A Step Back

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in the personal chaos of the past nine months is that I need to know when to step back and breathe. And it’s not always easy to know when to take that step. It’s easier for me to double down and keep going than to have to explain to others that I need a break, some room to breath, time to process or decompress. Perhaps the aspect of that lesson that alarmed me most is that because I’ve trained myself to keep trudging until I fall on my face, sometimes I’m blind to the fact that I need to step back.

Two weeks after Easter, God called me out. I’d spent two full days reading for my theology class and making notes in the margins as I went. God is real. The experience of God is real. The stories are real. These same themes kept popping up for me as I read. Then as Sunday afternoon wound down, I went back to my former parish on a whim hoping that maybe Fr. Tom, my former pastor, would preach the 6:00 evening Mass. I was not to be disappointed. He stepped up to the pulpit and began his homily: “God is real. The experience of God is real. Especially those experiences of God’s love for you.” I damn near fell out of the pew. If God wanted my attention, believe me that worked. I cried through the rest of the Mass. Not a stray tear or two either but full-on thank-God-I-have-tissues-with-me waterworks.

That was a serious wake-up call. I’d been submerging myself in my schoolwork because it was an escape from the chaos of taking care of everyone else and it was an escape that was somehow respectable. What I’d caught a glimpse of during my time on Cape Cod had now come into sharp focus. I was hiding out not only from the people around me, but also from God. I wasn’t happy with where I was on my journey. I wasn’t happy with myself for a variety of reasons. And somehow, I was going to work myself out of that dark space all by my lonesome. So after chewing on this for about a week, I instinctively did what I do best: I sat down to write about the experience. I spent the next three hours alternating between staring at a blank screen, typing a sentence or two and then deleting the words in disgust, and staring out the window wondering why the words just wouldn’t flow like they usually do.

I realized as I sat there in front of the blank screen that nothing was going to flow out of me because I was spiritually running on empty. Even the fumes had burned off. I knew something had to give. Over the next ten weeks, I stopped trying to write publicly. I stopped trying to explain myself to anyone. I started taking extra time out to spend in prayer, even if that was simply ten minutes of sitting on the back porch watching the birds in the afternoon while dinner was cooking. During those ten weeks, I had some incredibly reassuring God moments, which is good because when I read through my journals for the past year the one theme that appears over and over ad nauseam is a sense of being overwhelmed. And if I’m not taking that extra time to stop, breathe, pray and write privately, I lose track of those God moments. When I submerge myself, either in the chaos that is my life right now or in my schoolwork, I intentionally let myself drown when I have a Savior who walks on water and calls me to walk with Him. Sometimes that walk means taking a step back, standing still, and catching my breath.

Translation: I Love You

So here I am, six full weeks after injuring my foot and I am still using crutches 90% of the time. Perhaps, suggests my Mom, it would have been less time if I hadn’t walked around on the fracture for a solid week before going to the doctor. Perhaps, suggest I, she should shush and leave me be.

Yesterday, I managed, with a lot of padding in my shoe, to hobble around the kitchen sans crutches long enough to bake a batch of molasses cookies and clean up the kitchen afterwards in my usual cookie meditation methods. But this batch had less to do with my desire to bring order from chaos and a lot more to do with stalling. The inspiration for this post came a week ago and I have been stalling about writing it ever since. I was secretly rather pleased with myself yesterday when I sat down with my tea and a warm cookie and noted that it was rather late in the day to start writing. At precisely that moment, I got the following text message: Listen to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.

No, I am not even kidding. All the times I have joked about how I wish God would just text me suddenly came around to give me a swift kick in the ass. Moral to that story: be careful what you wish for. And yes, I know I’m still stalling.

Last week, I drove my mom to the grocery story and waited in the car with a book for an hour while she picked up a few odds and ends. When she came out with the cart half-full with groceries, I got out of the car to help her load them in the trunk.

Mom: ‘Get your butt back in that car.’

Me: ‘Yes Ma’am.’ I obediently plopped myself back in the car and waited for her.

We got home and I parked with the trunk of my car literally six inches from the back stoop. I open the trunk and reached for a bag to help her unload the groceries onto the stoop.

Mom: ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’

Me: ‘I’m helping you. I can walk a little bit.’

Mom: ‘Good. Go walk yourself into the house. You’re in my way.’

These are the days that I call her Miss Daisy, because the only right answer is: Yes Ma’am. I was giggling over this with some old friends and one of them said, ‘You’re in my way. Translation: I love you.’ Now anybody who speaks Mommish knows that is precisely the proper translation.

While I laughed about it, it really got to me. Ever since that morning when the bees invaded my quiet prayer time, I have been entirely thrown off my groove. I’m so tired of sitting around with my foot up and doing nothing that I’m twitchy even when I really, really want to be still. I had nice little rhythm to my days, especially my time alone in the mornings. And for five of the last six weeks, I looked at this annoyingly twitchy space I’m in as God’s way of saying, ‘Suck it up, Buttercup.’ Like somehow it was up to me to overcome the twitchyness all by my lonesome so I could be still and pray in the manner in which I had been comfortable. But this last week, the words that kept coming back to me weren’t lines from scripture or the various prayers of my rosary or some other bit of inspirational writing. No, the words that kept coming back are: You’re in my way.  So, while I’m a little huffy about it, I’ve stopped trying to be not twitchy. I’ve let myself be this restless mess that I am right now. I baked when I should’ve rested. I set up my fantasy football team when I should’ve been reading. I still went to the beach every morning but I talked to the seagull who sits on my car when I should’ve been talking to God. And somehow all of that was okay because I stopped trying to do what I couldn’t do and I got out of the way and somehow I’m a little less twitchy. I don’t what God is up to right now but something is up and for now I’m okay with letting God do God’s thing because You’re in my way translates to I love you. 

That being said, I kinda hope God hurries up because I don’t know how long I can keep this stay-out-of -the-way thing going.

Out to Sea

I’ve spent the last few days alone at a lovely resort on Cape Cod. The townhouse where I’m staying was booked back in November as a birthday gift from my sister and her husband. Being a divorced mom, managing a chronic illness, working part-time and picking up freelance projects as I can get them doesn’t leave a lot in my budget. Five days anywhere is an incredible luxury for me but to stay here with a view of the water, a wall of glass doors with the sun streaming in every morning… It doesn’t get any better than that. Or does it?

Life has been crazy lately. Working in insurance as the healthcare deadline approaches has meant more and more stress and demands on me at work. Both kids, my mom and I all battled a brutal cold that meant several doctor’s visits and still isn’t completely gone. Snow days and sick days made my tight budget even tighter. And for some unknown reason my younger son got himself on an ‘almost late for school’ kick, because mornings aren’t stressful enough already?!

But it’s Lent so instead of blithely giving up my morning prayer time at the beach and hoping to ‘catch up’ the next day, I started going up to bed earlier. To be clear: early is 8:00. There are toddlers with later bedtimes than me. Be that as it may, I abandoned the nightly Homework Wars and managed to find time in the evenings to spend with God. Sounds great except by early evening, if I sit still for ten minutes, I’m asleep. But He already knows that and the effort to find the time is enough.

Five days alone to be quiet and still has been such a blessing. The Cape is fairly empty in March. I’ve been wandering up and down miles of ocean beaches and had them all to myself. The first full day I was here, I trekked up to Race Point Beach, as far north as I could go. There were a few cars in the lot but I never saw a soul. I walked for a couple miles and then did the one thing I just had to do. I went in the water. Yes. The North Atlantic. Yes in March. And I don’t mean I dipped my toes. I took off the boots and the wool socks, rolled my jeans to my knees, waded through the shallows and into the breakers. I just couldn’t NOT go in. It was too beautiful. To admire that water from a safe distance and not experience it would be a sin. And God, with His wonderful sense of humor, shifted the clouds just so and the sunlight broke through in the most beautiful rays and I took my eyes off the waves. I grew up in Jersey. I know better than that. But I looked away and the next wave that came in soaked me to mid-thigh and almost knocked me down. I managed to catch my balance and dragged my soggy self back to dry land just in time to save my boots which almost floated away. And suddenly I was very glad that beach was empty. I stood there with cold ocean water pouring out of my jeans, threw my head back and laughed harder than I have in a long time. I found a log about hundred yards away and sat down to dry out a little before walking the miles back to my car. The clouds started to break up and the sun made things a bit warmer. Every time I looked down at my soggy jeans I started giggling all over again.

Yesterday, I took the drive up to Head of the Meadows Beach in North Truro. It was a beautiful clear sunny day and I was somewhat shocked to find mine was the only car in the lot. The 35 mph winds kept everyone else away. Being a March baby, I love the wind, especially when I’m by the water. I headed up over the dunes in search of the shipwreck that can be seen at low tide. I found it almost immediately and being a history geek, I was thrilled. Even more so because the beach was swept clean by the wind. There were no footprints anywhere. Even my own disappeared within minutes. It was perfect and untouched. I didn’t walk very far. I found a spot in the sand and sat down enjoy the view. And yes, I went in the water, but only in the shallows this time. I walked back to where I’d left my boots and watched the tide slowly reclaim the wreck. All the while, the wind howled off the dunes behind me and I was getting sandblasted. Sheets of sand went sailing past me. And me, being me, thought that was the coolest thing ever.

I said I’ve spent the last few days alone. But really I haven’t. God and I have hung out together, like old friends catching up. Yeah, that’s new ground for me. I mean we spend time together but there’s a timetable and I make an effort to try to relax. Why that’s so hard for me, I don’t even know. But these last few days I can’t even say I let my guard down. If I had it up at all, it got swept out to sea with that first big cold wave at Race Point. See, as I sat there drying out and laughing over my chilly sogginess, God laughed with me. And as I sat at Head of the Meadows mesmerized by the incoming tide swallowing the old shipwreck, a quote from the Sufi poet Rumi kept echoing in my head:

“You are not just a drop in the ocean. You are the mighty ocean in the drop.”

And then came the whisper than finished the thought,

“I know because I made you that way and I love you. See what I see.”