What's Behind Door Number Three?

There’s an old quote I’ve hung onto for the past couple of years that says, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.” (Alexander Graham Bell)

I feel like this week has made me take a long, hard look at myself and how much energy I continue to waste staring at the old knobs of the doors which have closed.  Or worse, how much time and effort I’ve spent pulling on a locked handle;  pushing, wailing, screaming, wishing my brute force could create the desired effect.  This morning I woke up thinking how ridiculous it seems, watching myself from the outside in. 

A few months ago I challenged myself to do one thing each day that propels me forward.  Something intentional, deliberate before I allow myself to fall asleep at night.  Make the time and twist it around to form itself to my will, a way to move toward a desired outcome.  I’ve spent years studying others beliefs and ideas that life is an illusion, that we create our own environments, our own worlds.  Now is the time to begin putting it into practice, into motion and into action.  And it’s a bit uncomfortable.  Mainly because I’ve taught myself over and over that what’s real is what’s behind the closed doors.  The shift of expecting something more miraculous and more fulfilling coming my way, or of discovering something more powerful and more beautiful than what has been is a bit hard for me to embrace.  Yet life has brought me to the point of realizing that maybe it’s time to leave fear behind and begin opening the doors I’ve been ignoring or too afraid to explore.

I haven’t yet conquered losses.  Maybe we’re not supposed to.  I haven’t figured out how to keep from crying when I see certain things, certain places, certain people.  Haven’t yet mastered my own heart.  But what dawned on me (kind of like a lightning bolt) this morning is that I can either dwell and keep putting energy into rooms that don’t serve my life, waste time and thought and tears… or I can repackage that amount of “umph” and I can project it onward, upward and outward and spend the time improving life.

How much potential can we unlock if we learn to stop allowing a draining of our “natural resources”… our personal energies?  If I can effectively recognize when those times happen, when I start remaining stuck or frozen, or get pulled backwards, then pull myself around and anticipate the hidden power of what’s behind another door, I uncap endless possibilities, an endless amount of unexplored options and life becomes my ocean rather than my chains.  And suddenly I'm a pirate sailing through an exciting, ever changing sea rather than a turtle stuck inside its own shell, too afraid to come out.  Ahoy!

Do Things Happen For a Reason?

Half my friends say and firmly believe, yes... everything happens for a reason.
The other half...  "nah".  It's all by chance.

I keep trying to figure out which I believe in...  maybe neither.  Maybe both.

But what I do know is this, life happens.  Moments stack on top of moments and we are changed.  Sometimes profoundly... other times, a small seed is planted and doesn't really nudge at us until years later, when we realize that little element of hope sprouted and grew while we weren't watching or cultivating.

For the first time, I think I've mentioned this before, for the first time in my life I am taking one day at a time.  No expectations for my future.  No solid game plan.  In a way, and I don't mean to sound dark or bleak or morbid, but in a way, I honestly think life broke me into pieces.  I think to a large degree at least once or twice in our lives it does that with us all.  My friend Justin would remind me that there are moments, in fact, each second where we die and are reborn again. 

Sometimes I look at my mom, knowing she doesn't feel the "same", often times doesn't feel "normal", more often I'm sure she is afraid and confused a lot.  I look at her and I see my own reflection to an extent.  But there is something incredibly freeing when you are in a state of complete "absence of".  A place where you have either willingly or unwillingly had to release more than you ever thought you could.  Let go of your identity.  Let go of things that once comforted and felt secure.  Let go of home base.  Let go of all the expecteds that once felt like they guided you in the direction you thought you were meant to travel.  Let go.  Let go.  Let go.

I think mom and I are maybe designed to help one another through that process and reach the point where a friend reminded me yesterday of "flying".  Expanding so much because of what has been added as replacement to what is lost that you can't help feeling the exhilaration of the free fall and the rush of wind, air, LIFE that starts being the thing that grounds you and makes you feel completed and pieced together in a new mosaic of perfect design.

Maybe sometimes it's best not to set a course for yourself.  It's too limiting and stifles the ability to find endless possibility.  Breathe deep, Rhonda.  Breathe deeply, friends.  Fill your lungs with joy and with life and love.

Falling Into Place

Job interview soon.  An opening, hopefully, into a place I see myself being involved with for a long time.  The Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oregon.  Either way, whether I work there or whether I volunteer there, the idea feels like a "finding of myself" or a return to my true nature. 

When I started Dumpster Diving (and before while I was making the choice to come and be closer to my mother), I had no idea so much more would unfold, and so quickly.  What I'm finding is that there are things very hard for me to write about.  Certain situations that I didn't count on experiencing, had no way of predicting.  Hard stuff that is tied in so emotionally for me that the words illude me.  I try to type, and I'm struck with the heaviness of what I see and feel.  My mind goes blank.

I realized this morning, that regardless of circumstance and situation, everything almost always falls into place.  Even when the beginning feels like being shoved from a plane and the fall seems without a parachute or a net.  Even when the landing gets tricky, bumpy or harsh.

My mom and stepdad are struggling.  Of course.  My mother suffered a stroke a year and a half ago, which prompted the onset of Azheimer's.  My stepdad has really bad knees, high blood pressure, diabetes (complete with daily insulin shots), back issues.  Day after day he does his best.  Goes to work, gives it 150%.  Takes care of my mom.  Medical bills mount.  Water heater breaks.  Car troubles.  There's this sliding backwards effect that takes place... takes its hold.  Month after month becomes harder to make ends meet.  A proud man finding himself facing life's hardships in a way he never anticipated.  Making decisions that go against his belief systems and his hopes and dreams for his and her lives. Tough stuff.  But what I see is this:  my parents are made of "tougher".  Still they rise.  Still they forge ahead.  Still they march on, accepting what is, trying their best, and giving life all they know how to give.  Sometimes I think people aren't made of flesh, bones and blood.  But rather steel.  Or maybe gold.  I'm amazed at the armor that sometimes takes shape and assists us through what is hurled our direction.  Watching them from the sidelines, or through the embraces of hugs when possible, I feel completely helpless.  And faced with a decision.  I either let what is crushing them slowly crush me completely down... or I stand tall, with shoulders back and chin up, like their example.  And keep reminding myself that we all fall into place.  Always.  The landing spot might not be where we intended or how.  But nothing gets the best of us if we don't allow that result.  Nothing robs or ruins us unless we allow ourselves to be robbed or ruined.  Fall and rise.  Rise and fall.  All part of the game we're playing as inhabitants in this place. 

My son recently reminded me during a time when I was completely panicked and stressing about something totally out of my control that we should all be prepared each and every day to just "be surprised".  I had asked him to help me "see the funny" in the situation I was experiencing.  Hoping to lighten myself up a bit.  After a few minutes of thinking... he came up with that response, which at the time didn't seem humorous at all.  Until later, when my sister and I were travelling together and uncomfortable situations would happen and we'd look at each other and both yell, "Be surprised!!!"  I found myself able to laugh off the stresses.  Put things in perspective.  Giggle rather than cry.

Sometimes I think that is why I made the choice to come to this place.  To help my mom and I (and the rest of the family) find some kind of lightness and ability to keep grinning even when the darkness settles in.

Charge

I've been pouring through monologues, stretching once again, pushing myself to learn lines and practice pretending to be someone else.  One that I'm especially drawn to is by a character from a play by Eric Kaiser called "Charge".  In it, Martha is basically wishing her life could be like the stories in songs... stories where people suddenly realize their life needs to change, and then it changes within the span of three minute's worth of music.  She leads you into that short, yet completely transforming process, through making choices and seeing things in a new way, quickly.

I think about how powerful it is when a person realizes they need to charge forward into life.  I know several people who have lived that example.  People who have inspired me to dive and leap and twist and stretch more than I ever dreamed I could.  It's such a scary thing to do; no guarantees, no reassurances that what is waiting on the other side is something better.  I've thought about how life makes the choices for us... sometimes too quickly, too unexpectedly.  And we're left feeling like we have no options or we didn't have a warning sign or time in which to deal with all the emotional upheavals.  I sometimes think a person gets to a point, eventually, after either one such event... or a series of like events... where they feel propelled into.  Pushed forward, even though they might not have thought they wanted to go in that direction. 

I'm finding it incredibly amazing what happens when you decide to listen to your heart, let go of your fears, rise through your insecurities, take charge, grasp the unknown and hang onto nothing but your boot straps.  Surround yourself with the kind of people who value your worth.  Who genuinely believe in you.
Those who help you find your inner compass that tugs and nudges, lighting the way through any darkness.

Life humbles us.
It reshapes us.
It takes us on this ride that sometimes feels like we're hanging upside down.
Life.

Life.
Just saying it seems to evoke something deep inside that makes me want to open my arms as wide as they can open and run into it as fast and as long as I am able.

Three minutes.  That IS all it takes sometimes.  The length of one beautiful song.  Decisions made.  A breath taken.  A heart beat.  A turning point.  A recognition.  A realization.  A shift.

Charge!!!  And keep charging....

Gracefully Rise

Today was another typical day.
Got up, searched for potential jobs, gave myself a pep talk, filled out apps, sent in resumes. 

Not once have I doubted that something will come along.  Even with my mind wide open to the realities around me.  I tell myself if I can't find something, I'll manage to create my own thing, carve out my own niche.

But it is honestly scary - what my eyes see and my ears hear.  And because I have a roof over my head and food to eat, I continue to feel safe.  But sadly, too many around me don't.

Every day since moving here, I keep overhearing the same story.

A husband with tears in his eyes explaining his wife is out of work.  He is out of work.  He's been diligently trying to find something for two years and is tired of trying.  He would do anything, but can't get hired.  He tries to be creative.  Tries selling artwork.  Gets turned away time after time and is totally desperate and not sure how he is going to feed his family, let alone keep them clothed, in school and warm this winter.  At this point, he would be grateful to be flipping burgers at McDonald's, but he can't even get in there.

A man sitting with a minister at Starbucks, pouring out his heart about how humbling it is that he is having to ask for a loan.  He has tried every other option and can't take care of his family.  He tells his resume list of things he has done in the past, things he is qualified for.  But nothing is falling into place.  And he is frantic and this, he believes is his last resort.

And then I look across the table at my mom.  Here's a lady who raised four kids without much help at all.  Four different jobs, including one winter of shoveling snow off of walks and driveways for pennies, going door to door with her daughter by her side, freezing and shivering in the cold, thankful for every dollar added.  A mom who was never home, hardly ever able to attend school events because if she wasn't waiting tables or pumping gas, she was so exhausted she couldn't keep her head up.  Worlds away, so long ago.  Yet staring me blatantly in the face again, only this is a different time and a different place, different players around me.

I grew up knowing the kind of poverty I'm witnessing here. 
The fear of not knowing from where the next meal was coming.  If there would be a meal.  That kind of fear is, in my mind, the most powerful kind of fear.  Panic. 

We come from a land of plenty, but we've managed to get ourselves into this place.  Into this loop of bad karma.  I have never felt more connected to my fellow man and woman than I do living in the northwest.  I felt it when I saw a woman shoving free peanuts in her pockets, filling them so full that they kept falling out on the floor, embarrassing her as she tried to nonchalantly work her way towards the door.  I felt woven to her by an invisible thread.  Cause and effect, effect and cause.  When one member falters, we all falter.  When one child goes hungry, we all go hungry.

I find myself feeling guilty to some degree that I always feel hopeful.  That I have this built in trust that in one way or another, life will unfold and something will come along.  The "best for me" thing will eventually present itself.  The "best for you" thing will find its way to you. 

That doesn't take away reality.  It doesn't make anything easier.  Doesn't help me sleep sometimes at night.  And I definitely don't have answers for myself or others.  But I'll continue carrying the torch of hope.  Keep encouraging those along the way, whose paths cross mine for one reason or another.

What I have to wonder, though, is if a sense of hope allows for an energetic charge within and without that somehow beckons and calls in the "good"... or at least the "essential".  I'm putting it to the test.  The gift my mother shared with me.  Call it determination or blind faith.  And I might be singing a different song in a few months. 

I've thought how it seems we sometimes "fall from grace".  And I deliberately tell myself to flip it around and make sure I "gracefully fall".  Knowing there will eventually be a net below that catches. 

At the end of the day, I'm happy.  I'm loved.  I'm healthy.  I'm capable of movement.
I'm thankful.

Tide Dance

Reading through some things that I've written in the past, I came across one that just about brought me to my knees this morning.  I wrote it right after I realized mom had suffered a stroke, after which we were all informed that her brain will no longer be the same.  At that moment, I felt the loss of my mother.  The woman I had known better than any other person on this planet, the woman who knows me better than anyone else knows me.  She had always been my inconsistent constant.  (Our mom wasn't always the type who would send out cards or make phone calls on a regular basis, but when we needed her wisdom or advice, we knew all we had to do was get in touch and she would have the magic words to help guide us through.)  She had always seemed like my very best friend.  And she always made me laugh.

I wrote words that came to me through the pain of knowing - and those words were raw and completely hurled from my heart and mind into my computer.  Angry.  Distraught.  Mad at the world.  Mad at "God".

I was amazed to see how far I've come from being there.... buried in complete misery and self pity.  And so many life events have happened in between that time and the present.  Everything, everything, everything is so temporary.

Somehow, slowly over the months, there has been a shift within.  And I now look forward to meeting my mother all over again.  Each time I am with her, I get the joy of finding out who she is.  In that moment, on that day.  I can't rely on her to be the one I've always thought I knew.  I can't depend on her being silly or calm or laughing or crying.  It's all a surprise. 

I saw her over the weekend and played a video of a song I had recorded/sung on my iPhone.  And my mother, who now has fewer and fewer inhabitions, started dancing unlike I've ever seen my mother dance.  She got completely carried away in the sound of my voice singing and I was completely moved by her reaction.  Moved by how beautiful she appeared in that moment, outside - mountains surrounding us, tall trees encircling us, green grass under our feet and a big beautiful blue sky above us.  There were other people nearby watching their kids' soccer games, but she and I were all alone sharing something I will treasure the rest of my life.

Do we ever REALLY know one another completely?  My mother's experience is teaching me that we all change constantly.  Sometimes the changes are soft and subtle, but once in awhile drastic enters in and the changes seem harsh and difficult, sudden and unexpected.  If we can incorporate honoring that simple little fact, that I am never ever the same me and you are never ever the same you, that we are this constantly changing ball of energy, motion, physical form - maybe marriages would last longer, relationships would grow with such intensity that there wouldn't be room for negatives to invade and bombard.  Just a thought.  I used to get completely depressed, so bad that I thought there would never be a way out.  Somewhere along the way, I've learned that it all goes away.  It all comes back.  There's this phenomenal ebb and flow, "tide dance" of emotions that we all experience.  And when you can find yourself dancing with and to that motion, all of a sudden it doesn't swallow you and take you out to sea or pull you under.  But rather, it gives you freedom to move, to sway, to feel gracious and empowered, and carried.

I love meeting my mom for the first time each time I see her now.
And THAT... is gifting me with an ability to meet people in a new way... all people, those I thought I had known forever and those new acquaintances who enter in each day.

"Life is either a daring adventure....  or nothing."  ~Helen Keller

Boxes Inside of Boxes

During my session with Dr. Kojis (chiropractor) this morning I realized how tense my neck muscles were.  Something I’m used to dealing with in my own clients and was kind of surprised to find considering I thought I wasn’t very tense. 

As little children, we’re programmed by parents, grandparents, adult influences in our lives.  We’re told to calm down, restrict our enthusiasm, hold back our tears, be quiet.  Don’t be too excited, don’t be too upset.  We’re taught at an early age to control as much as we can.  Control our surroundings.  Control our emotions.  And control others.

All the “controlling” we manage for ourselves locks us up, chains us and manifests in our bodies physically if we aren’t careful.  In our muscles, our tendons, fascia tissue, our organs, our blood stream, our cells.

I used to love spending hours and hours just listening to the sounds my mom’s old piano created when the keys were struck.  I would take the piano apart and watch the vibration of the strings from the strike on out and through.  From as young as I can remember, I was totally fascinated and eventually learned how to control the piano.  I would play for hours.  Especially when life seemed rough around the edges; which quite often were the times when my dad would come home drunk and angry.  I would escape into my music. And then get yelled at for being too loud.  Shut up.  Control and stifle what wanted to be free flowing, what NEEDED to be free flowing.   I responded by adopting “quiet” and stillness as part of my nature.  Even when I wanted to scream.  When I wanted to shout.  When I wanted to sing for the whole world, I found a way to sing softly… supporting others, blending myself into the background. 

We box ourselves in.

Then layer the boxes. 

While Kojis’s hands energetically lifted my soul and created a better balance within the structural part of me, my own healing response took me through layer after layer of packaging.  Layer upon layer of “control this, control that”.  And I came out of it all wanting to open them one by one and be appreciative for the gifts inside.  Rather than smashing them open, as I think we tend to try to do during the healing of the body, mind and spirit, I found a power in opening up the parts that need open just like I would a Christmas present… only all these little gifts are wrapped up by life through us, uniquely because of us and our reactions. 

Some people, especially those who study and practice Asian modalities, talk about healing being like a lotus flower; layers opening up to reveal a more healthy, more authentic person underneath.  I’ve always viewed it as a painful process.  Today, though, I saw it as a beautiful, freeing process.  One that gives us the power to stop trying to control and simply allow ourselves to be and to experience life more deeply, more richly.  A way to open up and release into grander living.