Mysteries and Syncronicities

There are, I think, too many questions, some of which I may never have an answer for. But what I do know is that God is here, right here, in the mysteries and synchronicities of my life.   From my Journal

                                        

I was feeling poorly last Thursday, going through what I call my rat-in-a-maze routine. I was feeling unsettled, disconnected, discombobulated. Usually, I fight this feeling, but this time I decided not to. I decided to go with it. Let it take me where it wants to, I thought as I got into my car and started driving.

I ended up at a cemetery to visit my parents’ graves. Even though I hadn’t been there in a while, I had no trouble finding their gravesite. On the way, I noticed that most of the graves had Christmas wreaths on them. I hoped there was one on theirs, too.  There was. One of my sisters must have put it there. Many of the graves also had American flags on them, but my parents’ did not.

A few moments later, as I walked away, I noticed an American flag lying on the ground. I got into my car and headed for the cemetery’s exit, then changed my mind and circled back around. I picked up the fallen flag and looked around to see if I could determine where it belonged. When I couldn’t, I put it on my parents’ grave, placing it next to my father’s name.

I felt better then, but by the next day those feelings of disconnection returned. This time I drove to the church I had attended as I child. I felt better just seeing it. It had always felt like home to me. I went inside and knelt before the altar. I’m not sure if I prayed, if I said “please,” or “thank you.” Mostly I just listened to the silence.

When I left, I drove to the house where I grew up, taking the same exact route I’d walked as a child. After making a final turn, I looked at the end of the street where I could see the house in front of me. I drove slowly toward it, looking at the windows that belonged to my parents’ bedroom, and then at a window that belonged to the room where my sisters and I slept. There is some part of me still there, I thought, and I felt better. 

At home, I picked up the book I was reading, Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, and read these words:

“Packing up. The nagging worry of departure. Lost keys, unwritten labels, tissue paper lying on the floor. I hate all of it. Even now, when I have done so much of it…Even today, when…I am aware of sadness, of a sense of loss. Here, I say, we have lived. We have been happy. This has been ours, however brief the time. Though two nights only have been spent beneath a roof, yet we leave something of ourselves behind. Nothing material...but something indefinable, a moment of our lives, a thought, a mood.

“This house sheltered us, we spoke, we loved within those walls. That was yesterday. Today we pass on, we see it no more, and we are different, changed in some infinitesimal way. We can never be quite the same again. Even stopping for luncheon at a wayside inn, and going to a dark, unfamiliar room to wash my hands, the handle of the door unknown to me, the wallpaper peeling...for this moment, it is mine, it belongs to me...This is the present. There is no past and no future. Here I am washing my hands, and the cracked mirror shows me to myself, suspended as it were, in time; this is me, this moment will not pass.”

Last week, I reconnected with that “something indefinable,” in that house, in that church, and even in that cemetery. I was “home” again for a moment and it was the same, but it was different. I was the same, but I was different. Perhaps, I think now, everywhere is home as long as we are there, present in the moment, even if only for a moment.

My memoir, Dear Elvis, a story about love and loss can be found at amzn.to/2uPSFtE

The Malleability of Loneliness

If we try to avoid a powerful wave looming above us on the beach, it will send us crashing into the sand and surf. But if we face it head on and dive right into it, we discover only water.”

Every once in a while I start re-reading the journals I’ve been keeping for the last twenty years. I read them because, like a compass, they help me figure out where I am. Sometimes I even find something precious in them like the quote above, which came from a book I was reading on October 27, 2002. The book was called Buddhism without Beliefs, A Contemporary Guide to Awakening.  

That quote made me stop and think. The day after I copied it into my journal I wrote:

It seems as though I have been living my life controlled by a fear as powerful as a wave looming above me - the fear of being abandoned first by my mother, then by my ex-husband, and even now by the man I love. It feels as though I have spent my entire life living in the shadow of that fear. But now, I am ready to dive into it, hoping that when I do I will find not loneliness, but aloneness, solitude, empty space and room to grow there. 

                                                                                                            
And today, sixteen years later, I find I have only just begun to grow there.

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE

On Being Cradled

As you may or may not be able to tell from my last couple of posts, I have been going through all my old journals, reliving memories and wondering if, like the lyrics of a song, things were so much simpler then.

Here, for instance, is a memory from 

August 28, 2002:

There are only a few more days left to summer. It is early morning and I have been sitting on the porch that belongs to the house my daughter and son-in-law have rented in Rodanthe for this, our second trip to the Outer Banks.
  
I few moments ago I closed my eyes to meditate and to watch my thoughts as though they were a train passing by. But it is not always easy to remember to disengage from my thoughts, to breathe deeply, and to connect to the sweet, rhythmic flow of the universe.

Later:

It's raining heavily now and I am inside staring out at a cluster of sea oats which are swaying in the breeze and sitting just to the left of a couple of tombstones. Apparently, this island was settled by two families whose grave sites are scattered here and there along the entire length of the island.

Every once in a while the house, which is only a couple of yards from the ocean and "up on stilts," rocks, and I smile every time I feel it move beneath me because it makes me feel as though I am being cradled in the arms of God. 

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE