Restorative Life

Baggage Claim

     As usual, I've overpacked. My goal is to always go light, pack efficiently and compact. The reality is I generally end up sitting on my suitcase, squeezing in items that maybe I won't be able to live without or including every outfit combo that would suit my various moods or the weather or chance opportunities. I try to outwit travel and all the loops and curves it can throw my way, though I often end up loving the detours. I love to travel. I can't wait to see what's around the next corner or how people experience life in other parts of the country. They say, whenever you go, there you are. We carry our baggage so to speak.

     That's true, of course, but it goes deeper than that. We are the food we eat and the places we've been. Age has mellowed me, made me realize it's good to get rid of my baggage for awhile and see the culture and life view of another area. I'm the same, but different - more open somehow.

We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

                                                                                   T.S. Eliot

DB

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         I have learned to love the subtle changes autumn brings to the salt marsh in the Lowcountry. The spartina grass fades gently from vibrant summer green to a softer golden brown as the days cool and shorten.  But a few days back home in West Virginia remind me that I miss the vibrant colors of the mountains as the trees announce the arrival of autumn with cool crisp days and frost sprinkled nights.   All the colors of nature proclaim that a season has ended and another begun.  

        The colors remind us that change happens whether we are ready for it or not.  The cycle of life continues.  Life changes and moves on. We leave home. Our children grow up and move away.  Our  jobs change, new roads are paved, new babies are born.  Things change.

      It’s October.  We can embrace the change in the air by pulling on a sweater and stepping out for a brisk walk or we can huddle inside the house, remembering the last warm days of summer.   It’s all about attitude.

AF

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     When I arrived for my first restorative yoga class, the instructor, Tracy, had prepared a station for each of the six women in the group. A yoga mat, a large foam block, a long blue strap, a small foam block, and a fuzzy blanket were laid out for me. The lights were low, and soothing music played from Tracy's iPod. The first pose had me on my back, knees up, using my feet and core muscles to lift my lower back off the floor far enough to position the large foam block under my lumbar spine. I stretched to reach for the block, just as Tracy arrived and, shaking her head gently, placed it for me. We were to hold each pose for five full minutes, focusing on our breathing and "listening to our bodies." My mind wandered, and my inner perfectionist took over. I found myself looking at my classmates to make sure I was doing the pose "correctly," but Tracy caught me, and I earned another gently disapproving shake of her head. 
     The next pose was sitting against the wall, legs stretching up the wall, backs flat on the mat. Tracy told us to let one leg fall to the side "until you are comfortable," though again, I was comparing my pose to everyone else's. The long strap to one side of my mat was there to wrap around my foot for support, and just as I was about to break the pose to reach for it, Tracy appeared again. As she placed the strap around my foot, she leaned in to whisper, "You're going to have to learn to let me do things for you, Stacy."

SS

Patience and perspective

This painting by Townsend DavidsonTownsend Davidson hangs in Ashley River Tower at MUSC. 

I like how it plays with perspective the way supermoons do. 

Lost in space

     We watched a full moon rise Saturday night, with thin clouds bisecting it. I turned off the car radio to a chorus of complaints from the three kids jamming to the music so we could watch it in silence.

     “Why can’t we leave the radio on?” asks my teenager. “We can still see it rise.”

     Another child pipes in, “Are you even watching it or playing electronics?”

     “Uhh, yeah, where is it?”

     Explaining that this is a supermoon, bigger and brighter than ever for just this one night because of its closer passage to the Earth, I insist on a moment of silence to honor it. There’s a pause. “Oh my gosh, that’s incredible. It looks so big,” says the teenager who finally has looked.

     I’m pleased we can share this moment of a rising supermoon.  The moon gives me chills, dwarfing the horizon as it does, dwarfing me, reminding me of the celestial spin we’re on - of how we’re not the center of our own universe. I get the same feeling when I journal or serve at the family shelter or help a friend or watch one of my children sleep. It’s that being part of something bigger, that both shrinks and expands me at the same time.

      I start to comment on perspective, how important it is to switch gears for the celestial view sometimes, but I get interrupted.

     “Are we going to be there in time for the movie’s start?”

      I shake my head and smile, responding yes. I turn up the radio and flip on my turn signal. Moment over. But there, for an instance, I felt the Earth move.

DB

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     I am learning patience from my garden. It has been weeks now since I planted tomato, squash, and pepper plants (not to mention strawberries, but the birds take the fruit from those before I even have a chance to admire it), and finally there are signs that my care

for the plants has not been in vain. After all the watering, fertilizing, weeding, and checking on them every day, at last there are vegetables at different stages of development on all the plants.

      The first little tomatoes appeared a couple of weeks ago, and many more have joined them since. I even ate two red ripe fruits from the plant this week. The squash began coming in a bit later. I was amazed as I watched the large orange-yellow flowers seemingly turn inside out and become recognizable squash-shapes. Some of them should be ready to pick any day now (if the dreaded squash borer bugs my friend Carrie

told me about don't get to them first). 

     I had nearly given up on the green peppers. That plant was the last to flower, and having never watched vegetables grow (I'm embarrassed to admit), I was not even

sure which part would turn into the edible bell peppers like the ones I bought in stores. Just a few days ago, I finally saw that one little pepper-shape had formed, as if by magic, overnight. But it won't be ready to pick for awhile. It will need sunshine, rain, my continuing care, and time. I will just have to be patient.

SS

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Graduation at Furman University,  May 2012

     Graduation.  A time of endings and new beginnings.  For us, it's the end of an era of moving daughters in and out of Furman University each year. Savannah graduated on Saturday, moved out of her apartment on Sunday and began a whirlwind week of travel to discover what's next for her.  Graduation is an emotional rollercoaster for both students and their feeling-suddenly-much-older parents.  There's sadness over friends, professors and a beautiful campus left behind along with excitement, apprehension, and uncertainty over what lies ahead.  

     But in the midst is gratitude (at least from this mom's perspective).  Gratitude for great professors who were challenging teachers and good mentors,  for best friends and roommates who pulled each other through long study nights and college drama, and for those late night philosophical/spiritual/political conversations with friends that change and shape an outlook on life.   Gratitude for a beautiful, safe campus here in South Carolina and gratitude for study away programs to England, Scotland, Spain, New Orleans, Mexico and Turkey  which helped my daughters learn and experience more about this new global world in which we all live.

     A good education helps you grow into a person more interested in others than yourself; challenges your own (and your parents!) assumptions and beliefs about the world we live in; takes you places you've never been - both intellectually and physically;  and gives you friends to last a lifetime.

     For all these blessings and many more,  thanks Furman.

AF

 

     Although it is usually just said as an expression of boredom, lately I have literally been watching the grass grow. I decided that this spring, my first with my very own yard, I would find out how exactly one takes care of grass. Up until recently the extent of my knowledge was that you mow it when it gets too high. But now, I am doing my research, finding out about fertilizers and pre-emergent treatments, pest control and overwatering. 

      I attended a lawn care seminar at a local garden center last Saturday, and they told me that once my grass greens up, I should bring in a sample of it so they can tell me what kind it is and what I need to do to keep it looking its best. The weeds that are overrunning the grass right now, I was told to leave alone. They are winter weeds and will die soon anyway. By next year, with regular applications of pre-emergents, hopefully they won't be so out of control. 

     I'm thankful for the wisdom of experts, for their recommendation of caution and patience. Without it, I may have just hosed down the whole place with Roundup and started from scratch. This way takes more time and effort, but I can just imagine how satisfying it will be to look at my healthy lawn and remember how far we have come.

SS

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     It’s church yard sale weekend.  Providence is participating in the Red Balloon Yard sale on Daniel Island and so I’ve been weeding out clutter to donate.  An old foot massager.  Several remote control cars.  An alarm clock that still works but isn’t needed. Books. Old vases. A CD player.  An ancient Nintendo gameboy.  More books and bric-a-brac.  Unused photo albums. Where did all this stuff come from? My daughter, Savannah, who is home for spring break, goes through her closet and donates a half-dozen posters, a baby doll, several beanie babies, giant pink monster slippers, and some random trinkets. But it’s the bears that stop me.

       In Alison’s closet, I find the bears she loved as a toddler, with the uninspired names of Pink Bear and Bear Bear.  At two and a half, for reasons known only to her, Alison pronounced Bear Bear with an affected Scarlett O’Hara accent -  “Bay-uh, bay-uh.”  Even though Alison has now married and moved to St. Louis, leaving Bear Bear behind without a thought, I haven’t been able to muster up the grit to send the bears along to a new owner.  It’s time I decide - but first, I take a picture.  

     It’s my new de-cluttering strategy.  If I’m feeling too sentimental to get rid of something - even if that something has been stored in a box in a closet for ten years - I simply take a picture of it.  The memory can remain with the picture, taking up a lot less real estate than a box full of stuffed animals in a closet.  I’m feeling brave, so I photograph Big Bear (a five foot tall bear who has lived in Alison’s room for years) and sent him off to the yard sale as well. Those bears will find new children to love them and their digital image will remain to trigger memories and inspire blog posts.  The pictures of the bears are now safely stored in a file on my computer named “Favorite Old Things.”  

      Letting go of what we love is never easy... but it does free up closet space.

AF

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FOCAL POINT

The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire 

not things we fear.                                             ~Brian Tracy

I took a walk with a photographer friend of mine who took this shot.

It's amazing what a long lens and shallow depth of field can do. Likewise in life we can change focus and reframe events.

It is said we are the stories we tell ourselves.  Can it really be that simple?

For a March day, it was.

Hello, spring.

DB