The Waiting Is The ...........

                      Waiting

For a while I waited for myself to catch up to me... I was trailing or dragging far behind myself.  I caught up. Then found myself waiting again. Not sure what for, just in wait.

Historically, I have never been patient.. one of the things my Rector and I discussed privately while I was going through discernment 12 years ago was my need to slow it down... and I had already slowed down... but to gear down even more.  That I have done.  Patience in waiting pays off. 

It helped me sit still for two years waiting for my house to sell, so I could move back home, the first year spent in dread that I would die up there like everyone else did.  But the voice said Trust me, so I did... and while waiting there were still things I needed to learn, to accept.  To look at.  

I waited to get well.. a long time... this last year has been the hardest, not only with the health things but personal issues as well... and those too require patient waiting and to simply stand still and stand right in the middle of it all.

And life to me often looked like this

no end in sight....

I am still struggling with some things and I understanding it entails waiting. But I grow weary in the wait... the waiting wears me thin now.  And I am not part of it.  A couple weeks ago, my college boyfriend contacted me... he was the almost... things for us didn't work out at that time. We parted on good terms.  I actually kept his photos even after I got married... I find out now he kept my letters and comics I would send him.  It is as no time has passed.  It's been almost 40 years.  He retired from the military two years ago.  I have always held a special place for him in my heart.  Yes, I do love him still... in a different yet better way than when we were younger.  And again, I wait.  He's going to come here.  He has things to settle where he lives up north.  I imagine he will visit first, that would be wise. And  I wait for that.  I wait with anticipation  that there is someone who remembers me, who knows me, and loves me for who I am.  In the same way I love him.  I don't know what will happen.  Sometimes we wait, and our waiting is in vain.  Me, I tend to say life is short and don't wait... yet I can't hold onto my own words. Not when I let them slip through my hands.  That is my own doing, and waiting to remedy that will do me absolutely no good.  So while waiting I will still move forward in the direction I feel I am being led.  That is what I was waiting for, that sign post that said, "this way" with a fat arrow.  I got that.  And more.  I am not patient. But I know how to wait.  And like it or not, it is one common thing we all share.

The Clock On The Wall

I am swaddled in warm blankets like a mummy or a corpse there somewhere adrift, unsure of where.
I am neither awake nor asleep. I hear a quiet voice speak to me, call me by name.  "Lori, wake up."
I feel her hand on my head, warm and soft.  "Lori, open your eyes."  I lay there trying, knowing that I am in there somewhere, but I am cocooned and warm in that place.  My eyes slowly open to see her there close to me, a tear runs down my cheek.  "You're in the hospital.  You had to have surgery.  Are you in any pain?"  I shake my head no. I cannot move, all I want is ice chips, she tells me its too soon.  Another tear.  There is only she and I in the recovery room.   I look at the wall and the clock stares back at me.  It's 10:30pm.  That same tear still trickles slowly down my cheek, as I realized through that fog that I am utterly alone.

                                      TBC


Dave Matthews: "Take Me to Tomorrow" (Fretboard Journal photo shoot) from fretboardjournal on Vimeo.

This just in...... sort of

My friend Lynda posted this, which she says she normally doesn't do, and she doesn't but it spoke to her and seemed right to post. 

It hit me over the head too.. so I'm slapping it up here in case you haven't seen it before.  Maybe it'll turn on a couple of lights in some unlit corners in our lives.

I usually don't post quotes and the like because so many people do but I was thinking of people who are heroes and saw this:

“In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless in those who have never achieved his title. Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.” **Ayn Rand 

"So many roads"...Jerry Garcia

Yup, I'm thinking the same thing.

                                                                      

                                                                  crave

I mentioned to Diane that the word for the week carve, kept popping in my mind as curve.  And tonight sitting here staring at a photo I had slapped up here, I decided crave fit too.  

Then I realized I don't have a blessed thing to say about any of them.  At least not thus far and wouldn't count on anything coming in the near future.

Crave, yes I crave peace.  I crave well being.  And I crave solitude.  

End of story

                                                      My Little List of Wonders 

Diane came up with a good idea about making lists... I think it's a good one since there are so many things we wonder about some real, some not.  It seems not to matter and then too, who do you ask about the things you wonder even if they seem to make sense.  My list isn't in any order of import or wonder... some are old, some new, some one my list of things I want to ask God when I see him,  some real, some very unreal.  Some things I shouldn't even be wondering at all.  Human enough, I still do.  


What's up with fire ants?  Why?

Why this man won't leave me alone?  

How the hell I am going to get out of the debt incurred trying to save my skin?

Why did I choose to save my life?

Why I have never gotten mad at God?

Why I am using questions marks at the end of each of these rather than a period, am I asking a question or simply making a statement?

What the sun does behind the those really cloudy days when the sky seems so low?

If I should go back to school.

If I should move.

Why my patience level runs so thin these days.

Why my heart seems so fragile along with my lack of patience.

Why my grief burns so much deeper now.

Is there really life somewhere "out there" in space?

Is there really life here?

Yes there really are mermaids.

That I never lose my sense of awe and wonder when I see the ocean each and every time.

How is it that I find so much there?

How close I am to God there by the water especially in the water.

How I survived living away from it.

What happened in my Mothers life to turn her into the nasty drunk she was.

Why my Charlie would write a song about me.

Who writes songs about women they meet?

What kind of man does that?

Why are souls are so connected.

Where those who confuse religion with God get their info.

Where the culture of "I deserve" came from.

Why we often fail to see what is truly important in our lives.

How does that happen?

Why we find it so incredibly difficult to accept unconditional love.

Why we so often see ourselves as unlovable.

Why mean ass people don't self implode and vanish from the face of the earth.

Where babies really come from.

Why Johnny's bread is so dang good.

How hard people struggle to avoid anything dying.

And then how they struggle to avoid living.

How they deem whose life is worth saving and who's is not.

How much music stirs my soul.

How much I love that feeling.

That every shell you see on the beach was at one time a living thing.

How we cannot accept that we are a host of contradictions.

What happens to us when we find ourselves truly hating ourselves.

Why men cheat.  Why women cheat.

Where are the angels really bowling when it's thundering.

I never wonder about angels because I know they exist.

Where the moon gets her beauty.

Why I am so taken with her beauty.

Why I hate it when it's really windy.

Why I am struggling again with my body image.

How I differentiate killing a bug from refusing to take something live from the water.

How we decide killing is okay.

What lengths will I go to save myself from myself.

Why I stopped making art.

When did I become old?

Why wasn't I warned?

Where does fat really go when you lose it?

Where is my other diamond earring?

Why I am still here.

How much I miss my Dad.  

Why I don't miss my husband as much as my Dad.

How I seem to see and understand things others don't.

Why some people can't and won't cook.

What happened to manners?

Why I don't shut up after telling myself to be quiet.  (in my head)

Why I talk  when I am nervous.

Why some people automatically repel me and make me run for the hills.

Why people like football.

How did the man who invented the shower do it... god bless him.

Same for indoor plumbing.

Why I am.

Why I save weird stuff.  i.e.  feathers, bird eggs, rocks et al.

Where my paper fetish came from.

Same for pens and pencils.

Where do socks go when they disappear?

What color my hair is.

How I can still be my own worst enemy.

Where does rain really come from.

Where am I?

What am I doing?

Why I ask myself that.

Why I feel like I am not.

Why I let things people say now get under my skin.

Where did my ability go to tell them they have so done.

Why it will bug the crap out of me until I beat it to death then let it go

Why I can't let go of some things

Especially things I wonder.

Why I still have the unending need to "understand" things that are close to my heart.

When the list will end.

I don't think it ever does.

Where I got the habit of saying something wonders me.

What I wanna be when I grow up.

Will I ever?

When will it all end?

                                        The Stability Ball

Balance.  Something of the utmost importance to me.  Both inside and out.
This is a stability ball.  Right now the most I can do on it, is manage to sit squarely without toppling over and am starting to lift one leg at a time, again without toppling over.  It's core work.  It's about maintaining and retraining your midsection to grow strong enough to support your body, keep it upright and straight.  Through the repetitive movements you rewire your brain to pattern the same movement.  Improving your balance while you are on your feet.  It's hard work.  But I need it and in the past two weeks I notice a difference.  This is a good thing.  (As an aside, I toppled over in church today, fortunately fell backward and ending up sitting down in the pew)

I don't know what balance looks like to other people, or how it feels.  For me balance is an inner sense that encompasses many things.  And I am overly sensitive to my own sense of inner balance.  When it is off, or I sense that it is off or even leaning that way, I struggle hard to upright myself.  To swing the pendulum back into even motion.  

There are things I do, almost ritually that I feel are needful for me to keep that, one is my morning quiet time.  I sit and write, talk and listen to what is going on with me both inner and outer aspects.  I may start to write in one place and end up where I need to be, in a very sensitive yet necessary subject I need to address and look at.  Again, for balance.  The other is my walks.  I know some people may say, "gee must be nice to go to the beach every day, swim and walk, collect crap...."  Yeah, sometimes my "work" at the beach is much more difficult than being employed.  For the most part it entails all inner work. It is that one place I go where I meet myself, God and the entire face of humanity.  It's not always happy nor easy, because there, I am naked to myself and to him.  My inner balance shifts at the water... I become more attuned to myself inside and how I relate to the world around me.  When I become extremely quiet, there I hear nothing.... but what nothing does is leaves room for God to speak.  And yes, sometimes I don't react immediately, to which he has a way of getting my full and complete attention.  But balance me it does.  Inside, where it is important.  When I am off balance I am prone to much discomfort.  I am edgy, unsure of myself, fearful and tend to withdraw.  I am protective about my inner life... that sense.  Despite not being visible to the eye, for me it is something so tangible that I can often feel like I can reach in and touch it... sometimes to soothe, or simply to keep company.

I realized this week a couple things.. that reek havoc on the, at times delicate balance of me... they both have to do with relationships.  they are both fear based, one is being weak, the other vulnerable.  For me they walk hand in hand.  I recognized those things before, but they came front and center this week again as my balance was sent for a minor teeter and I needed to sit and look at what really caused my sadness.  Once I saw that (in writing of course) I was able to understand it and acknowledge that is what throws me, in those situations. Now I can take that and rebalance those things.

I was reading a little short story tonight on KOM and the gal made a statement that she wanted to be touched with deep and reverent kindness.  Speaking about a relationship she was in.  Well, had just left.... that in the future what she was looking for was that... someone who could touch her in that way.  I found that to be most profound.  Scribbled it on my chalkboard.  And thought too, don't we all deserve that same thing.  To touch ourselves and to be touched that way, to treat ourselves with that very same gentleness and compassion.

Balance... it's the restoration thereof.  And beyond that stability ball for me, very likely lies that deep and reverent kindness.