Peace Underneath the Spilled Milk

I was having THAT kind of morning.  My stomach was in knots.  Every little thing was grating on my nerves.

And then....there was this.

A little reminder she left for me as she ran off to the bedroom to pick out her stuffed animal for preschool show-and-share.

Spilled milk.  Nothing to cry over.

I'm still having THAT kind of morning.  I'm still annoyed by the loud conversation going on behind me at Starbucks.  My stomach is still in knots.

But I wiped that milk up off of the counter.  

All of this anxiety...

it's just a little spilled milk.

Namaste.

Answer The Phone

The other side of the taffy pull. 

(See this post if that makes no sense to you.)

It’s enough to make a girl want to never answer her phone again.

It was Indiana University calling.  This is nothing new.  Our kids frequently participate in research studies through the Psychology Department and are invited to do more.

I recognized the woman on the phone.  She was the lead researcher for a study my son had gone through a few months ago and a professor at the university.  That particular study was one in which the participants got an MRI.  (Our son was hesitant at first but got a kick afterwards when he got a $25 gift card to Target and got to see pictures of his brain!)

I was washing a dish while she talked.  She asked how our son was doing and thanked us for our participation in the studies.  I finished the last dish while she talked about his most recent study with the MRI.  I had just turned off the water when I caught the last part of her sentence,

“…we found something.”

My mind shut off and my body went on autopilot.  I knew I had to find a place to sit down.  I recall the hallway.

“…protocol states we send the image to a radiologist”

 then the edge of the bed,

 “..so we just got his report back today”

 and the weight of my own body, ……the weight.  The wait.

“He has a cyst near his brain.”

I’ll spare you the details.  If your heart sunk into your stomach and then fell to through your feet when you read that, I don’t need to share the details.  If it didn’t, any details I share of what happened next won’t come close to explaining my experience.

My heart has returned to its proper home in the past few days and, thankfully, I can breathe again.  Allow me to extend the same courtesy to you:

Our son has an Arachnoid Cyst.  Apparently this is fairly common.  He has no symptoms and, unless it grows, he can expect not to have any.  Without his participation in the MRI study we might never have known it was there.  He is just carrying a fluid-filled sac in his skull near the base of his brain.  As I understand it in our current stage of online research and multitudes of doctor-conversations, we will just monitor the cyst via  a new scan every couple of years to make sure it isn’t growing.  Otherwise, there is nothing about which we should be concerned. 

The End.

Except that isn’t the end, is it?

In tales that are told, The End is when the book pages run out, the credits roll, or the curtains close. That reality ends.    

I wouldn’t have shared this story with you had I just wanted to tell you a tale that gets nicely wrapped up with two simple words.

I have tried for nearly two hours to determine what words to use, then, to wrap it up.  If two simple words won’t work, two hundred won’t do it either. 

So instead of trying to wrap this up, I decided to open it up.  I extend to you a few invitations.

I invite you to practice being grateful.

After I had a few hours to process the information after the initial call from the university, the irony that this coincided with Gratitude Week (in the Wild Elephant Project) hit me.

As I hugged my son after he got off the school bus that day, tears filling every cavity in my head but not yet to my eyes, I WAS GRATTIUDE.

I don’t mean I was grateful.  I mean every cell of who “I” am was pure gratitude.  There is a chasm of difference between feeling grateful for my son when I sent him off to school that morning and the gratitude I became as I watched my baby boy hopping down the street towards our house after school.

I invite you to practice being aware.  There is so much more than what we can see.  There are so many more perspectives than those that we choose to see.

That little boy who got on the school bus and the one who got off was the same person.  I simply saw him differently.  My precious son, that black hole on the MRI, the baby I held in my arms, the very young man bounding off the school bus, the scruffy hair that needs a bit of a cut…  I felt like I was seeing so much.  And yet, I was only seeing what was always there.   

I invite you to practice just being.

We might be able to hold awareness of the suffering and joys of billions of beings or the many facets of suffering of even one while on the meditation cushion. (Might.)  But this would certainly get overwhelming while trying to navigate through rush-hour traffic. 

We can hone in this awareness through mindful existence, through dropping into our bodies, through intimate connection with what falls into our attention in this moment.  No judgment.  Just breath.  Just my son’s description of the school day.  Just the traffic.  Just being.

With that, I leave us to our stories

and a wish that we always find the strength to answer the phone.

Don't Know

We know it... THE Answers are out there.

Oh how we want them, so we search. 

We move, we ask, we follow, we find - oh wait, that's not it - ... we buy, we fight, we protest, we buy some more, we drink, we sleep, we work, we buy, we sleep, we work, we buy, we work,....

Until we forget.

What was the question again?

Eh, does it matter?

This is just how life is.

This is reality.

But the anxiety continue.  The unease.  The questioning that nags us in the rare moments we find silence...there was something.  

(*I remember....I want to remember.)

So we question again and start the search for the answers.  Again and again.  

But for all of this searching - through all of the working and creating and art and tweeting and commenting and "liking" and gossiping and mindfulness and mindlessness and relationships and births and deaths and cleaning and e-books and classes and knowing - 

we find no permanent answers.

And so, we are discontent.

I do not think we need to stop questioning.

I think we need to stop answering.

Namaste.

Facebook or Twitter? Waltz or Tango?

When we begin to question not only what is "right" and "wrong", but even if there is a "right" or "wrong", life becomes vastly mysterious, confusing, and exciting.

Organic food or local?

Facebook or Twitter?

Comfort your child or let her cry it out?

Worry about "followers" or simply create the art?

Words or pictures?

Stay or leave?

Walk or run?

Healthy weight or Healthy attitude?

Move through the pain or rest?

Cereal or eggs?

Money or Integrity?

War or Peace?

Be right or be kind and let them win?

White couch or Green?

Stay up late or wake up early?

Change or accept?

Explore those questions above that caught your attention.  Take note of any more questions that arise in your thoughts.  

Notice the feelings in your stomach and your breath as you choose one option (or as you try to create your own).  Now try choosing the other and notice the feelings that arise.

I think that often we choose the answer that makes us feel emotionally comfortable - even if that means temporarily overlooking the consequences of our choice.  

I think that often we think there is an answer out there.

I think that often we over-think and over-analyze - using logic instead of the flow of intuition.

I think that often we try to find and justify OUR answer by spewing all sorts of irrelevant research and text into the world.

I think that right now I may be guilty of doing just that. 

This is my dance.

When releasing right and wrong, only the dance remains.  

I never know the next step so I just move.

Sometimes I think of shoulds.  Sometimes I become frozen with fear.  What if this isn't safe?  What about money?  Sometimes I forget my own dance.  I observe you or him or her and I want that or definitely don't want that.  

I am tripping over my own two feet.

There is only the dance.

Breathe on.

Namaste.

Choose Your Lane

I have a fairly routine pattern of driving on the highway.

I usually start off in the far right lane, going around 5 mph over the posted speed limit.  If there is any traffic around me, I am usually passed - sometimes at fairly high speeds.

I get anxious.

I want to go faster.

After all, everyone else is.  

I question my choice to stay in my lane (particularly if there is someone ahead of me going even slower than 5 mph over the speed limit).  

I see (or create) the reasons to go faster.  They overcome my reasons for driving in the far right lane.

I switch lanes.

I go faster.

I still get tailgated or passed by those wanting to go even faster.  

I start to feel anxious again.

I question why I'm in this lane.  

I work myself up and get overly-upset (usually at the other drivers).

I decide I've had enough of their insanity.

I switch lanes back to the right lane and resume my speed at 5 mph over the posted speed limit.

The cycle continues.

I find my own speed and notice the speed at which others are going.  I understand why they do.  Part of me wants to experience their speed.  I switch and get caught up.  I blame others until I remember I'm the one who made the choice in the first place.  I return to where I started.  

I find myself.  I see someone else and like their story.  I try it on, blame them if it doesn't work, remember I am responsible for my own life, and then return to where I started.

I remember, forget, and remember.

I am aware of this in my life.

I invite you to notice which lane you've chosen.

Without judgment....can you answer why?

Namaste.