Mindfulness – in practice

I could eat oatmeal every morning and a hummus wrap for lunch for the rest of my life and revel in the sameness. I thrive on predictability and continuity.

To say that recent changes have upset my apple cart is far too mild. My apple cart lost its wheels and is lying in a ditch upside down by the side of the road. Rather than predictability and continuity, change and impermanence have settled in as uninvited guests, and as Ben Franklin once said, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.”

In October I retired from a teaching career that spanned 33 years. Shortly afterward we lost Darrell’s dad to Lou Gehrig’s disease, and my sweet husband, squeaky clean inside and out, has recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Just writing the words, seeing them in print, jars me.

I’m feeling the deep ache of fragility and I’m not sure whether that vulnerability scares me or pushes me deeper into my practice of coming back over and over again to the present moment. This moment.

Grappling with the notion of change has brought tender moments of loss in the past months but that’s not the whole of it.

Change has also erased the need to spend hours on lesson planning and made room, instead, for long mornings in pajamas to read, write, and linger over coffee.

Change has made our once sagging farmhouse into a welcoming homestead.

Change has seen my children (thankfully!) grow out of their teenage years into adulthood with little pirates of their own now climbing into our treehouse.

All good things, right?  Still, if life were served buffet style there are things in front of me now that I wouldn’t have chosen to put on my plate.

Sitting quietly in morning meditation, I feel grateful for the slow steady progress of my practice over the years.  I’ve become adept at watching my thoughts and feelings morph and change. I weep easily and often over things I can’t quite put my finger on and then just like that there is an ease in my breath and I feel the sunlight again on my face.

I see the changing nature of things just looking out the window: the rising sun inevitably sets, the sap runs in our giant maples for only a few precious weeks, rainbows make fleeting appearances after a storm and then dissipate.

The concept of impermanence has long roots in Buddhist traditions and is calling attention to itself everywhere I look. Glancing in the mirror I note changing hues of gray in my hair that Darrell affectionately likens to sheep’s wool. I forgive him this transgression only because I have seen beautiful tapestries come off his loom in those heathered shades he so loves.

Even during an early-season heatwave last June as I was wilting alongside my nearly-three-year-old grandson I couldn’t help contemplating impermanence. Hudson caught me in a side-ways glance at the same time he spotted the oversized sticks of colored chalk. “How ’bout you draw somefin’ for me, Grandma?” he chirped.

Eyes wide, he began oooh-ing over the dragons, dinosaurs, and rainbows taking shape. When he couldn’t help it any longer he scooped up the blue chalk and began coloring.

It would have been easy to label what he was doing as simply scribbling, but Huddy was intent; taking his artwork as seriously as I’d taken mine. I watched each of my drawings disappear into a swirling cloud of chalk dust. 

Long after he’d been packed up for home, I settled into one of the Adirondack chairs by the garden to look through the photos.

I had what I can only label as a heart swell – a full sensory embodiment of what it is to be a grandson and grandma, together. The rain would eventually wash the table clean erasing all evidence that dinosaurs had once trampled there but nearly a year later I still feel the heart swell. 

I guess change has to sweep through in order to make room for what is to come even if we don’t get to pick and choose what that is.  Darrell and I have both felt the pain of loss but we can’t lose sight of the joy we often discover unexpectedly along the way.

These days I’m trying to allow for all of it knowing that if things like love and happiness shift and change then hatred and sorrow can, too.  Everything is fluid and maybe that’s where hope comes in.

I recently found a quote by Leo Buscaglia that I had tucked into an old journal decades ago which feels as relevant to me now as it must have then.

“Life is a great and wondrous mystery,” he wrote, “and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now.  Don’t miss it.“

Though things always seem to be just passing through, today I’m carrying the word gratitude close to my heart.  I would love to hear one word you’re holding close in the comments below!

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If you’re interested in starting a mindfulness/meditation practice of your own, I’m available as a coach and happy to meet with you, virtually or in person if circumstances allow, to talk about possibilities!  Contact me at mindfulnessinpractice@rochester.rr.com