Joan Anderson

The other day I was tearing around buying birthday gifts for a grandchild whose birthday comes too soon after Christmas. I am almost always late shipping off his gifts and this year I was determined to succeed. In order to make my UPS deadline, I planned so well as to have wrapping paper and scotch tape with me in the car so I could head straight for UPS with packages ready to go.

But alas, I slowed the car down when I noticed some creatures on the side of the road. Once on top of the pack it was obvious that they were a family of wild turkeys. The father was already making his way across the street and the others were nibbling on brush with no interest in crossing. I was fascinated, especially when two of the birds opened their amazing fantails. To be in nature with nature is a gift I always treasure. And it can’t be programmed, can it?  “I find, I do not seek,” said Picasso, and so I found! It took another 5 minutes for the entire family to cross over and be on their way into the woods. Of course, I missed my UPS deadline (the truck was pulling out as I was pulling into their parking lot) but never mind. Serendipity is better than planned fun. My grandson will also have a treat—a second celebration two days after his birthday. We all win!

My fisherman friend, Hillary, stopped by the other day with a Xmas gift.

“I was touched that you remembered my party for the winter solstice,” he said, “and what you learned from me, of all people.”

We chuckled. “Well you are a spiritual man,” I informed him. “A cowboy of the sea. No different from a cowboy out west or a farmer. I see you all as seriously in tune with nature. I guess you have to be or, in your case, you wouldn’t catch any fish.”

His gift was a fisherman’s calendar. “Well, I just wanted you to see that since December 21^st when the sun set at 4:14, today it sets 4:30. We’ve gained 16 minutes of sunlight. Isn’t that uplifting! You better start thinking of how you are going to use all the extra daylight as the winter turns into spring. This has got to be the best time of the year. Everything is growing, including us!”

And with that, he was off leaving me with a sense of the “lightness” of being.

Instead of making sweeping  resolutions that I almost never abide by, I decided this year to unchain myself from achievements, per se, a recognize what I call “the littles” that so often go unnoticed in our hurried, fractured, and driven endeavors. The idea began when asked what I wanted for Christmas and I could think of nothing—that is nothing material. What I wanted was a more calm existence and individual time with special friends and particularly family.

The first gift came on Christmas Eve when our 14 year old grandson chose to sit next to his grampy on the couch and for the next hour I basked in the joy of watching the two just BE together, my husband’s arm wrapped gently over his shoulder. My first gift came sooner than expected. But I was filled with such delight that I “felt” and therefore possessed warmth, truth, and history at that moment.

A similar experience was had 16 years before when during the same hectic season I found myself knitting in front of the hearth with my mother and my new daughter in law. The gift remains with me—a heartfelt memory which can not be repeated. So, this new year I shall revolutionize my resolutions and meander so as to develop a rhythm that allows for me to be gifted by those moments which are meant to be.

Oh my, this re-entry from Iona has taken its toll. The outside world seems to be moving faster than is good for anyone. Speed allows us to arrive at our desired destination in quick time but I wonder how much we miss along the way. Having spent the last several weeks living at a snail’s pace it is a shock to reeve up my engines to keep time with the fast-paced technological world.

Iona, particularly, offers the visitor a special magic that moves the soul, inspires emotions, and allows one to both feel and experience her day. With only 100 residents, few cars, tiny one-lane roads, a small country inn, few shops and a pub, it is Iona which clarifies things like decision making. For example, when you walk into the tiny grocery store to pick up something for dinner, you decide on your menu according to what arrived on the ferry that day. And as you meander back to your abode, instead of horns honking and fast paced walkers talking into their cell phones you listen to turning tides, spirited winds, the ferry whistle and the occasional piper or two.

I was recently introduced to a poem entitled: Once You’ve Slept On An Island. It ends with the thought that “once you’ve slept on an island, you will never be quite the same.”

It has been said that our central nervous systems weren’t designed to handle the frantic pace of life, yet this is what we’re asking it to do more often than not.

Re-entry is a shock but I can choose to stay off the merry go round or at least slow down and move slower. For as the song goes…I want to make the moments last. Life at home can be almost as simple as Iona. It’s simply a choice.

It is Halloween…a favorite holiday because I was always able to hide, not only behind a mask, but in a costume where I could become another character altogether. It is one of the gifts of childhood…trying on different roles, believing we can be anything we want to be. For a chubby little girl such as I was, I frequently chose to dress up as a princess, Snow White, a ballerina, and one year, even a sleek black witch. Pretending was always easier than trying to BECOME the person I was meant to be.

But that has all changed with age. Being in the sixth decade, I have arrived at a time to simply be ME and remarkably, it doesn’t feel all that bad. The mask has been replaced and I am finally getting to know and accept myself, warts and all.

These Halloween thoughts stem from my recent retreat to Iona, Scotland…a Celtic island where the people herald Old Hallows Eve as the most significant festival of the year. Hundreds of years ago, Halloween (or All Saints Day) was a three day affair where bonfires were lit, rules were abandoned, and the revelers would call on their ancestors for new instructions.  What wishes would those who had passed on want to be reborn within us? It was a time of acceptance of our roots…our mothers and fathers, grandparents and great grandparents.

Instead of ignoring their ancestral attributes the Celtic peoples learned to embrace that from which they came and manifest those things their relatives did not have a chance to fulfill.

I asked my husband this morning which ancestor he revered. “My grandmother and grandfather,” he answered quickly, momentarily choked up at the vivid memory of both of them. “They were pioneers,” he continued, “a quality I should try harder to incur.”

I hold a service in an ancient chapel on Iona whereby each woman retreater lights a candle to an ancestor that she would like to emulate. More than half the women lit a candle to their grandmother and nearly every woman described their “nana” as loving unconditionally.

Old Hallows Eve or Old Saints Day has become a reminder for me to have gratitude for the miracle of knowing from whence I came and therefore what I am next meant to do or be.

Lately there have been unexpected family crises—nothing that couldn’t be solved, mind you, but challenges for sure that involved money (or the lack thereof). As such, when problems arrive—some large and some small—I tend first to panic, then my heart sinks a little, sometimes I cry, and often I can feel myself plummet to a dark land in which I would prefer not to dwell.

Joan Erikson, my mentor, deplored such situations preferring as she would say to remain in the muck as little a time as possible.

Fortunately she left behind her now famous Life Cycle chart which is becoming a more than practical guide in times of trouble.  Based on the fact that we actually grow from adversity and conflict I glanced at the first four challenges to overcome on her list of eight.

So I tried to see if I could, on top of my impending doom, apply her principles:

How could I trust myself in this present situation?  The identify and cling to a small piece of my autonomy principle? If I did that, I would begin to use my innate initiative and become industrious in the process. Taking such action would give me hope, will, new purpose, and a sense of competence.

Voila! I crawled out of the fit and got my power back.  Of course I would have to go through the same process the next time panic hits but now at least it would not stop me in my tracks but propel me (and others) as well.

Thank you Joanie for a “cure” you and your husband designed for all of us years ago.

Sorry for not blogging for awhile…preparing another book, creating a new agenda for Iona (I leave Friday),  and general woman life issues have gotten in the way.

However, today on my beach walk I noticed as I was walking up the old weathered boardwalk that takes me through low lying dunes tufts of beach grass pushing through the cracks in the boards.

I smiled at their determination—to climb into being despite the barrier that had been laid on top of them.

I have always compared dune grass to women—it is hearty, strong, and it possesses determination (not to mention a root structure that goes on forever under the sand holding literally holding the beach in tact!).   Sound familiar?  Isn’t that what we women do with our families and communities, day after day?

Although tired because my walk was winding down I developed a kick in my step as I thought of all the women I have come to know who continue to push through issues,  crises, relationships and like the dune grass, offer hope, not only to themselves but others with whom they come in contact.  That would be you!

Sandwich Retreat

If we ever thought that unfinished women only came from the United States we have recently proved otherwise. Attending our retreat at the Omega Institute recently were women from Bermuda, Sweden, Israel, as well as several from Canada.

The same surprise occurred at our day long workshop here on the Cape in Sandwich. We were expecting only “locals” when to our surprise in walked women from Colorado, Ithaca, NY, Washington DC and Ohio!

Lunch at the Sandwich Workshop

Omega Retreat

Walking the Labyrinth at Omega

Weaving at Omega

Quiet Meditation Time on the Sandwich Beach

Another Mother’s Day is upon us and it has occurred to me that I can’t possibly imagine NOT being a mother. Built into the psyche of most women from my generation and before, was a determination to get married and give birth to children, both endeavors thought to be the epitomy of romance and as such, a not-to-be-missed venture.

Never mind the down side—sleep deprivation, the first trip to the emergency room, the terrible two’s, sibling rivalry, and for numerous years, being on duty 24/7. None of these realities were on my radar screen when my pregnancy actually occurred– nor was growing them up—bigger children, bigger problems!

It is hard to believe that a good two thirds of my life has been inextricably intertwined with my two sons. I was most certainly a mother hen, took pride in my progeny, willed and pushed them to bright futures, and one day they just left—first for college and after that, life! Suddenly there were two vacant bedrooms, a family dinner table set for two instead of four, and as time went on, fewer phone calls and less contact. Having an empty nest had never been on my wish list—there was a momentary hole in my heart.

For sure, I have never regretted one minute of motherhood. In fact, it has been the job I most treasured. So to suddenly be retired from that profession was almost unthinkable. On good days I refer to the motherhood role as simply outlived—that we have our kids for about 20 years and then it’s over—a natural progression of the life cycle, my husband insists. Still, it has taken me far too long to accept the inevitable– so much so that I’ve taken to memorizing the immortal words of Kahlil Gibran from his book, THE PROPHET in regards to children: Your children come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

No doubt parental love is potentially the purest form of love, but also the most painful. “We must give those we love their independence,” said Sister Wendy Beckett, “we cannot make their choices for them—they cannot live by our hard-earned experience—this is part of love.”

Although I know all this intellectually, retiring from motherhood was something I gave into quite unwillingly, probably because the child within me pretends that nothing ever ends. Still, I’ve kept my longings pretty much to myself like so many other truths, never uttered because the time wasn’t right.

I recall a story of a young man going off to war. Dressed in his crisp uniform with his duffle slung over his shoulder, he kissed his parents goodbye amidst brave smiles all around. When the door closed behind him his mother collapsed, her tears uncontrollable. Minutes later the soldier reappeared to retrieve something he had left behind only to be stunned that his parents were so obviously bereft.

We put on such a brave front for our children knowing they derive security and strength from our strength. Launching them is our major job—enduring life experiences and working with their challenges is theirs.

It occurs to me this Mother’s Day that I have been dwelling too much on what’s changed and not enough on what’s lasting. Perhaps it is time to delight, not in what they are doing, but who they are being– enthusiasts for sure full of bombastic energy, tough warriors, independent men moving onward not backward with humor and resilience.

A good friend suggested that raising a child is the one relationship that, if you do a good job, it ends in separation. And quoting from THE PROPHET once again: “We are the bows from which our children, as living arrows, are sent forth. Let the  bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so he loves also the bow that is stable.”

This Mother’s Day, I will cease to dwell on days gone by and instead, call forth gratitude for the fresh lives my boys have made for themselves.

The other day my brother called with an invitation. He had recently converted our father’s home movies to a DVD and he wondered if I would like to partake, he said, in some real “living history.”

I expected an afternoon of watching ourselves literally grow up—staged vignettes circa 1940 to 1950, a la Father Knows Best. Surely my brother and I would be the leading characters in the family drama although I felt certain there would be plenty of supporting characters such as grandparents and our parents themselves.

Settling into an easy chair with a glass of wine in hand, I was ready to be awash in nostalgia. There would certainly be tears as I watched my now deceased parents produce Christmas year after year, along with birthday parties, and family holidays.

Talk about experiencing metamorphosis—watching myself change right before my very own eyes!

My father (who must have fancied himself to be part Cecil B. DeMille) had captured all manner of our growth and development from zero to 10, beginning with the hospital delivery room, my first bottle, messy highchair meals, being wheeled in my pram or pulled in a sleigh, crying to get out of the play pen, taking a first step, being an angel in the Christmas pageant, back yard antics, and more.

For awhile, it was amusing to look back on a young life that would never have been made so vivid if not for these movies. But in reality, my “sixty something” vision detected, not a life as it really was, but how our parents wanted our lives to be seen. The back-story was intriguing and enormously revealing. It was time to put down my wine and straighten up, to search the images for body language, expressions, real joy or staged, fabricated fun.

I began to see many physical characteristics as my own– the deeply creased brow of one grandmother, the grin of another, a large frame and head like my father, and the porcelain skin of his father.

As time went on, there were the similarities in personality as well. I hadn’t realized how particular my mother was, detail oriented and very much in control, like me, addicted to perfection for sure and a father dutifully following her lead trying hard not to make waves within the relationship– again, like me. All the women seemed to be in control, not following the rules of others. The matriarchy was alive and well in this family. No wonder I have since made it my cause!

My mother and her mother fought hard to be individuals and I feel that fight in me. What’s more, they strove to make my brother and me originals—no carbon copies here—being different and individual was a virtue.

My mentor Joan Erikson believed that we arrive with genetic traits formed in utero—we’re meant not to ignore them but to use them. “Some things you just can’t change,” she would say. “They are indelibly printed on your soul. You’ve no choice but to go with it—use these strengths—build on them.”

It is spring. The perennials are coming up all over the lawn—pushing up from the cold, dark soil and making themselves seen. So it is with me. The perennial aspects of my personality should not be hidden anymore.