Schoep and John ... and all of us.

For several months I have been following a story on Facebook about a man and his dog. It is the story of unconditional love made visible for all the world to see if only we would take the time to look. 

It was obvious from the first time I saw this picture and started following the story that old Schoep was not going to be with John for much longer. John would share Schoep's days with all of us, his good days and bad days, and we would all rally and become hopeful that maybe time spent in nature, in the water, with long naps in the sun and a peaceful days would give him a new lease on life. Sadly, that was not the case. Schoep passed a few days ago. 

I don't think I have every seen such outpouring of love as I have seen from people all over the world who are sharing in John's loss. With Schoep's passing we have all lost a dear friend and have come to realize the importance of living each day as if it were our last; of loving as if there was no tomorrow, and of giving, and giving, and then giving some more.

Schoep's last days were spent in the simplicity of nature, surrounded by John's love and the comfort of what was familiar to him. It made me think of a quote that is making the rounds on plaques and t-shirts right now: "Live simply. Give more. Expect less." I think that quote has taken on a whole new meaning for me, and I don't think I will look at life in quite the same way now, although I would add another line: "Love like there is no tomorrow." How beautiful it would be to live in a world where that was our mantra.

And so it is.

No Pay, But Great Benefits

My daughter is about to become a first-time grandmother in a few months (yes, I know, that makes me a great-grandmother but that is a subject for a post of its very own). Since I am a five-time veteran of this noble profession, I thought I would jot down a few of the many perks that more than makes up for the fact that it is a non-paying but all-important job:

• You have someone to see Disney and Pixar movies with. This means that you don't have to sneak out before the lights come back on so people won't realize you came on your own.
• You can have fun drawing and painting with a preschooler without feeling badly when her stick figures look better than yours.
• Peanut Butter becomes cuisine ... the same with animal crackers.
• You have someone to help you build a fort in the living room with blankets and chairs.
• Playground equipment is more fun than the equipment at the gym.
• Watching ants at work by laying on the ground near an anthill takes the place of your meditation for a day.
• A walk in the woods is transformed into a quest to find fairy houses (leaving presents of above mentioned animal crackers and flowers is also encouraged),
• You regain you ability to converse with animals and teddy bears which was lost somewhere after the age of 8 or 10.
• Your refrigerator is now an art gallery with new exhibits every week.
• You are the recipient of the most beautiful four words ever spoken:  "I love you, Grandma."

Forget what I said about this being a non-paying job. That last one is payment in full.

And so it is.

Guaranteed Not to Make Your Head Explode

There comes a time in the life of every gardener when you have done everything you can do and, with the exception of regular weeding and watering, the rest is pretty much up to the plants and Mother Nature. No amount of you trying to control the weather or the activities of insects and organism so small you can't even see them is going to change the outcome. What will be, will be.

 The idea of giving up control over something is very hard for many of us. Sometimes it is an event, like a holiday tradition, the lives of our spouses, children or grandchildren, our boss (or the lack of one ... like losing our jobs), or even the way we celebrate holidays. "But we've always done it this way, " you might lament when someone suggests going out for a holiday meal instead of all the work and arranging of schedules to have a big family meal at home. For a gardener it might be watching and waiting for squash that just doesn't make it this year, or tomatoes with a bad case of blight even though you did everything, "just like I always do." 

If you were to examine the real reason why having to give it up and let it be is so upsetting, you would probably find that is has to do with a fear that, if you lose control in one area of your life, you'll lose control over your entire life. This is especially true when we get older and so many things in our life seem to be changing more and more often. It is scary when things and people we've counted on to always be there start fading away one by one until you feel as if you are living someone else's life. 

I was listening to Hay House Radio one day a while back and happened on a program hosted by Life Coach Michael Neil. I really love this guy's humor and his way of helping you to see that things are not always as complicated and hopeless as you think they are. One caller was really upset over having to make a major change in her life and Michael was offering her some alternative ways to look at the choices she could make. When they finally settled on the course of action she was going to take, he closed with this promise: "You know, I  offer a money-back guarantee. If you follow this course of action and you head explodes, you get your money back." Obviously he was not trying to make fun of this woman's plight, but he was trying to get her to see that if you make a choice and it doesn't work out, just make another choice. The world will not end, locusts will not take over the planet ... and you head will, indeed, not explode. 

The year I had squash that wouldn't grow and tomatoes infested with blight, I let go of the need to try and fix it myself and went to the experts to look at other options. Sure enough, the following year, by being willing to try something different,  I had so many tomatoes I couldn't give them away fast enough, and squash that could have won a blue ribbon. The year after that I had to make the decision whether or not to give up my beloved garden and follow the jobs. I made the decision to do what was in my best financial interest and moved. My head did not explode and as I sit here typing this, I am looking out on to the screen porch where my garden of herbs and flowers are dancing in the breeze and pesto is on tonight's menu. 

Don't be afraid of change. Finding another way to celebrate a holiday, or watching a child go off to follow their own dream instead of the one you had for them, is not the end of the world. You still have a whole life ahead of you to explore and experiment in. How sad it would be to have missed something wonderful because we let our fear stop us. Honestly, your head really and truly won't explode!

And so it is.

The "R" Word

On Tuesday night I attended a delightful party for my brother-in-law, Sam, who turned 66. It was also his last day of work. Once he turned in his keys he was officially retired. Friends and family came to wish him well on his double celebration.

There must have been close to 30 people there that evening. We spilled out of the house on to the deck and into the garden where umbrellas and a tent had been set up. I moved from group to group, getting caught up with old friends and making new acquaintances. Most of the people there, with the exception of Sam's children/step-children and the grandkids, were at or near retirement age. So there was no shortage of like-minded conversation going on.

I met one lovely, older woman who said that she hoped Sam would be as happy in his retirement as she had been. She had taken an early retirement from IBM 20 years ago and had never regretted one day or had one moment of boredom. She tried to get a swim in at the Y every day, did a great deal of sewing and other needlework for friends and family gifts, read a lot, worked in her garden, and often just enjoyed sitting in silence and becoming one with the world around her. She was active in her church and generally was in good health. I told her that being only semi-retired (working 3 days a week), I totally understood where she was coming from and longed for the day when I could finally call myself a full-time retiree, having the time to pursue my interests and learn new ones.

So many folks in our age group that I meet are afraid of retirement. For some it is a financial issue and unfortunately in our current economy it is true that many will have to work longer than they had planned in order to pay the bills. However I meet people all the time who believe that once they retire, they are done, that old age and death will come crashing down on them like a giant wave and take them away. I always want to ask these individuals if there isn't anything that they have ever wanted to do, or wanted to learn, or wanted to experience, but have put it off because of work and family commitments. Nine out of ten will admit that there is. Then I ask them, "then why don't you do it?"

The "R" word I am referring to in the title of this post is not "retirement," but, "Regret," with a capital R. I can't think of a worse ending to a life spent taking care of others than to regret all the things they never did or accomplished for themselves. They regret not taking that trip, learning that skill or craft, taking up that hobby, finding that long-lost love, taking that first step outside of their comfort zone and not only learning to fly, but to soar. Closing ourselves off from the world because we've reached a certain age, or because our employers have taken our keys and ushered us out of the door is a choice, not an inevitability. Sure, there are things about getting older that we won't have a choice about like the fact that our bodies are slowing down, our hair is getting grey, and the wrinkles are going to appear sooner or later. Everything else is a choice: where we go, what we do, what we eat, how we take care of our bodies, our minds and our spirits. I don't want to have one moment of regret when the time for my transition comes. I want to look back at my life with a big smile on my face that says "I did it all, and I did it my way."

My latest choice is to learn how to become proficient with a computer. I want to learn to create newsletters and websites, Skype with my grandsons and friends across the country, and all the other neat things a computer can do. I also have paths yet to be hiked, lessons on cooking with tofu yet to be learned, and a host of other things that keep my mind and spirit alive and engaged. I'm looking forward to getting those 3 days a week back so I can say with relish, and not regret, "yes, I'm retired, and I love it."

So what have you always wanted to do? Promise me, and yourself, no regrets!

And so it is.

Staying Connected

I had an upsetting experience last week ... I lost my internet connection ...FOR 3 DAYS! I had people talking me through resetting my modem, checking all my connections, trying to ditch my cookies (what are those things anyway, and what purpose can they possibly serve?). I ended up dragging my 7 year old laptop, (made before they became lightweight so we're talking about 10 lbs here), to the library so I could get out our Unity group's weekly newsletter and this blog. As luck would have it, Blogger was also having some issues last week so getting my blog out was also a challenge. Then I dragged everything back home and just sat for a while ... in silence ... doing nothing... except thinking.

I started thinking about how I had let myself become so addicted to my computer that I had stopped being connected to the rest of the world, both the outer world and the inner world. Even the books that I read were all digital. I called the internet provider, who was very nice and didn't speak to me as if I were a technically challenged senior citizen, and was advised it would be late afternoon before a technician could get to me. So I made myself an ice coffee, opened a real book, sat by my window overlooking the bird feeder, and read. No e-mails, Facebook, blogs, newsletters, Google searches, weather reports, online book sales (do they have a recovery group for that?), political discussions ... just reading. A real book. About gardening.

Reading that book, in that setting, reminded me about being connected in a different way. I remembered the feeling I got whenever I was on my knees in my garden back home digging in the dirt, pulling out weeds or planting something new. I touched the ground and felt the Earth's heartbeat. I was connected to everyone and everything in that moment. Even now, when I allow myself to step back and be in the moment, to breathe deeply, smell the trees, the rain, the grass, and listen to bird song outside my window, or stop what I'm doing to watch a flock of geese move across the sky on their way to the river, I am connected to the heartbeat of the Earth as well. Whenever I pull myself away from the view of life from a computer screen and view it from the Universal Screen, I am connected to everyone and all that is.

I'm not saying we should ditch the wonders of technology. They have certainly made our lives not only easier, but more exciting. It is wonderful to be connected to people and places all over the world and to have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. But if we forget to stay connected to ourselves and the world we live and move in every day, we are not living from our authentic selves.  When we are so busy looking down at our iPhones that we miss a baby's smile, or a beautiful flower, or a sky so brilliantly blue it makes us wish we could fly, then we are disconnected from the world that matters. David Whyte said, "give up all the worlds except the one to which you belong." I'm not saying that we should all pull the plug and walk away from technology. I'm saying that we should let it serve us, but not imprison us. Remember to take time every day to check your connection to the Earth's heartbeat. It's a beat you can dance to forever.

P.S. Cody, the sweet and talented young man who came and fixed my internet connection (problem at the box outside, not with the technically challenged senior inside), renewed my hope in the concept of a kinder, gentler species of repairmen!

And so it is.

What We Can Learn From Storms, Rhubarb ... and Lemons?

Even though my gardening endeavors have gone from full-scale, all-out yardage to container gardening on my porch, I till like to keep up with what’s going on in the gardening world via blogs and newsletters. My current favorite blog is, “A Way To Garden,” by Margaret Roach, author of a book by the same name in addition to my all time favorite, “And I Shall Have Some Peace Here,” and her newest, “Backyard Parables.” Margaret has a wit that I connect to, both of us having come from the Big Apple to reinvent ourselves in the wilds of upstate New York. She has also become quite an experienced gardener, all of it self-taught.

Last week Margaret shared with her readers the plight of her garden after a particularly nasty storm which included some large hail. Alas, her rhubarb was quite torn to shreds. Now Margaret is a veteran of many, many storms of every variety so rather than have a negative reaction to this event, she chose instead to take a positive approach – she simply pulled up the plants and set about the task of making rhubarb compote, crumble and syrup. But not just any compote, crumble and syrup. She decided to make new and improved, healthier varieties of compote, crumble and syrup. In essence, she took what might be conceived as a bad experience and found a way to make something positive come out of it.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that tired old saying, “when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.” However, as we get older, the lemons seem to come at us with more and more frequency: we lose our jobs, a spouse dies or leaves us single again for the first time in decades, the kids leave the nest, parents, friends and other family members pass, and suddenly we are alone and wondering what to do next. I know there have been some spirited discussions recently on VN about these very subjects, and Margaret’s experience got me to thinking about applying some of her home-grown logic to these experiences as well.

What we can do when the lemons are coming at us is to throw out that old lemonade recipe and create a new and improved one. We can get rid of all the old ways we used to define ourselves that involved our “roles” and start writing a whole new story, a new and improved one that is no longer fiction, but real life, real you stories.

I know, I know, change is hard and scary, but more often than not it is much scarier in our minds than it actually turns out to be. First you dip a toe in, then the whole foot, and before you know it you’ve taken the plunge and surfaced as a whole new, and authentic, you. This is the you that creates her life in a new and improved way that nourishes her spirit as well as her body.

Who knows? You may end up the world’s greatest authority on lemonade!

And so it is.

Your Mission, Should You Accept It

Back in the early 80’s I was employed as an Outreach Worker for an inner-city ministry. We would feed the kids, comfort and care for the elderly, and provide a soft place to land for people who were just trying to survive in an atmosphere of drugs and poverty.

One day the Pastor came into the office and announced that I had been adopted as a missionary by a small, rural sister church in the mid-west and that they would be contributing to my salary (small as it was) which would be a blessing as our resources were few. At first I thought I had misunderstood him. The word “missionary” conjured up images of weary, overworked people in Africa or the Rain Forrest building wells and holding Sunday services under a thatched roof in the jungle. The Pastor assured me that in their eyes I was, indeed, a missionary except that my “jungle” was the inner-city streets swarming with drug dealers and gang members instead of lions and tigers. The whole concept made me take a closer look at myself as a human being rather than defining myself by the job.

A little more than 16 years later I found myself living far from those mean streets in a small, rural village of my own in a different jungle of sorts teaching myself how to garden. I was feeding the soil while I fed my spirit. I tended the flowers and plants and gave myself a soft place to land, a place to redefine myself without the trappings of a job or a title. I was, in effect, a missionary in my own back yard ministering to my own needs and the garden’s as well.

Sometimes we have to treat ourselves with as much love and compassion as we would those people we perceive to be in need of those very things. We are the first ones to put ourselves out there when the need arises, but the last ones to be on the receiving end when we are the ones in need. Women, and especially older women who have devoted a lifetime to others, are especially vulnerable to this. By the time I found myself standing in that garden surrounded by the unknown but willing to learn, I had already burned out, dropped out and allowed the well to run dry. As women we shouldn't  have to get to that state before we minister to our own needs. As women who have raised their families and put them first for years and years, it is time to redefine ourselves in this next chapter of our lives by being on the receiving end of self-love, self-compassion and extreme self-care.

Today, and for every day going forward, become a missionary to yourself. Feed your body and spirit with healthy offerings, care and comfort yourself when you need it, and give yourself a soft place to fall … and don’t get up until you’re ready.

And so it is.