Remedial Learning in the School of Life

Ducking life and some brushes with the relentless tide of bureaucracy takes energy. Lately I feel sucker punched. Seems as if I am in the Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life in the part before any angel rings the bell. Not saying that I would jump off the bridge to the rushing waters below, but my stamina is off. My belief in magic is tainted by the tarnish of how the government is taxing the investment I made with the state after promising not to do so. I am disturbed that my house payment went up 200 dollars per a month.  I am more than angry that the banking industry preyed on their naïve hopes of youth has scathed my son and his peers, who dreamed of a better world and academia, with a debt and an interest rate so relentless that they can only dream of a good cup of coffee and may never know freedom from the tethers of the financial monoliths.

I have been in the arena with banks for sometime now; shadow boxing, wearing myself out trying to take down this apparition of finances

It is a is a Kafkaian circle of madness, “We kept your mortgage, no Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac for you as you are a good credit risk, you are not entitled to any government programs. Yes we will give you a lower rate but first you must give us ten thousand cash dollars.”

And on goes the circle, and me I spin with it. I forget myself to it. I forget the heart of my story.

A land mine blew up while I was in my computer class. Checking my online statement I was stunned to see my payment had increased dramatically. Two hundred dollars more a month being enough reason for drama.

Being proactive or more honestly reactive and dramatic I immediately left class called the “Member’s First” mortgage company.  (Gotta love the name.) If they had not been three hours across the sate I would have driven to their office.

 Instead I did what I hate to do, I became the me I do not like. First I made snarky noise, lots of it. Then I became the real me, the powerless kid who had to hide her candy and pennies for fear of them being stolen. It became a jag, one of those cry’s the one I always saved for my momma, the litany of troubles with me crying the , “no body loves me everybody hates me I’m going to eat some worms blues.”.

 I am not old but my immune system is compromised by age. It is compromised by vision. Many around me are weary from the burden. Sometimes it is my own belief that burdens me. I can do this, I can get through college, I can climb a mountain, I can reinvent myself post divorce, post forty year teaching career, post 150 pound weight loss. I am the original begin again girl. I had to do it all myself, I will not ask for help. We see where this got Scarlett in Gone With the Wind.

Oh the dam of tears when they open and come spilling out are like the dykes of Holland.  I just carried on and cried telling Pam the loan officer (the name itself describes the relationship, I always feel as I am in the wrong, pulled over for some obscure infraction that I did not know existed).

 I wept, ranted until spent then returned to class where my age of fifty nine seemed youthful in comparisons to my classmates who were festively garbed in sweatshirt with Halloween icons.

 School behaviors are constant. I had returned with no hall pass or note from my parent and comment was made of my long absence from class.

 Their queries are the invitation to my soapbox about money, banks, systems of oppression. Misery loves company and I wanted all to know of my righteous anger. With the kids raised, the partner an ex and the sibs more like an ancient history I only have big demons to oppress me. I rage on about powerlessness. My instructor acquiesces to my opinions as much in kindness as in experience.

 I have commandeered the airwaves. Until …

The snowy haired woman who was learning photo shop in our independent study computer calls out to me.

Gently she nudges her way in. “ You must be careful what you say…

Words and thoughts create reality.”

 This is not a new idea for me.  I know all the good that has been manifested with a dream given voice. But I am a very slow learner (That is why I am in old lady computer school, all comes slow to me.) She gently reminds that we are in complete control of our thoughts, complete control of our finances. Really in control of all of our experiences.

 When I was a little girl and felt stymied by the grown up world I thought what I would do when I was a grown up. I would be a kind and loving teacher, I would wear cute clothes with icons on them, and I would always tell my kids they could be what they dreamed.

 I would have pretty nighties that coordinated with my satin slippers and many kisses and I would star in a movie. All these had come true. I was Jimmy Stewart when he first fell in love, but time passes and I forget I forgot to forge new dreams and I turn my attention to night sweats and bad dreams.

This classmate becomes my Clarence, my angel. She has her own name which I do not remember but so remember that had a friend who decided to call her Angie. Angie, my Clarence, my angel. A miracle is a change in perception.

She is the bell on the Christmas tree.

 I walk in this realm. I navigate through the earth landscape. This human existence, but my mind and my beliefs and my world manifest my thoughts.

I did not move Goliath, the bank yet I am a little awake. There is a twinkling. Little gifts come, a hug, Angie peers deeply into my eyes. She is out of seat as she has great purpose, to put me on point. I have not yet changed my thoughts or words, but I see love, love in her faded blue eyes, in her hope for me. And my seeking heart returns and I silence my cacophony and try to use my words to change my heart, just like Angie did with her kindness.

A Mother Heart

Who knows how to get an angel in your life? We can look for angels but we cannot schedule for angels. We can have a visitation but often we are not clear that they have been with us until later.

An associate who I had worked with for many years had a very traumatic loss. I waited until life had quieted and called her. Death is a tsunami. Inquiring what she might need she did not dwell on her loss. She remembered our common interest in writing and asked if we could sit and write. She had a book in her, a story of the men in her life. She came after work. I intended to minister to her. I made tea, gave her a card and a candle. We did not linger on her loss. I had had a very recent death in my family. All the scurry and phone conversations and prayers and still my tears were stymied by too much backstory.

We sat in the suns fade, gave ourselves a time limit and began writing. The keys click gave a solace. Sitting there she emboldened me to look down the dark hole of loss. A mom whose child had been snatched, who would live with loss every day that she breaths put words on to the page. I put words to the page. And she was an angel who led me through my own dark. Here is the story she gave me.

Oh fear

Oh fear

Today I sit with a mom who has lost a child.

It was not on the roadside so we cannot build a street side sign to commemorate the horror of this event. He has a name, a christened name. It is this name she said over and over to God through the years when she prayed for him.

Dearest Father, and his name would fall like magnolia blooms from her lips. Petals of hope if she said his name enough it would be insurance not only that his soul would be saved but that she would precede him in death. Her prayers were not answered.

He was sliced from her bosom but never from her heart.

She found him in this expansive room of love. She was already a mom, a special needs teacher. Children were her purpose. Even in a house full up, three, four, from somewhere in the land of longing came his call. One more, and one more…

He came to her scathed as an eight-month-old baby. Taken away or turned over to the state. He had dimples, and bunchy hair and a soft heart.

He had a leg missing and life could just take his breath away. He needed every breath to live. He was not frugal and wasted his words, watching how a one legged boy could make others dance to his banter as he spewed his words about. He did not have his mother fear. He came in from a body that was no a sanctuary.  He was a survivor, had death wanted him it had had it’s chances or so he thought. Death is a malingerer.

I am trying to write an ending for a book. One character must die, so I must kill one. I am burdened by this. I feel like the biblical characters that go seeking of Solomon. Someone just show me, cut this baby in half for me.

Should one die slipping on an ice patch, or careening a car into a tree. I have a friend whose son did not die. He lived in a hospital bed for six years with his skull missing from his face, taken when he splashed against a wall and his brain inflated with swelling. She had prayed that he live.

Are prayers ever answered?

I need these women who fill the pages of a novel to have some peace, some closure. I want all those that rad to have a sense of completion. I want it neat for them. I want them exorcized from me. I want my life back. I bet my friend wants her life back. She wants it to be her birthday and she wants him to show up at her party with a myler balloon bouquet that rustles with love.

Another mother, died this day. She was called about twelve years ago. Her work truck slipped gear and came down the hillsides and crushed her beneath it. She say heaven her mom was there. But her children were here; her boy was still much boy. He was just twenty-two. She saw the light but a voice from this side called her back I cannot leave Jake.  Some force some thing that spurs mothers on kept her going.  She lived twelve more years. Now her son is a man. He got the call, Mom’s gone.

Oh mothers and sons. Once death wanted my son. I did pray, but my power was greater that God’s, I looked into his boy eyes as they spilled back into his head and he said when it is your time it is your time, I commanded him stay. We only want life. We only want breath for our children. The circle is skewed at all loss. I will write an ending for the book. These other stories have none. I pray. And all pray.

 While traveling I saw an icon image of Jesus in heaven. His mother lay in state on earth in repose. It was the opposite of my common vision of heaven. I never thought of the mother and how she had to continue to forbear. Death must not win> life must prevail until the end.

And there will be no amen.

“Amen” is a Hebrew word that stems from the word aman, which means, “to be faithful, support, or confirm.”

A Miracle is a Change of Perception

I have this thing I have been doing lately I call them holy holidays. I just take a day off from life, whatever it is that I fill up my days with that I call life and I go to a place that is considered sacred. Perhaps it is an outdoor labyrinth, or a mid week healing service at a Catholic church where many come to reflect on a deceased holy man queues up in Rome for Canonization.

These holy holidays are not typical Sabbath Sunday practices.  They are excursions taken to tend to the weedy landscape of my mind and soul. Now in retirement my life is formless and aimless. Often I am a lost pilgrim seeking refuge and connection.

These events have been a solace for me.

 I do not schedule them but intuit when my soul is in need of replenishment.

When hungry I go seeking.

On a golden Wednesday autumn day I went the friars chapel. It was full up of congregants.

I could tell by the stir of my agitated heart that tears were waiting a spill. The music had not even begun and already this nameless sorrow wants to reconcile itself with my heart.

 I have not yet become wise. Wise woman always have tissue at the ready. Wise woman accommodate for tears by being prepared.  Eternally in denial or just a bad girl scout I have nothing on which to blow my nose.

Crying is hard. Crying and not blowing is the worst.

At least I have evolved into the knowing ”It’s okay to cry.”

There are lots of little old ladies at this place. I may be demographically one of them, but these are the sweet types whose bag matches their shoes and they put a rinse on their white hair so that it looks like they have snow halos. These are women who are prepared to cry. They have cried much and come prepared.

(Tears are like tooth fairies and Christmas; it is all about the surprise.)

Just adown the pew from me sits a lady whose erect posture tells me she is all about form, I am certain she has a tissue.

I bend past our seatmate a very elderly man that seems her partner. (In the rulebook of my mind men do not carry tissues but have hankies, used hankies).

I whisper. Church whispers always seem louder somehow. She roots in her purse and pulls me out a perfect little Kleenex.  A comradeship, a women with Kleenex in her purse understand a woman who needs to cry.

I chat some pleasantries.

“Shush!” says her husband as he glares at me. I have violated some sanctimonious code of church ethics.

(Maybe this is why I church shop on weekdays and can never quite figure out which box to check under religion. I have been shushed away from to many homes, hearts, and altars.)

Sitting there in the pew I next to the crotchety old man who chastised me I go to my safe heaven of my clangy armor of character defects. I begin to judge him. I am thinking ill thoughts about him, wishing him ill will.

 The organist begins to play the familiar refrains of hymn.

Tears take hold and they spill themselves. The dark heart is not heavy.

The shusher man talks out loudly many times during the service, “What did he say?”

It seems he cannot hear. I notice his hearing aid protruding like a growth from his hairy ear. He did not wish to silence me, but he lives forever in a place where all sound is noise. My chatting just reminds him of the cloister of his silence.

Softened by this knowledge, I sing the refrains of the Mary hymns loudly, in worship. Glad for the freedoms, of spilled tears, and the miracle of my change in perception regarding my seat mate and my unburdened heart. I settle in hoping the service alters the desert landscape that drew me hear on a fall afternoon.

The brothers in their brown robes mingle giving the microphone to the congregants so that they can claim their miracles, express their gratitude or ask for divine intervention of some looming disease or life trauma.

The church glows more golden in the autumn light. All have born witness and they ask us to close with the Lord’s Prayer.

“Our Father …”

Now I am slightly agitated, in a quandary should I hold the hand of my seatmate or not? I am no longer angry but how much can a heart expand in one day?

I swallow hard my pride. I take his hand. Or does he take mine?

 It is spent, his flesh worn from time but lifeblood’s pulse warms his palm. We are palm to palm. Intimate with some unspoken thing. His hold is firm and fast.

The prayer proceeds.

I have said the words of the Our Father so often that they can be perfunctory, redundant. This day though as we come to the words “ forgive us our trespasses,”

he talks to me. Not in words but in his grip of my hand. A radiant heat courses from his palm to mine. He asks me to forgive him.  I can feel this even though he does not speak. Forgive me the shush, my need to exert little controls in a world in which I has so little power. Forgive my envy of your hearing, and jealousy that my wife speaks to you but I no longer can hear her sweet voice.

The prayer ends, “As we forgive those who trespass against us…” And a same fire flees through my flesh to his, my flaws, judgments, the ways I fall away from love, turn away are redeemed now. And that day I understand while holding hands with an old guy in the church the refrain of the prayer that says, “for thine is the kingdom the power and I have an instant glimmer of God’s glory. Amen

Wonders Never Cease

Mother’s day looms with expectation, pressure. Once upon a time though here in this faded suburb of a city my son made magic happen. No lukewarm brunch, no potted geranium, no cliché momma gift for me, nope I got a treasure hunt. On little scraps of paper, in his grown up scrawl I was to follow each clue until I came to the next.

Santa and God always disappointed making me suspect of surprise events. But on this perfect May Sunday, a day so fertile with spring ‘s burst I felt like a believer again. “ Go down to the end of the driveway and find an a winged creature.” Under the garden statue of my deceased mothers porch angel ornament was another clue. “Walk in the direction of the sunset.” On went the puzzle. I followed each clue, clueless as to where I was going or what I would find.

Perhaps this was not a treasure hunt; perhaps my prankster son was just sending me on a wild goose chase. The directions required that the dog accompany me. We came to the muddy hill that led up to the railroad tracks. I frequented this path on walkabouts with my dog on our regular walks.

 The wild far away feel of the tracks, always made my itchy feet long for adventure. The hill to the tracks steeper each week for my aging dog, but the whiff of freedom associated with trains spurred us on.

There at the top of the hill was a hand written wooden posted sign with a figurine of a boy and his pup glued up top.  This roads sign designated the name of the path. It read, “The JoelWalk dedicated to Collette and Avery.”  Joel Walkowski, my son named a path after himself and dedicated it to his momma and her dog, his dog, Avery.

I sat in the scratchy grasses next to the track gazing on the hand done sign.  One thousand heart beats of momma memories and magic. Being a mom took me down uncharted paths, round turns, up hills and often to my knees. But in this parched landscape, looking at the sign I was transported to the land of redemption, where all is love.

I wept a bit, snapped some photos. Went home, thanked the son and filed the days event under good memories.

Good memories that were rekindled whenever the dog and I hiked that same hill.

It was always a surprise to see the sign sitting in the middle of the urban landscape like an art instillation with no audience. I always expected some vandal to steal the dollar store statue, or someone to make away with the sign. But it remained, through season upon season. It remained till the season of death. On that hot summers end day, when there was no one, the son the living far away, I had to tend to the dogs ashes.

 No more walk abouts. I carried her ashes up the hill and at our signpost I spilled her cremains at the foot of our sign. In a life with few anchors I was home in the weedy world of our “walk”.  I held her memory at our memorialized spot, on the JoelWalk, less alone in my grief.

Always looking for signs. My whole life I have been looking for signs. Shooting stars in the sky, a death a birth. The untimely toll of church bells. The robin’s song a hello from the heavens, mom is around.

Monthly, me who never visit a gravesite with a floral memorial blanket went up the muddy path to visit the dog’s grave. Really I was on walk but choose a route that allowed me to see the sign. I missed my dog and my children less there on the rocky side of the Amtrak route.

Did passengers gaze out the speeding window and wonder about the sign randomly peeking through cornflowers?

A year, four seasons came and left. The sign weathered more than a few storms, the son became more man than boy.

The little statue went missing The JoelWalk sign remained. And the ashes sat in a clump at the base, defying the biblical adage “remember man that you are dust…”

 When the boy/son had troubles in grade school the dog took to his bed intuiting his sorrow. When I intervened thinking dogs do not belong in beds the always-docile dog snarled at me. Do not become between my boy and me.

When the boy went off to college and I moved to a house fenceless yard the dog who had tended to take frequent walk about never ran from the yard. She stood steadfast at my side, walking me through my valley of sorrow.

Now her ashes remained through all elements, seeming once again not wanting to be far from the boy or his mom. Even her ashes were a constant.

Two springs later the sign was gone, and they ashes were covered by over grown brush. Mom’s adages’ ever a litany in my head, “life goes on.”  I had ben working on attachment and a shrine to dog and a moment of time though a magic one lived in my heart, it was time to let go.

Still I walked that railroad walk. It made the cityscape go away. I was a kid who might jump a rail car.

Late when summer light was leaving on stroll I made my way home through the short cut and by chance found the sign in some weeds.

I brought it home and put it in the garden. Another lesson in attachment’s. Another circle gone round again.

I did not wane philosophically. I was just glad for the sign and the memory.

Faith is a gift; seekers have their own gift. In dark nights kings follow stars to find a prophet. I am not a fan of surprises but life’s mysteries enchant me.

Life senseless and am always trying to make sense of it. Just like I did with all moms’ adages that left me baffled and her bemused.

“Can I go, Can I go? “ I would implore. “Why take a ham sandwich to a banquet?” she would retort.

There are folks who believe that there are spiritual epicenters on the planet, Sedona, Lourdes, Manchu Pichu. Some of us make alters in our home. Some us wear talismans or blessed relics to remind us of the sacred. Streets corners have makeshift shrines where life has been aborted by trauma or violence.

 I had a sanctuary next to the railroad tracks, a place where I reflected and prayed and cried. Though littered and scented with diesel oil it was my own holy landscape.

I am left only with walking. No sign, no dog. Son far away, dancing the Sufi dance of youth taunting life and death.

I do not pray, I just always have a holy heart that fiercely longs for something bigger than I to tend to my children.  Saints, angels, Allah, Buddha, my mother heart so tender I call on all practices and deities.

Children have that thing, of bringing us to our knees to our God.

On my return from a visit to New York to see my cubs I noted that mom’s angel statue had been knocked sideways.

Her wings were intact. This soothed me.

Off my mark and weary I walked, and walked. So far, so long that I needed the short cut.

 In summers dusk peeking out from the brush, just where the dog’s ashes had become earth was a garden gnome standing on a tree trunk. He was holding a lantern as if to illumine the way. In the exact same spot where the JoelWalk sign had stood and the dog was laid to rest was this elfin figurine holding up a lantern to the darkness.

Life just gets amended sometime. I was taken from my musings on whatever junk and fear had spurred me on to the walk.

The garden gnome seemed a wise sage, not unlike a Garden of Gethsemane image where the dark is illumined by an apostle lifting a lantern to guide the way. Gnomes are earth dwellers who guard treasures. The males of the species are guardians of animals. They travel the forest and farms to find wounded animals and guide them on their way. I live the lore.  A middle-aged mom, living in the middle kingdom of life, prodding along encumbered at times. But somehow lighter, the holy place was sacred again, revered by a stranger who placed a garden gnome.  A Random act of extreme love, angels as always abound, no wings broken, hearts do mend.