Wherever You Go, There You Are

Since we’ve all been (rather) homebound these last two+ years, flying on an airplane and going somewhere new feels like a big adventure. I’m on my way home after spending 5 days with an old tai chi friend on Whidbey Island, offshore Seattle. Getting there, and back, was the most complex part of the trip. 

Paine Field Airport, the closest to the island, opened as a commercial airport just before the pandemic hit. It’s an upscale joint, more like a fancy hotel lobby than an airport with three gates, serving one airline, and restricted in the number of flights/day it can process. Since it is a small, almost elite, airport, customer services are limited.

I arrived five days ago. After waiting 90-minutes, I caught the shuttle to the island, and my friend turned up on the same ferry. She’d finished her dentist appointment in Seattle early, and hurried home. She texted me as the ferry departed the dock, asking if I was in the shuttle bus on the ferry. When I replied affirmatively, she said she was in line just a few cars behind us. After the ferry got underway and we were free to move about the ferry, she came up and sprang me and my belongings from the shuttle. We stopped at Rocket Tacos (Freeland WA) for a spicy lunch of street tacos, the local variation of charro beans, and a locally made ginger beer as we made our way to her beautiful waterfront home.  

That first afternoon we walked 3+ miles (round trip) across one of the narrow parts of Whidbey Island, from her home on Penn Cove to the campground closest to Fort Ebey State Park on Puget Sound. It was a glorious introduction, really a reminder, of the rich, damp, evergreen forests of the pacific northwest, and a cold, grey, drizzly reminder of why the vegetation is so rich. I brought home a tender spot that would blossom the next day into a blister on one heel from walking in my new boots. A quick stop by Walgreens for blister care pads and moleskin and I was good to go again. I did spend a day in my wooly socks, without shoes, as the blister settled back down.

We balanced out touring the sights around the island with her necessary work tasks, most of which were zoom calls with clients. I read, and sat in front of the fireplace, watching the water and the sky, and the birds. On her deck, she has 3 seed feeders, one suet feeder and one hummingbird feeder. We were constantly entertained by a variety of birdlife. Bald eagles, Canada geese, ravens, and herons also visited the Cove, trees and green space around, and in front of, her home. I’m sure there were owls too, we just didn’t see them.

I also learned the rudiments of the game of Euchre, and played a couple games with two of her card-playing friends. We also watched a little Netflix – some of Brene’ Brown’s Atlas of the Heart sessions, and the two Hannah Gadsby shows. Both memorable for different reasons. 

My one uncertainty was getting back home. I had a reservation at the hotel closest to the airport that had a restaurant. None of the hotels had shuttle service to the airport. It was a customer service that disappeared with Covid and isn’t likely to return. As a customer, I miss the easy convenience of it.

Last night when I arrived on the shuttle, I called a taxi. The young woman driver had a baby stroller in the trunk. We chatted on the way over to the hotel. She was a young mom with two kids at home, and was saving to buy a car of her own. When I called to request a taxi to return to the airport this morning, I complimented the young woman to the dispatcher. She informed me that she had fired the woman last night because she’d taken ‘her’ taxi home, rather than returning it to the base. The next driver had been unable to make his runs without a car. This was not the first time this had happened. Her firing was not ‘bad luck’. We do get what we create.

Next? 

https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/05/24/the-midlife-unraveling/

When I early retired from my totally engrossing day-job of 24 years, I moved to a different state (in the US) so that I wouldn’t be (as) tempted to get called back to work as a contractor. (A previous manager did eventually call, but by then I was entirely immersed in my next thing, and not willing to disrupt what I was doing.)

Now I’ve been at this ‘next thing’ for a while. How long depends on when you start the clock. If you count when I started volunteering virtually full-time, I’ve been at it most of 12 years without more than two or three days away at a time, and no appreciable vacations. If you count when I started getting regular honorarium-style paychecks (total dollars/hours worked = less than minimum wage), I’ve been at it 7 years. This is no one’s fault. I did it to myself, on purpose. Most of the time I love what I do, and I’m a bit worn out.

My contract authorizes two weeks of vacation every year, and a month-long sabbatical every five years. That five-year mark was 2020. We all know what 2020 was like. In the panic of those early days, there wasn’t any point in taking a month off, I couldn’t go anywhere, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, anyway. The people I worked with at the time were also a little freaked out, so I wasn’t in a hurry to leave them. 

I had also started up an online daily meditation practice that I hosted, to give people a chance to connect and spend 30-45 minutes together six days a week. I ran that for over 450 days, and finally hit the wall. I kept the (zoom) room, but other people needed to take turns facilitating the practice. A hard-core 10-12 individuals have continued, with another handful of folks dropping in when the mood strikes them. I still show up and lead the practice one day a week. They’ve been great looking after each other, and taking turns being the leader.

Last December, I took a couple days off in the middle of the week and went to the closest US beach (6.5 hrs away by car, a little more than an hour away by airplane, not counting waiting time everywhere, and driving time from the airport). While I was there, I sprained my ankle walking around the botanical garden on a flat, mostly level surface. When I came back, I told my board of directors that I needed to start taking some of my authorized time off. They encouraged me to do exactly that. On my first day off, I ended up in the emergency room throwing up blood from a tear in my esophagus, which was probably the result of long-term stress. (None of the typical causes made any sense. I appear much too healthy to have this happen to my body.) 

The other chronological thing that happened about this same time was that I turned 65, and went on Medicare, which meant I was officially old. I’ve never thought of myself as old, so this came as a bit of a shock. 

Then, after a morning pulling weeds, and hauling lumber back to a big box store, I got a therapeutic massage, which was lovely. That evening I twisted funny retrieving a book off a shelf and tweaked the muscles of my mid-back. I spent the next week under a heating pad, and it got progressively better, but not well. Finally, in the middle of the night I asked the question, “What am I missing?” The answer was instantaneous. “Are you going to take that sabbatical now?” 

That next morning, I started making arrangements to be out-of-the office and away a month. It starts next week. The board of directors, and other leaders in the organization have been reticent, but willing, to take on various aspects of what I typically do, and I’ve brought in special guests to cover other pieces that were unique to me. They’ll be fine. 

Which brings me to Brene’ article. My first unraveling was in 2008, when I quit my day job of 24 years. I’ve continued to unravel at a slow pace over this last 12 years, but I have a feeling I just got a booster.

Hide The Ball

I don’t know if you remember that old magician’s trick with the usually three upturned cups and the ball that seems to magically move from cup to cup, and the observer never quite knows where the ball is, or how it got there. In one of our Practitioner classes years ago, a dear friend said, “I play hide the ball with myself all the time, and it frustrates me!” When she said it, I realized I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate way to describe how we keep ourselves from knowing ‘stuff’ that we claim we want to know. Most of us do this, at least sometimes. This is not a criticism. I think it’s an aspect of being human.

I’ve been using this pandemic cloistering period to work on my writing practice in a world-wide community of writers. The way this program is set up, everyone has a page of their own as a place to show their work. It’s a little cumbersome until you get the hang of it (like most things are when they are new), but it’s really not hard to find your own page. I’m watching one of my writing friends do his darnedest to keep himself from writing, and letting himself acknowledge that he actually writes well and beautifully. He’s a smart guy. He’s got a successful day job. And he’s got this other side that’s creative, poetic, profound and astoundingly lyrical in its beauty and depth. 

This morning I noticed that he’d written an extraordinary piece of incredibly touching poetry on someone else’s ‘page’, and sheepishly admitted that he didn’t know how to find his own page. We’ve been in this writing program for fivemonths. Twice I’ve offered to zoom with him on his computer to show him how to find his own page. I know of two other people, moderators of the writing program, who have also offered to assist him. Someone even made him a ‘how to’ sheet of directions, and he persists in hiding the ball from himself. I just wanted to cry when I saw his commentary this morning.

If we, or someone else, don’t want to know something, there is nothing that can be done to force them or us to see, and know. It’s not like having a puppy and rubbing their noses in it when we catch them peeing in the house. We don’t learn that way. Once we finally do wake up to the game and see, and are willing to own our own ability, agency, autonomy, authority, responsibility and power, there’s nothing that stands in our way.  

Being part of a world-wide writing community is both exciting and terrifying. I was telling one of my artist friends about it, and she was horrified at the idea of showing her work to others as it was in process, specifically so that other people could comment on it. I told her it was really quite fabulous, because one of the rules of engagement in this group was that commenters were required to be constructive, and kind. Early on when I joined this online writers’ group, I noticed the moderators, quickly and decisively, removed two people who didn’t know how to be constructive and kind. 

It serves each of us to have a small group of supportive friends, who we trust and who actually have our best interests in mind and heart, and who will help us see our blind spots.  Without that, it’s easy to just keep playing ‘hide the ball’, and we don’t learn and grow.

If the Phone Doesn't Ring, Its Me, 11Jan12

There's a line out of this old Jimmy Buffett song that I finally understood last night, "If it takes all the future, we'll live through the past.  If the phone doesn't ring, it's me."  That lyric has always puzzled me.  I wondered if it wasn't some kind of curious time-space continuum problem.  Last night, I glimpsed what the Caribbean songmeister was singing about.  We are each and all always reliving our past, and thinking that the present experience is the same as what we have previously experienced.  This is the same as that, right?  If our remembrance of the previous experience was a positive and supportive one, then our interpretation of the present day experience (which in itself is inherently neutral) is also likely to be, at least initially, positive.  As we know, "it is done to us as we believe", therefore we perceive, create and interpret the present experience in light of what we believe about and selectively remember or reconstruct from our past experiences.

This morning I'm at the car dealership getting my car serviced.  For two years after I moved to Arizona, I got my car serviced under warranty, at the dealership in Phoenix and they took exquisitely good care of my car, and by extension, me, and were attentive to my curious questions and peculiar concerns.  I felt valued by them.  When I moved to Tucson, I chose to shift my car servicing to the local dealership and really did expect to receive the same level of care.  I was shocked to discover that they didn't have the same level of customer care, nor did they really seem to care that much.  Finally, I pressed the point hard and received virtually the same service for the same monetary exchange, but I could tell that it was offered under duress.  When we completed the agreed number of services for the agreed number of dollars, they were clear that the offer would not be extended.  So today, I'm back at the dealership because I initially purchased extended warranty coverage for 100,000 miles.  When that coverage ends in 15,000 miles, I'll see what happens.

So what's underneath that?   What's the old belief about myself that I am reliving, again and again and again, until I get a new perspective on it?  On some level, do I feel like I need to work or "fight" for how I want to be treated?  Sometimes.  In my much younger days, I would seldom stand up for myself, and I would say 'please and thank you' for whatever came my way.  And I allowed some exquisite unkindnesses to just steamroll through my life, claiming all the while that these nasty things had to be for my highest good.  At the same time, I also repeatedly experienced massive and extraordinary kindnesses.  So, what's the basic recurring, repeating, reinforcing storyline in my head?  Is the universe a predominantly safe and friendly place, or do I need to fight for what I feel is mine?  Do I automatically assume those I come into contact with are against me, or that we are working on the same quality of life?  I choose to think of my universe as friendly.

I just love manifestation in real time.  The new young service rep just told me that they would take care of 'the thing' that had been niggling the back of my mind for about 10,000 miles.  Cause and effect.  Perhaps this reframe is about speaking up for myself without feeling like I need to fight for it, and allowing the universe to give me what I claim, which then frees me up to stop living the past, pulling more of my energy into present time, and live more fully in the Now.

Its What You Do, 24Sept11

I've been thinking again.  Whether we actually create the events which occur in our lives is debated by some, and I'm not going to get hung up there, because there is a more important, and more manageable, idea I wanted to put out there this morning. 

It's not what happens 'to' us as much as what we do with that, how we think about it, how we respond to it, how we ruminate incessantly about it, etc., etc., etc. 

If I perceive that I have been slighted by someone and I don't do anything about it, except mull it over, it has a tendency to grow into this gigantic, miserable monstrosity, which is strictly a construct of my very busy brain.  So, to prevent this nonsense from happening, I have two choices.  I can try to talk with this person and see what's really going on (and discover, most likely, we were using the same words and not speaking the same language ... or maybe we were and there really is an issue to resolve), or I can let it go, really let it go, put it down, and get on with my life. 

It's seldom the events themselves, but it is what we do with them that give our lives great joy or great angst.  I choose joy.  Again and again and again.  I choose joy.

You Asked for It! 6Sept11

I've been watching how some of my friends treat each other and how the others feel about they way they feel they are being treated.  I've been thinking about what St. Paul says in Galatians 6:7 "... whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap" (KJV).  I don't believe this applies just to how we treat others, or our own actions outward toward others or to inanimate objects; I think this also applies to how we teach other people to treat us.  

If we allow someone to appear to take advantage of us, that's our choice and it has consequences both for us and for the person who seems to be taking advantage of us.  If we resist someone who appears to desire to take advantage of our 'good nature', there are choices and consequences to that action as well.  Each of us gets to decide in the bigger picture, through our choices and actions, where we want to be on this continuum of choice and consequence, cause and effect.

There's also a tangent about how we treat and think about ourselves.  If we see ourselves in a generally positive light then we tend to get positive outcomes, and tend to have positive experiences (or at least we can more easily find that silver lining in the cloud).  If we tend to see ourselves in a negative light, that's what we get, too.

We are responsible for our actions, our choices, our decisions and how we experience what we allow to happen to us. There are no victims, everything is an opportunity to see something or someone in a new light and choose differently if we don't like a particular outcome.  It's all sowing and reaping and sowing and reaping again and again and again.