Take a Breath.

Be Here Now?

I work as a cashier at a big box store.  It's one of those super stores that is a department store on one side and a grocery store on the other.  Most of my colleagues are either very young, or 50-ish (I'm not sure what that says about the employment situation here, but that's a subject for another day).  Consequently, I ring up many purchases of alcohol.  "May I trouble you for your date of birth?" I ask anyone who looks over 35. To anyone middle aged or older, I might ask, "are you sure you're over 21."  It's fun to make a joke, but frequently I get this wistful, wry answer, "I wish I was 21 again...".

Well I don't wish I was 21 again.  

Don't get me wrong.  It was an interesting year.  But I really like who I am right now.

There is a book called "Be Here Now" by Baba Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, Ph.D.  It was very big back in the day.  When I was 21 I interpreted it in a sort of twisted Carpe Diem way...  When I had only one year of college to complete, for example, I quit school to live an urban commune.  It seems to me that I could have said "right now, I'm in school and I'm moving to a commune." But that was then, as they say, and this is now.

What I am learning today, and I hope I am continually learning, is that I pretty much like the person I am now, and while I am certainly a version of my 21-year-old self, I am definitely not the same girl I was way back then.

Having said all that, I could do without the aches and pains. I went to the doctor today because of a pain in my foot...turns out I have a Bunion and a Bunionette. The doctor, a young woman with some unrelated foot problems, empathetically recommended a particular shoe store. It won't make the pain go all the way away, but it was a great excuse to buy new shoes.

When my mother was in her last months on the planet, she celebrated her 88th birthday. A dear friend asked her, "if you could be any age you've been, what age would you wish to be?".

Mother asked, "how old am I today?"

"Eighty-eight" was the reply.

"Eighty-eight", my mother answered.

What's the lesson in that? Baba Ram Dass has nothing on my mother... Be Here Now.

Right now, I am a plumpish old girl with bunions (and a bunionette) and two pairs of new shoes.

Right now I am a healthy woman who is running at least 2 1/2 miles, four times a week.

Right now I am an employed person with pretty good insurance.

Right now I am breathing.

Thank You.

Life is but a Dream

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream.

For some reason, as I was running this morning, this little tune sang itself in my head. It struck me that this little poem is a lesson in balance.

When I was in my forties, I decided it was really important to go to graduate school. I said to my sister, " if I do this, I'll be 52 when I graduate". She said "you'll be 52 anyway." The ever supportive Manly Spouse said nothing, just handed me the phone.

I loved being in school, and I am all for setting goals, whatever they may be, at any stage in one's life. I am proud of my accomplishment. Having said that, for me it became the beginning of a period of extreme unbalance in my life.

I worked my patootie off (if you know me at all, you can imagine how difficult Statistics and Quantitative Analysis were!) (thank you, tutors!) and got my MBA. I loved it, but during the following couple of years I forgot to breathe. Even after I graduated, I worked 12 - 14 hour days, and Manly Spouse kept saying, "I want my wife back."

I only sort of listened. In my "spare time" I was painting furniture. While I was scraping, sanding, painting, I started to breathe again. I walked away from the corporate job... I felt a huge weight lift off me. Thanks to a small inheritance the Manly Spouse and I were able to, with severe budget cuts, maintain a comfortable life.

I continued to paint furniture, and every once in awhile I would sell a piece from my virtual shop at etsy.com at local Craft Fairs. I was still manically working though, and Manly Spouse kept looking at me. He didn't know it, but he was telling me to breathe.

I got the cashiering job at the big box store. It has good insurance. I get to look at babies, talk to four-year-olds, and make pleasant conversation all day long. My basement is full of hand painted furniture and objects, so I can't paint any more....

I go to work, I write, I play in my garden, I get to see my children and most of my grandchildren almost any time I want. I am rowing my boat. Gently down the stream. Merrily. I understand it's a dream. It's a beautiful, love-filled dream. A friend of mine wrote about "my little life in a big world" i am working towards balance in my little life. I am rowing my little boat. I am breathing. Ahhh...

The Power of Breath

Here's an exercise:  take a breath; watch it go.  Take another breath; watch it go; repeat.  How simple is this?  Do you need a teacher? A book? A building?    I can't answer those questions for you, but if you watch long enough, or often enough you will understand its power.

When I was 21 I learned about the power of breath.  Such a simple thing:  after each exhale, an inhale. Personally, I didn't figure this out all by myself, there was a guru involved.  Yes, there were aspects of eastern philosophy involved.  Yes, in many ways it was a personality driven spiritual path, and oh, by the way,  from age 21 till I was about 24, I lived in a series of communes.

In some ways those few years were the happiest of my life.  Everything I owned fit in the trunk of my little car: some clothes, a guitar, a one-and-a-half-inch thick foam pad I rolled out for a bed, and a pair of Birkenstock sandals.   A nomad, I don't think I lived in one place for more than about three months at a time.  For a few months I stayed, along with about 300 other people, in a large building that had previously been a bottling factory for a major soft drink corporation.  For another little while I was a  "housemother",  cooking a huge vegetarian meal each evening.  I started every afternoon by chopping onions, and by the time I was done with that, the evening's menu would manifest in my brain.  Each morning, after putting out a breakfast spread, and making about 15 sack lunches, I would wake my housemates by walking from bedroom to bedroom playing guitar and  singing "devotional" songs.  But no matter where I laid my head at night, each morning and evening, along with my housemates, my closest friends, I  would sit and breathe for about an hour.

For the next 20 years life occurred.  The 20-ish girl became a mother, a wife.  Her babies became children, then young men. I breathed.

Stuff happened; the marriage became broken.   As a 40-ish woman, I was on my own again...still breathing.

More life happened.  I was learning to love myself again.    After years spent as the only female in an all male household, I surrounded myself with women I admired.   I went back to school and earned my college degree, then a masters degree. All the while, you guessed it, I continued to breathe.

Meanwhile, I met and married the Manly Spouse and his 13-year-old daughter.  Now my lovely daughter is married herself and has two beautiful children.  The handsome Older son has 5 (!), the beautiful Prodigal son has one.  Life has continued to happen.  And I am still in awe of the power that is my breath.  I am still watching, waiting for the gift of the next one.