Connector + Writer + Speaker
There are two types of energy with which we can meet the world.
Aspirational or Oppositional.
We can extend our efforts to achieve what we envision, work for a desired outcome, and move toward our aspirations.
Or.
We can extend our efforts to prevent what we dread, work against unwanted outcomes, and move away from what we fear.
The former is built on hope, the latter on fear.
Are you working for what you want, or against what you don’t?
Pixels.com
When did it become not okay to age? Or even more to the point, when did it become okay not to age? Measuring who we are with who we think we should be, comparing ourselves to images that aren’t even real, we strive for the impossible. Years ago, Jamie Lee Curtis agreed to have herself photographed without the magic eraser of technology. The images of her photo-edited self were presented side-by-side with the ones of the ‘real’ her. It was a courageous, gracious and liberating act. It was like looking at Barbie standing next to a real girl, who if she were real, wouldn’t be able to stand on her two little adorable high-heeled feet. She’d topple over on her perfect little plastic nose.
Molly Davis - BLUSH: Women & Wine
Looking at my arms, I could be my own connect-the-dots game. This past year the number of brown spots on my arms have at least doubled. Some are big, some are small, all are obvious. From topical treatments to laser and micro needling, there are treatments to help diminish their appearance. My fine lines, wrinkles, and less-than-taut jawline grow more noticeable every year, and, there are treatments to help with those too. The price for possible treatments range from a few to thousands of dollars. To say that I’m not tempted to jump in and get some significant work done wouldn’t be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But so help me God, I continue to be more inclined to to do my best to age well without too much outside help.
In a conversation with a lovely woman in her mid-thirties, I learned that she is already feeling the pressure to get on the cosmetic treatment bandwagon to take care of the few teeny, tiny lines that are beginning to appear. Lines that, like all of ours, tell the story of her life. It was a conversation that made me sad for the ways in which we all seem to compare ourselves to others, and almost always find ourselves coming up short. It also troubles me for the erosion of respect for the process of aging and for the beauty that can only be found in the faces and bodies of the elders among us.
It might sound like I am opposed to having any cosmetic work done. Quite the contrary. Full disclosure, years ago I had breast implants put in, and then a few years later, had them taken out. For me, it was the right call, but I can’t and won’t speak for anyone else. I’m for doing what it takes for any of us to feel comfortable in our own skin. I am, however, against an industry and a culture that tells me to go out and buy the right skin.
Not too long ago I was walking down an aisle at Costco looking for something on my list. An employee in the same aisle looked at me, smiled, and in an all-too-perky-slightly-patronizing voice said, Well, hello there young lady. How are you today?
First of all, I’m 65 years old, and while I may look pretty good for my age, and tend to dress in a rather hip-but-appropriate-for-my-age kind of way, I am most certainly not a “young” lady by anyone’s standard.
Second of all, I don’t want to be young again. While I wish I had started wearing sun screen earlier, every wrinkle and line tells the story of the life I’ve lived, and the wisdom I’ve gained has been hard won.
For those of us in the third-third of life, it could be, should be, our vision to show what it means to age well. To stay active and strong, and to continue to offer our strengths and gifts to the world around us. To lead the charge in modeling the courage to continue to show up and do the work of becoming authentic and wholehearted human beings.
From the moment we arrive on the planet we are on a one way trip off of it again. Every year is ours to make of it what we can in order to, in some way, leave the world better than we found it. My 66th year is just around my corner, and in case anyone is wondering, this 65 year old woman is doing just fine, thank you.
(Sometimes I just need to rant a little.)
…I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light.
~ Barbara Brown Taylor - Learning To Walk In The Dark
It’s called Delores’s Delight.
The favorite dessert of my childhood, I dusted off the recipe card today and made a big batch of it for the first time in years. If I had to choose a final meal before leaving the planet, this dessert would be on the menu. While others in my family wanted cake for their birthday, I only wanted this, and if you decide to make a batch, you’ll probably know why.
Growing up, the best part about it wasn’t the first piece after dinner, delicious as it was. It was waking up in the middle of the night, sneaking into the kitchen and finding my dad there too. In the dark we would cut two more pieces and savor every bite before heading back to bed. Somehow it tasted even better in the shadow filled kitchen than the light filled dining room.
When it comes to this delectable dessert, it is the crushed dark chocolate cookies layered on the bottom and sprinkled over the top that help hold it all together and set off the flavor of the sweet, rich center. In our lives, the dark, the shadow parts of ourselves that we have been courageous enough to explore and come to know as intimately as the rest, are layered with the light, and are key ingredients in what it means to be a whole human being.
Delore’s Delight is a combination of the dark and the light, just like my relationship with my dad. And a lot like real life when it comes right down to it. In order for our lives to be authentic, wholehearted and real, we must incorporate the dark with the light in order to cook up a whole life. One without the other just doesn’t cut it.
As soon as he was out of the car he made a beeline first for the driveway to play with the gravel, and then for the front yard to scoop up handfuls of dirt from the latest gopher mounds. In short order, our grandson Cai’s hands were dirty, and his onesie covered in dust.
He was…. a happy camper.
A free range kid.
He wasn’t concerned about keeping things neat and tidy, or how he would look with a little dirt on his face. Nope. Not one bit. Cai was captivated by his surroundings and curious to explore the world within reach of his grubby little hands.
When did we forget how good it is to get a little, or a lot, dirty now and then? To forget what people might think, and allow ourselves to be captivated by the world around us and curious to explore the world within reach of our probably too clean hands?
As wee Can knows, life is too short to worry about clean fingernails.
If joy had a face, it would look like Valerie Christine Pierson. Born 34 years ago today, she came into my life when I answered a personals ad written by her dad. From day one she wiggled and giggled her way into my heart, and has never left.
I’m not sure I’ve ever met a more generous human being in my life. If Val has it to give, she will. Whatever it is. Her time. Her talent. Her listening ear and her caring heart. If there is one story that captures the essence of this beautiful woman I get to call one of my daughters it is this one. Heading home from New Jersey after her Granddad’s memorial service, Valerie, Tom, and I were sitting in one of those dark airport restaurants where other weary travelers gather while waiting for their flights home. While I was focused on my burger and glass of wine, Val spotted two women sitting at a nearby table, heads close together, tears streaming down their faces. She didn’t know why they were sad and in pain, only that they were. Val quietly got up from the table, went up to the bar, paid for their lunch, and then as if it were the most natural thing in the world to buy a meal for two strangers, returned to our table. Only as the women were leaving the restaurant did the whole story come out. They were mother and daughter and had just lost their father and grandfather. Val’s kindness was just the balm their two broken hearts needed to remind them that even in the midst of loss and grief there is love and grace to be found, often through the kindness of strangers.
She is a mama bear to her Jonah-bear and I dare you to find a more fiercely loving mom anywhere. They share a love of the Portland Trailblazers, their new family addition, Comet-the-dog, and doing almost anything together.
I’ve never known a happier spirit. Come what may, somehow Val is able to find the silver-lining in almost any situation. Once during a particularly challenging time, when most people would go down with the ship, I suggested she come up with a mantra that she could say when things got tough. She didn’t miss a beat. "Things could be worse.” she said with a smile. At first blush, that didn’t strike me as an especially useful thing to say. But the more I thought about it, that is Val to a T. No matter how hard things are, she knows that others have it far worse and will do her best to make life better for anyone within her reach.
Val has a faith in the God who loves everyone regardless of who they are, what they’ve done, or where they come from. She has the husky voice of a rock-n-roll angel, loves everything glitz and glamour, and is a down-home family girl at heart.
I have no idea where life will take this bright and shining star of mine next, but wherever she goes and whomever she meets, they will be the better for it.
Happy birthday Val.
You are one in a million!
On the home page for Life In The Trinity Ministry there is a phrase that rings as so true and so important.
A place for solitary work that cannot be done alone.
There is work that is ours to do, and no one else can do it for us.
However.
There is a need for us to have a safe place to do that work in relationship with others. A place where we can say what is true for us and be heard. A place where we can bring our questions and not get ready answers, our fears and not have them shushed away, and our messy emotions and not have someone try to clean them up. We need people who will keep us from getting burned, and, will hold our feet to the fire. People who see for us what we can’t see for ourselves, and, who accept us as we are.
While the work may be ours alone to do, there is safety in numbers. Going it together reminds us that we are not alone in our desire to make sense of things, and to become as fully ourselves as we are meant to be.
I am grateful to those who walk with me on my journey to becoming whole, and for those who invite me to walk with them.
Onward.
Together.
Photo by Matt Hatchett from Pexels
Our lives are made up of so many bits and pieces that it is easy to lose sight of the wholeness of it all. Not the perfection of it all, but the wholeness that is our life. Like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, each little piece contains a small fragment of the image that when put together will make the whole picture.
We, or at least I, get sidetracked by the small bits, forgetting that they are necessary to the whole. And in forgetting that they are necessary to the whole I let myself get swept up in frustration at what I’m not getting to, seeing things as interruptions to my day rather than integral to my day.
I forget that it all matters. I forget that the task at hand, the person on the other end of the phone, and the unexpected occurrence are all parts of the larger picture. They are all opportunities to show up fully and bring the best of myself to what, in that moment, is mine to do.
I forget that every emotion matters. I forget that there is as much to learn from the visitation of the hard emotions, the dark and painful ones, as there is from the gentle, shimmering, and delightful ones. That every one that comes knocking at my door has, as Rumi writes in The Guesthouse, been sent as a guide from beyond.
I forget that as Franciscan priest, author, and spiritual teacher Richard Rohr believes, everything belongs. Think about that for a moment. Everything belongs. Everything belongs. Everything belongs.
Everything.
What if we began to see everything that shows up at our doorstep as an invitation to become more of who we are meant to be?
What if we began to actually live into the truth that everything belongs.
It might just change everything.
Photo: pexels.com
With gratitude to Dane Anthony
On a whim last Sunday we took a detour on our way home from a weekend of hiking and camping. The potential of a long soak in hot mineral waters and a 30 minute linen wrap in the historic bathhouse at the Carson Hot Springs Resort sounded simply too good to pass up. Taking a chance that they would have tubs available for us we turned off the highway, and within a half an hour I was submerged in steaming hot water with a cold wash cloth on my head.
Not always one to be present to the moment, I made the choice, over and over again, to return to the sensation of the hot water on my skin, the cool touch of the wash cloth on my forehead, and the heat soaking into muscles that had worked hard to carry me safely up to the edge of the Mount St. Helens crater and back again. By the time my soak was done, I found myself squarely situated in the present moment. Thoughts about the past and any concerns about the coming week seemed to have drained away along with the water in the tub.
From the soak I headed into the quiet room lined with cots and covered with fresh linen sheets, found the one that was mine, and lay down. The sweet attendant asked what kind of wrap I preferred: tight, medium, or loose? I went with medium, opted for another cool cloth on my forehead, and a towel wrap over my head. For thirty minutes I didn’t even have to work at being present. There was no where else I wanted, or needed to be.
Almost asleep when my time was up I stood and slowly made my way toward the showers and couldn’t help but notice one of the other women in the room. Like me, she had come from a soak and was laying on her cot wrapped in a linen sheet. She didn’t however seem to be in the room at all, mesmerized as she was by her cell-phone. Watching as she clicked and scrolled and swiped, I couldn’t help but think about all of the times that I am anywhere but where I am. If not glued to my phone, then following the rabbit trails of thoughts, diving into one hole after another.
Granted, not every moment is a linen wrap after a hot soak, but the present moment is where we are meant to be. It is the place we are called to show up as fully and whole-heartedly as we can, over and over again. It takes practice, and some days it comes easier than others, but I hope to remember the contrast between those minutes in the tub and on that table, and all the times I find myself lost in the past or projecting myself into the future.
The only way to be squarely where we are is to choose, over and over again, to submerge ourselves in the present moment, soak it in and get completely wrapped up in it.
Driving home today after a weekend in the woods, storm clouds gathered in the sky ahead. There are times when that is what the beginning of a new week feels like. A storm is brewing and I’m headed right for it.
Maybe you can relate.
Part of me wanted to turn our car around and head back where we came. Away from our cell phones, the work waiting for us at home, and the addition of unexpected tasks to be completed. Then I noticed the car ahead of us pulling a small camper. A camper that was most likely equipped with the essentials needed to stay warm and dry, even in the midst of a storm.
Storms are a part of life, and we take them as they come. Sometimes we hunker down and wait for them to pass. But more often than not we head out, equipped to weather what we encounter, and come out the other side the better for it.
MOLLY DAVIS is the founder of Trailhead Coaching & Consulting. She writes about lessons and adventures from the trail, and knows from firsthand experience that sometimes the only way to discover where you want to be, is to get lost where you don't. If you enjoyed this post, please feel free to pass it along.
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