And so it is Christmas

Today, taking a Christmas Day bike ride in my neighborhood,  I was a young woman again. 

My friend Maia, was in my thoughts most of my ride.  A childhood friend,  she first came to my house when I was in junior high, to ask if I could play kick the can. Maia met with a fatal accident this past May, on the day after her birthday.  She was 49; she died at a time in her life before any of the suffering of old age could make itself known.

Old age was not something she looked forward to; I think she feared it would shackle her spirit. 

Maia was a swimmer, she swam competitively, but she almost refused to brag about that. I know she swam for the love of it. She also loved to hike (I like to think it was me who helped her find this part of herself, just as it is SHE that I credit with giving me an appreciation for museums, architecture, beauty in man-made art).  Maia also commuted to and from work on her bicycle. 

Maia rode her bike along a beautiful stretch of pathway in Bellingham Washington, each day. I think she traveled two miles round trip. It takes me two miles to ride round the neighborhood.  I did this three times today. As I came down Kings Road and around the second-to- last curve, I was riding hands-free. A whole line of multi-colored bicycles came up towards me, different sizes, mostly kids riding them. That is when I put my hands down on the bars, to be a GOOD example. And realized that I recognized everyone.  That created a detour as I turned round to ride with them and enjoy a bit of catch up as we rode.

Maia would have liked my detour. She always made time for people of all ages. 

She had had accidents before; her last had fractured a vertebra in her neck. She and her husband had been in a car accident that miraculously only hurt her, and she recovered well. But I suspect it brought her face-to-face with her mortality.   I knew it gave her a whole new appreciation for life. She called me after the accident to let me know she was OK.    

Another accident happened to her leg. Can I remember just when that was? Somewhere between 1980 and 1984; I remember she had had to move to her parents' home so she could be cared for. I sent her Cancer Ward to read during that time, so it may have been in 1981 or 82, when I was in a Russian history program as an undergrad. She would have been about 23 at that time. 

Maia's life ended with an unplanned crossing with a train. 

Isn't life itself an accident of sorts?  One sperm and one egg meeting at just the right moment... 

The impact of the last accident left a shock too big for me to handle. I went down, hard.  If I had not found a new way to bend with the emotions, I would have taken my family down with me.  

Today, I can swim and think of her, pushing herself towards her personal best.   She would have pushed me and others too, even if we were her competitors.   I can also feel her elation, as I ride my bike, safe in my neighborhood, where there are no trains.  If I ride my two miles, I have done the routine, the joy and wonder that she would have done each day.  I do it in honor of her, grateful that she touched my life. Her life's end reminds me to find joy in each day.

It was Maia who took three trips across country to be with me (and one trip to Europe to share with her mother). The first trip was in  September of 1980, when we travelled by drive-away car to go east to meet my grandmother.  I was ambivalent about saying yes when she first asked to go along,  as I really wanted it to be MY trip alone.  But I fell in love with her spirit on that trip.  

She visited us in Europe was when my husband and I lived in Germany, in the fall of  1990.  I chose to  accompany her and her mom to Hungary. My "accident" was to have my camera stolen on the train to Budapest. 

The following spring, she flew to the Northeast, to spend a week with me,  as I emerged from six weeks in the hospital.   When my husband and I moved south in the fall of 1999, she asked to come again, to help us pack. That was the last time I saw her.  I think about the selflessness of that last offer to this day.  My gratitude (and unfortunately my guilt) at this were enormous, when I heard of her sudden death.

Once she left us, on May 20th, I knew I could never make good on a promise I had made to her that final visit. She had me promise I would be there for her when her father or mother died. 

Her happenstance meeting with a train had trumped my promise-- she would not get her just rewards from anything I could ever do on this earth. Or would she?

Zena

 

Sunday evening fellowship

At the beginning of my week, Sunday, comes my 12-step meeting. I am glad to say that I helped to begin this meeting in my community. It  will become vital and deep-rooted, with my Higher Power's help.

What a gift, this wintry day, to hear from the hearts of those attending, perspective that will help me put God first in my life. I am a hard-working person. So hard working that I constantly berate myself for all that I do not get done.  So hard working that I forget to enjoy the fruits of my labor.

My program stumbling block has been in properly discerning what is my job, and what is my HP's.  I tend to put "my" work first, because I take so seriously my understanding of, "God helps those that help themselves."  I feel like I must show up working, so that God will then find me worthy of an assignment. But I get so busy working that I don't listen carefully. I think I already know my job, and that it is God's job to bless the work I have started.  

Yikes,  listening carefully at our meeting, I heard that we show up willing and do the small part our Higher Power asks us to do, that God offers his grace to complete what would be beyond our limited plans.  I heard one member talk about how self-acceptance was allowing her to show up in important ways to perform in her sports in ways that she never imagined. Self-acceptance led her to take care of herself, helping her to answer her Higher Power's call for action,  so that she could show up to perform in her calling.  Another 12-step companion shared that he had to learn to let God be God, even as he sought to understand who or what his Higher Power was. For his recovery, he had to let his Higher Power define itself for him. How many times do those of us suffering from addictions, compulsions and misuse of Self... outright reject God because we think we have to believe a certain way?  Instead, we could let Him/Her/It reveal themselves to us in a way that will allow us belief.  For of course, how can we know what we can believe in before we know anything about Belief?   

Privately, this fellow shared with me how he does not need always to rely on faith to walk with God or to allow change into his life. Faith is for those times when we walk blindly into the unknown. But when we can see, then we KNOW we are in God and do not need to rely on faith. Ah, but to have been in the dark or in blindness gives us the opportunity to learn that faith works!

Zena

My negative voice

My negative voice (some call it ego) is pretty strong these days. I can go to bed with peace in my heart, and almost unfailingly, my negative voice is reactivated by dreams that catch  my attention in the early morning. On these longest nights of the year, I wake while it is still dark. In the darkest part of the night, my soul should be sleeping.  Certainly my husband is. 

But instead, I have "the voice". And there is nothing to counter it, in the dark of night.  It is this voice that finds all that is wrong with the world, and with me, and at night it has a captive audience. Me, alone, separated from the rest of our family: my husband, my son, our cat, my writing (which, each time I publish and am paid,  makes me aware I DO have something to offer the world)... and my brother. It is my brother who I am always grateful for. Without  him, I know I would not be here.

We all need good witnesses. My negative mind is one I would prefer not to have.

This past few weeks it has had lots of material to condemn me with, and all because I showed up to keep my commitment on a project at my son's school. I ended up calling it the "project from hell." In sharing that with a twelve step sputnik (companion), I realized a new perspective on the project. Henceforth (likely in my next post) I will explore how that project was actually tuition.

Zena

She begins

I am a freelance writer, who has chosen to start small. I do long  to have the courage to push beyond writing for local rags and magazines. 

This past five and a half years, I put a big chunk of my energy into recovery from something most people would call a "mental illness." 

With three years of  perspective since my last crisis, I no longer call it mental illness, largely because I can see its etiology.  My family, who also breathe more freely these days, also won't allow me to call it an illness.  If I use the word "vulnerability", I get agreement.  I find that my vulnerability is most keen in summers. Each summer that I live in freedom from crisis, is a blessing for me. 

 For me, the words, "spiritual crisis" or "spiritual malaise" work.  For me, a crisis results only under conditions that create a perfect storm, when several variables conspire together simultaneously, and I am unable to manage any of the variables productively. What variables? A few come to mind: emotions (anxiety run amok), hormones (peri-menopause), endocrine (very low blood sugar) and maybe the residue of childhood trauma (but because I can't put my own finger on that, I don't like to bring hidden trauma to the discussion).

One day I will write  about my so-called vulnerability, to see if my exploring words speak to others. I have a truth that few people I know will agree with. Sometimes I feel that were I to share my understanding with other folks I meet, particularly those who have real diagnoses I would be a threat to their recovery (so I try to keep quiet). Of those who treat folks with diagnoses (psychiatrists, mental health professionals and conventional doctors), most would shake their heads at my story. Only when I feel particularly strong, articulate and in very open-minded company, do I share my own understanding of my mental health journey. 

God willing, on another day, when I am not nursing  a headache,  I will find my own way to share that does not engender argument.

What I do know is that since returning to a recovery path that uses the twelve steps, I have found myself more at peace with my vulnerability and, perhaps paradoxically, I find myself whole and well.

Zena