Bright Life In Between

I woke today with one hundred things
Places to be, and items to bring
I lay there wide eyed and paralyzed in bed
Tasks coming out my ears as they began to ring

I slid out quiety clutching my aching head
Wishing already that this day was dead
But then I realized, with quite a start
There was no need for such dread

The things we have to, just play a bit part
The life in between is what can fill our heart
But not if we skip it, jumping one task to the next
Just to get things done, do this, do that, now restart

Read between, find the life there that brightly reflects
Soak it in and leave the have tos to later perplex
Today and now are limited full and complex
Unless you choose not to look, blindly stumbling onto the nearest mindless trek

The Magic of Snow

The other day as Cam and I were looking into our backyard, staring at the dull, semi-green, flat and seemingly lifeless lawn, the topic of snow came up.  We haven’t had any snow this year, a remarkable occurrence, and Cam, like most 6 year olds, is a bit disappointed.  Ever since she could look out the window and wonder, snow has been amazing to her.  This magical white stuff that softly and quietly sneaks through the cold dense air, gently landing on fences, driveways, roofs and yes, that empty lawn.  Except for this year.

So as we stared out at the inappropriately decorated winter scene together, a question came up,

“Daddy, is snow different from rain?”

“How do you mean?”, I replied.  “Snow and rain are both water.  Snow is just frozen water.  When it gets cold, rain turns into snow.”

No sooner had I said this then I felt my heart drop.  My own inner imagination colored by the beauty and magic I know exists, deflated quickly and suddenly as if popped by a sharp object.  I wished I could take it back.

“So snow is just frozen water?” she pressed.

“Yes.” I heard myself say, and to myself; Nope, no magic there.

Ugh!  How awful!  Is that true?  No magic?  Just a simple scientific explanation?  What about the way it covers the ground so completely and evenly, with a gentleness and quietness like a soft sweet whisper in your ear?  What about the beauty it leaves behind?  Trees, bushes and houses outlined carefully in bright white.  What about the quiet that echoes afterwards, as if it calmed the world with it’s touch and left behind a bit of it’s own nature as an example to us all….if for only a short time.  Is none of this magic, can it only be summed up as “frozen water”?

I think Cam was right and I was wrong.  Snow just like so many other seemingly ordinary things in our lives cannot be categorized, judged, compartmentalized and explained so easily.  In everything, there must be a little bit of magic, we just have to find it and be aware of it.

Thank you

I’m thankful
I’m thankful for the sunlight that makes my face warm
I’m thankful for these walls that give me shelter in a storm

I’m thankful for sweet small smiles sprouting into laughter next to my own
I’m thankful for little hands and toes lying still with sleep…almost grown

I’m thankful to be here smelling this fresh air
I’m thankful for the breeze that gently rearranges my lazy hair.

I’m thankful for soft cool grass, my bare feet cushioned by summer green
I’m thankful for moments of peace, the silence invading the space between

I’m thankful, thank god and universe, for my house, my family and all within
But mostly I’m thankful for this very moment, life now and all therein

Moments In the Wind

So I pulled into a gas station to get gas yesterday and a woman backed into the space in front of me, slowly aiming her car’s rear end and subsequently her gas cap at the pump.  The only problem, she didn’t pull in straight, and was jutting out into the space where I was soon to be forced to go around her.  I finished filling, got in my car and as I started to pull out, I realized I wasn’t sure if I could fit between her and the curb that was on the other side of my car.  I rolled down my window and said politely,

“Excuse me, I’m not sure that I can fit”.

She scrunched her face up as she walked to the front of my car, looked over the situation and said,

“You can fit”, in a smug, condescending way.  She coolly walked back to her pump leaving me to precariously navigate her hasty parking job.

So why do I bring this up, why give it more of a thought or feed this negative situation with any of my precious energy?  Because I think I learned something from it.  I think, if we look hard enough, we always learn from mistakes, failures, and situations that challenge us.  In a way this was a failure for me, and that’s ok.  I failed because I allowed someone or something to matter too much.  I allowed this person to make me feel stupid, incompetent, uncoordinated, and angry because I couldn’t navigate the small gap she left me.

So why not look at it the other way you might say.  Why not say, “What a jerk!  She could have been more compassionate and tried to help me”, or “She was probably having a bad day”.  Or, maybe I could have simply moved on.  Not looking at it either way.  Wait, that’s what I learned?  Simply move on?  I think so.

I had this thought this morning on the way to work.  I was imagining all the people in the world, all the agendas, bad days, good days, things to do, places to be on time, schedules to keep.  All the energy, fair or unfair, good or bad, unhelpful or compassionate.  I imagined all that energy as chaotic wind, swirling around me in circles.  The more chaotic, the stronger the wind was, and the more it would blow my hair, send dust in my eyes, and push me in a direction I didn’t want to go.    Or, conversely, the more it would push me forward, that feeling you get when running down a steep hill, or having a strong wind at your back.  The feeling of being lifted forward.

I thought of this wind swirling around me and thought what if I could walk between the currents of wind, like slipping between two conflicting weather fronts, observing, showing compassion, but not judging others, and especially not judging myself.  Being grateful for when I was lifted, but simply getting back up when it would knock me down.  Thinking, it’s ok, it’s just the wind.  I think the world would look different, not so scary, it is just wind after all.

I believe there are moments between the winds.  Moments that we lose when we’re focused on trying to block the dust that is blowing and biting our face, when we’re angry and fighting the wind.  Moments and opportunities to create our own wind that can push us and others around us forward.

My Imperfect Heart

There I was today, sitting on the couch, watching my stomach gently shake my carefully placed phone with every beat of my heart.   Feeling the pulse on my neck I confirmed each moment of silence followed by that chaotic quiver, that completely necessary, life giving rush of blood through my veins, being pushed by my seemingly tireless heart.  For the first time, my heart, my life, felt fragile, imperfect, vulnerable.  You see, I just got out of the hospital.

In an instant I knew something wasn’t right one recent evening at home and in a blur of flashing lights and IVs, I was sitting in a hospital room for the first time in my life with a diagnosis of an irregular heartbeat.  The short version of the next 2 days that followed is that my heart is fine, my thyroid is not behaving properly, and rest should make it all better.  I should, in fact, be just like I was before.

Just like before….except that I really won’t ever be the same.  Maybe, that’s not such a bad thing.  Being that vulnerable, that scared, forced me to accept my humanity in an instant, forced me to be faced with that very human condition of imperfection.  That I am simply flesh and blood, a wonderfully engineered collection of gears and pulleys no doubt, a system that works well most of the time, but just a system like any other.  Prone to breaking down.  Prone to eventual failure.

Imperfection has never been easy for me.  In fact it’s been near impossible.  When I was young, being imperfect meant I wasn’t worth much.  Mistakes weren’t embraced as expected or necessary, instead they were tolerated.  Barely.  To be noticed, to be loved, I had to be perfect.  But that’s a hard…no, impossible road to hoe for anyone.  We are not created perfect in any way.

So the lesson for me as I listen to my heart is simple: Now.  Live now.  This moment….breathe….This moment…breathe.  Every breath a gift.   I cannot expect my heart to be perfect any more that the spirit of the owner it helps support.

I now understand better that my heart is not superhuman, not made of some newly developed alloy, or whatever they put into LED bulbs that allow them to last a lifetime.  It’s simply an imperfect, but hard working element, trying hard to bring me one more moment, and one more, and one more…Hopefully ones filled with more laughter and adventure and excitement than these past few weeks have been, but then again it’s up to me to determine how to fill those moments.

A Lucky Girl

Cam was out in the backyard with me this weekend while I was doing some work trimming the bushes.  I looked over at her and noticed she was sitting quietly in the grass, combing through the soft green as if she was searching.  After a few minutes she came running up to me, eyes lit up like noon sunlight over water,

“Daddy, look what I found!”

In her hand was an actual 4 leaf clover.  Wow!  I gave her a hug and told her it was quite a find.  I told her she now would have good luck.  I told her how I had found one once, many years before, but that they are rare and hard to find.  She looked proud and ran in to put it in a safe place.

Finally, I finished my work and we were off on a previously promised walk around the parkway with her doll in a stroller.  Cam looked at me in that usual head tilted, eyes searching way that tells me immediately she has been baking a question in that constantly moving part that is her mind.

“Daddy, will I always have good luck because I found that clover?”

I looked and her and answered, and as I did it almost felt like it wasn’t me who was answering.  What I mean is it felt like someone was giving me the answer as I was speaking.  Like the universe was whispering in my ear (pssst…say this), and I did.  As a result, as I heard the words come out of my mouth, it was one of those moments as a parent where I felt like I was teaching myself as much her.

“Well honey, no matter what happens to you in life, there is always good and always bad.  If you choose to see the good in all things, then you will always be lucky”.

Now I’m a big believer in you make your own luck, and the harder you work, the luckier you get.  But I do think that bad (unlucky) things happen to everyone, and you can chose to wallow in those things, or instead you can choose to see the opportunity within the misfortune.  You can be grateful for what you have even when it seems you’ve lost a lot, and you can always consider yourself lucky.

Still a Rock Star

Yesterday my wife and I had an incredible experience.  We had an opportunity to go see Bret Michaels in concert at a small theater close to our house.  I’ve always wanted to see someone whose music I really liked in a small venue, but it’s always so difficult to do.  Word  of mouth spreads and small venues sell out quickly, or shows happen spontaneously.  If you’re not in the right place at the right time, you’re out of luck.  We happened to get lucky on this one and there we were about 20 feet from the band and loving it.

Bret Michaels and his music is a reminder of my youth.  A trip back in time to when the world seemed less complex and everything seemed possible.  That optimistic adrenaline was flowing like a powerful electric current through my veins as the day wore on leading up to the concert.  I felt like a kid again, ready to recapture my youth.

So many times when I have this attitude going in, I’m often disappointed.  I ultimately realize that there is no going back, that the past is the past, that all there is exists now. As is said in one of my favorite books “Way of the Peaceful Warrior”:

Socrates: Where are you?
Dan Millman: Here.
Socrates: What time is it?
Dan Millman: Now.

This time, something different happened, however.  No, I wasn’t able to recapture my youth, but I was able to realize something about me now.  It all started when we walked out after the concert with some friends toward our car, which happened to be right near Bret Michael’s tour bus.  We stood there talking awhile when all of a sudden my wife screamed.  I looked over my shoulder and there was Bret coming out of the stage door toward his bus.  My wife shouted “We love you Bret” and he stopped and said “I love you too”.   We walked up to him and shook his hand.  I said something about the great show as I reached forward, but Beth said something much more meaningful.  She said “Bret, you have a big heart”.

So before I go on you have to understand something about my wife.  She wasn’t a Bret Michaels fan until she saw him on the Celebrity Apprentice.  Not that she didn’t like him, she just didn’t follow him.  She was just interested in other music in the 80′s and 90′s.  She missed the bad boy, womanizing image of those years completely.  Now, she only saw him as a loving father, a supporter of the arts for kids, and a victim of diabetes who was using his fame to raise money and awareness for the cause.  Add to all that the proceeds for the show he just played all went to the venue’s performing arts school, a school my daughter goes to on a regular basis, and it becomes difficult not to agree.

Really, my view of Bret as a bad boy of rock was actually “so yesterday”. I woke up right there when he responded to Beth by saying very sincerely “Thanks so much, I really don’t hear that enough”.

I felt like I  saw him in a completely different light.  In that moment, seeing this new Bret fan in front of me, I realized that he was not the person I thought.  That he had the courage to just become the person he is no matter who he was supposed to be.  That the positive things he was doing were significant.  That everything you do for the world, all the energy that you put out there, positive or negative comes back to you many times more.  In the end, I think the secret is to change our minds about ourselves and just do what’s in our heart with belief and confidence, no matter what anyone else believes.  There was the evidence right in front of me, someone who was touched by all the positive things he was doing.  Forget the past, it was just about now.

In that moment I realized how impermanent all this is.  The bad boy image, the quest to be the most popular, the most famous, the richest…the rock star.  What comes to you in life and what’s left when you leave this place is about what you give.  Not only what you give to others, but also the permission, strength, maturity and awareness that you work to give to yourself to see the world as a place that needs you.  I think Bret has figured that out.  Good for him, and us.