Learning to Transform

Summer to summer.  July 4th to July 4th.  Birthday to birthday.  In the approximately 365 days since the summer of 2008, I have spent nearly one third of those days walking the beaches.  Through summer crowds, into autumn heat spells, which led to winter solitude and then springtime renewal, I walked my way into the summer of 2009.  Searching...  Searching for answers, searching for meaning and searching for seaglass.  Some of it I found, and some of it found me, yet much of it is still so elusive. But still, I continue to search.

Over the course of the past year, I have come upon and have collected hundreds of pieces of seaglass.  Each tiny piece, each broken shard has been smoothed over and frosted by decades in the ocean.  Quite a tumultuous existence being broken-down and then transformed by the sea.  Yet when the seaglass makes its way to the shoreline, its appearance is without the jagged edges that are inherent in a broken piece of glass.  The difficult journey that brought the weathered piece of glass from its original form, to the depths of the ocean, and then back to the beach, has created a uniquely beautiful gem which is like no other.  A piece of broken glass tossed away, disregarded, dangerous and angry looking, returns in another incarnation as a treasure.

I have always held the Buddhist philosophy that life is suffering or pain.  It is one of the four noble truths, but it has been only loosely translated because there is no literal translation for the word "dukkha" which is the original word that the Buddha used.  Because there is no literal, or single translation for the word dukkha, this noble truth has taken on a very negative connotation.  Yet from my extremely "layperson" point of view, what I have come to believe is that the word "suffering" could be replaced by the word stressful or the word painful, or even the word joyous.  The important thing to glean from this philosophy is that life is transient.  Suffering, pain and happiness are all impermanent conditions.  In other words, it is perfectly fine to experience a variety of feelings throughout our days.  The important thing is to never cling to any of them.  Like a shard of glass dropped into the ocean, we are set forth into this life to walk a certain journey and throughout that journey, we are molded, formed, transformed, battered, smoothed out and transformed again.  It is only in the end that the true essence of our treasures are borne out to the surface.  We are constantly changing, evolving and transforming into who we will become.  It is only by allowing this process to occur, by not clinging to any of the phases of our transformation, that we can truly become the gem that we are meant to be.  Life is suffering.  Life is joyful.  Life is pain.  Life is _ _ _ , you fill in the blanks.

As the road to another summer rises up to join me, I will continue walking.  I will continue searching and I will continue to open up my soul to the impermanence of things.  And as a part of this journey, I will admit, out loud, that I am finally ready to reclaim a part of me that was so immersed in the pained and broken-downness of the past eighteen months that I was often getting dragged down by the waves.  Like a piece of seaglass or some words of wisdom taught by the Buddha, it is my hope to become unattached from my original form or belief, and into a smoother, more refined version of who I can be.

A heartfelt thank you for all of the lovely birthday wishes.  Your words of wisdom, thoughts and kindnesses touched my spirit in a way that made me feel very special.  Your comments are always so appreciated and do not go unnoticed.  And thank you to Maria-Therese's(afiori) readers for stopping by!  I do hope that you will visit again.

Solitude/Loneliness

To me, this is what solitude looks like.  Solitude is quiet.  Solitude is transformative.  Solitude is a place away from much of the excess noise of life.  Solitude is desirable.  And yet, one of the synonyms for the word solitude is loneliness.  Something that carries with it a very negative connotation.  Solitude seems to be seclusion by choice.  Loneliness implies that someone might feel shut out of the world by exclusion.  Two words that carry the same basic meaning, yet when compared to one another, the words solitude and loneliness mean very different things.
Standing on the bluff in front of my home on the fourth of July, I felt a sudden surge of loneliness that caught me by surprise.  I was not alone, Mark, Angel Daughter Number Three and her boyfriend were all present with me.  My neighbors were all outside, talking, laughing and enjoying the beautiful firework display.  But towards the end of the display, I decided to remain outside to watch other shows that could be seen in the distance.  It was then that it struck me.  Loneliness.
On any given day, I can step outside to view the huge expanse of sunlit glass which stretches out before me, and experience nothing but peace.  I can take in the inherent smallness of being a single, human soul while still feeling somehow connected.  I can breathe in the breeze that comes in off of the ocean, teeming with the scents of life.  I can even perceive the relationship that I have to the massive flocks of seabirds who float effortlessly on the surface of the water searching for food.
And in viewing those seabirds which congregate by the hundreds, their presence emotes in me a solitude that is nowhere near a feeling of loneliness.  I am alone, but I am in no way lonely.
Other days, the scene might change, but my feeling of comfortable solitude does not.  I might stand ashore watching sailboats carrying their sailors out to sea, but once again, I feel a sense of connection.  The feeling that we are all bound by that particular moment in time.  A simple snapshot, in which everything and everyone appears as it should be.  Solitude in unison.
And when I walk the beaches, the discovery of a single, brilliant piece of seaglass can draw me out of any sense of loneliness that I might be experiencing.  Each tiny piece, a reminder to me that I am never alone.  Not really.  
Yet, sometimes, even in the midst of large crowds of people and exploding fireballs of color raining down from the sky, it is possible to feel very, very lonely.  And that is okay.
It is okay because loneliness and solitude are two sides of the very same coin.  And sometimes, when solitude becomes a little bit too familiar, loneliness steps in to keep us from becoming overly reclusive.  Sometimes, we need sudden moments of loneliness in order to remind ourselves of how important it is to stay connected to other people.  Like a small piece of seaglass that turns up in precisely the right place on the path that we are walking, moments of loneliness can also turn up as an important reminder to stay balanced.

This Thursday, July 9, will be my forty-seventh birthday.  Angel Daughter Number One shared a bit of her soul-felt wisdom with me, the other day, by reminding me that a birthday is a time to celebrate oneself.  It often amazes me that such words of awareness, can come from someone so young in years.  So, in order not to allow myself too much solitude on my birthday, I am announcing it here.  In the coming year, I intend to celebrate not only those whom I love and adore, but myself, as well.  It is time.  And life is not never-ending.  Thank you for dropping that bit of seaglass wisdom in my path, AD1.

And The Beat Goes On

I am becoming more and more convinced, that children are the most resilient beings on earth.  In some ways, they are still so close to being able to remember what came before being born into this uncertain world and yet, not close enough to adulthood to know that sometimes life can really take you down.  And even when the realities of adulthood seep into the mostly smoother edges of childhood, children somehow learn to keep on dancing.  The rhythm of their lives may change, but their perfect, little feet keep on pitter-patting away, teaching those of us who are well-past those years to keep on listening for the beat.  A beat that sounds an awful lot like that of the heart.  The beat of love.
And friendship and solidarity...but, mostly love.
This past weekend, we had the opportunity to do a lot of celebrating.  We celebrated being able to watch my youngest Angel Niece shake her booty in her dance recital.  Yes, she is the second one from the left with the shimmy in her hips!
She bounced.  She wiggled.  She levitated.
And she listened to the beat of her own drum.
The next day, we went to watch my oldest Angel Niece in her dance recital.  It was pure joy to watch her as she took center stage and then hip-hopped her way across my heart.
I cannot even begin to describe the utter joy, sadness(that my Angel Niece's daddy could only watch from above), and pure love that I felt while sitting with Mark and our own Angel Daughters as we cheered on these beautiful little girls.
 After the recitals, we got to present these little Angels with flowers.  We got to put our arms around them and hug them like there is no tomorrow.  And we got to experience the essence of my brother through these incredible little girls that he so sadly, had to leave behind.
Angel Daughter Number One, now a woman, yet not so grown up that she forgets what it is like to be a child, swung Angel Niece up into the air.  For a moment, I was reminded of how my brother used to do this to my own children when he saw them and I smiled.  Because somehow, no matter what, the rhythm of the lives of those we have lost still beat loudly in the hearts of those that they have loved and who have loved them.
On Sunday, my oldest Angel blew out the candles on her cake for the twenty-second time.  There is no denying that she is a woman now, but to me, she will always be that curly-haired little girl who danced, sang and performed her way into the hearts of everyone she met.  There is something so incredibly special about her.  So lovely and self-assured.  If I could describe the essence of how she comes across, Audrey Hepburn would be the closest that I could come.

Happy Birthday, my dear daughter.

As my own birthday quickly approaches, I feel a sense of introspection and self-examination that always comes with this time of year.  I am listening very hard, for the music of my own heart.  I would really like to remember what it sounds like.

What We Learn From Failure

I fail.  I misstep. I falter.  I bungle.  I flop.  Sometimes I even just downright screw up.  And it kills me inside when I do.  I am a huge advocate of personal responsibility and therefore, tend to hold myself up to a fairly high standard.  So when I fail, the pain settles deep in the pit of my stomach right below my ribcage where it hides, insidiously, lurking as a reminder that I cannot always bring success into what I believe.  Sometimes, I do fail.

The other day my father and I were talking about failure.  He reminded me that it is not the successes which we learn from in life, but the failures.  These words, coming from a man who has experienced many bouts of failure in his own life only to keep trying and trying and trying again, ring loudly as an ultimate truth.  My father never gives up.  He just brushes himself off, and tries things in a different way, filing his mistakes while moving forward.  In truth, for someone who has failed in about a hundred thousand different ways, my father is a success.  And that is part of the reason that I believe him when he says that we learn only from failure.  Another huge part of the reason that I know what he says is true, is because the very small circle of people who surround me, allow me the space that I need in order to learn from my failures.  They do not turn their backs on me.  They do not try to cause me greater pain.  They love me in spite of my failures.  My husband, a man of great integrity and humility, is my greatest supporter and my closest ally.  He is part of the reason that I can allow myself the room to fail, while searching for the successes.  He allows me to feel safe.

Although I do fail, flounder and flop, I try not to give myself too much time to dwell in the negative aspects of failure.  There is very little value in self-flagellation.  The only true merit in failure comes from trying to understand what might have gone wrong and trying your best to repair it.  Therein lies the possibility of success.  To achieve a favorable outcome, one must accept that there will be failures, but with those failures come the valuable lessons.

May you always find room, in life, for both your successes and your failures.  May you always find the lessons in both.  And may you surround yourself with people who will allow you to stumble, but who will then help you back up when you fall.