Weaving The Dream

Less than two weeks ago, Bob and I returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh to join in the celebration of his oldest sister’s 50th wedding anniversary.

Weddings are about a couple making a (usually) sacred commitment to love one another through thick and thin, through the ups and downs of life, love, and, for many, through the challenges of parenthood.

50th wedding anniversaries are about honoring and celebrating a couple for making those long-ago weddings vows a living and lasting reality.  We share with them the recognition of the rewards and satisfaction of fulfilling that commitment.

At a wedding ceremony, we honor the romantic and sacred dimensions of love, and the courage of each partner to commit to one another, ideally, ‘til death us do part.

At a 50th wedding anniversary, we stand in awe at the couple’s achievement—to work, to sacrifice, to grit teeth, to dry tears, to support, to believe in, to have and to hold, even when the polish on the romance gets dusty and courage flags…

Sometimes when we commit to something, like a relationship, a job, writing a book, we do so with the naiveté of the untried and the untested.  We commit with optimism, with hope, and with faith in happy endings.

Then we experience the work that the commitment requires.  The true grit. The getting-up-every-day-and-working-at-it-no-matter-what determination that a job, a relationship, or our creative work requires—even when our romance with the project, or relationship may wane, and our courage for seeing it through may weaken.  We may wonder, “Is this really that important?  Is this really what I want?  WHY AM I DOING THIS?”

We have our reasons—supporting ourselves and our children, having a career, leaving a legacy, making a difference in the world, keeping our word.  But bottom line?  We do it because something in our hearts and souls long for the deepest satisfaction of knowing we honored our commitment and ourselves by following through to the happy ending.

I watched Bob’s sister and her husband view a computer montage of photos of their years together, of their kids, and grandchildren growing right along with the marriage.  I watched—as she leaned toward him to whisper something, as he reached out to pat her arm, as she shared a tissue for a shared loss—and I mused on their triumph, on how wonderful, how rewarding it is to have the strength and will and faith to follow through on the significant commitments in our lives. 

Bob and I will celebrate our 36th anniversary in a few weeks.  So I have a sense of what is required to honor significant commitments. And how rewarding it can be.

I want to have the true grit to honor my commitments to my writing and to my coaching as successfully because…bottom line?  My heart and soul longs for that deep satisfaction of honoring myself and my work—all the way to the happy ending.

What about you?  Is there a creative commitment your heart is longing to make and, with true grit, follow through with all the way to your happy ending?

In the early morning after the conversation with my husband about contribution, I had a dream. Here it is.

Six of Wands:

 I am in a school gymnasium at a concert.  The music director, the man that directed our two younger sons’ high school band, is acknowledging several students who performed well, along with a teacher and another adult who are successful in music.

Finally, he speaks about a student who tried to be part of the jazz band when he was in high school but wasn’t because at that time he was too shy, too intimidated.  But because he loves music, the student majored in guitar in college, developing his skills and performing jazz and rock.

 Suddenly, I see our oldest son, who was sitting next to the adult woman who had been recognized, get up and descend the bleachers toward the back because he knows the director is speaking about him.  I watch him descend and as he does he becomes the shy, sensitive young boy at 7.  But he swings around the bleacher support and heads for the director who announces his name.  It is not the boy but the adult who climbs up onto the stage to be recognized.  The audience claps and yells, and then rises to their feet, clapping and stomping and yelling.  Our son is at first stunned then delighted to the point where he sits down laughing and looks back at me with such pleasure.  And I am so happy for him.

Still in the dream, we talk afterwards and he is amazed and unable to figure out why he was so acknowledged and praised when he isn’t doing anything public with his music right now.  I answer that it is because he is still works with his music, composing and playing.  That he didn’t just play an instrument for several years in school so he could play John Phillip Sousa’s March in a school parade and then abandon it, but that he took a creative passion and continues to work and grow with it.  End.

I call the dream Six of Wands because in the tarot, that collection of 78 cards dealing with archetypes, elements and other symbols often used for divinatory purposes, the card implies victory, outward congratulations, and accolades.

Our son received accolades in the dream not just because he was successful in his music as defined by the director (and me), but also because he was a role model for creative achievement for others (and thereby made a contribution!). In other words, we give and receive accolades as a measure of our achievement, that what we set out to perform or create is a success and even…a contribution.

Receiving accolades means that others value what we offered in our performance or creation. Those accolades often help us move into and through the next creative effort.  But giving accolades is also important…to the giver.  Because, in addition to gratitude for the contribution of the performance, our cheering and clapping also signifies our, often unconscious, acknowledgement of what is also possible for us. We cheer others on in order to cheer ourselves on.

Not necessarily in the same venue—I do not desire to play jazz on the guitar—but with the same commitment to a creative passion.  With the same level of desire and joy and for the too rare experience of complete surrender to that transcendent creative moment that takes us out of ourselves into the greater Soul.

So cheer..and clap…and praise.  And may victory and accolades be yours.

Last night while walking our dog, my husband and I had a discussion about what it means to make a contribution to the world.

The automatic response from some people might be, “Solve world hunger.  Make a medical breakthrough.  Work with the poor.  Start a charitable foundation.” 

I understand why those would be the first responses.  Those are very public ways of contributing to the world.  Those ways would affect many.  Those ways would be seen and acknowledged by many.

And yet…

To contribute means to give—an idea, help, money.  The challenge for most of us who contribute is that our contributions seem too small, to affect too few. 

For instance, perhaps you have parented a son who will, in turn, become a wonderful father.  But if you are a parent who raises your children with love, respect and commitment, it could be years…and years before you have any clue as to what effect that loving parenting will have on the world.   

Or, if you are an employee—whether at MacDonald’s or MacDonald Douglas—and you work with commitment and responsibility and to the best of your abilities, can you imagine how that might improve morale and quality of work within the workplace?  But we don’t always get to see how good service and a quality product improves the lives of our customers.

Or, if you are a writer or painter or musician—you get the idea—who creates with commitment regardless of whether you are writing the music for your band or a symphony for the London Philharmonic, how do you measure your contribution?  By the size of the audience?  By the number of recordings sold?  By the money you make?

The idea of contribution, I think, becomes of greater concern the older we get, probably because we want to feel that we have meaning and purpose in our continued existence.  And yet, isn’t living well and role modeling how to age with wisdom and charity enough of a contribution?  Especially since so many of us struggle to do just that.  But it is hard to see if the role modeling we do has any long-term or widespread effect.  And yet other cultures value their elders because they hold the wisdom of lives well-lived.

If we are living our lives day to day while giving our help, our ideas, even our money with integrity, with commitment and consistency, with love and compassion, with imagination and joy, isn’t that a contribution to the world?  Isn’t that enough?
 

So here I am with my husband at our oldest son’s, Stephen, home in northern Virginia.  He and our daughter-in-law, Mindy, just moved into this house last month and the living room is filled with unpacked boxes.

Yesterday, Bob helped Stephen install three new water-efficient toilets.  Over the years, Bob has shown his sons how to fix, mend, repair and replace what can’t be repaired.  Bob learned much of that from his father.

While Bob and Stephen took care of the toilets, I put on garden gloves, grabbed a rake and a pair of pruners and went outside to make an initial dent in the thick carpet of leaves that lay on all their flower beds and to trim back some of the shrubs.

Glad to be outside in the balmy (40 degree) weather in relative quiet, stretching and working my muscles, I piled up leaves and clipped back magnolia bushes and other shrubs.  As I worked, I was strongly aware not only of the passing of seasons but of the passing down of traditions and skills.

When Stephen was only five, Bob and I moved him and his two brothers to our 1840’s Greek Revival farmhouse in the foothills of the Catskills. Over the next few years, every time my mom and dad came to visit, Dad came prepared to help with the yard work—digging, weeding, planting, mulching.  Many times he brought divisions of his carefully grown daylilies for us to plant. 

Being my father’s daughter, I did for Stephen and Mindy, as my dad has done for Bob and I, raking leaves and pruning back deadwood.

Yesterday, I made sweet rolls for Thanksgiving breakfast, having taken up the tradition from my mother.  This morning, my son and I worked together at the sink to first clean and then prepare the turkey for roasting.  And I remember my mother standing in the kitchen of my childhood home, cleaning the turkey and suddenly lifting it by its wings to pretending this naked turkey was talking and squawking. My siblings and I laughed at her silliness.

While today’s turkey roasted, Mindy and I stood together preparing pies and I showed her how to crimp the crust the way my mother showed me.

Yesterday and today, I am overwhelmed by such a strong sense of the passing of seasons and the ongoing cycle of the generations.

Not everyone gets a chance to experience this.  Not everyone wants to. 

But I do.  So Bob and I are especially grateful this Thanksgiving for the opportunity to do for our son and daughter-in-law what our parents have done for my husband and I—pass on life skills and family traditions, and work to create a sense of home and an appreciation for the legacies and lineage that are our roots.

Even as I clipped the deadwood from an old magnolia at the corner of their house, I also noted the buds of new growth just waiting for Spring’s warmth to blossom forth.

And someday, as they fill this home with the new growth of the next generation, Stephen and Mindy will do for their child what Bob and I now do for them—and give thanks in the doing.

More than twenty years ago, I had the opportunity to spend three weeks in August at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Maine, while my mother and husband took care of our three sons, who were between the ages of eighteen months and six years.  It was a special time for me to explore my creativity after constant childcare since the birth of the first of our sons.

One night, I entered the women’s bathroom and found a woman at least ten years older than me, standing over the sink and crying.  When I asked her what was wrong, she told me that that day would have been her son’s 20th birthday but he had died several years ago in a car accident.  I didn’t know what to say so I stood and listened to her tell the story.  And, of course, I felt the fear that every mother fears when she hears stories like this—what if?

I have a nephew who, with his wife, lost his child to a rare disease before she had a chance to reach her first birthday.  Attending the funeral, I watched the mother grieve and thought—why?

I have a friend who, as a single mom, lost her only child, a son, to cancer when he was in his teens.  Her journey through grief has been one of desperate courage in the midst of pain and depression.  And I wonder—how?

When we give birth to our children, we give birth to hopes and dreams and possibilities.  But we also give birth to our worst nightmares and to nights of constant worry.  To crossed fingers and endless prayers.  And to all the whys and hows and what ifs.

Once we give birth, become mothers, we are always mothers.  There is never an end.  It is who we are for the rest of our lives.  Even when those we mother are gone before us.

Today is Mother’s Day when, if we are lucky, our children send cards or call to wish us Happy Mother’s Day. 

But what do we say to those mothers whose children are gone?  Happy Mother’s Day seems wrong somehow.  And yet they remain mothers.  Mothers who need to be recognized and honored for the love they gave and for the love they still bear.  Mothers who need to be held and supported as they remember the sons and daughters they have lost to illness, violence, and war.

Being a mother—or a father—takes great courage in today’s world.  And great love.

Here’s to all the mothers on Mother’s Day.

Part of the joy of celebrating a new year is letting go of and saying goodbye to the old year, especially if that year has been particularly challenging.The year both my mother and grandfather died, and the year my husband’s father and then mother died were two years I remember being particularly glad to say good bye to, embracing the following New Years with a sense of hope and relief.

“Change can come on tiptoe, Love is where it starts…”

Barbara Streisand sang Marvin Hamlisch’s tune from the DJ’s speakers as my oldest son, Stephen held me and moved me around the dance floor.

Finally, I thought, I get to dance with my son, even though I had to wait until he was 30 and at his wedding reception to get to do it.

But as he twirled me and spun me, and as I sang the words of the song to him, I realized we had danced together before. Only I did the twirling, holding his small body in my arms, his pajama-clad feet barely reaching my waist, as I sang nursery rhymes to him to ease him into sleep.

“Ordinary miracles, Happen all around, Just by giving and receiving, Comes belonging and believing…”

Where did the time go?  Now, here he was, spinning me, amidst a circle of friends and family, each group marking a stage of Stephen’s life.  His childhood friend, Jesse, who spent so much time in our house each summer he was like an adopted fourth son.  Stephen’s friends from college, with whom he became more steadily himself.  His colleagues at work, a couple of who were the matchmakers for he and his new wife, Mindy.  And, finally, the new circle of friends and family that Mindy brings into his life.

“Every sun that rises, Never rose before, Each new day leads the way, Through a different door…”

And as we sat an hour earlier in the melting Virginia sun, watching Stephen and Mindy say their vows, I wondered, when did Bob and I move through this door?  And where did the days go that led us to be celebrating not only Stephen and Mindy’s wedding that day but Bob’s and my 34th wedding anniversary as well?  How did we get from three small pajama-clad boys who needed singing to sleep to three tall young men in tuxes?  Wow!

And yet, here we were.  Stephen, standing before us holding Mindy’s hands, promising to love her, just as Bob had promised to love me, while his two brothers along with two other friends stood as groomsmen.

Ordinary miracles.  Often our children may seem more ordinary than miraculous but then there are the moments, like the sudden slumping of an infant’s body against my shoulder into sleep, or like that Saturday evening, when I was held by my now-adult son, that we know…

“No lightning bolt or clap of thunder, Only joy and quiet wonder, Endless possibilities, Right before our eyes, Oh, see the way a miracle multiplies…”

Who would have thought that a wedding 34 years ago would lead to this?  A wedding anniversary, three grown handsome, healthy sons, and the wedding of our oldest to a lovely young woman who loves and supports our son.   We could only imagine.  And when by cooperation of the Fates, it happens? 

Ordinary miracles!

Yesterday I received an email from the husband of a weaving customer of mine.  He works for the Library of Congress and had discovered that my book, Weaving a Woman’s Life: Spiritual Lessons from the Loom, was there, properly catalogued and shelved.

Wow! I thought.  My book.  In the Library of Congress, where my sons can find it and, when the day comes, their children can find it as well.  When I shared this delightful information with a friend, she said it was one of my legacies.

And that got me thinking about the word legacy—something handed down by a predecessor, sometimes a gift in a will.  Something we leave behind for others.

My house is filled with legacies.  There are the paintings and sculpture created by my mother who died of breast cancer at the age of 53.  An avid antique buyer and collector, she also left me the large Early American china cabinet in our dining room, my collection of antique sewing collectibles, and the oak washstand in our family room, among many other things.

My father gave me the small, etched water glass that belonged to his grandmother bearing her name, Cornelia, and “Chautauqua 1895”.  I also have the oak kitchen table that belonged to my father’s mother and father, which he and his sisters used to run and hide under when they were growing up.  My paternal grandfather gave me the mantle clock that sat in his parlor but didn’t run.  Years after my grandfather’s death, my father repaired it and it now sits ticking on our mantle.

As a young girl, I always longed for a vanity table.  After my mother’s aunt died, I received one of hers along with the mirrored tray, hand mirror, and face powder holder.

The interesting thing about legacies is that you usually don’t just receive the item—you also receive the memories about the person who handed it down.  In this way, a small part of his or her spirit or presence remains in your life.

One of the best examples of this, and for me one of the legacies I treasure most is the collection of daylilies my father has given me.  An avid aficionado, my father has raised and bred daylilies for years, even earning certification as a daylily judge.  His flowerbeds trumpet over 50 types of daylilies.

Knowing that he and my stepmother intend to move soon, last year he carefully went through and divided his daylilies to give me fans or rootings of each type.  Some I planted last year and some are still waiting in pots for their permanent homes.

They are in full bloom right now, many of them, and I perambulate along their beds, talking to them, complimenting them on their exquisite beauty, removing the spent blooms, and all the time, I am thinking of my father and the care and commitment he gave to these flowers. 

Like the lilies, if given care and commitment, our children are living legacies.  How we raise them, who they become as people can affect family, friends, communities, and the world well into the Future.  My three loving, compassionate, creative sons are my and my husband’s most significant legacy.

Legacies are important.  They provide connection and foundation for the present and the future.  They can give us something to hold onto or push away from.

What legacies have been passed down to you?  What are you leaving behind for others?

It is a bright Sunday spring morning.  Bob and I take Duncan for our weekly walk at a nearby wildlife preserve.  The morning perambulation will be followed by a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sausage cooked and served by Bob.

As usual, Duncan stops every few feet to sniff at bush and branch, and to leave his own pungent note.  Unfortunately, one of his off-the-path investigations nets him a cluster of burdock burrs in his right front leg.

Arrggh!  The thing we hate most!  Duncan is a collie with long hair.  And collies are sensitive, especially this collie, whom we adopted from a shelter after he had been left on a chain for nine months with minimal grooming.  Matted hair does not a happy dog make.

After ten years of loving and patient grooming, Duncan still whines, yips, and barks at Bob before, during, and after the extensive combing and trimming.  Even with a steady supply of treats.

However, he has learned over the years that it is a far, far better thing to let us remove the burrs as soon as possible before they become even more entangled.  Sure, we could just take a pair of scissors and cut the burrs out but then I am not sure the punk look is really in this season for collies.  So he will stand or sit with dog-saintly forbearance while we remove burrs, because we have learned the secret (No, not that Secret.  This has more to do with the law of detraction than attraction.)

The secret?  To not pull the burr away from the dog, but to pull the dog, or the dog hair, away from the burr.  By holding onto the burr and gently pulling the hair away from the burr strand by strand, the snarl comes undone and the burr releases its grip.  Pulling on a burr just entangles it in the hair even more and makes a dog growly.

This approach is similar to the one I use for dealing with tangles of yarns or threads.  Most people get a snarl or tangle in something, be it thread, hair, relationships, or creative project, and they just pull and tug and even yank, hoping that sheer force will bring the desired result.   Instead the snarls and tangles get tighter and more resistant and someone or something gets hurt.

As a weaver, who has had to untangle many snarls of yarns and even fine threads, I have learned that gently teasing tangles open from several angles will loosen the knots enough for me to follow a thread end back through to the source of the problem.  Pretty soon, voila, a nicely rolled ball of yarn instead of a nasty nest of knots.

Untangling anything, whether it is burr-matted hair, snarled yarn, a messy relationship, or a creative problem, requires a Zen kind of patience.  I have to be willing to sit patiently in the moment following the problem back to its source, loosening and separating the threads of thoughts, feelings, and actions, loop by loop, hair by hair, idea by idea, until things fall into place.

Untangling is a great meditative practice, and great way to approach a problem—if we can just slow down long enough.  The reward?  A ball of yarn that can be used instead of thrown away.  A relationship that is renewed.  A new approach or technique for creative action.

A happy dog who nuzzles you, tail wagging ecstatically, and barks, “Now where are those blueberry pancakes?”