travel

mapmaking.

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How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?

I read these words yesterday, from a book given to me for my birthday from Carl’s sister, Christine. We were sitting on the bleachers of an indoor pool watching her kids swim when she gave it to me. For an entire hour, we were suspended. Held in an 80 degree tropical paradise. The white noise of splashing kids, an industrial air system and a whole pool full of water sounds. I wished I could bring a thick pile of blankets and pillows and books and stay there forever. I would have liked to make my new home in the far corner of the upper-most bleacher. But eventually we were spit back out into the cold winter night. It was a nice reprieve while it lasted. And anyway, now I had this new book to carry back into the world with me. It looked good. It held promise. It’s title? One Thousand Gifts (by Ann Voskamp). The cover has an image of a woman’s hands cradling a nest with two pale blue eggs held in its center.

Yesterday. Yesterday was a soft, but privately dangerous place. Dangerous only because I felt no desire. For anything. I ate a few chips. I repeatedly crawled into bed. I stayed in my pajamas all day. When I finally took a bath and got dressed at 8pm, I ran an errand and then went back to bed in my clothes. Ok, fine. Some days are going to be like this. But something inside of me knows that this can’t go on forever. It’s a comfortable place almost safe from panic, but creating its own form of anxiety, the kind that grows until it’s capable of locking its jaws around you. It’s a place where, if you stay there too long, things begin to die. This is, of course, the exquisite danger. It is a pallid place.

But inside this dangerous landscape I found something good. It’s a barren place stripped of all pretense, false ambitions and external expectations. Nothing matters and I realize that there is a tremendous amount of freedom in that. Since Carl died, there is only me, the shell of me. In all this nakedness, I am stripped even more bare. There is only one thing and that is the ground beneath my feet (if even that). There is also the great expanse of my future. Everything needs to be rebuilt. I have nothing. This can look any way I want it to. But first I need to be willing to build. It’s up to me to decide if I want to live fully or just empty.

Living empty is easier. Or maybe it’s just the best place to start. From this empty place, I am crying myself clean.

I can do this, right? I can pick myself up and move on. But first I need to extricate myself from this sticky web of grief. Herein lies the conundrum. At least for now. And in this now, it seems I am only capable of one thing…and that is surrendering myself to this quiet mapmaking. I’m impatient to get control over my life again. It’s impossible. I have bills to pay and animals to feed. I get scared. I don’t know how to tell this story. It’s too intricate. It’s too simple. It’s too beautiful. It’s too pathetic. For now, I’m caught in an actionless Neverland, a middle-of-nowhere. The only way out is to give myself what I need. This requires exorbitant amounts of faith (sometimes more than I have). It requires, more than anything, that I keep one finger, or even one strand of hair, on the pulse of hope.

Over and over and over my mind finds its way to the incredible plans that Carl and I had together. I can feel something inside of me, something that was inscribed onto my spirit before I even entered this world. It tugs on me even when I want to be left alone under the covers. It’s been running the course of my whole life and holds the same story that led Carl and I together. It is made of steep mountains and risks. It is bigger than either one of us. It always was. And we both knew it.

I want to run towards it and away from it, all in one breath.

I play with the threads of this pull. I unravel and braid and weave entirely half-crocked scenarios of outcomes and possibilities. It’s pointless and good. It’s like the weather. There’s a lot less control over it than we attempted to believe. We wove a sail, little more. We pointed our boat in the direction we hoped to go, but the rest, all along, was up to the wind.

As I write, I begin feeling like I’m talking gibberish. It’s all gibberish until I bump up against something real. And what’s real, anyway? My love for Carl is real. This unseen phenomenon that I feel pulled towards, that is real.

Last summer, Carl and I went on a trip to the farthest reaches of northern Minnesota. We took back roads all the way there and back and everywhere in between. We reveled in being such good traveling companions, both favoring the roads less traveled. We sometimes drove slow to make it last longer. He looked out his window looking for blueberries. I looked out my window looking for strawberries. It was a hot dusty day, windows down. We laughed when we realized what the other was doing. We had driven far off the main roads onto dirt roads that led us off the map and, from there, we bumped and scraped our way down unused and overgrown logging trails. We loved it. There was a sense between both of us that this is what our whole gorgeous life would look like…this open-hearted willingness to explore, fearlessly, together.

And so we are. Even after death, so we are.

I have work to do, but I’m still map-making. I write my way to acceptance of this. And I know my clients will understand because I’ve attracted them into my life for a reason. I cry with gratitude for their presence and their understanding. As I write this, I take a deeper breath than I have since visiting the pool.

Again, I ask myself, “How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?”

And I realize that I’ve been doing it all along. I lean into a dream that I had yesterday. It was early evening when, after being struck by the gravity of that question, I felt a sudden need for sleep. In the dream, I was talking with God and Carl. Their voices were soft, optimistic, calmly eager, gently smiling, as if making great plans while trying not to wake the baby. I don’t remember what they said to me, but it was good, comforting. I was a hundred percent in on it. It was, very definitely, the best dream I’ve ever had.

I took this photo during that summertime adventure with Carl. But now I’m realizing that was only the beginning. We’ve already traveled far, far, far off the map and, in my heart, I know I need to rest up for whatever is ahead. I need to heal because this is going to be a very incredible journey. It’s a journey that started a long time ago. For now, I just need this resting spot. Just for a moment. Let there be this peace. Let there be this sense of believing. Please God, let my energy return.

I love you, Carl. You…who is always with me, always watching out for me, always ready for the next adventure.

{originally published Dec 20, 2014}

Oceans.

Sitting at the Miami airport and all I want to do is cry. I am worn and weary, smooth as stone. I play with words to avoid the jagged tears that have already begun to spill
over the edges of things. I let the sounds of song and surf soften me so that I might feel held closer to the center of something. And so…

2 things:
**this video of my last visit to the ocean earlier today
**this song that keeps me from drowning:

“Oceans”
You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep
My faith will stand

I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise my soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand
Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and you won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your Name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours and You are mine

I love you, Carl. Let me not leave without you.

{originally published Dec 10, 2014}

sipping coffee.

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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  ~1 Corinthians 13:7

…a magic sea bean found on the shelf near my bed in this sweet little guest house I’m calling home for a little while + jungle strength, my view as I sip my morning coffee. Today is soft and raining. I am grateful.

I love you, Carl. Always, I am choosing love.

grief paced like tides.

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Once again, I do not know where to begin. I have been away from the depth of this daily writing ritual for too long. Even just a few days of writing absence (replaced by short posts) makes me feel upside down and asunder. I’ve spent the past several days simply holding out for a quiet space to rest in. Traveling and Miami Beach did not offer such luxuries. There were other gifts, but time and space to give myself over to the untangling of grief was not one of them.

I am relieved to be far away from the commotion and noise of Miami. To witness my friend, Kristine, achieve such high artistic success, that is why I was there. To spend an afternoon alone at Art Basel, led by Carl through a maze of some of the most powerful artwork I have ever seen, that might have been the other reason I was there. Moved by art in ways that I have never been moved before. I was stunned into deepest silence, an inner place, at moments causing heavy orb-like tears to roll down my face. I will not forget that. It changed me, as though I were some kind of soft rock being so gently sculpted. And possibly, there are even other reasons that I was led to Miami Beach, reasons that I do not yet know or even understand.

Yesterday I picked up a rental car and got outta there. It felt good to drive–windows open–through a complicated urban jungle of Miami roads and freeways. But after awhile, even that became too much. I’m too sensitive for such loudness and movement right now. Even the air traffic flew too low and loud. Nothing felt real, everything manmade. Finally, finally, finally…the landscape gave way to a gentler kind of jungle. One made of greens and blues, golden yellows and cocoa colored browns, moss and palms, sea oaks and sunset. I found dirt roads, unexpected pastures of horses and cows, orange groves and overgrown gardens.

The roads led me all the way to a sugary sweet cottage appropriately called the Heart Bean House. On it’s front porch, in a white rocking chair, sat my dear friend, Cynthia, waiting for me. I don’t even know if we said hi, but what I do remember is that I got out of the car and she wrapped her arms around me, her hand so tenderly holding the back of my head like a small child’s, and I let myself cry in her arms until the Christmas lights adorning her house became remarkably bleary and bright.

We gathered ourselves and then walked the block and a half down to the ocean to watch the moonrise. Dear God. The heart is such a small vessel in comparison to a full moon just beginning its ascent over such a salty sea. I felt peace. Utterly. The ocean, so full that it seemed a miracle that it didn’t just completely overflow. And it did. We walked along the moon bright beach for a long time, until the incoming tide began washing all the way up to our legs. A mysterious lunar pattern of waves…coming in just a little higher each time, then rushing back towards the moon with dizzying speed. The motion, much like Carl’s current presence of spirit and, at the same time, so similar to his swift exit from this earthly place. An ebb and flow. The tide, a rhythm that simultaneously, contrastively buoys and then steals the ground out from underneath. We walked and, as we did, I accepted this motion for what it is. It is what it is. I felt peaceful. Somehow held by something uncontainable. How that much salt-swelled water doesn’t just spill over its edges is a terrific wonder. How I (or any of us) survive this much love and loss is the greatest mystery I’ve ever experienced.

There are a certain kind of tears that I have been avoiding. I have mentioned this several times and, until losing Carl, I did not know there could be such an extravagant difference between the tears of profound grief and those that reach even deeper. You see, I have done my fair share of crying. I understand the great need for letting grief flow through me. So that I can heal. So that I can experience this fully. So that I might be made whole, both now and moving forward. But there is a certain place of tears that I have not been ready for. They will come. It’s unavoidable. But the tears that I flounder to prepare myself for, the tears that I sometimes must avoid…they are a place of God. They are the tears that reach all the way to heaven. They are a place of such extreme depth and BIGNESS that only angels can bear the expansiveness of it. It is the tears of great Love. I am too frail for this. Surely, going there will break me. To cry from that place is to experience God. Completely. It is no wonder that it’s written:

“You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live.” ~Exodus 33:20

And so my grief is paced like the tides. My tears come often, sometimes in dry wracking sobs and other times in fat watery drops. And then there are those moments that I just need to bolster myself to the weight or numbness of things, doing whatever it takes to hold myself to some form of steady. Other times I smile or talk, eat or even walk in a way that resembles something of a normal person. Teetering somewhere between vastness and being held, day and night, time and space, sun and moon, heaven and earth, ebb and flow.

The photo is one that I took last night. An outrushing tide. My heart being sucked out to sea, but also an old friend at my side.

And so we make our way, however precariously. My dearest Carl, I love you. Thank you for bringing me so close to God.

{originally published Dec 7, 2014}

miracles that dwell in the invisible

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Last night I dreamed of Carl. We were at the airport waiting for the boarding of our flight to be called. There were a lot of people buzzing and bumbling around us, a particularly busy terminal. And at one point, Carl and I sat down together, looking at each other with radiant smiles out the corners of our eyes as we reached for each other’s hand. We felt bright and excited to be going somewhere new together, silly with the sensation of love, anticipation and fun. We were on our way to Florida–for my birthday.

It has been a morning of tears. Because, you see…
This was really supposed to happen.

We had been tossing ideas around for a few months. Carl’s birthday was exactly one month before his funeral. It was our first birthday “together.” Things got busy out west and we weren’t able to celebrate his birthday side by side. I was so bummed about that, but we made the best of it. Carl sent me a video of him playing music on his porch. He went for a nice hike. He called me a dozen times. Throughout the day, we took turns keeping each other from feeling sad about the miles between us. He told me we’d make up for it on MY birthday. Over the course of the next few weeks, he musta said to me more than a dozen times: “There’s a lot of things I don’t know, but one thing I know for sure is that I WILL be with you on your birthday.”

You see, Carl didn’t make commitments he couldn’t keep. Ever. If there was one thing that drove me crazy, it was his inability to commit to a plan. I always thought I was the spontaneous one in the crowd. Ha! Carl had me beat by a million miles. It was also, in some wild way, something I loved about him. He could go with the flow like nobody’s business.

For a long time, I’ve been feeling like my 40th birthday would be a hard one. I don’t have a problem with my age or even aging for that matter. I never have. But this year needed to be special. It would be the thing that would carry me forward with a sense of hope and inspiration to make this life what I want it to be. Carl and babies, my art and adventure and building a life together were a part of that dream. It was the totality of the dream, really. We had big, BIG dreams together and, the thing is, we were the type of people that would actually make them come true.

Last night, I got a text from Carl’s brother, Andrew, saying that it had been a particularly hard day for him. It was for me, too. He said that he had told his wife, Tiara, that there are so many days in the past year that he’s wished he could will his heart to stop, but can’t. He said that there’s some purpose for us here and that sometimes he feels like the only thing pulling him forward is this curiosity to see where it goes. He couldn’t have said it more perfectly.

There is this impulse to curl up in a ball under a mountain of Carl’s blankets and never move again. And, yes, each afternoon I have been laying down with Carl’s favorite raggedy old quilt. In these moments, Henry (Carl’s dog), snuggles in next to me especially tight, the weight and smell of Carl’s blanket instantly causing him to relax and sleep. I breathe it in, deeply. My other two dogs curl themselves around my legs and, often, it is during this time that I feel Carl close to me, talking to me, telling me things I need to hear. Telling me that I can do this, that he loves me, that he’s with me. He tells me things that I can’t even remember. And, eventually, something causes me to get up. Maybe it’s Carl, pulling me by my hands out of bed. It is not a place to stay. There is still life to be lived, even if that feels mostly impossible right now.

In the dream, just as we were about to board the flight, I realized that Carl was nowhere to be found. He was most likely meandering, curiously taking in the world and talking on his phone. I was starting to panic. All the moms in my life showed up and began looking for him, having him paged on the airport’s intercom system, spelling out his name, touching the arms of strangers. Everyone was looking for him and, meanwhile, in my mind’s eye I could see him, happy as a lark, drifting in the wrong direction–away from me. He wandered slowly by the airport bookstore, touching the covers as he talked on the phone. He was smiling and enjoying himself. Meanwhile, the pilot was trying to get me to try on different shoes. Some of them were Carl’s shoes and, somehow, Carl was tricking them onto my feet without even being there.

For a long time, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do for my birthday. I kept asking Carl, “What do YOU think we should do??” Every time he responded by telling me that we should do whatever it was I wanted to do. He would take me anywhere in the world. It would be his gift to me. We were going to make it fit into my impossibly busy pre-exhibition schedule and so I decided we shouldn’t waste too much time on flights and getting over jet-lag. We considered Puerto Rico, the southwest and a million places in between. We’d save a motorcycle trip across Australia or Chile for March, when my show would be complete and Carl would have more time, too. Then my dear friend, Kristine, found out that a gallery would be representing her artwork at Art Basel in Miami Beach, FL. It is a dream come true for her, and (as artists) for both of us, really. Art Basel is a crème de la crème of success in the world of Fine Art. Carl and I decided we would go there–to celebrate Kristine’s success, and also sneak away to celebrate my birthday and each other. On Friday morning, Carl told me he was going to purchase the plane tickets the following Monday.

Monday never happened. On Monday I was helping put a cross by the side of the road where Carl was killed.

So many dreams–vanished–in a puff of cold air. I am lost; I am sometimes floundering; I’m not sure how to proceed. I have enough tears inside of me to fill an eighth ocean.

I took this photo while sitting by Carl’s side on the shore of Lake Superior this past summer. It was one of the happiest moments in my life. I must have told him I loved him a million times that day. We were talking about babies and adventures and all the goodness that we couldn’t wait to step into together. It was ridiculous how good I felt, Carl holding my hand that whole entire day.

I know that miracles dwell in the invisible. The prayer is that I will make myself available to them.

My life continues. I love you, Carl.

{originally published Nov. 22, 2014}