My Mantra – You Can! You Can!

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It is shortly after 5 am on Saturday. I know this because the woodpecker who is entranced with the eaves near my bed has started to drill his song. When I pound on the wall, he thinks it is a game, and imitates my pattern. I give up and get up.

Saturday mornings. For years I would rise this early and gather my book bag that was stuffed with thirty or fifty essays from my high school seniors.  I would make the 12-minute drive south on the 101. When I arrived at the Wildflower Café, I would try to snag the booth right inside the door. Sometimes Lupita, a server-extraordinaire, would save that spot for me!  Sometimes Mae, the manager-extraordinaire, would bring me oatmeal before I ordered it. While marking up essays and stories in that booth, I climbed inside the hearts and souls of my students.

It was there I learned Tamiko wanted to be a doctor because her father had died of cancer. It was here that Nick confessed in his artful words that he knew deep inside that he was gay, and he could no longer run from his truth. It was here I edited Jason’s essay that would admit him to Yale and a life out of the poverty he had known. It was here I first discovered Ben’s painful story of finding his uncle in his garage after he shot himself. It was here in a journal that Alicia confided she wished to be a poet – and later she became one.

Perhaps this sounds crazy, but I rarely tired of grading student essays. Oh, sometimes it was a slog, but it was also a privilege to open the window into the minds of these young people who were on the cusp of a new beginning. They would struggle, they would strive, and often they would find their voice and ground themselves with their words. At the end of many essays, I would cheer a writer on by scribbling the words, “You can! You can!”

This Saturday morning as I brewed my black tea, I kept repeating those words, “You can. You can.” Unconsciously it had become a mantra that I often shared with students, and they would thank me. One day I remember shy Erica staying after class, to point at the poorly scrawled phrase at the bottom of her paper. When I read my scribble to her, she got tears in her eyes. “That is what I hoped it said. You can. You can!” Then she scurried toward the door to catch up with her friends, but she stopped and turned back to me, calling in voice that sounded like a symphony accompanied with Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, “Thank you. You made my day!” And she made my day.

But this Saturday there are no essays to grade. Today I hope to write a few sentences in a new book I am birthing. There is a moment of light-headedness. I have started this book before. I was going to coauthor a workbook with a like-minded physician until COVID hit. The pandemic littered my path, like your path, with many potholes that made it hard to navigate. I went from workbook back to a book, back to a compilation of stories. Writing is a messy business.

But this morning, I feel am filled with something new. Something deep-seated. And I am ready to try again. The metaphor that has wrapped its arms around my soul is storycatcher. I embrace stories because they are my teachers. They allow me to understand you as well as to understand me. While I went to battle with myself over sharing my personal stories as I wrote The Story I Need to Tell, I learned to do it.  Indeed, the process pommeled me with both beautiful and painful moments. Then I watched as the process changed me, and I grew.  Now as I share this work, hoping others can learn to find and hold the beauty in their life experience.

Writing a book is my way of searching for truth in my life and in this world. It is why I come to the page each day. Often it feels like I am navigating across the Antarctic in winter. Long silent stretches. Pain. Trudging across the tundra and feeling lost, but then something happens. A stray flower breaks through the ground and spring begins. The journey is long and hard, but worth the pain and growth that comes of it.

As I dip bites of granola into yogurt, I realize I have seen slivers of insight that dance in front of me in recent days. Taunting me. They know I must catch them, or they will slip by and out of my reach. They will fall into the synapses that dance in another mind or perhaps tumble, lost into the universe forever.  I want to capture these words. I want to run as fast as I can and dance and tumble and juggle and struggle until the whole of it comes to me. While it looms as a daunting struggle, I can do this, I tell myself. I can. I can.

And I smile for those words keep slipping out of me. They are indeed a long-time mantra for me. I guess we all need one. My students needed those words, and I understand that more fully now. For that reason alone, I will scribble those words across the top and bottom of this page. Also, I will write them in my heart.

I can I can!

The Beauty of Imperfection

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Five years ago I made a trip that changed me. After hours on a plane and a short train ride, we arrived in the stunning train station of Kyoto, Japan.  I had long wanted to see this architectural glass wonder. But after a day of traversing the 171 steps of staircase and tiring of hip restaurants and high priced shopping, I found myself drawn outside where I was captivated by the historic streets, the local people, the carefully sculpted gardens, and a charming pottery shop.

 

On the third day of our visit, I found my way down the cobblestone streets back to the pottery shop that smelled of sandalwood and displayed local art framed like treasures in the windows. At the back of the shop was an artist painting floral designs on teacups and plates. A kind clerk treated both the pottery and the customers with reverence. I was searching for a gift for my mom when the clerk showed me the blue cup. It was Mother’s color. My dad had died recently, and in her stoic midwestern way, my mom was grieving.  We all were. After a serious fall, she agreed to move into assisted living. “Perhaps I am old,” she announced firmly, “But I am not broken.”

But she was. For weeks I had watched  Mom shuffle ahead of me to the dining room from her new apartment; and I could tell each step was painful as she hobbled. While she forced a smile, I had seen the scans of her back—several of her discs had disintegrated into near dust.

 

 

The Kintsugi Cup

I bought the cup with the silver lines etched like Pollock strokes across it. I bought it because it was not outrageously priced.  I bought it because the crooked lines reminded me of the films of my mother’s crooked back. I bought it because it felt like a sacred act to share it with my mom who could not see herself as broken. But mostly I bought it because it reminded me of the wisdom found in the art of Kintsugi, a wisdom my beautiful mother carried in her.

The art of Kintsugi may have been invented around the fifteenth century. A shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimasa, broke his favorite cup. When he sent it to China to be repaired, he was told it was unsalvageable. Refusing to accept the news, the shogun found a Japanese craftsman who agreed to transform the cup into a work of art by filling the cracks with lacquered resin and powdered gold.  The outcome was a jewel. The practice became a revered form of art.

Kintsugi teaches us that when something is broken, it can be repaired and perhaps the flaws or imperfections can be made even more beautiful. As we journey through life, we learn that imperfections are a part of being human. Kintsugi reminds us to accept our flaws, learn from them, and embrace the beauty of moving forward.

After returning from Kyoto, I gave Mom the cup. She gushed over it. I thought I would explain Kintsugi to her in the right moment. But the moment never came, and I began to realize that as one who had managed the relentless challenges of aging, Mom already held inside of her the wisdom of finding beauty amid life’s struggles.

For two more years my dear mom hobbled forward with her crooked, painful back, and all the while, she made every effort to fill her imperfections with the silver and gold to be found in this life. I miss her, and each day I think of her “kintsugi wisdom.”

My Kintsugi Mom

 

Love in the Time of COVID

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I dug out my passport, and I bought both the plane tickets and a pair of badly needed low-heeled shoes. I was ready to boogie to James Taylor’s “How Sweet It Is.” Kate and Drew had planned their Cabos San Lucas wedding far in advance, believing we would have left COVID behind. Like most of us, I just needed a good party. An event. Remember those?

Two weeks before the wedding the Omicron variant began to jack up the number of COVID cases in Arizona from 3,000 to 12,000 and then 30,000 new cases a day!  I became jittery, but I got my dress cleaned, paid my hotel bill, and pulled the suitcase down.

Within days Omicron ripped my wedding plans in two. Steve’s small engineering company who practiced social distancing and masking from the start of the pandemic had as many cases on that Monday as they had tracked since the start of this outbreak. The good news was the Cue testing kits that the company had helped to build worked like a charm.

The bad news was the number of people who were testing positive around us, and the impossibility of juggling all the illness and supply chain shortages, scattered our plans like a ripped-open bag of confetti. I emailed my physician who advised us to stay stateside until this surge was over. I called the mother of the bride to cancel, and then I sat down, cried a bit, and poured out the pain on paper.

While I felt profoundly sad, I quickly realized that given all the losses that have been faced in these times, my loss was small, and did not deserve my energy. A wedding was unfolding. Valentine’s Day was near. I began to research love and scrawl my thoughts.

From the Beatles “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to Taylor Swift’s “Lover,” I realized we are a culture awash in love. When I thought about it, I realized most of what we sing about and “long for” is romantic love. Psychiatrist Neil Burton noted that our longing for undying love with one other human, or romantic love, “is a modern construct” that emerged with the romance novel – books like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.  Who does not remember the tug of emotions unfolding in Elizabeth and Darcy as they “fall in love.” Hmm. Did we create this spin on love? I was curious.

Dr. Burton goes on to argue there are many forms of love that are far more available and potentially more fulfilling than romantic love. We can track all of these back to the Greeks.

 

  1. Eros – passionate love
  2. Philia: intimate, authentic friendship
  3. Ludus: playful, uncommitted love
  4. Storge: unconditional, love for family
  5. Philautia: self-love which can be healthy or go overboard
  6. Pragma: committed, companionate love
  7. Agápe: empathetic, universal love for others

Instead of going to Mexico that week, I went to my Zoom writing classes to be with my writers. My refuge. Fourteen women were engaged in exploring how the power of perspective impacts both our writing and our lives. As if cued by my research, Nora began to spin a tragic story. “My nephew fell in love with a tall, lanky girl at his school. Pretty girl. They dated and eventually she dumped him. His perspective was limited. He thought she was the only one he would ever love. He jumped off a bridge. Suicide at nineteen. If only he waited and learned to see love can be more.”

The ensuing discussion made it clear that I would need more than a blog, perhaps a book, to explore love. Later as we chatted, Nora added, “As we grow our perspective of love, we learn how it can be shared with others. I come to this group to hear your words and honor them, and you do the same for me. We come together in community with a love for each other and a love for our words.”

I thought about what Nora said and what Dr. Burton had argued. My life was richly threaded with many kinds of love. I felt love for the work I did with my writing groups – agape. I felt love for my students as we shared our words and our personal stories – philia. I even felt love for my son when he interrupted my class by calling – storge.

As I made this list and acknowledged the richness of many kinds of love, my phone began to buzz. When I tapped it on, I discovered that a stream of photos was flooding my text feed. A picture of a bride in a stunning white lace dress. Photos of a groom reciting a poem he had written to honor their love. The light in their eyes as they gazed upon one another.

As I scanned the photos, it hit me. Romantic love is indeed an idea we have created. A wonderful one when it blooms as in this moment for Kate and Drew. But when we stop to think, humans have always created new words and ways of understanding our lives. Indeed, philia, eros, and all forms of love as defined by our ancestors help us understand and explain love more fully.

Our words shape our understanding of life, and our writing and stories, give it greater meaning. This coming month I am going to celebrate not only Kate and Drew, and the magic of that comes of romantic love, but also the magic of being able to love in so many divergent and beautiful ways.

Happy Valentine’s Month!


This blog is dedicated to my friends Kate and Drew!