Life happens...

As you can see from yesterday's post, we've had a small snowstorm here. Beautiful, to be sure, but a trial for all the travelers attempting to leave Seattle for sunnier climes. 

I'm thinking now of two dear friends who headed to the airport Sunday afternoon to fly out for a vacation in Australia -- celebrating his 60th birthday, her newly-minted PhD, and (presumably) Valentines Day.

After a series of delays for de-icing, they were finally deplaned and sent to a hotel for Sunday night. Attempting to take the same flight again on Monday, they were delayed again and missed their connection to Sydney, but at least made it to a hotel in San Francisco Monday night.  They're hoping to catch a flight to Sydney today, but flash flood warnings are keeping them tied to the hotel -- and all of this without luggage. Oy!

It was as I was reading the latest in their series of misadventures that I pulled into the parking lot for my weekly meditation group and saw smoke pouring out of the hood of my friend's car.  She called her husband but his truck was stuck in the snow.  Fortunately when she saw flames she called 911: the firemen arrived very quickly, but the car is now totaled. 

As John Lennon once said, "Life happens when you're making other plans." But what do we do with that? Those of us who like to think of ourselves as "spiritual" know all too well how quickly those "rise above it" thoughts go out the window when difficulties hit -- or at least that's true for me. I think I'm pretty chill, but something will come along to set me off and I'm just as distraught, or angry, or irrational as the most nauseating politician.  Will I ever grow up?

It's easy to beat ourselves up over our reactions to life's troubles -- especially when we pride ourselves on being calm, cool, and collected.  All that reading and meditating and you're right back where you started: ugh! The good news, I think, is now -- when I realize that's what's going on -- I'm a little better at stepping back from the fray; a little better at listening to my heart; to my fears and my anger (or, in some cases, my inappropriate exultations).  I can catch myself in mid-eruption and scale it back, even if only a little.

And though the first thought in my head is almost always "You're an idiot!" I'm following that quickly with "No. You're not an idiot. You're still learning." If nothing else, I'm getting better at understanding what triggers me and why; tracing back the self-perceptions that get shaken in the storms; bringing them out to air and dissipate -- it's all good.

Yup. No matter what you've been planning, life has a way of happening anyway; of pulling the rug out from under us.  I'm trying to learn to think of that rug as a magic carpet, and just hang on for the ride.

What we wish for...

Photo taken one day later:

Be careful what you wish for!

When Winter lingers

When Winter lingers on

We dream of Spring...

Shades of meaning

We all, each of us, see the world through lenses

colored by our own experiences and perceptions.

How, then, can we distinguish what is real, true, and remarkable

from the shades of meaning brushed on by our own ideologies?

Deep at the root of breath

There is a place of knowing in us,

deep at the root of breath;

a pool of love where being is refreshed.

The hard work of love

Back in November I received an email asking if I might be willing to help develop a script for a play. I love to write (you might already know this about me) and I love a challenge, so I said yes.

A week or so later I met with two women from a little all-volunteer community theater in a neighboring town, and they explained that every year the theater puts on a free performance for its season ticket holders, but that the woman usually in charge had been transferred to another town.

She had left us with a title -- Love Hurts -- a date -- the weekend before Valentine's Day -- and a setting -- the waiting room of an urgent care center; it would be our job to come up with a set of songs, a group of characters which could be played by the usual suspects (a group of singing actors familiar to regular attendees) and a script.

So together we pored through song books and began choosing songs, devising characters and imagining a rough outline of a plot, and at the end of the meeting it was my job to go home and write a script that would tie it all together.

By mid-December I had a script written, and copies went out to all the actors, and boy howdy -- let the drama begin! First the director got pneumonia and was pretty much out of commission for a month, so rehearsals didn't begin until mid-January.  Two of the actors were buying a house and missed rehearsals either for dealing with realtors or refinishing their new floors; several of the actors came down with the flu; we had a lot of trouble finding a pianist and the one we did find had to eventually be replaced -- and that was just last week.

Two different men we found to play the role of the wise janitor (who has a solo and two rather important soliloquys) quit before ever even attending a rehearsal.  The choreographers backed out. One of the quartets who were supposed to wander through backed out. The director's laptop, which she'd been using as a prop for the receptionist's desk, was stolen from the prop room, and the stethoscopes she was collecting kept disappearing -- it really seemed this show would never take off.

But a friend of mine stepped in to be the janitor; two talented cast members took over the music; two more talented cast members crafted up some fun dance moves for us; another laptop was found and somehow things began coming together in spite of it all. And last night -- one week before our final dress rehearsal -- we finally had the entire cast on stage together.  Last night was the first time it actually looked like a play. And watching it I realized how incredibly hokey it seems -- I even broke into giggles during one of the janitor's monologues.

Because in times like these, love -- and community theater -- seem a bit like a foolish dream; like a bit of fiddling while Rome burns.  In the immortal words of a friend who responded to a recent facebook post I wrote, calling people to be more respectful of our compatriots on the other side of the bubble, "It's all lollipops and rainbows." But in reality, it's not.  It's grit, it's hard work, it's staying on the path when the going gets rough, it's soldiering through, hanging in there, improvising when necessary, reaching out for help, and working together in the hope and belief that there really is joy and beauty and promise and new life somewhere in the world, and that that is worth going the distance.

This may not be a great production. I may not have written an award-winning script (ya think?), the dancing may not be perfectly coordinated, the voices may not always sing on key, the actors may flub their lines on occasion.  But watching it, I see it as an act of love; a gift to a community of people who long to believe, if only for an evening, in happy endings.

Yes, love is hard work.
Do it anyway.

Catch and Release

My theme for today is "Catch and Release."

Whatever you see or read that makes you catch your breath,

acknowledge it, breathe in, and let it go.

Catching your breath? Release it, let it go.