Category Archives: Spiritual Health

Spiritual Pruning

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This week, this article became a topic of debate* amongst my peer group:  How Christian America Dies.

DISCLAIMER:  Let’s call out the obvious slant here, lest you think I don’t know the pictures on the wall are crooked.  🙂  This article is from a site called The American Conservative, and the article is written by Pat Buchanan – I make no illusion that this is a balanced reference, nor does it reflect my personal views.  But I want to talk about it anyway, so if you lean the other way, bear with me here.

*Clarification:  When I say “debate,” I mean that someone posts the article on a message board.  The usual participants gather up mud and feces to sling at the “other team,” and very quickly the conversation, if there ever really WAS one, deteriorates into the usual Republicans vs. Democrats, Obama Sucks vs. Obama Saved Us, Christian vs. Atheist, Us vs. Them name-calling.  I should add that this is a “professional” bulletin board.  Working in HR, I can only assume that for some folks, having to be civil for the majority of the day takes its toll, and if these folks can’t spew venom SOMEWHERE, they’ll explode all over an unsuspecting employee, get fired, and become “part of the problem.”  Meh.  I guess trolling is cheaper than therapy.  But I digress.

Anyway.  Back to the article:

“This is a Christian nation,” said the Supreme Court in 1892. ”America was born a Christian nation,” echoed Woodrow Wilson. Harry Truman affirmed it: “This is a Christian nation.”

But in 2009, Barack Hussein Obama begged to differ: “We do not consider ourselves a Christian nation.” Comes now a Pew Research Center survey that reveals the United States is de-Christianizing at an accelerated rate.

Whereas 86 percent of Americans in 1990 identified as Christians, by 2007, that was down to 78 percent. Today only 7 in 10 say they are Christians. But the percentage of those describing themselves as atheists, agnostics or nonbelievers has risen to 23. That exceeds the Catholic population and is only slightly below evangelicals.

Those in the mainline Protestant churches—Presbyterians, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalians—have plummeted from 50 percent of the U.S. population in 1958 to 14 percent today. By accommodating the social revolution of the 1960s to stay relevant, mainline churches appear to have made themselves irrelevant to America’s young.

The decline in Christian identity is greatest among the young. While 85 percent of Americans born before 1945 still call themselves Christians, only 57 percent of those born after 1980 do.”

The author (go here if you want to read the article) then goes on to discuss why Christianity is on the decline, and some of his thoughts on the potential consequences.  As you can probably guess, he doesn’t find those consequences favorable.

I’m gonna throw out a differing viewpoint here.

This isn’t how Christian America dies.  This is how Christian America GROWS.

Here’s why.

It’s easy to be Christian when “everybody else is.” Back in the day, it was more of a societal norm. So easy to blend in. “All” schools did Christmas programs.  “Everyone” had a tree.  We all said “Merry Christmas” at the holidays, and the assumption and expectation was that it applied to everyone.  The bandwagon was full, but comfortable.

Things are different now. As a nation, we’ve evolved into much less of a melting pot, where everything has been masticated and homogenized, and more of a delightful stew, where there are hunks of beef, carrots, peas, potatoes, celery, onions, and a beautiful array of spices that make a rich broth unifying it all.

(Side note:  I’m not crazy about peas, and not a fan of cooked carrots.  But I support your right to chuck ’em in the stew – heck, you probably feel the same way about onions, right?  They all come together to enliven the broth that holds this together.  And if I really can’t stomach one more carrot, I can leave it on the side of the plate.)

In the United States today, these divergent (from “traditional Christianity”) viewpoints have become more mainstream.  They’re more common, more outspoken. They’ve come out of hiding and shown their faces to the sun. And in the light and the open air, they begin to take root, to grow, and to thrive.

This changes things for those folks who were so cozily sitting on the bandwagon where everyone agreed on things.  You can no longer assume that everyone is generally going to be supportive of your viewpoint.  In fact, if you come out with guns a-blazing, trying to violently shove your views in someone’s face…it might not go so well.

Your bandwagon is pulling away without you.  You can’t just state your beliefs and expect heads to nod in agreement.  You now need to be prepared to defend and support those beliefs with rational thought and research.

That isn’t going to be easy, especially if you just assumed the belief system you were raised with. Which a lot of us did, frankly.  I suspect that’s why the Christian numbers were higher in the previous generation – it was a family and social thing for many of us.  Mom and Dad took us to church, and we took OUR kids there, too, never really questioning it…it’s just what we DID.

But now it’s time to really dig in and find out WHY you believe what you do, and WHY -or <gasp> IF – it’s the right decision for you.

It’s challenging. It can be frightening. I mean, what if it turns out that everything you ever believed isn’t what you believe anymore? What if it’s no longer true for you?

What if you find out you were…wrong?

As difficult as this can be, this is an opportunity for you to really strengthen your faith.  You can truly challenge your core belief system by digging deeply into your faith, and finding out WHY you believe what you do.  You’ll delve into some readings, explore some scholarly data, read sermons and Bible studies, and talk to pastors. You’ll find out why others DON’T believe what you do, and you’ll likely discover why different faiths make sense.

You’ll prepare yourself to civilly and confidently express a logical, rational position on your beliefs.  (Because, let’s face it – “because Mom said so” isn’t exactly going to get you taken seriously.)

While you’re working through this exercise, one of two things will happen – you’ll either decide that you really believe something else, OR you’ll solidify your beliefs more strongly.

Either way, you’ll grow.

Admittedly, there is some fallout. Not everyone who deeply explores faith comes to the conclusion that Christianity truly represents their beliefs. But, for those that DO arrive there, their faith is undoubtedly stronger.

So, there are fewer, but those that remain are solidly set.

A firm foundation.

It’s like pruning a rosebush. You cut off the parts that weren’t really helping you bloom.

No matter where you land – Christianity, Buddhism, humanism, atheism….or some general sense of “everything is all tied together somehow” – you’ll undoubtedly stand more strongly.  You’ll have provided spiritual fertilizer, water, and sun, and your roots will stretch deeper into your soul.

And – having all of these different belief systems coexisting really gives us the opportunity to find out what we truly have in common. It allows us to dissent peacefully with the goal of deeper understanding. It teaches us that different is just that – different. It can teach us humility and humbleness as we are presented with fresh challenges, additional trials, and new information.

For those of us not secure enough in our spiritual walks to have a healthy discussion, these conversations can lead to insults and hurt feelings. But that exercise does NOTHING to deepen us spiritually as individuals. And in many cases, it’s lead by fear and insecurity. (But whether this applies to YOU or not, I can’t say – that’s between you and your soul/spiritual guide/God/conscience/brain.)

The Founding Fathers came here so that they could worship in the way that made sense for them.  Several of them were reported to be Christians (albeit different denominations), but a couple of them may have been Deists.  Thomas Paine challenged us to step outside the pews and look around a bit.

If we want to support why this nation was founded, we’ll do just that.

So – read, learn, study. Meditate/pray, if it applies. Think. And listen.

Peace, all.

A Season of Spring for the Soul

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Saturday was absolutely beautiful.

First, my long-anticipated 5K.  (My second ever.  My first was in Philly, back in 2002 or so.  At the time, I hadn’t been exercising all that regularly, and certainly wasn’t running, but wanted to give it a go and “just see how I do.”  I got passed by pretty much everyone, including a 75-year-old speed walker. Whomp whomp whomp.)

This race was different.  I’d been running pretty regularly, and I knew I could finish it.  I was as prepared as I could be, and certainly more ready than I’d ever been.  I never expected to WIN, of course, but…gosh, wouldn’t it be cool if I really pushed and did the 5K in under thirty minutes?

I admit I started to worry that I’d be disappointed if I didn’t achieve that goal. But I managed to (somewhat) shrug it off and reminded myself that just showing up meant I’d already won.  And it was perfectly OK to just enjoy the day and do the best I could.

I gave myself permission to just…be.

Ready?

Set?

GO!

I ran the entire time.  I kept running.  At first, several people passed me.  That’s OK, Kate.  You’re here to finish, not to win.  But, as the race went on, I actually passed some people.  Then a few more.  And then a whole bunch more as I crossed the finish line, still running.

My time?  28:20.  BOOYAH.  Who rocks?  THIS GIRL.

I was completely energized by my “win” (don’t laugh – remember, I barely passed gym class in high school and was asked to leave a P.E. class in college) and it painted my entire day in colors of victory and can-do.

I got home and I was an efficiency MACHINE!  RAWRRRR! In a whirlwind, I did a bunch of chores – and then mowed the lawn.    (Our mower is not self-propelled, so wrapping up the yard takes about an hour and 15 and is not an insignificant feat.)  I weeded, and picked up all the sticks that the long winter had tossed about the grass, cutting them down to size and making a clean, neat pile at the end of the driveway.

(Side note:  Our city requires that you not put yard trash in a landfill – YAY EARTH! – you have to lay it out separately for the garbage company.  They come and collect it when they get your trash – for an additional fee, of course – and compost it.  The odd thing, though – trash pickup is on Mondays, and on Sunday, I noticed that my neat pile of sticks was GONE.  Either the 2nd Little Pig was building nearby, or we have some VERY industrious – and large – birds in the ‘hood.  They’re welcome to my yard trash, I suppose, but I sure as heck hope none of them ends up flying over my car.  I’ve heard that people will take ANYTHING if it’s free.  But sticks?!?  People are weird.)

Next, I whipped up a delicious brunch of poached eggs, ham, and toast, and when we polished it off, we were on our way to the local arboretum.  The state university runs this, and it’s your go-to when you want to see a huge variety of flowers and plants, traditional and experimental.  They have this landscaped into a series of hills, complete with both paved and wooded trails.

There’s something about hiking through the woods that gives me a sense of complete peace.  Being outdoors, surrounded by living things.  Breathing.  Being alive.

And the flowers.  Oh, the flowers. DSC03089DSC03108DSC03113 DSC03095 DSC03097 Everything in bloom, reaching out from the cold, damp ground to the dazzling brightness and warmth of the sun.  DSC03078 DSC03070I, too, am reaching for the light and the warmth.  I’m feverishly working to escape the dark, cold places.  The places where I cower and hide; the places where I hug my knees to my chest to close out the blackness.

But when you’re surrounded by this – by light and beauty and LIFE – you want to drink it all in. You want to swim in the river of color and brightness; you want to absorb the vibrancy and unite with the radiant energy.

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You breathe without having to remind yourself.  Your shoulders relax; the furrow in your brow fades.

You are so very thankful to be right here, right now.

You have permission to just…be.

And, in this moment, you experience joy.

DSC03066 Saturday was overflowing with contented peace.  How I wish I could just bottle its rich, heady fragrance to scent those dark, oppressive days, spraying a bit into the corners when I need to be reminded to breathe and to seek out the sun.

Nurturing My Inner Athlete

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So now you know why I’m not the most athletic person (see my previous post.)

But today, I’m getting up early, ON PURPOSE, to run a race.

Deliberately.

By my own free will.  No threats, no guns.

Getting up early.

On a SATURDAY.

To run.

So how did I get here, after a lifetime of being convinced that I was just not athletically inclined?

After high school was over and behind me, I only had to get through some minimal physical education credits in college before mandatory movement was FINALLY BEHIND ME FOREVER.  First, I took aerobics, which graded on attendance – and hey, I can tell time, so I passed!  Of course, I couldn’t follow a lot of the moves, but that didn’t matter – as long as you kept moving, marching in place or some such, you got credit for being there.  March in place?  Heck, I was in the marching band for YEARS – I can march the shiz out of anything.

Next, I signed up for racquetball.  After a few classes, the instructor gently took me aside and said that, given my abilities, if I preferred to just run the track upstairs instead of hitting the ball around the court, he’d give me a C and we’d call it good.  (Apparently, there’s a level of “horrifically terrible” that eclipses your own performance; once you’re so pathetically bad that you’re a hazard to others, it’s a whole new box of goats.)

After that debacle, I generally shied away from voluntary activity.  Oh, occasionally I’d dip a toe into the fitness pool – not because it was good for my heart, not for stress reduction – oh, no – but only because it burned calories.  My distaste for physical activity was trumped only by my need to be thin.  But eventually, laziness, time, boredom, and the fact that I was MUCH better at starvation than I was at exercise led me to abandon the effort.

Then, a few years ago, I tried again.  Years of a poor-quality diet had left me feeling…well, gross.  Sluggish and flabby and…kinda greasy. At this point I had been having mysterious stomach issues, and had begun trying a number of things in an attempt to feel better.  I was cooking – actually COOKING – things with vegetables in them.  I was cutting back on processed (albeit yummy) packaged food.  And it seemed to helping, just a little bit.  And I figured “well, everyone says exercise is healthy – so maybe that’ll help just a little bit, too.”

We live in the Midwest, and the winters can be brutally cold – so exercise had to be something that could be done indoors, or it just wouldn’t happen between November and April.  (Even the heartiest of athletes tends to balk at outdoor workouts when the temperature is 10-20F below zero.  Don’t ask about the wind chill – you don’t want to know.)

The hubs had an old skiing contraption in the basement – a manual-action, dusty, rusty metal thing.  (He had acquired it at a garage sale years ago; how he managed to sneak it into the house without me noticing is a mystery to me.)  It was…kind of big and foreboding.  But, with a little WD-40, it was serviceable.  It was something I could do for a half hour while listening to the radio.  I turned on the local morning talk show and moved my arms and legs back and forth for thirty minutes.

It was something.  It was a start.

I kept that up for nearly two years.

Then, I convinced the hubs to start taking walks with me.  We mapped out a two-mile route and started walking several mornings a week before work.  It wasn’t hard (well, except getting out of bed – that’s always a struggle.)  It gave us a chance to talk; it got me outside in the fresh air.

It didn’t FEEL like exercise.  It was easy.  And I found it quieted my head – just a little bit.

After walking for a couple of years (alternating with the skiing device when the temperature dipped below 15, of course) I thought maybe we should step up our game and try running.  You see, I’d heard that running “burns the fat right off ya” – that was the ONLY thing that was appealing, but for a woman with food and body issues, that was all the motivation I needed.

We didn’t follow any formal program.  (I’ve heard wonderful things about Couch to 5K, and know many people who learned to run through this program, but I hate following directions, and tend to rebel when there’s a process in front of me.  I’m not the instruction-manual type.)  This wasn’t a fancy effort.  We’d walk for a while to warm up, then we’d run until we couldn’t run any more.  Then we’d walk until we were ready to run again.

Learning to run was an interesting and challenging process.  Sometimes, I’d feel like I could run FOREVER, but just wasn’t able to get enough oxygen.  Other times, my breathing was fine, but my legs just could NOT run another step.

(And one day, I found seven dollars!  SCORE!  Ok, not a life-changer, but I was disproportionately thrilled about finding it.) 🙂

Gradually, over time, my legs and my lungs caught up with each other, and I was running more and walking less.

And I kept doing it.

Did my body change?  A little bit, sure.  It wasn’t the promised magic pill to physical perfection – I still struggle with the lumps and bumps; I still frown at the flab, the pooch, and the back fat.

And I don’t look forward to running.  I don’t blast out of bed in the morning like Mary Freaking Poppins, singing a happy song about what a glorious day it is now that I get to go run.  (The day THAT happens is the day you need to lock me up but good.)

But I run.

And when I’m consistent with it…it actually helps.  It clears my mind – just a bit.  It burns off some the cortisol that anxiety and stress have built up in my system.  And when I finish my run, I feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Something I was told I could never do.

Who can run three miles without stopping?  Who can run each mile in under ten minutes?  This girl.  The girl who barely passed high school gym class.  The girl who got kicked out of racquetball.  The fat fifth-grade physical-fitness flunkie.

Who’s a runner?  THIS GIRL.

I am a runner.

I’m running a race this morning.  And I already know I’ve won.

Burying my Inner Athlete

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Historically, I have not been a terribly athletic person.

(Wait. If we break this apart, you COULD say, somewhat truthfully, that if I was athletic, I was terrible at it.  So “terribly athletic” is deceptively close to the truth here.)

I didn’t play sports as a child.  I read books.  Lots of books.  I was a voracious reader with an insatiable appetite.  I remember vividly my mother sending a note to my second grade teacher to please, please allow her daughter to select chapter books instead of picture books.  I guess she got tired of helping me cart twenty books at a time back and forth to school.

So, I spent a lot of time on the couch reading, instead of “playing outside,” whatever THAT was supposed to mean.  My only physical activity, really, was the required “physical education” a couple of days a week in school.

And who here has excellent memories of gym class?

<crickets>

Yeah, me too.

In elementary school, gym wasn’t too taxing, really.  We all looked forward to the days where the gym teacher would roll out the big parachute, and we’d flap it up and down together, taking turns running underneath the bright, billowed canopy. (If your school didn’t do this, you totally missed out.  Trust me.)

I looked less forward to the mandated “square dancing.”  Let’s face it, no one wants to dance with the class egghead. Even in third grade, no one picks the smart girl to dance with.  Especially if she has glasses, braces, and an awkward haircut.  And ESPECIALLY especially if she’s chunky.  Or just plain fat.

It wasn’t just dancing where I was picked last.  That was the protocol for pretty much any team sport – in elementary school, this was largely kickball.  Of course, I couldn’t kick, I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t catch.  (Last-picked loser trifecta!)  I tried to stand in the outfield, sending anti-ball vibes to the kicker.  Fortunately, when you’re seven or eight, no one can really kick it much past 2nd base, so I didn’t screw up any big plays.

In middle school, there were new challenges.  I was still fat – when we were lined up for our scoliosis test (you remember, where they lifted your shirt up and drew down your spine with a ballpoint pen?) and they weighed us, I was the kid on the scale when they moved the “big weight” from 50 to 100.  I remember some gasps.  I remember my classmates’ eyes widening.  I remember that odd sensation of feeling so big and yet so small, all at the same time.

Gym class was harder in middle school.  They actually expected you to DO things.

Pushups.  (To this day, I still can’t do a single one.)

Pullups.  (You’re kidding, right?  I can’t even do a pushup.  What gravitational miracle do you think is going to transpire once you move the chair?)

Climbing the rope.  (HAHAHAHAHAHA.  No.)

And…group showers.  Yep, it’s not bad enough that you’re at least thirty pounds heavier than your classmates, and the only one who needs a bra*, but now, two or three times a week, you’re expected to CHANGE CLOTHES and SHOWER – NAKED – in front of other people.  Funny, I don’t actually remember what anyone else looked like.  I just remember feeling…big.  Naked and big.  Like the Darci doll in a world of Barbies, it was clear I didn’t fit in this toybox.

*Ah, my first bra.  In 5th grade, I distinctly remember asking my mom for a bra, because it hurt to run in gym class.  Mom said I was too young (even though I needed to shave my pits, WHATEVER MOM) but reluctantly took me to the local Ben Franklin to try some on, since I insisted.  I walked out with a 36B.  Mom was, and still is, a 34A.  Totally blew her cups out of the cabinet at the ripe age of 10.  That had to be…awkward. 

In high school, the stakes got higher.  By now, we had some decent athletes among us.  I was not one of them.  (OBVIOUSLY.  I think we’ve established this.)  But, our gym teacher coached track, volleyball, and a few other sports I don’t care about, so she used gym class to condition her hopefuls for the sport in season.

In the fall, it was track.  She had a cross-country course all laid out for us – leave the high school, turn left at the bottom of the hill*, run in front of the elementary school, across the field to the middle school, do a lap at the track, and then back up the hill to do four laps in the gym (as well as some bleacher climbs, pushups, cartwheels, pole vaults, or some other thing that clearly was not going to happen.)

*Our high school hill was legendary.  When it snowed, people came from all over the county to sled down it – well, before there were six lawsuits for every light pole and before helmets were even an afterthought.  It wasn’t truly winter until someone busted a bone doing a total yard sale out of a plastic saucer shooting down High School Hill.

In the winter, we moved the fun indoors…to swimming.  Humiliation, Boss Stage:  you now have to parade around ALL of your peers, boys AND girls, in a <gasp> SWIMSUIT.  (Oh, the horror!)   

And to add insult to injury…remember I said I wore glasses?  I am EXTREMELY nearsighted.  I am “butter the toast, get butter on my nose” nearsighted.  I am so nearsighted that if I hold a book up to my face to read, I have to close one eye, because if one eye can focus on the type, the other eye is too far away to see it.  Yeah.  THAT nearsighted.

So one day I’m standing by the end of the pool, waiting my turn to do a 25-yard crawl.  The gym teacher is at the midpoint.  She’s telling people when to go, spacing us out so we don’t crash into one another.  (Really, I should just go last.  No way I’m catching up to anyone in front of me, and I won’t slow the group down if I’m on the tail end.)

I’m shivering by the edge of the pool, ready to dive in.  I’m waiting, and waiting….nothing.

I yell out to her, “Do you want me to go?”

Nothing.

“Mrs. A!  Should I go now?”

Silence.

After a couple of rounds of this, I relax my stance.  I step away from the edge of the pool.  Clearly, something is wrong, and I’m not swimming any time soon.  (Boo hoo, I’m crushed.)

Then about five minutes later, she’s IN MY FACE yelling at me.  Whu…?  Well, apparently, when I was standing there asking her “can I go?  how about now?” – she was WAVING AT ME to go.  And I kept standing there asking “Do you want me to go?  Do I go now?” while she was waving at me.  The one who LITERALLY CANNOT SEE PAST HER OWN NOSE.  Comedy of errors, anyone?

Worst part is, she totally didn’t believe me that I couldn’t see.  (Gah, I hated that b!tch….)

So that was my introduction to what it meant to be physically fit.  Suffice it to say I didn’t actively seek out exercise of any kind for most of my adult life.  When you’ve spent twelve years being told you’re absolutely terrible at something, you usually quit doing it.

But marry a self-loathing for your body with external criticism about your lack of physical abilities and it’s no wonder, really, that you give birth to a whole family of food issues and eating disorders.

My upbringing and my experiences worked together like well-meaning grandmothers to knit together a robe that I was all too happy to slip on.  It was comfortable and familiar, and I clung to it like a favored baby blanket, reluctant to let go of the security it gave me.

I didn’t ever think about whether I LIKED dragging the old, tired garment around.  It was simply a part of me, and I kept it close long after I should have outgrown the ratty thing and chucked it in the rags bin.

Even now, as I’m working to recover, I can only set the blasted thing down long enough to wash it periodically.

For some reason, I’m unable to get rid of it – this blanket of poor body image, of uselessness, of self-doubt and criticism, stitched with fat-feeling threads on seams that are never thin enough, and finished with a band of anxiety and depression.

I know I don’t NEED it.  That’s just silly.  Right?  But yet, I keep slipping it back on over my shoulders – when I’m stressed, when I’m tired, when I’m frustrated.

I’m just starting to realize that it really doesn’t fit all that well, and the colors are all wrong for me.  But I think it’ll be hard to throw away until I find something to replace it.  Hopefully, something woven from joy, love, and contentment, with a soft lace border of peace.

Broccoli on the Spiritual Path

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I started this blog as an avenue to get thoughts out of my head – to help me wave away the mental gnats that kept getting in my eyes, buzzing in my ears, and generally distracting me from getting on with living.  But one of the benefits of having this blog is that it’s opened up a whole community to me – I’ve been able to read the thoughts of so many others, on a variety of subjects – discussions of spirituality, living with mental and physical illness, and where to buy the coolest new scarves ever.  It’s a virtual buffet; there’s some of everything here.  And I’m free to take a little taste of everything – if I don’t care for something, I don’t have to take additional helpings – I don’t even have to finish what I’ve dished out, and if I love something, I can have it delivered to my inbox as soon as the casserole comes out of the oven.  Sweet and savory, healthy and indulgent  – it’s all here and it all contributes to my level of balance.

So this morning, I read a post that got me thinking – BEFORE I EVEN HAD ANY COFFEE.  (This is not insignificant, by the way.)  So I’d like to share that post here.  It’s from a fellow WordPress blogger that I follow for a regular dose of spirituality that speaks to me.

In this particular post, the author talks about graduating with a Chemistry degree, and accepting a gig at a call center shortly after graduation to make ends meet.  She goes on to explain that the call center job helped her develop skills that were of tremendous value to her eventual career.  This spun off into a “what does God’s plan mean, anyway?” discussion, which you can find here: Whoa! How Did I Get Here? Posted by K. L. Register on “The Ninth Life”

I have been working on developing and solidifying my spiritual beliefs.  I’m familiar with Christianity, but I can relate well to “many paths of enlightenment”; my belief is that God makes Himself known to us in a variety of ways and in a number of forms, and that we call him by a number of names, but it all rolls up to the Big Head Honcho eventually.  I suppose that makes me more of a Deist.    I don’t really need a label, and I fully embrace and support that other intelligent folks will experience life differently than I do, and may look at the same facts and circumstances and arrive at a completely different conclusion.  That’s awesome, because differing opinions help us understand each other better (well, when we’re not fighting about them.  So let’s not do that here, mmmkay?  So if you call God by a different name, or just have an unnamed Higher Power – I’m down with that.   And if you’re an atheist, I still like you.  Heck, I married one!  I’m fully on Team Coexist here.  Join me – we have the best cookies.)

Since I follow a Higher Power that I call God, I sometimes wonder about God’s Plan, and what that means for me.  Is there a plan?  If so, how do I know I’m following it?   As I reflect on this in the context of where I am and what I’m trying to do with my life, I had a couple of thoughts on that subject….

1.  The decision can be the lesson.  Sometimes, God’s plan isn’t dependent on which choice we make – it’s the process of MAKING the choice that prepares us for what’s next.

Let’s say you’ve been feeling a bit trapped living in a really little town, working a steady, but uninspiring, job for a few years.  A new opportunity drops in your lap suddenly….do you relocate 1000 miles away, where you know no one, to embrace a completely new adventure?  Or do you reject the adventure to embrace the stability and non-drama of regular income and a fairly predictable schedule?

You begin the analysis of “should I move across the country for a fabulous yet challenging Job A, or stay in Podunk, PA working at a job that keeps me ‘safe’ and ‘comfortable’ yet painfully restless?” Whatever choice you eventually select, you’ll have learned something about yourself and what you truly want.  You’ll likely have learned what you truly value. And you can use that knowledge to make changes that enrich the very essence of who you are and who you were meant to be.

You make take the new gig, or you may stay local and enrich your wanderlust in other ways (Volunteering?  More travel?  New extreme hobby?) but just making the decision will change you.  Based on the experience alone, you have more insight about who you are, and how to feed your soul, than you did before – regardless of which door you eventually walk through.

2.  A little growth is good for you.  Sometimes, we reach a crossroads, and we’re presented with options we just don’t like.  There’s no easy decision to be made, no option that’s obviously less painful. You just can’t understand why your otherwise happy and stable life got choked up by this event; you were doing FINE without this complication – and you might even wonder how you ticked God off so badly as to put you in this position.

This is not unlike when we were kids, where your delicious plate of mac-n-cheese was accompanied by a pile of GREEN THINGS.  And no way did you want the green things.  But Mom put them there because they’re good for you.  And you usually managed to choke down some of them.  Some, you buried in the cheese sauce.  Others, you tried to feed to the dog (and invariably, got caught.  Mom always knows.)  But you did eat them, albeit reluctantly.

But veggies are good for you.  You wouldn’t be a strong, healthy, robust person on a diet of mac-n-cheese alone.  You need balance; you need variety.  You need the nutrition that the veggies provide in order to grow.

And you know what?  Once in a while, you were surprised to find that the offending GREEN THING really wasn’t so bad.  (Side note – try roasting.  Brussels sprouts are DELICIOUS this way – and I am not a veggie lover.)

Besides – on a constant diet of your favorite childhood dish, wouldn’t you eventually tire of it?  On a consistent helping of everything you think you wanted, at the very least, you’d grow bored.  You’d likely take it for granted.  And after a while, as strange as it sounds, you might actually come to resent it.

It seems that we all need some contrast in our lives.  Conflict to appreciate the peace.  Noise to appreciate the silence.  Chaos to appreciate the monotony.  Pain to appreciate joy.

I’ll admit that there are days where I’d really like a smaller helping of what I’ve been dished up – on some days I want to send the entire dish back to the kitchen and complain to the chef.  But I have faith that as unpleasant as some of these life experiences may be, they’ll help me develop the spiritual muscles that I need in order to grow into exactly what I’m supposed to be.

Purging the Pollutants and Poisons

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So…in case you’re wondering (and I’m sure all three of you who read this have been waiting with bated breath just DYING to know how this turned out, ha ha) – I gave him the letter.  I did it.  I actually did it.

I had had a night of very little sleep when I wrote that post.  I saved it, and rushed off to church (of COURSE I was late. If I show up anywhere early, assume aliens have taken possession of my body, and what you’re seeing isn’t me, but an imposter, and shoot me with a green laser gun before I take over the planet.)

After church, we sat on the couch and talked.  Well…I tried to talk.  I was too upset to say much.  Finally, I told him, “I wrote you a letter.  I don’t want to give it to you.  It may be hard to read.  Some of it isn’t very nice.  But you need to understand it comes from a place where I am hurting.  I hope you can read it in the spirit in which it is intended.”

He asked for the letter.

He read the letter while I cried.

Then he said, “I love you, and I want to talk about this.  But first, let me change my shirt.”

And then he went to his closet and THREW THE MEAN SHIRTS AWAY.  ALL OF THEM.  Every last one.

And then we talked.  Really talked.

I was stunned – still am, frankly – that he actually threw those shirts away.  He must really love me.  I’m overwhelmed by that.  How can I mean so much to him?

He really is an amazing guy.

I walked around for the next week feeling like I had removed an eighty-pound backpack that I’d forgotten I was carrying.  Drama is like that – it starts out as a flashy new bag, which is hip and cool and fun to show off as you twirl and strut.  But as time goes on, it collects rocks and dirt and lead and concrete. It gets heavier and heavier, and for some reason, you keep carting it around like you’re doing it a favor.  As if it benefits you in some way.  It’s only when you eventually unload it that you realize how soul-suckingly bad it was for you, how much of a drain it was on your energy and your joy.

So I spent a full week feeling almost normal.  And then things went sideways again (due to a visit with my folks…doesn’t visiting your parents always remind you of the ways you’ve failed them?  I may write more about that later.)  Suffice it to say I had plenty to talk about in my appointment with Dr. P this week.

One of the things I’ve been struggling with is accepting myself at a higher weight.  I hate saying this, because I KNOW how lame, pathetic, and first-world-problemy it sounds. Really.  I’d totally be rolling my eyes (and mentally slapping her) if anyone ELSE told me how hard it was for her now that she’s eaten her way out of a size zero and is ALL THE WAY up to a size two now.  Boo freakin’ hoo, right?

But when it’s your own body?  When the sign of success you previously had (BMI of 18, yeah!) has faded away? When your clothes are getting tighter?  When no one gasps at how skinny you are anymore, and the one thing you used to be good at, the ONE AREA you could excel in, the ONLY area that anyone in society seems to value (and certainly the one that’s the most prized, yet least attainable, by you) is now an area where you’re not in the best 5%?  Where you’re now just…normal?  It kind of sucks.  It feels like failure.

AND THAT’S STUPID.

Intellectually, I know I am not a fat monster.  I can’t be.  The numbers do not add up.  Even if I looked 20 pounds heavier than I am, logic tells me I cannot possibly be a huge beast.  But when I look in the mirror, my thighs are bulging out in all directions, and my stomach poofs out in an unflattering not-sure-if-she’s-pregnant bloat.  Flesh hangs over the tightening waistband of my pants (hello, back fat.  Who invited YOU, anyway?)  Pants in the smallest size are uncomfortably snug and emphasize every flaw.

Ah, yes, the pants.  I have clothes that have been hanging in my closet, unworn for several months, mocking me.  You can’t wear me.  I cut you sharply across the waist; I stretch in a most unflattering fashion across your thighs.  I’m here to remind you that you will NEVER be good enough. You will never be perfect.  What a shame that you lack the discipline to stick to your diet.  How pathetic that you have so little control.  I’m a prize you don’t deserve to have.

How ironic.  Apparently, it wasn’t just my husband who had hurtful things in his closet.

So, during my session with Dr. P, we decided that I’d clean out my closet.  I had mixed feelings about this.  First and foremost (if you’re female and have ever struggled with your weight, you’ll guess this one) – “WHAT ABOUT WHEN I GET THIN AND CAN WEAR THEM AGAIN?”  I know I’m trying to learn to accept myself at a healthy weight, but I’m not ready to say that I will never be 107 pounds again.  And that’s OK – I’m not there now, but I’m not ready to let go of that quite yet.  In the meantime, the pants don’t fit me well now, so why keep them when all they do is make me unhappy?  And, as Dr. P reminded me, “if you do need that size later, you’ll want to buy new stuff anyway.”  Good point.

And today I did it.  I went to my closet and ruthlessly pulled out all the size 0 pants.  I went through EVERYTHING (and I have a BIG closet, folks.  As if I would live in a house with inadequate closet space. AS IF.)  and bravely deposited in the Donations bag a grand total of…

<drum roll, please>

one skirt and two pairs of pants.

<cue sad trombone>

Wait…that’s it?

All that fuss for TWO FREAKING PAIRS OF PANTS?

(Wow.  Drama much?)

I stared at my small offering in disbelief….Yup.  Out of an entire wardrobe of “clothes I’m too fat for,” I had two – TWO – pairs of pants that are a bit snug to be flattering.  And you know what?  THEY NEVER ACTUALLY FIT ME WELL IN THE FIRST PLACE.  The brown pants were too short in the rise <coughcoughcameltoecough> and the black pinstripe pair were flattering but were always gave me a bit of back fat.  The skirt was skin-tight, but always had been, really, and I hadn’t worn it much because it was borderline inappropriate – a little too Jessica Rabbit for the office.

What’s amazing me about this is the power that these unworn pants had.  I mean, I have like 10 pairs of other pants – that FIT – and I wasn’t enjoying them because I had two ill-fitting pairs in my closet?  And WHY WAS I NOT BLAMING THE PANTS?  I can’t possibly expect every pair of pants to fit well and be flattering.  But…isn’t that what I’ve been doing?

The mean pants are in the donation sack, ready to leave my life completely tomorrow.

And, just like that, I have a closet full of pants that fit.

All my clothes fit.

That sort of feels…good?  Wait, that’s not the word.  More like “not a failure.”

I’ll take it.  It’s not my usual style, but the cut is surprisingly comfortable, so I’ll try to work it into my wardrobe.

Preparing My Speech

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Time for a serious talk at home.

Last night, the hubs told me, “I feel like I’m losing you.”

It shook me to hear that.

Hard.

But he’s right.  I’m drifting further and further away from the once rock-solid relationship we had.

And it hurts, and it breaks my heart.

I have a couple of choices:  Pretend that things are fine, or address this stuff head-on.  The former clearly isn’t working – apparently, I’m a terrible actress – so maybe I need to try again to get this stuff out in the open.

Maybe working out here what I need to say will help.  Or maybe it’ll give me enough of a mental buffer to throw a lacy tablecloth over the elephant in the living room and pretend it’s not there for just a bit longer.

Here goes nothing.

Dear Hubs:

Last night, you told me you felt like you were losing me.  What struck me about this wasn’t that you were right – because I think that’s fairly obvious – but that you still actually cared.  You sounded like you really DIDN’T want to lose me.  And I have to admit that surprised me a little.

I know that’s probably hard to hear.  And, to be fair, you’ve always been affectionate, and you tell me all the time that you love me.  But…there are times when you don’t SHOW me that you love me.  And it’s hard for me to reconcile the words with the actions.

Let’s jump right to the root of this thing:  we have very different opinions on faith and spirituality.  When we first met, and earlier in our relationship, we were quite good at respectful disagreement.  Or at least I thought we were.  Perhaps we just avoided the issue.

Lately, though, I know you’ve been going through a spiritual awakening of sorts.  You’ve always been agnostic, and willing to question your own beliefs in pursuit of the right answer.  In the last few months, however, your focus has shifted.  You feel that atheists are not embraced in society, and you’ve appointed yourself a beacon of light for all others who share your beliefs.  You’ve done this by writing a thesis of sorts on how irrelevant, violent, damaging, hateful, and inaccurate the Bible is, and you’ve posted this on the internet for all to see.  (Well, that was your plan; I honestly don’t know if you finished it or published it.  Since it hurts my heart to think about it, I don’t ask.)

Additionally, you’ve acquired a collection of T-shirts that boldly state your stance.  Some of them say things like “skeptic” and “freethinker” – those I can handle, mostly.  (Although I’m not a fan of “freethinker” as it implies that those who don’t agree with you are the opposite of free thinkers, when really, in many cases, they are people as articulate, intelligent, and educated as you, who researched the same materials and simply came to a different conclusion.)  It’s your other shirts I take issue with.  I know you’re going for shock value.  For an in-your-face message that you are NOT Christian, or Muslim, or any other organized religion.  I just wish you could find a way to express that without taking pot shots at the sincerely held beliefs of others.  I wish you could find a way to raise awareness without needing to step on other peoples’ faiths to elevate your own belief system.

Because without mutual respect and understanding, no one can hear you.  Your approach puts everyone on defense.  They know, just by reading your shirt, that you’re not open to a frank, honest discussion.  Your mind is MADE UP – and their minds are WRONG.  Period, the end.

I’m digressing a bit – I really wanted to talk about US, not everyone else.  But there IS some relevance here.  A couple of weekends ago, we went out together, and you had one of those T-shirts on.  And you made a point to tell me that a couple of folks commented on it, and really liked it, and that “lots of people really like my shirts.”  I believe I responded with something like “everyone but your wife.” I didn’t press further – but it saddens me that validation from complete strangers is more important to you than your wife’s feelings on the subject.

You know I hate these shirts, but you wear them anyway, and I suppose I need to find a way to deal with that.  Just be aware that you do so at the expense of some emotional currency.  Initially, you said, “Well, I’ll only wear them when you’re not around.”  WHICH MISSES THE POINT ENTIRELY – if you truly feel this way, it doesn’t matter if you’re wearing it on your chest or not.  It still hurts me that you don’t have any respect for my beliefs, whether you parade that in front of my face or hide it behind my back.  (If you didn’t like me taking diet pills, would it be OK if you didn’t watch me swallow them?)

It’s hard for me to feel close to you when I’m staring down a logo that I know is meant to inflame.  This is hard to admit, but it’s also difficult for me to feel attracted to you when how you feel about my beliefs is quite literally staring me in the face.

While I’m talking about respect, I need to also talk about blasphemy.  Not swearing – I can drop a good F-bomb as well as anyone else.  I’m talking about your need to invoke religion into the mix.  You know I hate it. I’m not used to hearing it, I don’t like it, I’ve TOLD you I don’t like it, and I find it completely disrespectful that you continue to DO it.  But you told me quite recently that when you get really mad, nothing eases your anger like a good “F*** you, God.”

(Side note – this doesn’t even make sense.  Why are you saying “F*** you” to someone you believe to be imaginary?)

THIS IS NOT OK.  It’s beyond disrespectful.  It’s telling me that your outbursts are more important than my lifelong, sincerely held beliefs.  I’ve cultivated them for years; I’ve tried to fertilize them, prune them, and encourage them to grow – and here you are, barreling over them with the lawnmower, rendering them into insignificant scraps.

It eases your anger…but you’re paying for it with our relationship.

Is it still worth it?

I’m scared to death that the answer is “yes.”

Yesterday we were shopping for paint.  And as you were loading the trunk, you noticed, for the first time, the ichthus fish I had affixed there a couple of weeks ago, and you said, “I just noticed your Jesus fish.  GREEEEEEEAT.”  Wow.  You actually sneered.  You have many, many emblems and stickers on your car screaming your views to the planet.  I don’t love them, but it’s your car.  And I respect that your views are different from mine.

Then a song came on the variety show on NPR – it was a gospel group singing a capella 4-part harmonies.  Now, I know gospel isn’t for everyone.  You could have changed the station.  Instead, you commented on the “ridiculous subject matter.”

My beliefs are “ridiculous subject matter.”

My beliefs are ridiculous.

I asked myself again yesterday if I could continue to live like this.

And yesterday, the answer was no.

My heart is breaking. I don’t know if this can be fixed.  All I know is that I never would have married a man who owned T-shirts like this.  I never would have married someone who couldn’t respect my beliefs.

Yet, nearly eight years later…here I am.

So there it is.

I desperately want to fix this.  Please, please help me fix this.

I love you.  Always.

Wish me luck.

Basking In The Blessings You Were Born With

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During therapy this week, Dr. P and I did a little work on body image. (I realize that there’s quite a bit of work needed here; it might be quicker to melt an iceberg with a hair dryer.  But ya gotta start somewhere.)

She’s asked me in the past what concerns I have with my body.  (I love how she asks this like she can’t possibly understand how I would have any issues with my physical self.  I suppose they teach acting in 2nd-year psych, right?)

I describe those issues in great detail:

“My thighs.  I hate my thighs.  The skin is loose, I have stretch marks and cellulite, and they’re too big here on top.  The worst are the saddlebags.  They sit right below the pot-belly I have – it’s my FAT EQUATOR.  So if I could lose ten pounds RIGHT HERE, that would help.  I look horrendous in a swimsuit.  I have to wear a skirt, to cover my legs, and it has to be a one-piece because of my belly…and you know, with a skirted one-piece?  YOU’RE NOT FOOLING ANYONE.  Everyone KNOWS you’re fat when you have to wear a skirted one-piece.”

And so on, and so on.

Dr. P:  “So…what do you LIKE about your body?”

Me:  <blank stare>

Dr. P:  One thing.

Me:  …um…Sometimes, people have said I have nice eyes.

Dr. P:  Good, I agree.  (She clearly got an A in that acting class.)  Eyes.  Tell me about them.

Me:  <pausing to think a sec> <shrug>  I dunno.  They’re eyes.

Dr. P:  Hmm.  Anything else you like?

Me:  Eh.  My face is OK.  I mean I have a really strong jaw that sticks out too far, and it’s pretty square, and I have an unusually large head, which looks really ridiculous next to someone with a small head. And I have a very distinctive nose.  But I do OK with what I have to work with…I mean, I don’t make small children cry, but I don’t exactly inspire poetry here.

Dr. P then proceeds to point out to me how detailed and descriptive I am when it comes to talking about the parts of me I don’t like…but when it comes to the parts I DO like, I’m really quite brief.

Dr. P:  Like with your eyes.  You said “they’re eyes.”

Me:  Well…they ARE.  I mean, you get the eyes you’re born with.  You can’t really make them smaller or bigger or change the color.  You get what you get.  No point in trying to change them much.

Dr. P:  But you could, if you wanted to.  You can put on makeup…I have a sister who spends a lot of time on her eyes, playing them up. You can even get contacts to change the color.

Me:  Meh. It’s like feet.  You can’t really fret much about how big your feet are.  Not much you can do if you’re genetically stuck with a pair of flippers.  Your shoe size just is what it is.

But I couldn’t protest too long…because she did have a point.  Then she told me that she thought I had a lot of really nice features.  For one, I have great hair.  Now on this, I do agree.  But there’s a story behind my hair.

I have impossibly thick, coarse, wavy hair.  It’s been a burden for most of my life.  My mother had thin, straight, fine hair…and absolutely no idea what to do with her daughter, who had the equivalent of a Brillo pad growing out of her scalp.  We had no conditioner, and no brushes – only those small pocket-sized combs (which I spent a lot of time running away from.  No conditioner, no brush?  You can imagine the spectacular snarls that grew – and the tears shed as she tried, every few days, to work them out.  I recall the combs were ironically printed with “Unbreakable” – I had the misfortune of proving them wrong more than once.  This was even more entertaining when the broken piece got completely lost in my hair, only to be recovered with the next combing or shampoo.)

Growing up, I suffered through several years of hysterically bad haircuts.  True, it was easier to comb when there was less of it, but every wave and bend insisted on marching to the beat of its own drummer.  I took “Extreme Bedhead” to new levels.  My cowlicks had cowlicks.  My baby sister, trying to be kind, told me, “You look like Janet on Three’s Company!”  Great.  Every little girl wants to look like the “smart” roommate, right?

In high school, I got a brief reprieve.  It was the 80s, after all, and BIG HAIR was in.  I could totally rock the mall chick bangs, and hardly needed any teasing or hairspray to make them sky-high.  (I did, of course, USE hairspray.  Aqua Net Extreme Hold.  We called it Aqua Rock or Aqua Helmet. I’m sure that decade is at least 72% responsible for the hole in the ozone later.  I hope my grandchildren accept my apologies.)

But soon, waves were out, straight locks were in, and I was back to having hair that didn’t fit.  I gave up on haircuts for the most part, and wore it long.  Secured behind a headband, or in a ponytail, it generally behaved.  (Although it was heavy.   I couldn’t secure my hair in any sort of clip – they didn’t make any large enough.  I had to gather a ponytail and stick the barrette through the top third of it in order to get it to work.)  Every few years, I’d chop a bunch off, just for a change – and I instantly regretted the decision every time.

(To give you an idea of how much hair I have:  At one point, when I decided to chop it off, I thought maybe I should donate the hair.  It was natural, and I had PLENTY of it, so why not?  You could probably feed three full scalps with the harvest from my head.  The stylist couldn’t get my hair into a ponytail – there was too much of it.  So she split the mass in half, making two tails to cut.   She started to cut…and dislocated her scissors on the first tail.  After some cussing, and a new pair of shears, I had two very thick ponytails to donate.  I put them into the package to mail, and took the envelope to the postage machine at work, just to ensure I’d have enough stamps.  The package rang up at NINE OUNCES.  Yes – that is OVER HALF A POUND OF HAIR.  Don’t look at me like that.  EVERYONE with food issues reweighs themselves after a haircut.  Admit it.)

I had been living in the Midwest for a few years before I had the guts to try cutting my hair again.  This time, though, things were different.  I hopped on the interwebs and discovered that there were other people who had hair like mine, who not only got frequent haircuts, but LOVED their waves.  So I hit up a salon that specializes in curly hair….and now MY HAIR IS FABULOUS.  What a difference a skilled cut and the right products can make!

So now, I flaunt my curls, because you know you’d HAVE to pay good money to get curls like these if you weren’t born with them.  I play with the color, too – I vary between reds and blonds; every shade between copper penny and honey is fair game and was probably on my scalp at one time or another.

And the shape!  I love my cut.  It’s super short on one side (yes!  short hair DOES work on me!) and chin-length on the other.  (Imbalanced, like the rest of me.  Heh.)

Here’s what it looks like (note – while I have fabulous hair…I do not possess exemplary photo-editing skills.  Ah well, we can’t be good at everything.):

FabHairYo

And the best part?  It’s wash-and-go.  Scrunch, arrange, done. My hair can be done in under 3 minutes.  Fabulous AND low-maintenance.  WOOT.

So what’s the moral of the story, kids?  Make the most of what you have?  Don’t waste energy on the things you can’t change?  Or learn to love what you were born with?

I’m not sure.  But if I can learn to LOVE my hair, after it gave me over 35 years of misery…maybe there’s hope for my Fat Equator to one day not be a hostile territory.

The Things We Learn From Trees

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Because the hubs and I are a hip, well-connected couple accustomed to burning up the trendiest activities on the social scene…we spend a lot of time on the couch perusing Netflix shows.

Sometimes, we have a tough time deciding what to watch.  We don’t always agree on what constitutes good entertainment.

My list:  What Not to Wear.  Friends.  Anything qualifying as “food porn” (i.e. Man Vs. Food, Diners, Dives, and Drive-ins.)  Say Yes to the Dress.  <hangs head in shame>

(Actually, wait.  There was something worse on Netflix for a while.  It was one season of this show called Bridalplasty.  If you’re wondering if the name alone should have you cringing, the answer is, obviously, yes.  It was a mix of Bridezilla, The Bachelor, and Mean Girls.  Each week, twelve hopeful brides would compete (for the life of me, I cannot remember the challenges.  Stuff like naming the designer of crystal?  Pin the boutineer on the groom?) and the winner got a full plastic-surgery makeover AND a dream wedding.  If you won that week’s challenge, you got one plastic-surgery procedure and/or a dream wedding item (dress, flowers.)  It was a dramatic, hot mess.  And the reason I know so much about it is because I watched the entire season.  I should be banned from society.  I’m clearly not fit to be around children.)

His list:  Earth and space science.  Military history.  Things that blow up.  Transformers.  Tosh.0.

So you can see there might be a slight disconnect here….Our “Suggested for Kate” list is slightly disturbing; I think the logarithm just threw its hands in the air, stuck a bunch of random 80s cartoons and reality shows into our feed, and curled up in the fetal position under the futon.

However, Netflix being a rich, untapped oil well of time-suck with a huge variety of subjects, we have been able to find a few things we agree on.  We like stories about the supernatural and the afterlife.  Documentaries about how things are made will keep our attention (especially if they’re about food, of course!)  We enjoyed Weird or What? with William Shatner (who I find awkwardly hilarious) – and right now we’re blasting through a season of Modern Marvels.  It’s one of those shows that sounds really, really boring, but once you start watching, you kind of get into it, and you accidentally learn stuff.  Plus, they had an episode ABOUT SHOES.  SHOES!  SHOES AND SCIENCE!

So one of the episodes we watched recently was about wood.  Yeah, wood.  Like from trees.  Which is odd, because wood isn’t exactly modern, is it?  But it is sort of a marvel.  For example, I marvel at how many leaves one tree can produce.  If I were that efficient, I’d be running marathons while programming robots in space to stop tsunamis and redirect the tidal energy into washing my windows.  But since I’m not, I’ll just sit here in my cozy recliner and share with you what I learned about wood.  (Don’t worry, it’s not totally lame.)

Accidental Thing I Learned (ATIL) #1:  Trees are deceptively strong and can hold many times their weight – but only from a certain angle.  We already know how trees tend to grow – barring any obstacles, pretty much straight up.  And we all learned in elementary school about the rings of a tree – if you count the rings, theoretically you’ll know the tree’s age, since they add a ring of outer growth every year.  In other words, trees essentially GROW into columns – it’s what they’re genetically engineered to be.

In certain parts of the country, where the water table is high – (think New Orleans, and…well, that’s the only one I can think of.  But there are probably more) – you can’t build houses directly on the ground; they’d sink.  The soil is a silty, clay-muckity mess.  The solution?  Build somewhere else.  But if you can’t, or won’t (humans are invariably stubborn) – use trees.  Lots of trees.  To set up a new building, you first get a ton of wood columns.  You then use a big digger/drill machine thingy (sorry for getting so technical here) to shove the mud out of the way in a hole, and then a pile driver to shove the tree-columns into the goo.  Once you line up a few dozen trees, you have a series of columns that can each support many times their own weight.  From there you level ’em off and go ahead and build your hospital or hotel or whatever.

What makes this especially impressive is that these columns are made of the same stuff that is seemingly effortless to chop in half with your bare hands.  Seriously, little five-year-olds in karate class give a shout and <thwack> they’ve totally split a board.

The secret, of course, is in the grain.  It’s pretty tough to smash through a tree by slamming down on it directly from the top.  Take a plank, however, and you’ll see the wood’s weakness – the grain.  if you want to break a board, you just line up the grain to be parallel with your hand, and while I wouldn’t recommend punching into a hunk of tree without some guidance, it’s significantly easier to break through this way.

In other words – depending on how you strike it – a tree can be overwhelmingly strong, or deceptively weak.  From the right angle, it can support great structures under significant stress and impact.  From others, it’s child’s play.

I guess we’re all like that, aren’t we?  Don’t we all have some seemingly little things that just fling us over the edge?  Give me a mass layoff at work, or a personal tragedy, and I’m a pillar of strength, being admiringly Zen-chill and waxing philosophical all day.  But a curt word from a loved one, or a flight delay, or someone leaving a dish in the bathroom (the bathroom!  Really?!) for THE ELEVENTY BILLIONTH TIME, and I lose my shiz all over the walls, floors, and countertops; I’ll be scrubbing my outbursts off the ceiling for weeks.  Those seemingly minor annoyances cut me across the grain.  While I can be strong under significant adversity, what appears to be a disproportionately small stressor breaks me in two.

ATIL #2:  Charcoal briquettes were created as a way to use up waste in the automotive industry.   Yes, the backyard barbeque gold standard wasn’t invented on purpose – this wasn’t a product to fill a consumer need; it was a manufacturing one.  Back when cars were first invented, they were modeled after carriages – so they were made largely of wood. As demand grew, so did the pile of scrap.  Eventually, someone got the bright idea to burn it down and resell it to cook meat.  A little bit of marketing, and voila!  Garbage turned into money, and Ford Charcoal morphed into Kingsford, and they still make the picnic staple today.  (Although nowadays they’re owned by Clorox.  You can read a more eloquent version of this history here.)

It goes without saying that it’s better to deal with the garbage in our lives – the emotional clutter, the mental baggage – than to let it pile up and rot.  You can only store it for so long before it starts to smell badly enough to distract passers-by.  But to find a way to turn an unfortunate event, a mishap, a broken heart into something not only salvageable, but something clean, shiny, and new that brings something positive to others who might need it?  That’s brilliant.  And probably better for all of us.  Yeah, I know – that’s one of those things that SOUNDS easy, and we all know it’s not.  But I wonder how much farther I’d get if, instead of mulling over the well-known choruses of “woe is me” and “this sucks”, I focused instead on “what positive change can I make from this?” or “what can I learn from this?” or at least “how can I share this experience in a way that’s helpful and not totally preachy?”

ATIL #3:  Wood can stay strong for CENTURIES underwater.  You’re probably thinking what I was thinking – “but wood HATES water!”  I remember from my marching band days how much damage a good rainstorm was theorized to do to my clarinet.  And we all know what a good flood does to your hardwood.  But what I learned is that surprisingly, water isn’t the enemy.  Wood can last for years out of the water, and it has a very similar resilience when submerged.  You can see some evidence of this with shipwrecks that are hundreds of years old – they’re surprisingly well-preserved and haven’t deteriorated much differently that they would have on land, save a few starfish and some globs of seaweed.

What wood DOESN’T like?  Change.  If wood gets wet and stays wet, it’s fine.  If it’s dry, and never gets wet, it’s also fine.  But take a dry piece of wood, and saturate it, then let it dry…and it’s weaker.  Repeat this cycle and wood deteriorates rather quickly.  This is best demonstrated with old wooden pirate ships.  The top half of the boat that sticks up out of the water and doesn’t really get that wet stays pretty sturdy.  The bottom of the boat, that’s always underwater? Also pretty solid.  Where the boat starts to fall apart is at that line where the boat meets the water – the constant transition of going back and forth from wet to dry to wet again causes the boat to lose its integrity.

Now, you and I both know we can’t entirely control change.  Things change when we least expect them to – you can be ambling along at an unobtrusive pace when life suddenly chucks us curveballs and trap doors and the occasional fire-breathing dragon.  But there’s a lot we can control to be better prepared.  Just like you wouldn’t put a wooden boat in the ocean without some sort of wax or fiberglass coating to protect it, neither should we barrel through life without some sort of shield.  I’m not saying you should put up walls and lock people out – that would be shielding ourselves from being human, and let’s face it, if you hide from the pain life springs on us, you’ll also miss out on all the joy, too.

But we can certainly prepare ourselves, mentally and physically, for the inevitable stumbles and storms.  We can meditate.  We can pray for peace and strength.  We can put down the pizza and the Pop-Tarts and eat more green things.  We can exercise; we can stretch, we can sweat, we can think, we can learn.  We can shut off our iPhones at a reasonable hour and rest. We can give a lot of hugs.  We can express gratitude.  We can allow ourselves to be loved, and we can return that love.  We can stop being so hard on ourselves when we miss perfection, and instead work on having a generous and kind spirit.

Sometimes the boat has to meet the water.  There’s no avoiding that.  So I’ll pack my life jacket and do my best to continue to sail.

Sealed With A Sunset

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Last week, I had the opportunity (read: I was, as we like to say in the business world, “voluntold”) to attend a conference for work.

The bad news:  The conference was about Worker’s Compensation and Safety.  OSHA and EH&S.  Holy snorefest, Batman.  This conference is clearly the equivalent of the ZONK prize on Let’s Make a Deal:

<cue cheesy game show host>

“Congratulations KATE!  YOU have been chosen for a two-day, two-night all-expense (as long as they’re under our woefully antiquated per diem) paid trip to learn things YOU already know about The.  Most.  Booooooring subject on the planet!

“You will receive flight accommodations on the most economical option available, allowing YOU to spend QUALITY TIME in America’s FINEST airports eating the LOWEST QUALITY FOOD money can buy for under $25 during your extended layovers!  Aaaaaaaaaannnnd NOT ONLY will you arrive exhausted, frustrated, and 17% homicidal, you will, at our leisure, be shoved into a crowded airport shuttle where a driver of questionable skill will terrify you with his bob-and-weave rush-hour traffic skills!  Once you arrive at your hotel, you’ll be greeted by the following:

* A broken elevator!

* A room with PLENTY of Keurig coffee, but NO coffee mugs!  And….

* TWO FULL DAYS OF LECTURES in a fourteen-degree conference hall, where you’ll spend nine hours a day hearing ALL ABOUT workplace safety and OSHA!  Congratulations KATE!!!!!”

The good news?  The conference was being held in San Diego.  I live in the Midwest, and it’s the middle of winter here.  Days where the high is in the double-digits are few and far between until April or May (when it VERY RUDELY has continued to snow – IN MAY – for the past two winters.  Even the diehard Minnesotans and Wisconsinites are growing weary of the seven-month gift from Canada.)  So I figured San Diego HAS to be warmer, and warmer = better.  And the conference hotel was right on the beach.  Even with my “economical” flights, I had a good shot at getting to my hotel before sunset the day before the conference.  I hadn’t been to the beach in…um…(carry the one, subtract…uh…twenty years?  Can that be right?  Wow…yep.  Probably more like twenty-five years.)  Too long, in any case.

So the day before the conference, I spent six (!!) hours on an airplane.  Word to the uninformed:  Work travel is NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, glamorous.  If you’ve been on a plane any time in the last ten years, you’ve likely rid yourself of that delusion.  But if you haven’t – just know that it kind of sucks.  You arrive at the airport.  You wait in a long line with people who are grumpy, smelly, whiny, or all three.  You remove any extra layers of clothing. You separate your liquids, electronics, and shoes into bins.  Your personal belongings get scanned.  You wait while the person in front of you – clearly an inexperienced traveler – gets sent back through the X-ray for attempting to smuggle dangerous contraband like a cell phone, water bottle, or <gasp> a jar of peanut butter past security screening.

Eventually, it’s your turn for the X-ray, and YOU get scanned. (Yes, TSA can see an outline of your netherbits.  But it’s not a good picture; your clandestine objects look just like everyone else’s, so try not to think about it.)  You rush to join the logjam on the other side of the scanner and, while the plastic bins are coming out faster than the candy in Lucy’s factory, you do your best to quickly jam your personal belongings back into your one allowed carry-on and your one permitted personal item, wedging them in just so, ensuring that everything will still close and fit in the overhead.  (It’s a good thing I was so good at Tetris back in the day.  I have mad packing skills, yo.)

Mad dash to find your gate.  (This COULD be a leisurely stroll, but I’m a horrible procrastinator, and probably didn’t leave home until the last possible minute.  I guess I like living on the edge….)  Sit and wait.  Find out that flight is delayed.  Wait some more.  Line up by caste ranking, but as close to the front of the line as you can, so you aren’t separated from your carry-on due to full overhead bins.  Get your bar code scanned.  Find your seat.  Buckle up.  Ride to de-icing.  Park.  Wait some more.  Insert a variety of potential delays – flat tire, ground stop, weather, or JUST BECAUSE IT’S TUESDAY, and eventually take off for your next destination – a two-hour layover.

Are we having fun yet?  I think, after flying for so long, I now know how cattle feels.  Except at the end of the trip, I don’t go to slaughter, I go to work.  Not sure who is getting the better deal here.

So I FINALLY get to San Diego.  But as travelers know, the airport isn’t really your final destination. Now you have to find your shuttle, and it’s rush hour (of course.)  It’s another hour before I get to my hotel.  And part of the trip involves high-speed travel over a very long, very narrow, very HIGH bridge.  (This bridge is sometimes called the Suicide Bridge. It’s 2000 feet above the water.  That’s a long, long way down….)  Clearly, our driver has a teenage fantasy about NASCAR, or Bump-N-Jump, or maybe the local ordinance prohibits staying in one lane for more than 500 feet at a time.  It’s a white-knuckler over the span, that’s for sure.  And me without a paper bag to breathe into, or a parachute, just in case.

By the time I get to my hotel, I’ve sailed past grumpy, dashed by cranky, and completely missed irritable.  If I was a cartoon character, you’d see FOUL MOOD in an aura-like cloud radiating off my head like steam.  So I get to my room, unpack…and then have my meltdown.

After about 15 minutes of an unspecified rant of I HATE EVERYTHING <stomp stomp stomp> I take a deep breath and notice that there’s still daylight.  I wander down to the beach.

Sunset1

Aaaaaahhhhh.

I kick off my shoes and roll up my yoga pants and head to the shore.  I climb out on the rocks.  I watch the surf.

I breathe.  For maybe the first time all day.  I breathe in, I breathe out, and I just soak in the calm and the beauty.

I spend the next hour or so walking up and down the shoreline, marveling at every shell, rock, and hunk of seaweed.  I stick my toes in the cold surf and let the sand ease away all the baggage I’d been carrying around in my head.  I sit on the rocks, dangerously close to the icy, crashing waves.  And I breathe.

And then…I see it.  I SEE IT.  I cannot believe what I am seeing:

ZOMG SEAL1 Is…is that what I think it is?

SEAL!  SEAL!  ZOMG A LEGIT ACTUAL SEAL IN REAL LIFE!!!!

ZOMG SEAL2I’m awestruck at this little dude, and watch him for a few minutes as he flops up on shore, barks as the bewildered tourists, and then casually heads back out to sea.

And then:

Sunset2

It’s getting colder, but I just can’t tear myself away from this.  The sky lights up in pink and periwinkle and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

And as the sun continues to set, I receive the most fantastic gift as the sky explodes in color:

Sunset3

I’ve never seen anything like this.  It’s indescribably beautiful.

I’m overwhelmed by what I’m feeling.  It’s…peace.  Peace and joy.  I’m refreshed and renewed.  What started out as a boring, frustrating, work-required inconvenience was something I needed badly.  So very badly.  More than I ever knew.

Sometimes, God throws you a small reminder that He’s out there, even when you forget to look.  I’m holding this reminder close to my heart, to remind me that life really can bring joy.

Just keep looking.

This is life’s love letter to me.  Dear Kate, you are loved.  Sealed with a sunset.