Finding a Tribe of My Own

I found a tribe.   They are quirky, blue monkeys in a brown monkey world.  This would be their chosen birthday cake.

Book Cake

Book Cake

So many are living my dream.  A dream of writing and publishing a book.  The most recent was LaDonna Cole.  Tornados play a prominent role in her book, “Torn”.  She sent me this.

The Torn and a Tornado in a Bottle
Could I receive a cooler gift from an author?

Clutching the book to my heart as her heartfelt, handwritten dedication took root, I stood crying in my kitchen.  I was so proud.  So proud because I knew some of the tornadoes she braved to bring the book to life.  My heart swelled too because I know her.  I really know her.  Though I have only met her twice,  I’m in her tribe and she is in mine.

Today there was an oddly shaped package in the pile of online purchased holiday surprises.  Sent by Stephanie Pazicni Karfelt, author of WOA, Warrior of the Ages. 

Prophetic Labels

A package to Kimberly Robertson, “The Famous Writer”

I clutched this package to my heart too.  For it spoke to my deepest desire and made me giggle.  The contents are a silly, awesome, quirky addition which will surprise and delight all my family.  She sent it, priority mail, because I am in her tribe and she is in mine.  We’ve only met twice.

Most of my life I have felt like an orphan.  To be sure I was blessed with a mother and father, yet I remained rootless in my heart.  Restlessness was a paper cut to my heart, shallow enough not to be lethal, deep enough to hurt.

Quietly, surprisingly, I have found a tribe of my own.  They are authors, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.  Not all are published, still many are writers.  Some are older, wiser mensches whose pearls of wisdom are precious.  Some are my age, old enough to know better and young enough to sometimes not care.  I could be the mother of one, and she never reminds me.  Not all are writing, they, like me, have worthy causes which pull them from their words. Yet they find moments to text or FB or to send silly surprises.

Tonight I am thankful for this wordy tribe who has found me.  I can rest my tired heart on their shoulders and wrap my hopes around their successes.  They make me feel less like an orphan and more like a whole person who can live abundantly.

I’m thankful you are in my virtual tribe by reading this blog.  Who is in your tribe? I’d like to know.

Thankfullessmoreabundantly

Things I Would Be Thankful to Have Less of:

–Cancer steals the life of the one with the diagnosis and rips away pieces of the lives of all those who love and care for them.

–Jeans Size, seriously if the junk in my trunk expands any further I’ll need my own zip code.

–Stuff, which at one point I thought I needed and then forgot why I needed it and now just stare at and wonder how it came to rest underfoot.

Things  I Am Thankful to Have More of:

–Time with the one with cancer. We are months ahead of the curve, every day is a bonus

–Comfy Wool Socks in the frozen hinterlands where I live, obnoxious wool socks are the difference between a cranky night and cozy one.

Warm, wooly socks. Image courtesy of http://www.clker.com

–Faith is a precious commodity I ceded to bitterness and an attitude with God because things didn’t go my way (an understatement-they didn’t just go another way, they stomped on my heart and stole my life).  Faith is nibbling at the crusty, hard baked shell around my spirit.  Would like to have more of it.

Things I am Thankful to Have in Abundance:

–Laughter at and with my kids, they are so weird they make me feel normal.

–Friends who text when I can’t remember how to turn the phone on and who always ask me how I am because they truly want to know.

–You reading my blog.  Of late I am learning harsh lessons on the value of time, sharing yours with me is a gift for which I will always be thankful.

What would you be thankful for less of, more of or have in abundance?  I want to read what you write too.

Testing Your Limits Until They Are Torn

In my last entry I wrote about the movie, “Desert Runners”, which followed a group of ultra-marathoners who were running 100+ miles across four of the earth’s deserts.  Jaime, one of the runners, knew his limits so well he was able to recover from seeming devastation of dehydration and finish his race.

 

“The only way to truly know yourself is to know your limits.  You never know your limits if you never test them.” (Thanks KJC for the inspirational comment.)

 

Testing your limits means reaching the ends of them.  When was the last I reached the ends of mine?  When was the last time I even came close?  Never.  Honestly never.

 

Oh, I’ve been pushed to my emotional limits, more than once.  Buried those I’ve only begun to forgive.  Seen more dream opportunities evaporate in the heat of politics.  Watched helplessly as friendships withered on the vine devoid of attention or honesty.  Emotional and relational limits which reduced me to tears in a corner, weren’t of my choosing.  Those come and go and will certainly come again.  The morning always comes and the sun always rises.

 

I’m talking about choosing to test your limits with only two possible results-a glorious finish or a colossal failure.   I haven’t done that…yet.

 

I know someone who did.  A woman I am proud to call my friend, LaDonna Cole. 

Seriously, she's this beautiful on the inside too.
Author LaDonna Cole

She wrote a young adult novel in three weeks.  Seriously, she wrote 80,000+ words in 21 days.  How is that for a glorious finish?

Her book, The Torn,  launches today. 

The Torn by LaDonna Cole
The Torn by LaDonna Cole

It deals with young people who are testing their limits, spiritually, emotionally and physically.  Quite frankly, it’s a righteously cool spiritual allegory.  Good fun, gasp-worthy adventure and butterflies in your heart romance.  I was lost in the sphere of the well-written prose, the pitch perfect pacing and vivid characters. 

 

It makes me want to test my own limits.  Not sure where or when. 

Just sure it will be soon.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

The sphere has landed! Welcome to the next jump in the adventure. Leave a comment on this page and collect the item for your survival pack.

 

Take this “item” with you, (write it down or copy/paste into a doc):

How many weeks did it take LaDonna Cole to write “The Torn”?

(Hint:  The answer is in this blog.)

 

Screeeeech! The sphere is coming! Your next stop is:

 

http://facebook.com/rmharnist

 

If this was your first and now is your last stop, go to www.facebook.com/LaDonnaColeAuthor where The Torn release party is going on! Enter all of your answers into a comment under the pinned post, Falling Spheres, for a chance to win the Grand Prize package.

 

www.heartworkvillage.com

www.facebook.com/LaDonnaColeAuthor

www.immortalportals.wordpress.com

http://ladonnacolern.wix.com/ladonna-cole

Run the Race

Over lunch, at our favorite hipster hole in the wall, my friend RD shared her fitness goals.  Internally I snorted when she said, “If I lost 15 pounds, I would feel better.”  I wondered where she kept 15 extra pounds on her petite frame.

Eating less has been the least explored aspect of my lessmoreabundantly journey.  However, this week I began to cut some calories and sugar and mentally I felt clearer.  Emotionally, not so much, as I made the mistake of watching myself on video delivering a speech.

It was a mistake in that control top pantyhose are a misnomer.  They should be called sausage casings which merely squeeze the girth until you are shaped more like a mushroom than a woman.  Apparently I lost my neck sometime prior to the meeting.  I gestured like an octopus on crack.

Self deprecating humor aside, I realized I have no idea how I look or feel in my own body.  I have no sense of how I fill space and what I look like.

Tonight I watched a brilliant documentary called Desert Runners (check it out here: Desert Runner Movie)  It followed a group of ultra-marathoners as they ran four of the largest deserts across the globe.  In one of the scenes a 56 year old crazy Irishman was in the middle of his third desert run.  He was disoriented, vomiting and in pain-yet he still finished the race.  In fact he completed all four.  Jaime showed a remarkable ability to know how he was feeling and what he could do.  He knew his physical and emotional strengths and limits.  He knew what he could do and how to run his race.

Desert Runner Tremaine, a man who raced to raise money for a charity in honor of his wife who recently passed away

Desert Runner Tremaine, a man who raced to raise money for a charity in honor of his wife who recently passed away

The film’s Director shared the difference between those who completed and those who did not.  It was far less about being an elite athlete, which some were.  It was more about the questions they allowed themselves to ask while running the race.  Those who finished never once allowed themselves to think or speak anything other than what was the next step.  Eat, rest, drink and keep putting one foot in front of the other were the focus of their Universe.  Never finishing simply didn’t exist.

Eating less, praying more and loving abundantly each have become their own marathon demanding miles to go before I can sleep.  Crossing the finish line I’ll feel better because I will run the race.  I will take the next step.  I will finish.

What is your race?  Where do you have miles to go before you sleep?

Dear Dani

My Mother Kathy and Grandmother Ruth

My Mother Kathy and Grandmother Ruth

Dear Dani,

I watched you standing there mere inches from your mother’s casket. Waiting my turn, I sat making small talk with the lady next to me. My hands shook in my lap, clasping and unclasping in a vain attempt at calm. I remember standing next to my own mother’s casket, not too long ago.

I watched you greet people connecting to them in their grief. Already you have mastered burying your own tears in service to keep things moving. After the 20th person shared with me the life my mother had without me, I buried my own.

I watched you check on your sister and brother, looking around your husband to care for them. At once you have stepped into this role of first daughter, now the mother figure. Soon, like me, you’ll host holidays using her china, setting the table the way she did. Our china is blue and the jello salad is always green.

Your shoulders slumped when you looked at your dad. He too was doing the best he could, stopping often to touch her arm or to shake his head in disbelief. You know, as I do, he is yours now. Yours to worry about and yours to care for.

Dear Dani, if I had more than a minute to walk through the receiving line swollen by friends from a life well lived, I would have said so much more.

I would have told you not to worry how your young daughter would remember how great she was. She will know because you will tell her. She will know because in you, she will experience the love your mother so freely shared.

I would have told you to brace yourself for the wave. The wave of grief which, at the smell of a fabric softener, the cut of someone’s hair or a song, will wash over you in a tsunami of grief. Some days, the wave is banished with a breath, others it will not be so easy.

I would tell you not to ask why her and why now. The answers won’t resurrect her life, only weigh yours down.

I would tell you to forgive every fault she had and embrace every gift she was.

I would tell you so much.

As for now, dear Dani, know you are not alone. He is near the brokenhearted, He promised. From that terrible day until the day someone else stands by another casket, know you are not alone.

As my friend Beth said to me, through our tears as I shared my own mother’s passing, “Dear Dani, I can’t make things easier but is it enough to know I would if I could?”

Loomy Wisdom

You’ve seen them.  All the kids are making/wearing/stretching/trading them.  It’s the fad o’ the moment.  Loomed, plastic bracelets.

Photo Credit: charlottesmartypants.com

“Mom, do you think you could make me one of those?” my 10-year-old asked, hope tingeing his voice with irresistible little boy-ness.

“Sure!” I said.  What I thought was, I sure hope so….

I loomed, twice.  First was a disaster which had the little suckers flying across the dining room.  After a shower to calm down, I sat down for my second attempt.   Here’s a few deep thoughts o’ loomy wisdom.

Ready to loom.

Ready to loom.

We start out life in a fairly straightforward fashion.  Like this loom, every cell, every trait, our DNA is so ordered.  Sure, our finger prints and whether we will like chocolate or vanilla/coffee or tea are up for grabs.  For the most part its neat, and orderly.

As kids we take time to not only smell the flowers, but to cook them into imaginary stews or throw them on our brothers or set fire to them in the rain.

photo 2

Stop and smell the flowers!

Then it starts to get complicated.  Hormones, choices, independence, control and all the challenges of adolescence mess with the careful order of childhood.

photo 3

And then sometimes it gets dark and complicated.

The choices we make in life reverberate far into our future.  I am so thankful there wasn’t a Facebook back then.  There are more than a few ‘posts’ I am glad I can erase from memory.

However, the choices and the connections we make, for good or ill, stick with us for years.  The choices pull us in one direction or another.  Some keep us tangled up in fear.  Still others keep us still and paralyzed from connecting with anything or anyone else.

photo 5

The experiences of life color the core of who we are.

I am slowly realizing all my experiences, even the painful ones, have formed the core of who I am.  The scars have thickened my skin so I’m a tougher broad than most would realize.  There is a colorful nugget or two of wisdom I can share with others, or with myself.

As I loop my life with others intentionally and carefully, as I make new connections which will stretch me professionally and personally-I know it’s all being formed into something bigger than the sum of its parts.

It took two hours and more than one expletive, but I finished that bracelet.   I’m reminded of these sacred words, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”  This is how I hope to loop together all the pieces of my life from now until the end.  I want to fight the good fight.  I want to finish the race.  And I want to keep the faith.

The finished product.

The finished product.

 

Argue Going to Stop Arguing?

Mornings are miserable. My children have a habit where they mess up all carefully made preparations the night before.

As the morning whine began to rise, I replied to the faux teary-eyed 6 year old and grouchy 10 year old, “I am choosing not to argue with you about this.” I walked away.

It was one of the best mornings yet.

Got me thinking. What other arguments am I having in my life, my work and my spirit?

My life is messy, unpredictable and chaotic. I forget what is most important and obsess over the little things. Time to stop arguing with the chaos.

My life is a game time decision. Cancer, pre-adolescence, basketball practice and politics of a small Christian school all call audibles to my time and patience. Yet, even the best games have a playbook. I need to work on a playbook-a family playbook. Routines where it’s possible, grace where it is not. Systems where they fit and humor when it does not.

In my work I need to stop arguing points I am powerless to pursue. Better to take all that passion and pour it into doing things above expectation. Under-promise then OVER deliver, that’s an argument I can win in the Board room.

In my spirit…now this is the tough one. There are arguments birthed from my earliest memories-so thick they seem to coat my DNA. Some are arguments I’ll never scratch into a screen, they are too deep, too raw and too ugly.

Here’s one argument I’ll walk away from. God loves me…whether I like me or not…whether you like me or not.

So, dear one, ar-gue (pun intended) going to stop arguing? What will you walk away from? Share with me. And, because I don’t write it enough, thanks for letting me share with you.

Mass Musings

Image

Photo Credit: http://www.Stjudes.org

I was raised Catholic.  At 18 I became a charismatic/non-denominational nomad.  20 years later I am trying my Methodist on for size.   I have a watercolor of Jerusalem in my office from a local artist who painted it for a Jewish prayer book.  I am what you could consider a religious tradition junkie.  However, despite my vast experience and research, I am not the person you want to sit by in church.  I am naughty and a nun’s nightmare.  (During our training for First Holy Communion, one such officious soul in a habit used her ‘clicker’ next to my ear repeatedly to get me to pay attention.  I was giggling because the boy behind me kept passing gas.)

If there is a weird moment in church, I’ll notice it (or cause it).  Once I was so overcome ‘by the spirit (or religious fanaticism…hard to tell) that I came to my senses under a table adorned with 3 foot high paper mache’ grapes which I thought were so funny I laughed until I lost my voice.

Lately, my favorite moments have been when I take my Father to mass.  The last time I took him, a sweet soul in the front row answered every rhetorical question from the pulpit.

“We should seek Jesus with all we have,” said stately, dignified Priest Guy.

“Yes, we should,” said the sweet soul.

“Have you opened the door for the Lord?  For he is knocking?”

“I’ll get right on that.”

I wanted to clap and cheer her on.  Thankfully I did not.

This week, I took my Father to mass.  I should have known it was going to be one of ‘those’ services as he decided to sit up front.  Dad is on oxygen, can barely walk and has a broken volume sensor in his voice.  It went like this.

“Daddy, how ’bout we sit here?”

“Nope, don’t want to be by those kids.”  (Parents of said kids look our way as his voice echoed off the marble floors.)

“How about here?”  Nope.  Shuffle, walk, hack, shuffle.  “Here?”  Nope.  Second row.  Plunk down.

Behind us I could here the woman and her husband whispering.

“Should we tell her?” the woman said.

“No,” he replied.

“Really, I should tell her,” she insisted.

“No, dear, let her be,” he said.

This went on for about 3 minutes.  Being the curious sort, and being in church, which somehow divinely gives me license to be a little left of center, I turn around.

“What should you tell her?” I blurt out.

“Your shirt is on backwards and inside out.”

Organ music swelled and everyone stood up.  I ran to the closest door, which happens to be where the priest gets dressed.  Probably the first time a bra was flashed in that room…or maybe not.

Later, as the ministers came forward to give communion to the several hundred parishioners, Dad says this in his faux-whisper.

“She should have changed out of her pajamas before coming up to the altar!”

Apparently, the lawyer in her ever-so-chic puffy pants did little for my father’s sartorial aesthetic.  (In the interest of full disclosure, as she ascended the marble steps, I thought, “You go girl!” for her brave choice.)

The final moment which made my day was the choice to sing the Notre Dame fight song in homage to the members of the Notre Dame Club who were present at mass.  I wanted to end it by shouting, “Touchdown!”

Another reason one should not sit by me, aside from randomly fixing my clothes and laughing inappropriately,  is I sing.  I can sing pretty okay.  My volume is in proportion to the emotion behind the song.

This morning, I knew the songs so I sang them without reserve, without holding back, without fear.  I just sang.

I sang because two of the songs were my Mother’s favorite.  Along with a stubborn streak and a low tolerance for BS, my mother gave me the ability to sing.  She had one of those high, lilting, whispy voices you had to lean in to fully appreciate.  Her song was stilled three years ago.  This morning I heard her voice, singing with mine, in my heart.

After one of those songs, my father wiped his teary eyes and said, “Beautiful!  So beautiful.”  He wasn’t talking about the pajama puffy pants.  He was talking about me.

I’m taking that moment and folding it in my heart forever.  I’ll remember the inside out shirt, the thunk of his oxygen tank on the pew and the hideous orange pants.  I’ll remember his cold hand in mine as I sang.  I’m sure he heard her too.

Image

My mother and father before they got married in 1968.

Right Where You Are Is Right

Recently I traveled for a conference for work.  As I entered my room, something stopped me.  Frozen in place I saw I had been given a suite, with a sitting room, a galley kitchenette and separate bedroom.  I reached for my cell phone, ready to call my boss, convinced I had been given the wrong room.

I said aloud, “I belong in this room.”  Taking a deep breath I then began to unpack.

It’s not that I believe I need to have the best of the best of everything.  I’m not that complicated a gal.  However, my recoiling at a nice hotel room betrayed a deeper identity issue.  I don’t believe I am worthy of anything.

Eating less, praying more and loving abundantly must begin in me first.  Otherwise, I’m staring at the back of the mirror I’m holding in front of you.

For too long I was caught in the tyranny of the future.  I hated so much the dizzying array of random heartaches and stupid decisions that I lived for tomorrow-for it just HAD to be better.

It meant I have rarely been satisfied with where I am-right now.  I looked over the heads of my boys as they grew, focusing on how I would pay for their college or be able to buy a home where they don’t have to share a bedroom.  I looked around my husband and minimized his suffering through the same heartaches as I. 

Standing in that hotel room, I made a decision.  I made a decision to belong right where I am, wherever that may be.  I would drag my eyes from the horizon and really focus on what is around me.  A co-worker stepping into their own professionally.  A son apologizing, on his own, for being a smart ass.  A husband sharing his heart and it’s aches over appetizers in his favorite sports bar.  My father’s shaking hand in mine as I guide him to bed.

Surrounded by markers and crayons, the casualties of overdue 4th grade reading projects, the last thing I wanted to do was write.  Yet, this blog I have carried for nearly 3 weeks and I’m tired.  I want to make room for other ideas or for a dreamless sleep.  Some of those ideas will be shot down (I’m 0 for 2 at work this week) and some will not.  Either way, there will be a place for them to land.

Right where I am is right, for me.  Share where is right for you.  I would love to hear about it.

Towel Sculptures

From the last fancy, shmancy hotel I stayed in. I didn’t use it. I named him George and turned his ‘head’ when I dressed.

 

It’s Over. Now START.

I have in my possession the scariest book I have ever beheld.  I left it in the smiley amazon box for three days on the washer; because to open it was to acknowledge a reality in my life.

I had an epiphany, a revelation, a ‘what-the-what?’, a moment of inspiration, a whisper from the heart of God, the results of more than 4 hours sleep in a row-an idea.

I keep failing at my goals because I keep starting over. 

I’m finished before I start.

By continually starting over, I am reviewing steps I took to eat less, pray more and love abundantly. I am doing over what has already been done.  I am eating a meal already chewed…eww…too far…

By always starting over I completely discount that I have lived and learned.  I have been scarred and scorned.  I have been harmed and healed.  My feet are calloused from walking around these mountains.  My forehead is bruised from bumping into the walls of the canyons.

I can’t start over any more than I can go again into my Mother’s womb and be born.

What I can do is start; right where I am.  Scars and all.  I can start.  To be honest, I am terrified.

The book which started it all (pun intended)?

Punch fear in the face. Escape average. Do work that matters. Average-Awesome

Punch fear in the face. Escape average. Do work that matters. Average-Awesome

What drew me, besides divine intervention to get on with it already, was the author’s profligate use of the word ‘awesome’.  I love awesome.  I love awesomesauce.  I use awesome unashamedly.

I want to move from average to awesome.  I can’t unless I start.

There is no magic formula.  No pill or meditation to repeat.  I simply must start.

How will I start?  By doing something.  For tonight, it meant writing this blog.  Tomorrow?  Who knows what I will start.  One thing I know is it will be something.

It’s over, this lie of trying to go back and fix and fiddle and make up for and fill the crevices and do it ‘right this time’.

It’s over.  Now I can start.

What will you do to start?  What’s the one thing which terrifies you the most, but you feel your spirit whispering you need to do?

Want to have a reading group around the book, “Start” by Jon Acuff?  Let me know.  Accountability is something I am starting too and would love to share this part of the journey with you.