Failed Resolutions & February Loves

I have a love-hate relationship with the month of January. On one hand, it feels like a fresh blanket of snow: pristine, peaceful and a clean start to a new year. On the other, tying up loose ends from the previous year often muddy the scene and consume more of my time than I ever intended. By February, the promised habits of my New Year’s resolutions remind me of the piles of dog poo in the backyard, lying in wait and slowly revealing their mocking, slushy realities: a lot less messy had I picked them up a month ago.

My solution to those sticky dark issues of unattended resolutions? I’m chucking my resolve to start a fitness regimen, tossing the diet plan, eliminating the “get organized” agenda. Instead of setting goals that I will never get to, or promising myself changes I really don’t feel like making, I am replacing my failed January resolutions with my February loves. Here are my top four:

• Pedal kayaking. This has to be the most fun a person can have getting a full body workout while still sitting down! It is always an adventure, a challenge and a chance to enjoy the outdoors. Bicycling is a close second, but the fact that pedal kayaking involves being on the water puts it firmly in the number one position. The thing I love best about it is that it provides me with an opportunity to be physical and, even better, outside in nature. The downside of pedal kayaking is how rarely I get to actually do it. It’s freezing cold out and I don’t own a pedal kayak, so chances are nonexistent right now. However, every day holds the opportunity to be physically active. So pedal kayaking in February will look a lot like shoveling snow, walking the dog, exploring the beach, hiking on nature trails and going to yoga.

• Getting my hair washed. A friend once said that if she ever won the lottery she would start a horse rescue. The room got very quiet when I responded with: “I would hire someone to wash my hair every day.” I realize this sounds selfish compared to my friend’s desire to do something for the poor down-trodden friendless animals, but have you ever had a really good hair washing? I have and I’m telling you, a good hair wash could potentially change the world.

I’m not talking about the usual hair washing experience where a teenager wearing too much make-up, stinking of cigarettes and chewing gum rubs and yanks your head this way and that, under alternately freezing cold and scalding hot water while asking questions about your personal life. I’m talking about a stream of warm water, strong hands in a slow and rhythmic massage, and the intimacy of a respectful silence. This has the power to relax the mind and the body. The thing I love best about it is the opportunity for human touch. The chance to make physical contact with another human being in a meaningful way presents itself regularly. Holding a hand, giving a hug, providing intimate physical contact…This kind of connection gives a body the energy and the will to go out into the world and do great things, tackle big issues…start horse rescues.

• Knitting. There aren’t a whole lot of things my mother excelled at, but knitting was one of them. Always, she would have a knitting project going. I would watch her endlessly and marvel as her fingers flew and the needles click-clacked a thread into something useful right before my eyes. I learned to knit as a small child and while I will never be as skilled as my mother, I find the quiet enjoyment of knitting to be one of my deepest pleasures. I think because this singular act provides me with a multitude of opportunities.

For one, it gives me a sense of connection with her, a powerful legacy. With every stitch I conjure her up and feel her guiding my hands. It also gives me the opportunity to begin, create and finish something. Completing something creative brings a new kind of energy to our lives, a sense of accomplishment that is at once empowering and settling. In a broader sense, it gives me an opportunity to be mindful. As much as I’d like to, I can’t always be knitting. It even gets tedious or physically draining at times. However, the opportunity to be mindful and creative presents itself regularly. Writing, meditating and even – or maybe I should say, especially – doing the dishes or folding the laundry, all suddenly look a little less chore-some and a little more Zen.

• Dealing with critters. Upon returning from Christmas vacation, we discovered a couple of mice had found refuge in our pantry. One might ask why I would think this was a good thing…For starters, it gave me the immediate opportunity to wipe down all the shelves in the pantry – a task I have repeatedly put off in favor of less meaningful pursuits. This in turn led to a trip to the local food pantry with some of the duplicate products we weren’t using. It also provided a clear picture of just what was food in there and what wasn’t based on what the mice munched. For example, they skipped right over the ramen and chips in favor of breaking open the granola bars.

We did eventually catch them in a no-kill trap and let them go in the woods. It would have been a lot quicker and less effort to use a snap trap and toss the dead things in the trash, but those mice presented us with an opportunity to be merciful, to practice kindness. Those two small animals virtually flying over the snow in long leaps to freedom is an image that will stay with me for a long time. It warmed me on a cold January day in a way nothing else could. Do I wish for a house overrun with critters? Absolutely not. However, I can volunteer at the local shelter or set out some bird seed. Acknowledging the animals in my life, both welcomed and uninvited, honoring their place in this world brings me a little closer to nature, makes me feel a little more…human.

Now when I look back over my deeds and misdeeds of the past month, instead of failed resolutions, it feels like the start of a whole new year.

I Was The Target Target

(Alternatively: Channeling The Lunatic)

I finished up at the gym and dashed over to Target for a handful of items. Like 1000 times before, I grabbed a cart, threw in my gigantic purse and rolled toward the back. As is my habit, I would work my way forward, picking up what I needed and perusing the wide aisles for all sorts of things I didn’t.

Which explains why I was in the camping aisle. I don’t particularly like to camp, but there are so many good reasons to wander this aisle. For one, camping is apparently all about the latest gadgets and I do love a good gadget. I also like to look at the outdoorsy pictures on the lanterns and tents and breathe in the imaginary fresh air. Most important, it’s usually devoid of people, making it particularly perusable.

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs

I stopped to check out the lovely insulated bags and decided I really need to have one. Choosing a pattern was going to take all of my attention and I stood transfixed for a minute. Or two. I had a notion of another person rolling by, but only vaguely. In the way you shuffle forward a bit to make room for two-way cart traffic while still focusing on the items on the shelf.

Got to keep the loonies on the path

I settled on the purple floral and got about four feet when I realized someone had put children’s clothing in my cart. Why would someone do that? And what happened to my paper plates? No. They hadn’t switched items with me, they had switched carts. Whoops, I thought. Some shopper as distracted as me. Won’t they feel silly when they realize they have the wrong cart…I looked around. Not a soul in sight. I thought about the things I had already ‘bought’ and how I was going to have to retrace my steps and reload this bogus cart.

And then I remembered my purse.

My whole life was in that purse. Oh shit. Cell phone, credentials, credit cards, camera, a just cashed paycheck…I felt dizzy and started to sweat. My hands were clammy and my face flushed with shame… How could I be so careless? I ran up and down empty aisles, my brain racing.

“Help,” I croaked, the massive hands of fear and panic squeezing my throat.

I remembered a story of a molester who grabbed a small child in an amusement park. Within minutes, the park sealed the exits and the child was found – already drugged and disguised by the perp. That fast. My heart was racing. That fast. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do.

“MY BABY!!!!”

Three red shirted teenagers appeared, all asking questions. “What’s wrong?” “What else was in the cart?” Where did you leave your baby?”

They kept trying to calm me down. I realized this must be part of their training. I had to explain that it wasn’t an actual baby, but my purse. My purse! I heard myself babbling about the size and shape of the red cart…

The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall

“SEAL THE EXITS!!” I was breathing hard, building up steam, feeling violated. Why were the red shirts just standing there? DO SOMETHING! And it hit me. I was creating a public disturbance. Just the tiniest glimpse and it hit me. Crazy. It’s in the eyes. It was in their eyes…Suddenly I was backing away. They think I’m crazy!

It was the point of no return. Someone was making off with my well-ordered life tucked neatly in a shoulder bag.

“Do or die, baby,” I mumbled to myself.

And if your head explodes with dark forebodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

I hated that look in their eyes, what I imagined they saw. Meanwhile, some predator was getting away with robbing me because I was too chicken to risk being looked at as crazy. The robber knew my head, knew I would play by the rules and that would be too slow.

I stepped into the abyss.

The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head

“CHECK THE CAMERAS! NOBODY LEAVES!!” I jumped up and down. I waved my arms. I ran faster, getting louder, covering as much ground as possible with every leap and bound. I knew the robber had to be within hearing distance for it to work. I had to send a message that I was not going to go down quietly. I had to get in his head.

“STOP! THIEF! CALL THE POLICE!”

Shoppers gaped. Children pointed. Red-shirts were calling managers on walkie-talkies. I ran to the registers. STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING! I stood at the front door, feet planted, arms crossed, jolly-green-giant-style. Now what do I do?

I felt my resolve weakening. This sucked. I was the victim and yet there was some real hostility being directed at me now.

You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.

I fed the lunatic with mental images of what the future might hold: quite possibly leaving Target in handcuffs…losing all my cell phone contacts…having to go to DMV for a new license…

“You there!” I pointed at a red-shirted girl who’s eyes were bugging out of her head. “THIS IS A CODE RED! NOBODY LEAVES UNTIL WE FIND MY PURSE!”

Inwardly, I bargained with God: Please God, just let me get my credit cards and the picture of Flower and I will never ever ever leave my purse unattended in the baby seat again...

And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear

It worked. The boy from electronics came huffing and puffing to the front, pushing a cart. My cart. “I found it!” he called out. “I found it! It looks like everything is here: your purse, your wallet, even your paper plates.”

I hadn’t realized there was a buzzing in my head until it suddenly stopped. All I could hear was the collective sigh of red-shirted relief. And Pink Floyd.

Suddenly, I was exhausted. I felt myself crumpling from the inside out and I thought I might start crying hysterically. I picked up my purse and wondered if I would make it to my car before my knees buckled. The bug-eyed girl was saying something…

“See! It was all just a mix-up. Probably the customer realized it wasn’t their cart and just left it.”

And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

I strode back over to her and leaned in close - a little too close. “Honey,” I said. “If you believe that – you’re crazy.”

Bonus: Young Pink Floyd/Brain Damage

Bee

Behold! The bee.
A swollen bullet of honey
and venom
on an erratic path
to Eden.

God’s woofer
wrapped in sunlight
and shadow.
Blaring the earth’s hum
like a tiny speaker
on Nature’s stereo.

Do you know me, bee?
I want to squeeze
your velvety abdomen
and spill through
that pencil point barb
all the sweetness and bitter
of life
in inky DNA strands
across the page.

To gather up the world’s essence
in powdery pollen bits
and dance their glorious purpose
with certainty
and joyful abandon.

Do you know me, bee?
I want to swallow you down.
Let your grace
fill me up; feel your stinger
pierce me through.
Until tiny pinpoints
of light
shoot out through my skin.
The lost sister of the Pleiades -
found.

Winter Prayer

Today I call upon the spirit of bear.
Let me hibernate in my dreams!
Enough running ‘round in circles,
Fat on the calories of honey, honey, honey.

Give me the spirit-food of introspection,
The sustenance of stillness.
Hurl me into that inky space
Between the borealis and
The lobes of my chattering brain.
Cradle me into the long winter’s nap.

Some senseless void.

A quiet mind.
Where I can hear my own heart.

Let me be like the winter trees:
Stripped bare of garish distractions,
The roar of fluttering.
Fall away and leave me as One
While the sap runs slow and deep, deep, deep.

Give me the tenacity of roots,
Silently creeping into the earth,
nourished by the darkness and
the dirt of origins.

Theory of Breaking Glass

“Well, what do you want?” My mother spread her arms out, surveying the general disarray of the room. We were standing in the middle of my grandparent’s house in Seaside Park and together we were going to sort through 90 years worth of stuff.

I tried to think of just one thing that would embody the feeling and the memories of a childhood spent in this tiny cottage. How do you capture the taste of corn-on-the-cob summers with sliced Jersey tomatoes? The endless games of horseshoes in the sandy weed lot we called the backyard? Naps with your cousins all piled up like puppies on that old porch glider? The dim cool damp of the garage jumble of fishing tackle and sandy beach chairs?

My earliest memories of our planet grew from this place, woven into the cells of my sensory organs. Sometimes when the tide is just right and the wind blows a certain way, I smell the ocean of my infancy and I breathe more deeply.

“I’d really love the giant wall mirror,” I said, hesitant. Hopeful.

“That’s staying with the house. Pick something else. Besides, you’re the fifth kid asking for it, so forget it.”

I tried desperately to think of something that would fill me up with this place, wasn’t already spoken for and that nobody else would want. “How about the juice glasses?” They weren’t anything special, but I loved them. I knew I couldn’t buy another set like them anywhere. They were ancient; probably as old as the house. And I knew they had been used over decades, intimately, daily, through all the joys and the tears, the nor’easters and the quiet dawns alike, by people I loved.

“What in the world would you possibly want those for?” She was dumbfounded and I was pissed. All day she tried to foist other more valuable, less desirable items on me, but I remained steadfast. In the end, she grudgingly let me have them and it felt like a triumph of sorts.

Over the course of the next six months, I broke all but one.

With the first shattering, I wept piteously. By the fifth one, I was resigned. Grandpa was trying to tell me something, but I was damned if I knew what. At first, I thought he just didn’t want me to have his juice glasses. After awhile I made a joke out of it. With each lost glass, I’d shout out, “Grandpa’s here!” I guessed it beat standing there crying about it. Eventually it became a sort of ritual at our house. Any time something broke, one of us would call out, conjuring the dead.

Years later, the day after my mother died, my family gathered at the kitchen table to sort out the arrangements for the mass and burial. In the course of the arm waving, somewhat heated discussion, several wine glasses were upended and fell to the floor. Without thinking, I shouted out, “Mom’s here!” There was stunned silence as five faces turned to me with raised eyebrows. I tried to explain, but they all seemed to think I was making a weird and tasteless joke.

Quietly, as I cleaned up the broken glass, I noticed something: no one was shouting anymore. The room had a stillness. A kind of peace.

Slowly, I began to pay attention. I started to think maybe the message from Grandpa - and now my mother- was something else. Something important.

I noticed that any time something in the house broke – a plate knocked against the granite countertop, a cracked bowl in the dishwasher, a slippery vase – it was usually preceded by some sort of chaos.

An argument. Or a hurried good-bye. The kids squabbling.

And afterward, some other energy. A re-focus. A deep breath. A slower pace. A reconciliation.

That was it! I shared my theory with my husband and my children. Do you think they want us to slow down? Take time for each other? Not get so crazy with our daily pressures? Yes! We all agreed. We all embraced the message. I even contemplated picking up a stack of dishes at the secondhand store. Just for that very purpose. Chaos in the house? Hey, just throw one of these!

The solution we finally settled on was a bell. A deeply resonating Tibetan prayer bell. It hangs over the doorway, to be rung by anyone who needs a different kind of energy. A renewed spirit. A sense of peace.

The other day, I gave it a tap as I walked into the room and my daughter looked up at me and smiled. “I think of grandma a lot too,” she said.

RV Adventure

The other day I saw a vintage luggage tag that summed me up perfectly.
It read: “I Love Not Camping.”

It brought to mind our first trip in an RV. A long weekend in Maine seemed like the perfect trial run.

In four short days, here is what I learned:

• If your teenager has seen the movie “RV”, they will expect you to pull up in a 60’ fully loaded RV, complete with television and hot tub. When you pull up in the 15’ version that looks and drives like a refrigerated truck and has 1-800-RENT-ME on the side, you may want to have a back-up plan for the kids. They will make good on their promise to keep you equally miserable for the duration of the trip and quite possibly into the next millennium at the mere mention of RV’s.

• When you arrive at the campground, have one person take charge of choosing the perfect campsite right away. This will avoid 18 trips around in a circle arguing over which site looks the best. It will also eliminate having to duck down below the window for the 3rd – 18th trips around as you pass by the other campers who are now openly pointing and guffawing.

• Some camps have areas designated for different kinds of camping: one area for RV’s and another for tents. Usually an RV is too big for a campsite designated for tents. Should that not deter you from using a tent site, make sure you really don’t plan on going anywhere else for the rest of the weekend. Once you squeeze into that spot, only a crowbar will get you out!

• If you fire up the generator at 6 am after a sleepless night with your head smashed against the metal wall and your feet in the air because you parked on a slant, be prepared for a multitude of dirty looks from the other campers as you greet the dawn. Particularly if yours is the lone RV surrounded by tents.

• If you decide to have a shower, remember the RV is on a slant before the water runs away from the drain and into the rest of the RV. This will eliminate spending the rest of the weekend with the shampoo in your hair.

• Take 15 minutes to lay in the deserted road with your heads together and count the stars. This is what you will later overhear your teenagers telling their friends about their miserable weekend.

• Do not joke that there is an axe murderer hiding just over there in the pitch blackness. The kids will jump up and run back to the RV, leaving you to grope through the dark and desolate woods alone.

• A husband who gets excited about having a bed-toilet-refrigerator-TV on wheels also loves opportunities to jump out from behind trees pretending to be an axe murderer.

• Do not bring a gun – your brain rattling screams of terror will deter even the hardiest of real axe murderers within a 10 mile radius.

• With experience comes wisdom – and snazzy luggage tags that remind us of exactly who we are.

Alaska Haiku

A caribou leaps!
The faces of Denali
Fill us with stillness.