The Grace of Change

What About ME?

Sisters, I missed y’all a couple of weeks ago when I shoulda been writing a newsletter. But I needed to take the last month to get used to being a queen.

You see, many months ago I realized the phrase I heard most from women over 45 —  whether whispered or hollered or whined, or making itself heard loud and clear through resentment, exhaustion, or depression — was...drum roll, please...

What about me?

Sound familiar? How many times have you asked that question?

If Not Now, When?

When you die, God and the angels will hold you accountable for all the pleasures you were allowed in life that you denied yourself. ~Anonymous

My mom died last fall.

I sat by her hospital bed for a week as she lay dying. It being the south, all manner of relatives, blood and otherwise, streamed in and out of the hospital room and told long stories about Mama's life. My sisters and brother and I laughed buckets and cried rivers. The wonderful pleasures of drawn out southern tales, uninhibited laughter of aunts and cousins, and platters of fried chicken rose from the same deep life spring as the grief for my mom dying hour by hour in her white gown.

Pleasure, Grief, and Eros

This week is my mother’s yahrzeit, the first anniversary of her death.
I’m crying a lot, at unexpected times: swimming up from a night dream in tears; seeing our Japanese maples fire up in all their fall glory; hearing my mom’s dusky voice while I’m driving on the freeway.

I thought I was done with the grief of her. I was wrong.

No Upholstered Ruts

When I read this poem, I think about all the lovely upholstered ruts in my life. Damn, they're comfortable.

One of the great graces, and the great sufferings, of big life transitions is how they rip us right out of those ruts. Done.

Easter Exultet

 

Shake out your qualms.
Shake up your dreams.
Deepen your roots.
Extend your branches.
Trust deep water
and head for the open,
even if your vision
shipwrecks you.
Quit your addiction
to sneer and complain.
Open a lookout.
Dance on a brink.
Run with your wildfire.
You are closer to glory
leaping an abyss
than upholstering a rut.
Not dawdling.
Not doubting.
Intrepid all the way
Walk toward clarity.
At every crossroad
Be prepared
to bump into wonder.
Only love prevails.
En route to disaster
insist on canticles.
Lift your ineffable
out of the mundane.
Nothing perishes;
nothing survives;
everything transforms!
Honeymoon with Big Joy!

 

~ James Broughton ~

 

(Sermons of the Big Joy)

First, the Bad News

First, the Bad News: Pleasure won't protect us from pain, death, loss, or illness. Pleasure cannot inoculate us from our own pain or the pain of the world. Pleasure isn't a magical amulet we wear over our hearts to prevent them from breaking.

Opening our hearts and souls to pleasure guarantees that our hearts and souls will be open to pain, too.

But wait, all is not lost.