Beyond Broken

Attachment

Tides

Tidal lifeHere at the shore we organize our days according to the tides.  Quiet time first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee sitting above the beach on our deck listening to the rhythmic swishing of the waves, in and out and in and out.  Today it is peaceful with little wind.  A few lone birds fly over head.

Later mid-day is high tide and that is when we like to swim.  Low tide is when we like to walk.  Most days we see our lone great blue heron come to hunt for a meal.

There are storms of course, and higher highs and lower lows, but still a steady backdrop to our days.

Against this predictability unfolds all the drama of our lives.
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Invisibility

When we get older we often suffer from a kind of invisibility.  Heads do not turn when we walk in a room, even though we may be wearing our new spring clothes.  Sometimes in the locker room at the gym young women have conversations around me as if I am not there at all.

This all seems to come with the territory of getting older and although I have noticed, it has not troubled me much.

Then came a new set of experiences that brought on a whole new level of invisibility.

We decided to sell our large, long-time home and downsize to the condo of our dreams.  Yes, we had to act fast, and fortunately a family member had told us for years “If you ever decide to sell your house I would really like to buy it.”  So we asked her how serious she was and within a month’s time our house was sold and our condo bought.  We arranged to rent the house back for four months while we reasonably prepared to move and renovated the condo.  Four months sounded like a long enough time for the transition but it was not enough physically or psychologically.  We built our home forty years ago and it was an embodiment of us. We underestimated the whole process. We felt overwhelmed and numb.

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Grandpa was a boxer

 With my grandparents in 1968

My grandfather was a professional boxer and a Featherweight Champion in Washington D.C. in the 1920’s when boxing was illegal.

“BOXING IN WASHINGTON WAS ILLEGAL UNTIL THE LATE 1930s, but it was conducted nevertheless on a floating crap-game basis, with arenas popping up here and there” writes Shirley Povich the famous sports writer for The Washington Post at the time. It is in this backdrop of thugs and gambling and organized crime that my grandmother married my grandfather in 1926, making him promise to leave the ring. My mother was born two years later.

My grandparents were Jewish, and Jews at that time experienced a lot of discrimination. This was true in boxing as in all sports, so my grandfather changed his name from Isadore Goldstein to Goldie Ahearn. This new persona identified him as Irish — a more acceptable minority in sports. As the story goes, one of the first times he stepped into a ring paired with another ‘Irishman’, it did not take long for them to discover they were both Jewish and had both garnered Irish names.

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Relationships Can Be So Puzzling


How many of us have come away from an interaction with a friend or relative and thought – wow that was unsatisfying!

It is often puzzling as this drawing suggests — what did I bring to the interaction — what did they bring?  What happened?

I had such an experience last week with a dear friend and colleague.  It was so inspiring to unravel what happened and feel the regret for my part.

Brene Brown defines connection from her research as:

“Connection is the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.”

I retraced my steps with my friend.  I am deep into the study of ‘near enemies’ of connection and compassion.  They are these tricky/masquerading moments when we make a comment or add something to the conversation that looks like a kind, responsive contribution but actually stops the connection cold.

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Watering Grasses

Last week I spent several hours watering grasses.  We had planted several thousand tiny grass plugs along the sandy banks of our shore at our bay house to help stabilize the sand.  Two days later the sun is intense and the little ones are drying out.  My husband Tom got out a huge variety of garden hoses including some borrowed from neighbors and we begin the task of watering each one.  “Water each grass twice.  The first one is to prepare the plant to drink, the second time is so that the water will be absorbed,” Tom instructs.

Even though it is early morning it is already blazing hot and about an hour into the project Tom points out that the hose nozzle I have been gripping has a lock that will hold it on.  Just like when you pump gas for your car!  You do not have to hold down the nozzle the whole time.  I use the lock and am grateful because my hand was getting cramped and tired.  However as we proceed — for another hour — I notice that I can’t seem to remember to stop pressing hard on the trigger, even though it is now locked in place.

I immediately know that I have a metaphor worth writing about!  How many things in life do we do with more effort than required!  I know for myself: many.  For example, on the long drive back to Charlottesville later in the week I notice that I am gripping the steering wheel instead of simply touching it lightly to steer the car.  What might we do with this extra effort if we could re-direct it in a useful direction?…

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