Mornings after 7am rattle and crash. Our next-door neighbor has built a new house from the ground up since December 2020. It’s a true test of my spiritual practice to focus on my breath, not the incessant commotion,machinery, and mayhem.
We’ve come out of the three days of Halloweentide: Halloween, All Saint’s Day, All Soul’s Day. Tomorrow is a New Moon and the main day of the Hindu festival of Diwali, the Festival of Lights.
I’m for it.
Yesterday I scrambled, assembling a last-minute ofrenda. I snatched time while completing homework assignments, folding laundry, and checking in with my family about my Dad’s medical appointments.
About two months ago, my Dad fissured L3 simply moving a light chair in the yard from one shady spot to a sunny spot. A chair he has likely moved hundreds of times before, with no issue.
But like so many things in life, you don’t know when it will be your first or last time.
What we thought was a strained muscle we learned was a fissured L3. With the subsequent pain, he has totally changed into a different man. Where once he was still working 10 hour days as the plant manager of our family’s farm, now he struggles to move from one room to the other.
I’m not sure everyone in my family is yet used to this version of my father. He is fragile and brittle as glass. I’m afraid to touch him too hard, fearing he will shatter.
His injury has blasted apart my heart. What do I value now? New Rules, as the Bill Mahr sketch goes. The borders of my comfort zones wriggle like amoebas.
He has always mattered but the way we demonstrate it now has changed.
What I have with him now is time – something that didn’t exist before. He worked a lot my whole life – his whole life. I think that was his primary identity – as a worker or employee. I imagine he enjoyed being a father and husband but he showed his loyalty to his family by supporting us economically and working.
As part of the spiritual exercise I look at the positive aspect of this situation. It is that I have complete and total time with him when I’m with him. There is no competition or distraction. It’s just him and me, he and I, and I don’t ever recall that it’s been like that.
That is a spiritual gift.
A few weeks ago I thought he was going to die. Not from his injury or the side effects but because I wasn’t sure if he wanted to deal with everything involved with healing. It seemed that, for him, the act and art of healing was too painful.
Can you relate?
One of my daughters expresses similar sentiments. When I get excited about upcoming birthdays or events, like starting grade 9, she doesn’t show enthusiasm. In fact, the opposite; she says being an adult is hard and she doesn’t see the benefits.
(This may be in part to the abundance of t-shirts, bumper stickers, and mugs that say such things as “adulting is hard, i’m going back to bed”. But that’s a conversation for another day.)
Would he decide, like my daughter believes, that it is too hard? That healing isn’t worth the work it takes, or that he wasn’t hardy enough for the task?
Sound familiar?
How many times have you not believed it is worth it to go on? Or not believed that you can? Or wondered what there is to live for?
Yet here you are.
These are big and good questions.
When I underwent chemotherapy I knew I wanted to live for my girls – even for my partner and my parents, in particular for my mother whose mother ascended, after contending with cancer, at age 49 when my mother was 14. Those numbers were identical to my situation and too close to cuddle. Our family didn’t need a repeat of that episode.
Praying my treatments would be successful, that my cells would respond favorably, I showed up to the best of my ability, keeping my darker thought for my therapist or other cancer thrivers (IYKYK, as they say).
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And so to thoughts of my Dad, darker days, colder nights, what matterst most these days and the ofrenda and Dia de los Muertos and Seasons of Joy.
The paingriefdoubt exist without much help or prompting from us.
That’s why Seasons of Joy are so important. Cultivating celebrations and expressions of elation, particularly the small and not-Pinterest-worthy, matters. If we hold ourselves back from feting our lives until they are perfect or Pinterest-worthy, we won’t do it.
But we must. Because this is what we have, what’s in front of us and within us, a holy spirit that yearns to rejoice.
You can order the tamales or pan de muertos from the hot deli at your local mercado or bodega, you can watch Muppets Haunted Mansion a few days after Halloween while you sort socks. It still counts. It definitely matters.
Social media has created social pressure unlike we’ve ever experienced. We are heading into a season associated with the biggest pressure cooking of all – Thanksgiving and the Holidays.
Can we give it a rest? Yes, let’s do our best, spending our time together making cookies or pies, but let’s remove the perfection expectation.
And after the year we’ve all had, didn’t we learn something about what really matters? It’s time to let go of the filters, likes, followers, and “friends” and Be Real.
Be with your people and pets, more tuned into what brings you pleasure.
You’ll discover your true pleasure by slowing down and listening to your people and to yourself. Ask yourself, what brings you warmth and lightness. Do more of that more often.
The road to peace is cobbled with rocks and roots. It twists and turns away from the crowds affording you a tremendous, spacious view.