Birds Wings
The grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
Up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look and instead,
Here’s the joyful face you’ve been waiting to see.
Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes,
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence is in every small contracting
and expanding.
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated.
as birdwings.
~ Rumi
I sit in my living room appreciating its ambience and the comfort of familiarity. We have been living in our house now since 1996. That’s the longest I have ever lived in a place, and I still find it surprising that it continues to be a refuge. We moved here when I was going through chemotherapy, and I wanted a space that would be healing. The house is larger than we need but my husband and I fell in love with its yard. There’s a large lawn that is dotted with trees and it goes from the house down to a small pond. A brook feeds the pond and a small bridge goes over it into a mini forest of fir trees. It’s a bit of country in the city. We even have a woodchuck that we sometimes see scurrying across the ground. The holes it makes are annoying but it’s a wonder to experience an animal in our yard that is not a squirrel and feel a connection to nature. In the last few years, we had to take down some of the ash trees but the city had a tree planting initiative and we now have added a magnolia, a beech, a Japanese maple, and a pin oak that are taking root. We won’t be around to see them mature but others will see them and benefit from their shade. We buried our two dogs in the yard and marked the spot with a small grave. I surrounded the grave with white stones from the beach where we go in the summer. The house is in the city but its silence brings serenity and it has proven to be a sanctuary. I came to live here when I was undergoing chemotherapy and very ill, I was able to recover from a stem cell transplant here and be healed. Many life events have been celebrated in the house and yard including staff retreats for my colleagues at The Center for Mindfulness. We also held celebrations here, an anniversary for the CFM and my 50th and 70th birthday. It has always brought joy and solace. Now I wonder if is it time to leave.
I have turned 80 and will soon be 81 David is in his late 70’s and we have been thinking about the viability of remaining here. Caring for the grounds and maintaining the house is becoming more difficult. We consider aging in place but are concerned how it would be if we were incapacitated or one of us died. Our energy is diminishing and the constancy of effort it takes to keep things running properly has increased. I have never been good at saying goodbye or letting go. I breathe deeply when I think of leaving and moving to a smaller place and a new community. I look at the books I’ve collected through the years, the mementos from trips we’ve taken, our photographs, furniture, and more. I have some of my Mom’s flatware and my grandmother’s dishes. Using a particular spoon or knife brings a sense of warmth but my nieces and nephews live far away and are not interested in any of it. My mother collected cut glass and treasured each piece. They now reside unused in a breakfront that was my parents. I have a lot of “stuff” big and small. I am the oldest in my family now and I seem to be the repository for my parent’s treasures: Memories. I like to think an object is just an object and the memory remains. I know the love they represent is eternal. Still, it challenges me to say goodbye and let go.
My thoughts about leaving are heightened because I have decided to end my psychotherapy practice. This will give me more time to focus on meditation and mindfulness and free me up to explore other interests. I only have a few people I continue to treat but they have been with me for many years and the relationship is meaningful and runs deep. Saying goodbye is hard for them—and for me. I feel a bit like a mother might as her children grow up and leave the nest. It’s exciting and a little scary. Saying goodbye brings up all the other goodbyes we’ve had to make to move into another stage. I know that it’s fruitful to examine what arises but I feel it viscerally now that it is happening. The mind knows everything dies but saying goodbye is not conceptual. I feel it in the body. There is loss. Endings are real; Trust, faith, stamina, and love, are required to face what arises and move into the next stage; Trust in the rhythm of life itself and faith in love and connection. We are never alone but are part of a larger whole.
Years ago, after I recovered from a near-death experience during my stem cell transplant for lymphoma I wrote a book based on my experience with cancer “Here for Now: Living Well with Cancer Through Mindfulness”. Here’s a poem from it.
For Now
Dropping down
Lower and lower.
The quiet grows within.
Doing nothing
My wanting mind stills.
In the silence
In the space
What I have been seeking is found.
It is nothing less than everything
And more than anything.
Being here
For now
Now.
Please join me Thursday, May 2, 2024 at 11:00 AM EDT
We will discuss our goodbyes and what helps us say hello.
Here’s the link to register.