OGT BiWeekly - Week Six SLICE OF HEAVEN

For those of you who don't believe that heaven can exist on earth, this is what it looks like:

I wait each year for this moment when each day is a new anticipation of what glory has unfurled.  It is brief but it is splendid and despite the death and illness, the prejudice and heartbreak and violence that we see in the news right now, I have this to look forward to each May.

I am deeply grateful.

Comfortably Numb

Hello, Friends.

Have you noticed in the age of COVID that some of your tastes have changed?  I don't mean literally, although I do think it is spooky that one marker of this disease is a loss of taste and smell.  I mean the things you typically like to do, or eat, or in my case, listen to.

Mia has her potatoes.  I have re-discovered comfort in classic rock.

Before the outbreak, our adult son Nick gave us a family membership to Spotify. I was grateful for the gift, but thought I might never use it. I thought I was too old for the internet jukebox.

I am from the vinyl generation.  The first album I ever bought was Goodbye Yellow Brick Road by Elton John. I was thirteen years old. I remember sitting in my room, with the stereo my father built, listening to Funeral for a Friend.  A Candle in the Wind. Benny and the Jets. It was a double LP and I studied the liner notes over and over again.  When I plugged in the giant headphones and climbed into my beanbag chair, I felt such comfort. Whatever was swirling about in my adolescent mind quieted as I listened to my music. Over the years I added new albums to my collection, and my love for classic rock followed me to my prom (Stairway to Heaven), and to college.  But as 8-tracks replaced albums, and cassette tapes replaced 8-tracks, I began moving away from my original passion for this style of music.  Today the albums of my youth are in my attic, gathering dust, along with the turntable.

For most of the last twenty years I have preferred to listen to and follow acoustic musicians. Folk artists.  Musical poets. Iron & Wine, Ani DiFranco, Brett Dennen, Fiest, Fink. The Weepies. Even Ed Sheeran (the closest I get to enjoying rap music). I have a particular Melissa Ferrick CD I leave in my car to listen to whenever the political news starts raising my anxiety past the point of no return.

But recently, with COVID and a collapsing economy, and near total uncertainty as to what elementary education will look like in the fall (my chosen profession), this music no longer comforts me. I have begun to do a lot more cooking than before, and I have found myself relying on both the Spotify membership that Nick bought us, and the Sonos speaker he gifted us at Christmas to keep me company in the kitchen.  And what do I listen to now?  Classic Rock.

Last night, while I made chili rellenos, I listened to Landslide, Wild Horses, Let it Rain, Hotel California, Knockin' on Heaven's Door, and Comfortably Numb. Can you name the bands? (Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Eagles, Dylan, and Pink Floyd.) I didn't think about murdering hornets, or permanently remote teaching. I didn't get anxious about the coming election. I didn't do anything but sing along with song lyrics that haven't passed my lips in decades. And it felt good.  It felt familiar. It felt safe.

Rock Classics is now my first playlist on Spotify. Thanks, Nick, for the present. It brings me comfort during an uncomfortable time.

What brings you comfort? 

OGT BiWeekly Week Five: THE HUMBLE POTATO

I do like French Fries.  I am true to my Belgian roots that way in liking my pomme frite, but I don't usually go out of my way to eat them.   I haven't stepped into a McDonald's in seven years since I worked with kids in foster care and we've cut most carbohydrates out of our household diet.   

But ever since the "COVID19 Shelter in Place Orders" I've noticed a craving for comfort food and the humble potato has become my favorite staple.

My other heritage, Scottish-Irish owes a lot to this versatile root.    The Irish were nearly decimated as a population due to the Potato Famine of the 1840's.  Also known as the Great Hunger, Gorta Mor in Gaelic, it began in 1845 and lasted 7 years killing nearly one million Irish and forcing another million to emigrate to places like America.   It's likely that my mother's family would not have come to New York if it weren't for this tiny fungus, Phytopthoran infestans, which caused potatoes to blacken and die.   

Great Hunger Memorial

V.E. Macy Park, Ardsley, NY

Artist: Eamonn O’Doherty

Commissioned by: Great Hunger Foundation and Memorial Committee

There are parallels here to this new SARS virus COVID19.  The seven year course of this blight should give us pause to consider the ways in which nature forces us to respect its power and probably irresponsible management of crops and farmland.   Who knows how long COVID will be lurking around our firesides.  Queen Victoria's Corn Laws taxed grains so extremely in the 1840's that the poor Irish under Brutish rule turned the potato as their mainstay.   If I think about my craving for this comfort food it appears a genetic legacy on both sides.  https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine#section_3

Ironically the potato has its roots in the highlands of Peru, where the wild Solanum tuberosum was domesticated some 10,000 years ago.  It was not brought to Europe until 400 years ago by the Spaniards.

Now it's a fundamental staple of most world diets coming in fourth after corn, wheat and rice.

The Potato Eaters - Vincent Van Gogh, 1885

The Potato Harvest by Jean-Francois Millet, 1855

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potato

It's also a member of the Nightshade Family and contains the toxin Solanine, which is poisonous to humans in large doses.   Perhaps here is a warning about moderation and balance not just for me and my trauma centered comfort diet, but for our planet and our management of food crops for a world that is ever estranged from its own sources of nutrition.   

A basket of Idahos

Dean buys a great brand of frozen French Fries from Idaho and they are so crispy when heated in the convection oven.   He is also a whiz with making up new recipes: Hash browns, scalloped potatoes with scallions and cheese, and tonight we had air crisped potato chips sauteed in garlic, pepper and olive oil.   I can't get enough of these and guzzle them down with globs of mayonnaise.   Diet be damned.   

Pick Up the Pieces

Photo is mine

Hello, friends. 

When I say jigsaw puzzle, you say...

Old folks home? 
Rainy day? 
Vexing? 
Relaxing? 

I never liked puzzles before Covid.  There was no immediate gratification. There were always more interesting things to do. 

And then we were trapped in our homes.  And the wonderful shopkeeper of Chelsea Dry Goods started posting on Facebook.  Photos of puzzles.  Lots of them.  And the offer of drop off service.  For puzzles!

I bought them at first to support her business. And to give us something to do. I bought three.  Then three more.  And then four.  Since the order came down to stay home and stay safe, Tom and I have put together seven 1,000 piece puzzles.  Puzzles of Manhattan and of Yankee Stadium.  Puzzles of birds, and cannabis leaves.  Puzzles of abstract art and antique seed packets. 

We generally start on Saturday morning, opening the box, spilling out the pieces, putting them all face up.  Then we sort the edges, and build the frame (generally my job).   The puzzle occupies our dining room table all week long. No meals are eaten there.  We dip in and out -- sometimes together, often apart --finding a few moments here and there to assemble what we can. 

The thing I've learned about puzzles is that the challenge comes in waves: first there is the border, and then the chaos of too many loose pieces.  Then there is the first gathering of pieces that come together with the promise of more.  And then the pieces that lie there taunting you.  And then, the joy when you manage to connect one side of the puzzle to another.  And then the weight of how much is left to build.  Finally, as the process comes to an end, the picture comes together.  Matte or shiny, 1,000 pieces gloriously bound together in one moment captured in time. 

When Tom and I build the puzzle together, we generally don't talk. It's companionable, but silent.  An occasional, "Gotcha" and lots of leaning over and rearranging.  When we build apart, we find time to stop by each other's work spaces and share the triumph of another step completed.  Sometimes it's competitive. Other times it's collegial.

I texted my sister our latest puzzle in progress.  She immediately replied. "That would frustrate the f*#k out of me."

Thing is, I would have felt the same way two months ago.  I would rather take a walk, or binge watch a show, or start a new book.  But now when I walk, I duck from side to side on the street to avoid others.  And I seem uninspired to watch much tv.  And reading is impossible. 

So why puzzles? Why now? 

I think it is because when we get a puzzle it is in pieces.  A mess.  The cover of the box reminds us of what it looked like when it was first painted or photographed or illustrated.   But it doesn't look like that any more.  But if you take the time, and work steadily, one piece at a time, the image reforms.  It doesn't look exactly the same.  The fissures from the puzzle pieces remain.  The shadows catch these edges and blur the image a bit.  But there is satisfaction and gratification when we are done. 

I think I like puzzles now because I can make things whole again, or almost so.  I can put the pieces back together.  I can fix what is broken.

I have no control over so much of my life right now, but a puzzle is one thing that reminds me to keep my eye on the prize

.  On what comes next.  And it reminds me to take it one piece at a time. 

Talk to you next week,
Laurie

OGT BiWeekly Week Four: PETS

What would we do without our pets?   These past six weeks of isolation (an astounding period of time for such a peripatetic society) have felt more like six months, and the norms through which we find support, connection and release from our darker impulses and deepest longings, have collapsed. They are reconfiguring in ways that not everyone is technologically nor emotionally equipped to handle.  Teachers have to teach children who may not see or hear them.  Therapists have to help lonely and desperate people whom they can only hope they can reassure through a screen.  Families are having to let go of loved ones who are dying alone.  Where do we turn?

In our house we have a lovable 17 year old blind, deaf and incontinent cockapoo.  We love her to pieces and she can barely hold the weight of that love right now.  But we can hug and stroke her when we can't do that with our kids and friends.

Sammy

Adoption of animals is on the rise.   Laurie and I met this cutie on the street when we had our "social distance" walk to discuss the blog:

And we have a new grand-kitty adopted in the midst of quarantine over the internet:

Frankie posing with the Sunflowers

She has the adorable habit of sitting under the sunflowers in my son's apartment.  This 9 year old perpetual kitten was the runt of her litter and has made self-quarantining in an apartment, in the hard hit borough of Queens, NY, much more bearable.   

Not to be outdone there is the stylish Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, another shelter kitty living in Brooklyn with our daughter:

Jackie-O, our other Grand-kitty

Abandonment is also on the rise as poverty and unemployment hits many homes. So here's how you can help by adopting your own dog or cat baby or making a donation to: Animal Care Centers of NYC - https://www.nycacc.org/.  The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals - https://www.aspca.org/nyc.



But it does not have to be a warm and fuzzy creature. We take great solace from our birds and fish......

 The basement goldfish keep me company when I do the laundry.

In the salt water tank the damsels are our constant entertainment.   

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyuRtQPS2UU

Once when a cable station was preparing for new content, they trained a camera on their fish tank and left it there to fill in the airtime. 

When the actual cable show content was broadcast they received so many letters asking for the fish tank back that they had to comply.  

Where else can you go when you aren't allowed to go anywhere?

 

An then there are the birds who don't let anyone determine what they do and where they go...

Allow

Photo is Mine - Hosta Unfurling

Is anyone else losing track of days? How can it be May?

I have been waiting for some inspiration to strike, so that I could return to the page and add a new post.  It hasn't happened.  Since my last post, I have received lots of packages - a kit to build a new raised garden bed, bags of soil, envelopes of seeds, and fertilizer.  Chicken wire to keep out the critters. 

But, no inspiration has arrived upon my doorstep. 

For someone who likes control, this is an interesting time. I am a petri dish, growing a new version of myself that will hopefully be able to weather what the virus has done to the world. 

My garden is the best thing for me to hold onto right now.  Last weekend, when I had been outside in the dirt for the entire day, Tom stopped by and asked me if I was obsessed.  I was.

I am. 

I am obsessed with nurturing that which I can control. 

I can't hug my son. I can't go to work. I can't visit my family members. I can't walk into the grocery store without feeling some measure of anxiety.  I can't enjoy a pizza delivery without first wiping down the cardboard box. I can't go anywhere without a mask on my face.


But, I can put on my gardening gloves and rake the moss from my lawn, sprinkle grass seed on the bald spots, loosen the soil from around my perennials, and spray for deer. I can divide my iris and lilies. I can weed away the spring intruders. I can fertilize and mulch and aerate. 

And if I do all this, my plants will blossom.  And I will have evidence, that once again, after a long hard winter, life returns.


Allow

There is no controlling life.
Try corralling a lightning bolt,
containing a tornado. Dam a
stream and it will create a new
channel. Resist, and the tide
will sweep you off your feet. 
Allow, and grace will carry
you to higher ground. The only
safety lies in letting it all in --
the wild and the weak; fear, 
fantasies, failures and success. 
When loss rips off the doors 
of the heart, or sadness veils your
vision with despair, practice 
becomes simply bearing the truth. 
In the choice to let go of your
known way of being, the whole
world is revealed to your new eyes. 

- Danna Faulds

OGT Biweekly Week 3. SHOES

Here it is three weeks into the return of my former daily habit, in which the true nature of my soul shall be revealed.  In which you will learn all about the way in which I handle existential anxiety; my own personal stress management strategy. 

It all comes down to ritual and the need to maintain some sameness - as the earth spins ever on in its axis of change and the world we knew a month ago might not ever really be the same again.

I get up each morning and make the bed.   Without the bed made, I feel unsettled and there's not a sheet to turn down when I need to go back to sleep.  So I make the bed no matter what war is waging, no matter who is dying.  I make the bed. 


And even though I can attend most meetings in my slippers and pajamas, I also at least try to be dressed by noon. 


I have been enjoying doing so.

 Dressing up gives me the semblance of going somewhere and helps me feel more organized in an endless round of Zoom meetings. 

A big part of dressing up is my footwear.  For months my go-to comfort shoes were these Steve Madden boots:

I truly lived in these shoes because they are so comfortable and make me feel like I'm still an art student.   That was until I realized a pair of pumps might be a bit more professorial for a graduate student instructor; that I should not be dressing like my twenty something students - In other words act my age. 

These blue suede Cole & Haan pumps are gorgeous and work with jeans or dress up.  The only problem is they are truly for dress up only!   Not for walking.  With my bunions I can wear these for class, but then need to jump back in the Maddens to get home. 

I guess by now you can tell I'm obsessed with shoes.   I am particularly vulnerable to online shoe sales and now you know my secret COVID stress addiction.   When the virus hit full force I became active helping others, helping my students, cleaning my house etc....   My little escape was to look at shoes ads.   Then I started buying them - nothing over $35 mind you. But what a rush it was to find a great deal: like these casual mules (here modeled with hand knit garnet colored socks from my friend Sara.).  I feel very sophisticated when I wear these and can pretend I'm on my way to eat sushi down the street at a place which is now closed (for good??)

The real binge buying began the second week of March when it became clear that we were not in this thing for two weeks, but rather for two months or more with no end in sight.   An existential abyss.  When these Dr. Scholl's slip-ons came across the pike, they spoke to me of comfort and ease at a time when life was turning into a science fiction nightmare.

 I awaited the box in the mail like a treasure.   When it arrived I sprayed it down with Clorox and left it outside for three days before putting them on.  Suddenly it was Spring, almost Easter, and I had a new pair of sneakers.  I was no longer thinking about my friend who works the frontline in a Bronx ER, or my children isolated in their apartments in a city surrounded by death and dying. 

I had a little spring in my step as I walked the dog among the budding daffodils.









These Aquatherme boots were on deep discount because winter is long over.   They zip up, are super comfortable and made entirely of pleather.  Rain boots!   I have actually worn them numerous times.  They are the most practical of my new $35 finds and have been on one of our safari expeditions to the Food Town.   A little event that took four hours from front door to Clorox wiped boxes, cans and apples stored on our shelves.












By far my favorite purchase has been my new Dr. Scholl's platform sandals; somewhat retro but also super comfortable.   These are not your grandmother's Dr. Scholls.   Love them with a pair of jeans or a dress.  I've put them on up just to walk around the house from front yard to back.

These black suede Marco Sarto loafers are pure vanity.  Complete with buckles and fringe. More imaginings that I'm a sophisticated dresser.  I have worn them for one of my online classes, but like the blue suede pumps they are also bunions busters.  But also just fun to look at, especially with my special heart socks from friend Ruby Joan. There is nothing realistic here.  Pure fantasy like I'm set to walk across the Seine to visit the Cezannes at the Jeu de Paumes.

Clearly altruism and conservation have flown the coop in favor of a creature who craves new things to wear.   Even though I might only be commuting to the kitchen for my cup of morning tea before fighting the traffic back upstairs to my office for another session or Zoom meeting, I just don't feel right unless I've dressed the part.  In fact I think I'm dressing better now than when I actually had to go out in public.

However, one could say that I have purchased an unreasonably large number of shoes since the beginning of March considering that I never really have to go anywhere.   My partner is beginning to get wise to the abundant $35 charges on the credit card and almost daily arrival of DSW boxes at our door. (Thank goodness I am working so I can support this habit!)   But if this quarantine lasts much longer things could really get out of hand and I'd have a pair of shoes to wear every day of the year.   

Really I am more socially responsible than that and am a frequent consumer of Eileen Fisher "gently worn" sales and ThredUp the largest online thrift store out there.   Clothing production in countries like China, India and Vietnam for an American market not only encourages exploitative consumerism, but is a major contributor to solid waste and land fill on the planet.

But shoes last longer right?   ...look at these:

Rock Candy sandals - candy for the feet....I mean one more pair can't hurt......

I Worry

Hello, Friends.

It's Tuesday. I was supposed to write to you on Saturday.  Welcome to the pandemic.

Each of us is walking our own path through this new reality.   Lives are lost, jobs are lost, homes are lost.  Any one person's anguish is unbearable.  Unimaginable.  Even for those of us who still have their homes and their jobs and thankfully, their lives, this time is full of fear and worry.

I have always been a worrier.  Since I was a small child.  It appears that my brain is wired to imagine the worst.

When I was growing up, I lived through the Cold War.  I was convinced that the bomb would fall at any moment and obliterate us all.  To combat this fear and dread, I read.  I read as many end-of-the-world books that I could find. I devoured dystopia. I read to replace my worry with hope, and my fear with strength.

The bomb didn't fall, the walls between countries were torn down, and the hovering dread slowly dissipated from my mind.  But living a life of worry has remained.  I still expect bad things to happen. My mind is my worst enemy. I like to think my favorite poet, Mary Oliver, traveled a similar path:

I Worried
by Mary Oliver

I worried a lot.  Will the garden grow, will the
rivers flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to
nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.

By Friday of last week, my worry had overtaken me.  I worried about my colleagues trying to find a way to teach 6 year olds remotely, rather than hug them each day. I worried about both of my parents. I worried about my intrepid son living in NYC through all of this. I couldn't sit and write. I couldn't read.

So I took my own body out and spent two straight days in my garden. I raked, and weeded and welcomed the emerging shoots and leaves on my perennials. I smiled at the daylilies that stood strong and resolute, despite the wind and the rain and the deer.  Those daylilies belonged to my grandmother. I have taken them with me to each new home.  Each winter, they wilt and die, or they are kept from blooming by hungry deer.  But each spring they return.  Those two days in the garden allowed me to wake up on Monday and start again.  I hope you can find that thing in your life that chases away worry.  We all need it right now. Go out and sing! - Laurie

OGT Biweekly FEAR and FRUSTRATION

I have been struggling all week with a comment from a young relative, which was very generally, "What's all this looking for the light?  How is that going to help people who can't pay their mortgage because they've lost their job due to the COVID19 pandemic?"   This comment hit me so that I have been thinking about it ever since.  It brings front and center the degree to which I am privileged and safe and have food and shelter and livelihood through a period of history that seems in surreal ways as extreme at the plagues of medieval Europe.   The divisions between the "haves" and "have nots", seem even greater with the strains on our society. 

The shadow of death has not directly crossed our doorstep.  Neither has the wide mouth of hunger and poverty,  but I know there are now families who where whole a month ago who may now be homeless, uprooted or starving due to the deaths and financial closures of the pandemic.

While grateful every day for the fortunes that keep me safe, healthy and occupied I have sought to contribute in ways that are within my means: making PPE for health care workers and holding weekly reiki healing circles on line.  I have also sought to share my gratitude practice with friends and family as a source of inspiration and comfort through this blog.  What I had not realized was how frustrating this might be for people who have had the twin wolves of poverty and death shadowing their doorstep.   How arrogant I must sound to those who might have to move in with relatives and don't know if they'll have job come Fall.

But what I do know from my training as a Somatic Experiencing therapist, is that meeting the fear and pain where they are in yourself and making plenty of room for them, can help to diffuse their intensity and loosen their grip on our brains.  Any thing is possible if we can imagine it.  And this        type of focus can help an individual get rid of these feeling states, empower them toward resilience and help them to find ways to survive these adverse times.                                                                                                                                                       
Pema Chodron, from her book When Things Fall Apart, tells the tale of spiritual seeker who wishes to be rid of certain emotions such as anger, jealousy and especially fear:

   

Fear is a universal experience. Even the smallest insect feels it. We wade in the tidal pools and put our finger near the soft, open bodies of sea anemones and they close up. Everything spontaneously does that. It’s not a terrible things that we feel fear when faced with the unknown. It is part of being alive, something we all share. We react against the possibility of loneliness, of death, of not having anything to hold on to. Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.
...
I once attended a lecture about a man’s spiritual experiences in India in the 1960s. He said he was determined to get rid of his negative emotions. He struggled against anger and lust; he struggled against laziness and pride. But mostly he wanted to get rid of his fear. His meditation teacher kept telling him to stop struggling, but he took that as just another way of explaining how to overcome his obstacles.
Finally the teacher sent him off to meditate in a tiny hut in the foothills. He shut the door and settled down to practice, and when it got dark he lit three small candles. Around midnight he heard a noise in the corner of the room, and in the darkness he saw a very large snake. It looked to him like a king cobra. It was right in front of him, swaying. All night he stayed totally alert, keeping his eyes on the snake. He was so afraid that he couldn’t move. There was just the snake and himself and fear.
Just before dawn the last candle went out, and he began to cry. He cried not in despair but from tenderness. He felt the longing of all the animals and people in the world; he knew their alienation and their struggle. All his meditation had been nothing but further separation and struggle. He accepted — really accepted wholeheartedly — that he was angry and jealous, that he resisted and struggled, and that he was afraid. He accepted that he was also precious beyond measure - wise and foolish, rich and poor, and totally unfathomable. He felt so much gratitude that in the total darkness he stood up, walked toward the snake, and bowed. Then he fell sound asleep on the floor. When he awoke, the snake was gone. He never knew if it was his imagination or if it had really been there, and it didn’t seem to matter. As he put it at the end of the lecture, that much intimacy with fear caused his dramas to collapse, and the world around him finally got through.
...

So the next time you encounter fear, consider yourself lucky. This is where the courage comes in. Usually we think that brave people have no fear. The truth is that they are intimate with fear.     

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               In parting I offer this prayer from St. Theresa of Avila in Spain during the 1500's

Let nothing upset you,
let nothing afright you,
Everything is changing
God alone is changeless;
Patience obtains all things,
Who has God lacks nothing for nothing.
God alone fills all her needs. Amen.

Look Down

Hello, friends.  My name is Laurie.  I have known Mia for many years, as our sons grew up together.  We have been talking about collaborating for some time.  It took a pandemic to do it, but here we are. I am grateful for her invitation to join One Good Thing.

I am traveling with Mia on this gratitude journey because I have discovered how important it is to look for goodness and beauty in the world. Without this daily practice, I feel unmoored. I don't have any immediate control over politics, or other people's behavior, or even whether the people I love will come down with COVID.

But I can put one foot in front of the other, and walk.  And I can ground myself as I walk, by looking down. 

Looking down is a byproduct of injury. I have sprained my ankle so many times that I have to be vigilant and watch where I step. Looking down has kept me safe, but I have come to learn that it also brings me peace. 

Looking down grounds me with the earth. It helps me to focus on being present. It keeps me from the thoughts swirling in my mind. And most importantly, it helps me see what I would otherwise miss: passing moments of grace. 

On my walks,  I often find unexpected beauty in the smallest or oddest things. As I look down, I find bits of nature reminding me that the planet is alive, and the seasons are changing. I also find cast off objects from our lives, which, in their erosion, carry their own kind of message.

Walking today is one of the only things we can do safely out in the world. I invite you to do your own walking meditation. Instead of looking ahead at what may come, or looking back at what we have lost, try looking down and finding your own moment of grace.

 "Sometimes the desire to be lost again, as long ago, comes over me like a vapor. With growth into adulthood, responsibilities claimed me, so many heavy coats. I didn’t choose them, I don’t fault them, but it took time to reject them. Now in the spring I kneel, I put my face into the packets of violets, the dampness, the freshness, the sense of ever-ness. Something is wrong, I know it, if I don’t keep my attention on eternity. May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.”

― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

The Return of ONE GOOD THING

So here we are at the beginning of a new month.  April Fool's - I said I would return and so I have with a twist.   Instead of ONE GOOD THING Daily it will be biweekly and I welcome a co-editor who will premier this weekend.  I will let said author introduce them self. 

Never has there seemed a better time to return with a biweekly gratitude practice.  And I will be honest with you dear reader; the days when I could devote myself to this blog daily are long over.
But I did miss it and you my loyal audience.   I have been thinking that this practice of gratitude and small recognition in positive thinking was probably a useful practice for myself and the world.  I meant to premier on MLK day as I did with the very first OGT Daily....but life, politics, pandemics, little things like that sort of got in the way.   So here it April first - 4-1-20- an auspicious time to begin as we here in NY dive into what could be very dark times ahead.

This is my theme then, darkness and what comes out of it.   I've heard many say, "There's a silver lining to this......" Fill in the blank.  And yet others who say, "People are dying, how can we be happy about anything?"

About a month and a half ago I was cleaning the house, something I rarely do anymore and suddenly from behind a cabinet in our dining room, I saw an amaryllis with four perfect flowers beaming at me in the darkness.  This is a bulb I tuck away each winter in some lonely spot so it can hibernate and eventually  bloom again in summer.  I don't water it for 6 months or more.  There is another one in the front hallway which looks a dried out onion. 

Yet here it was in full glory startling me like a harbinger of something to come.


I pulled it out and put it on the kitchen table where we enjoyed it for an entire week or more.
But it was not finished because it bloomed again two weeks later, around my birthday, on another stalk with four more blooms.

Then at the beginning of March we became aware that COVID19 had hit our shores and NY began to shutter down.  About this time I noticed that the dried out onion in the front hall had started to make a stalk of its own and gradually formed a flower head which just bloomed this week.  So a third coming with not just four blooms but five perfect flowers like a star. 

Nature is always startling me with its beauty and messages of hope and growth.   And this is not the first time that an amaryllis has been a harbinger of hope and future in my life.  Amaryllis as a symbol signifies pride, beauty and determination.  Its name comes from the Greek and means, "to sparkle." About 30 years ago, when in my twenties, I introduced a friend in the film business to one of the  editors I worked with and she was so positive about this connection that she sent me an amaryllis for my birthday in February. I put it on top of my film editing machine at work and it proceeded to bloom over and over again into the Spring, producing not just 4 or 5 flowers but eventually something like 22 in an explosion of fecund excitement.  I would look up from my work editing footage of bombing runs over London during WWII and there would be another one unfurling itself. I took this as some kind of omen and sure enough, my friends were married a few years later.

Now I can't help but feel these new blooms are an omen of the future; of a need to listen to nature and allow the cycle of darkness to come back into light.

One of my favorite readings is from the 53 ancient 2nd century Christian scrolls, the Coptic bibles, discovered in Egypt  in 1954.  It is called "The Thunder, Perfect Mind" and it has the voice of a feminine wisdom according to spiritual teacher Joan Boryshenko: 

For I am the first and the last,

I am the honored one and the scorned one,

I am the whore and the holy one,

I am strength and I am fear,

I am war and I am peace.

It is similar to the song Jesus sang at the last supper where he claimed to be both war and peace, betrayer and betrayed.   This speaks beautifully to the duality of life in balance.   The need for darkness in order for there to be light.  We must remember this as we descend into long dark days ahead even as the skies of April shine with sun.

It is good to be back.