapy. Four weeks later, my quadriceps were strong and I was back! No surgery required.

In the midst of all this came Thanksgiving with all its hustle, bustle, worry and scurry—our first big dining event in the ballroom. Thankfully, it was a great success. Five days after Thanksgiving Day I had a strange sore throat and cough. The next day was my six-month oncology appointment (never a fun trip). My lab tests were very good, so I didn’t think much about the sore throat, since it seemed to be improving. The following day was my last physical therapy session. I was unusually tired and low on energy with muscles more sore than usual. The day after came with chills, fever, gas, bloating and overwhelming flu-like tiredness. It was the first of December and I rallied to take the granddaughters to the town’s Frosty Fest pageant. It’s total fun to be with kids at Christmas. We had a great time…Santa, reindeer, cotton candy, hot chocolate…joie de vivre!

The next day my illness began to slowly return, but my youngest granddaughter, Miss Pink’s, birthday party was scheduled for that afternoon at the dreadful house of grown-up horrors called, Chuck-e Cheese’s. We had to be there. J and I soldiered through the noise, the din and the obnoxious urging to be happy, happy, happy; aren’t we all so happy today??? By the time it was all over and done with, and we were driving home to peace and sanity, illness overtook me. We had to pull into a parking lot; I sat on the curb, shaking with chills and gastric distress for fifteen minutes while my body decided which way it was going to go, up or down. Once home, I went to bed and prayed for recovery. Many weeks of illness ensued, making many return visits that simply would not stop. Since my blood work had been good, I could set aside my habitual fear of illness being cancer returning in cloak and dagger fashion. Nonetheless, I was really sick for weeks and not able to stay well for more than a few days at a time. My doctor suggested an immune strengthening regiment of elderberry, astragalus, and two homeopathic medicines to be taken regularly for four weeks. I am starting my third week of this regimen and feeling quite disposed to continuing until the robins and blue birds return and this unseasonable Midwest weather pattern gives way to proper spring days. We’ve set up a bird bath and feeder to encourage them back into our daily life.

During the course of the injuries and ensuing illness stretching into January, I’d lost my raison d’être as an artist. Only dancing made any sense to me. I watched many dance films to stay connected to this. Last week I looked at the computer and heard writing and visual art calling me to return to them as equal partners with dance. I don’t know exactly what it was that brought me back; I think it best to let go of so much knowing anyway. I’m back in my house, looking to the future—not as a younger woman would do, but as a woman in her seventh decade with a lot of history, a 50/50 chance of cancer returning one day, and a mind that processes time differently than I did in my fifties and sixties. I am at yet another point of transition and coming to understand that life is all about transitions. Nothing is permanent. Only now is here. Today I am glad to be writing again, composing visual art, dancing, and by grace, moving forward.

aging, not old

I hear people, mostly women in their 50s, say they are old. I am astounded by this. We live in a youth culture. I want to tell them about the stages of life…that they are not old, but merely transitioning from the first half of life to the second, which if done mind fully is so much richer than the first. Ages 40-60 are sociologically classified as mid-life; 60 and beyond as elder life. I certainly don’t want to denigrate anyone’s experience, but the truth is that aging is a process we are engaged in from birth onward. It is not the same as old. Further, the term old has been replaced with elder, which can have a nice ring to it. (So much nicer than senior citizen!)

We grow older, not old—older. I am pleased to say that very often the process includes a bit of wisdom—the older we get the more experience we have. If applied thoughtfully, experience can produce at least a modicum of wisdom. Each decade has its own hallmarks—highs and lows—but the trajectory for all living things is conception, birth, bloom, fade, demise. I propose that the latter 50s and 60s of a person’s life is a fading, not into demise, but into new bloom—or second bloom, if you will. (Sociologically, we may have the baby-boomers to thank for this.)

Now in my early 70’s and feeling more rather than less, I propose the 70s may very well be the doorstep of maturity or the beginning of insight. Whether it is or isn’t, my experience is an awakening to the precariousness of time. I see endings now rather than distance and time becomes precious. I think back to my mother at this age…her joys, sorrows and pervading loneliness. I did not understand any of it. I was 40…building my life and blithely ministering to my own needs. I could not understand her because I was not developmentally able to do so, yet I could have tried. I could have listened. I did not. I regret, and am shamed by this egocentrism.

I could babble on, but I’d be late for my InterPlay session, so here’s what an elder in training has to say to all the 50 year olds out there who fear 60: Each decade will be a bridge to the next station of life; and every now and then you will be really glad to have experience and wisdom in your back pocket. Practice a healthy life-style. Wrinkles are not important. Only babies are wrinkle-free.

update and post script

My posts have been few and far between for a while now. I have been on a journey and not through yet, but thought I’d just try to bring this blog somewhat up to date before doing so becomes a gigantic, uphill climb with a backpack too full of stuff to sort out, let alone write down for public consumption.

This year’s summer was a hard trek, but in a different way than last year’s summer when I was torn into pieces by the church we were invited—then uninvited—to join. Last summer the pangs of betrayal I experienced were felt in the warmth of my family—Big Dawg, Adopted Daughter Bettina and I. We set about fitting into the little church that welcomed us in on the rebound. We were beginning to breathe, but by September Bettina’s cancer returned for a fourth and final time. She died just ten weeks into the new year.

I was completely absorbed in caring for Bettina, and completely involved in helping her to die well. For a long time afterward I was equally absorbed in the loss of her and of our family of three. There were many losses since my cancer diagnosis in 2006 and they came swarming together in a great anguished whoosh. The repercussions were enormous. By spring, I no longer knew where I belonged or why. I was a traveler on the grief road without a sense of direction…just drifting in deep pools of sadness and disconnection. Toward the end of spring and the beginning of summer, quite unexpectedly as if by magic, I became a mother-in-law and a grandmother. There was no time to practice. The summer wore on and still the quiet, disconnected sadness. I yearned for spiritual connection and began attending Catholic Mass, while at the same time continuing in my position as visual art maven at the little quirky church on the edge of the city. The grandchildren were pinpoints of joy—lone stars in a dark sky. I became a woman with many faces, but no mirror in which to see them.

August was a particularly desperate time and called for desperate measures. I could not relate to the little church and could not keep from receiving the sadness bubbling up within. It was a time of affirming forgiveness, 70 x 7 and then some. My path became stony and disorienting. In response, the little church said don’t leave…let’s talk, and formed a small listening group around BD and me. Many things happened in rapid succession, both inside and outside the group. Issues fell into place as we became aware that four years of losses with little time between amounts to post traumatic stress. I don’t normally cotton with these labels, but this time it is fitting, and we are glad to have this understanding as a way to make sense of our wobbly-top selves. I am grateful to the several persons who were angels unaware in this drama, for I was not always so lovable. These people were willing spiritual conduits, each with a different message, each with a different angel’s feather touch. Each bearing God’s love and grace.

In the end, an aha moment was this:  understanding that in the loose, laid-back character of this quirky little church, lay freedom and trust and possibilities, and in return, I must give it all I’ve got. I’ve been busy ever since, not with more than you younger readers are prone to taking on, but with more than I am accustomed to taking on in quite this faith centered way. There are not enough days or hours in the days, and certainly not enough weeks in the month for me. I am swimming in a rushing river to some where that I know not…every now and then caught by an eddy of old thoughts and memories that must be untangled and set out to dry. In a couple of weeks I will turn a ripe 72… Despite my good health report, I am very aware of the time I have left—sensitized to it. Insomnia plagues me lately. It’s not a workaholic compulsion that is the culprit, it is this sense that I am in transition—in training if you will—for the last chapter of my life as a doer/giver. I am such a late bloomer…I want 20 years doing and giving in the space of 10! Sometimes I feel like a child who cannot wait for Christmas morning. Other times I feel like skipping Christmas morning entirely, for surely a gift with my name on it will be much too heavy for me to manage.

Called by name…that is the word I received many times in the dark chemotherapy nights.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame  shall not consume you. Isaiah 43

So when I am not wobbling over with extremes of joy and anxiety, I generally say, Here am I. Send me!”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And I said, Here am I. Send me! Isaiah 6:8

abominations, anathemas, absurdities

Leaving aside for the moment,  joyous occasions such as described in my last posting—Family Plan, June 10—I have another concern to share with you. This is one I personally walked a road of hot coals for in 2008/09. I have referenced my experience many times (sometimes overtly and sometimes not) since this blog began on June 29, 2009. (If you like, you can check the archives for these accounts.) The issue remains contentiously stuck in the minds of many. Some reasonable persons just get blind-sided.  What follows is at least humorous.

On her radio show recently, Dr. Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. It is worthy of mentioning, however briefly, that Doctor Laura has a doctorate in Physiology (the study of the body); she is neither a psychologist nor a psychiatrist. She did however, earn a post-doctoral certification in Marriage, Family and Child Counseling. You can read her bio at http://www.biography.com/articles/Laura-Schlessinger-9542197

The following response is an Open Letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a U.S. resident, posted on the internet and currently traveling extensively and humorously along its currents:

Advice From Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination…End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Law and how to follow them.

1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

4. Lev.25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?

5. I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. The passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev.11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?

7. Lev.21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev.19:27. How should they die?

9. I know from Lev.11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? – Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God’s Word is eternal and unchanging.

Your adoring fan,

James M. Kauffman, Ed.D., Professor Emeritus

Dept. of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education

University of Virginia

405 Emmet Street South

PO Box 400273

Charlottesville, VA 22904-4273

sleepless in the subdivision

I went to sleep tonight around 9:45 p.m. By 11:00 I had awakened twice out of disturbing dreams. In my groggy state I began to wonder what was going on. Then I realized: my next door neighbor is at it again—making noise in his family room—loud, penetrating noise with a steady, insistent beat that doesn’t quit and has no mitigating rhythms. I call this barroom noise, calculated to arouse strong feelings and provoke anger-energy responses in those who have managed to retain their hearing. I have tried heavy-duty ear plugs and white noise. Nothing blocks out the banging noise that pulls the covers off my heart and sends my adrenalin into waves of fight or flight response. I want to smash this guy’s windows…send a rocket through his house. I would call the police, but we are in an unincorporated subdivision. And that means, we are on our own. I reason with myself, pray, imagine going over there and dealing with him. I don’t. The music (I believe that is what it is called) has produced responses in me that have made me fearful of my own anger. Not exactly in keeping with a pacifist view.

It is 12:45 a.m. and I am now fully awake. The 4 cars parked in this guy’s driveway are still there, but the noise has stopped. I don’t know what they are doing over there now. Perhaps they are “cooling off” with a drug of choice and a case or two of beer. I am cooling off too—with a mild sedative and a few sips of port that I know will kick the sedation up a notch. I am resentful at having had my sacred sleep time broken into. I am not feeling forgiving at the moment and the tension makes me want to fall in a heap and cry in protest.  I write instead.

This neighbor fellow has no idea what he has done to our night. He has taken his piece of pie right out of the middle! I do not want to confront him, but I do not know how to speak to him effectively either, for I never see him around his house. He is a bit of a phantom. Don’t know his name. He moved in next door about 6 month after us. These are the times I wish I had a big, courageous, burley husband who would take care of this man-to-man. I do not. It’s just us little old ladies and our 2 little cats, living day-to-day, knowing there really is so little time to waste in this life. Two months ago we lost Bettina, as well as another dear friend of 25 years, 1 year ago I lost my sister, 1-1/2  years ago we lost our cousin, 3 years ago we lost another good friend. All of these to cancer—the thief in the night that I call the old black hag.

Tonight my partner, Big Dawg, went to bed with a heavy heart because another of her cousins in dying of cancer. She lies in bed with this heavy heart. Our neighbor does his noise thing with his buddies. The walls of his house and the walls of our house keep us separate, but the sounds of his travail permeate our bedrooms. Ours does not permeate his. There is an irony here, but I wish it were not so. It is now 2:05 a.m. as I head up to bed. God bless us all.

forgiveness 70 x 7

Last Sunday, we all went back to our former church to support adopted daughter in her desire to address the congregation on the importance of maintaining loving relationships above disagreement. We brought her in a wheel chair with portable oxygen and still the effort was physically considerable for her. I don’t completely  know where this desire has its genesis in her own 48 years. I don’t completely know because AD is a very private person. She does not talk extensively about her feelings in connection with her life growing up in an extended family of wealthy immigrants. I have heard stories, and I know the recent past, but there is not a lot of connection along the emotional road from there to here. And curiously enough…I am a confidante.

So I don’t know all that went in to this effort to speak to the congregation and I don’t understand her request for forgiveness, but it seemed to resonate with some of the people there. The pastor responded by asking forgiveness in behalf of the congregation. I have no way of knowing how the congregation felt about that, but it was an important step for the pastor to take. It was a very dramatic and meaningful time. Ad is now quite exhausted by the effort and I am wandering along the path, not quite with it and not quite without. While 99% were glad to see and receive AD, not everyone was glad to see Big Dawg and me—probably most, but certainly not everyone.

We knew that would be the case going in, and were especially aware when sitting directly across from us was person X,  whose dark and grim demeanor was much the same as it had been a year ago, on Pentecost Sunday, 2009. That was the day the congregation exploded, giving us a clear and painful message that we were not to be included into membership. Not only was X’s demeanor the same, but  X was sitting in just about the same proximity to us as last year! It was eerie and unsettling, but we persevered. Just before AD was wheeled up to the front of the church to speak, person X got up and left the sanctuary. I found this action abruptly rude, careless, egoistic at best and a slap in the face of the Body of Christ at worst.

I did not think about this incident until late in the day when I could put aside my public persona and be at home. The incident began to haunt me as memories of the past year flooded my heart and mind, giving free rise to my autonomic nervous system’s response to remembered pain and agony. We had become scapegoats at that church for nine months. Although I’d come closer to God through that suffering, it was at times extremely painful, bringing up childhood experiences of rejection as well as a string of adult experiences. The forgiveness I’d come to in the past several months was being tested and I was teetering on the brink of despair and self-loathing for about  36 hours—teetering and nearly falling from acceptance of God’s love. I could only breathe YHWH and let the Spirit intercede (Romans 8). By Tuesday, I was climbing back up the ladder and leaving goats behind. Today I find this passage in Richard Rohr’s meditation  (February 24) and it helps me put persons like X, as well as goats, in perspective:

We have always needed to find a way to deal with human anxiety and evil by some means—and it was invariably some practice other than forgiveness or healing. We usually dealt with human anxiety and evil by sacrificial systems of some sort, and that has largely continued to this day. (Exclusion, torture, war, segregation, class division, prejudice, and racism would be its common forms.)

Historically, we moved from human sacrifice, to animal sacrifice, to various modes of seeming self-sacrifice. But even in self-sacrifice, it was not usually the ego self that we sacrificed, but most often the material self as its vicarious substitute. The physical body became our usual scapegoat instead of the real problem which was the ego—a rather clever game of smoke and mirrors. Meanwhile the ego has remained “scot free” and off the hook for most of Christian history, even at the highest levels of church.

Whether you agree with Rohr’s analysis wholly, in part, or not at all is not my concern. What is important to me today is that …the rivers did not overwhelm me and I was not burned.

round two

It was snowing this morning—first snowfall of the season. My appointment with the thyroid doctor wasn’t until 3:00 in the afternoon. Driving in falling, wet snow made me apprehensive. I didn’t need snow and I was beginning to feel low and moody. Tried to get my appointment moved up and couldn’t, so I went out, shoveled the entire driveway, and place my car in an easy to exit position in the garage. While shoveling I became lower yet and sadly, began to feel angry. What about? I didn’t know. Everything.

After shoveling, I hung my wet coat and hat to dry and proceeded to begin my day at the computer. Within minutes, the doctor’s office called to ask me if I could be there in half an hour. Absolutely. Thank you God. No fender-benders for me. I got myself together and set out. The snow stopped falling. The streets were navigable and I arrived 10 minutes early.

I received an ultrasound prior to the visit with the doctor. Back to the waiting room. In another 10 minutes, while I was in a little room waiting for the doctor, my cell phone rang. It was a member of my welcoming church asking about my well-being and telling me I was greatly cared about. I became teary and realized I had been fearful of this visit. I knew about the fear of the oncology visit looming ahead for tomorrow and  the CT scan aftermath still fresh in my mind, but I wasn’t aware of being concerned about the thyroid situation. Maybe it was all one big ball of wax, as they say.

Well, maybe there is something to this look on the bright side thing, or maybe it’s faith…my thyroid blood levels are now normal, the larger tumor is shrinking to an acceptable size, and the smaller one hasn’t grown. Yeah, for the home team! Relief and joy. So glad this doctor chose to treat pharmaceutically rather than surgically. I even got a free sample of my expensive osteoporosis drug! Do I feel sorry for the snit I was in earlier in the morning? Not really. I am so much just a human being. No spiritual giant, I. We do the best we can by the grace of God and s/he does the rest. Joy!

So tomorrow I go to the cancer clinic, learn the results of the CT scan and receive what is expected to be the last lymphoma maintenance treatment of Rituxan. I’m counting on the scan showing no recurrence and the Rituxan experience truly being the last of too many (in my opinion). But…let me not deceive you…regardless of what I say there is still the shadow within that fears and apprehends. Here is where my childhood training of holding the doctor in high regard comes up for air. Let me hear this man of dubious magic say: “You’re doing well, Ms. Called by Name. I see nothing to be concerned about. I’ll see you in 3 months. Have a nice holiday!” Sigh…. I’ll let you know.

codicil to last post

My last post contains an error that has been graciously pointed out to me by two friends (currently still in my former congregation), that it had always been the intention of the leadership and mediators to include all of us who have left, and especially BD and me. Although the congregation had talked of mediation early on and had many months to plan and hire a team, they didn’t get around to approving and acting on the hiring of a team until September 20 (10 days ago). Naturally, this leaves the team with a very tight deadline and the inevitable errors and omissions common to working at warp speed when slow and steady is best. Much as I’d like to fall on my sword and beg forgiveness for my quick assessment that BD and I were afterthoughts in this process, my sympathy lies with the mediators, and  I see this as one more instance of the failure of leadership to initiate,  and see a project through in a positive and timely manner.  What I see throughout my time there…and now this effort to telescope pain and heartbreak going back too many years into a single week is… fear. I will leave it to those directly involved to consider if this is so and if it is, why is it so? Aren’t there many scripture verses about fear and faith being oil and water?

As for me and BD…we are ready to say our piece one more time tonight and we will do so truthfully, openly, with no parsing of words or thoughts. It will be our view of what happened to us. After that, we dearly hope this will be the end of revisiting the disaster for us…unless there is a sea-change over there and then we can rejoice, hold hands and maybe, maybe be: One Body, One Spirit, One Hope, One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism, celebrating One God together.