gratitude

smallest forms.

This morning a friend sent me a link to a page of quotes. The one that had the most impact on me said this:

“What does a thought look like? Just look around you, right now… to see yours.”

I looked around and saw 3 peacefully sleeping dogs who are deeply loved and deeply in love. I saw mist rising from my humidifier, bringing to life the smell of sweet orange oil, an aroma that eases depression. I saw that I am surrounded by warmth.

Blessing on this view.
xo

I love you, Carl, in all the ways that I find my way to comfort, even in its smallest forms. You are with me everywhere.

{originally published Jan 21, 2015}

through.

Some days are worse than others. These days, it seems that all days land on the scale of worse. But I continue to reach for a habit of gratitude and so, in this moment, I am grateful for…

purring horses munching on hay that warms their bodies on this cold, cold winter day.
the pull of my journal and conversations with God while snuggled in a semi-circle of sleeping dogs.
plans to go sit in a hot tub this afternoon with a good friend to relax my body and mind while in good company.

This is enough. For now, it will get me through. And, in truth, that is always all we ever need.

I love you, Carl. You will always be enough. Even being gone, you have given me enough love to last a lifetime.

{originally published Dec 30, 2014}

Returning home after.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. ~ Sarah Ban Breathnach

The floor boards of this little cabin are cold. The door latch is frozen, requiring me to use the dead bolt to keep it closed. The whole world has shifted into a creak, popping into sharp rearrangement. It is Monday. As though that means something, I enter the day like a new stage of grief. I’ll call this stage “Returning Home After.” It is another day of navigating life without Carl. It is after Christmas. After my grandpa’s funeral. After spending the better part of a week with my grandma, not just as her granddaughter, but also as two women who have lost the men we’ve given our hearts and lives to. There are not enough tears in the entire universe for this. I’m still dogged by the edges of this migraine that seems to have become my constant companion. A toothache has angled its way in, too. I’m chilled all the way to my center, not from sickness, but from the lack of warmth that crawls from my slippered feet and into my bones. My eyeballs feel like they’ve shrunk, become smaller from too many weeks of crying and trying to see what I’m supposed to do next. My grief habit of rubbing my brow has shifted to rubbing my eyes. The structure of mortality has taken on a physicality that I’m not entirely comfortable with. I am made up of tendons, skin and two eyeballs. Somewhere inside, yet beyond my precarious placement of bones and breathing is my spirit. My spirit gets curious, feels hope, gets out of bed to let out the dogs and feed the horses. I am acutely aware of the way my body is put together and, even in all its weakness, I feel like I will live to be a very, very old woman. This thought does not bring me comfort. However, in suspended moments, I see a glimpse of my future self. The woman I see is much older than me now. She is a bit timeless, grey-haired, her body and face have taken on new contours. Mostly, what I notice is her smile–a sense of contentment and satisfaction–that illuminates from the inside out. It’s a smile held in her eyes and her whole body. Anchoring her being is a vast aquifer–her life experiences–the depth and breadth of an entire ocean. It is as though she could hold out her arms and embrace a whole life of love, care, and meaning. There are a lot of young people in this image…as though her strong arms might gather in a whole world of children whom I love.

This image comes to me at random times. It’s always brief. Just a glimpse. Last night she visited me as I read a book in the bathtub. Another time when I was driving. Once, while in the tea aisle at the grocery store. She has been weaving herself into me all along, but I notice her more lately. She’s cute and I like her. She knows I need her. She makes me smile even when I don’t think I want to. She pokes my ribs and is equally willing to wrap her arms around me. I know I’ll meet her someday, because I’ll be her. I already am her, partially. I just don’t recognize myself yet.

I am rubbed raw from missing Carl. Saying I miss him doesn’t convey the actual experience. He hasn’t truly left me. Like today. Today I feel him near. Even so, it is not always easy wearing one’s spirit so close to the skin.

I looked out the window this morning, watching the horses walk through the woods. Colorado comes to the fence first. I am mesmerized by how much I’ve loved that horse all along. I told Carl that I’d always want Colorado to be a little bit more “my” horse, even if he is the bigger, more skittish, less trained of the two. I wanted Carl to ride Dakota, despite him being twice my size and her being the smaller of the two horses. With more brazenness than I actually possessed, I announced that I would ride Colorado even tho the truth is that I was too scared to (and still am). Carl said he’d be happy no matter which horse he rode. I loved that about him because he meant it. He just loved the horses. And he loved me. My silly ideas were nonsense all along. It’s taken me a long time to truly bond with Dakota, but shortly before Carl died, I realized that it was happening. The deepening began to occur. It is still occurring. She has soft, worrisome eyes. And, lately, I find myself worrying about her, too. My heart is drawn to her. My heart is drawn to both of them. We are all like snowflakes. Even the horses.

Today, this cold makes me feel cleaved open. Smooth, like frozen stone, old parts of who I was have completely worn away. There’s somehow room in this for something new. I move the milk house heater closer to my feet. I wrap Carl’s raggedy old quilt around me. I cry. I write myself back to life.

I feed the horses at sunrise, their eyelashes and muzzles covered in frost. Dakota lifts her front hoof up high in gratitude (her daily habit of thanks). Colorado eats up his sweet feed, tosses some hay around and then attempts to stick his big nose into my cup of coffee. I laugh at him and let him smell the warm brew, telling him “yeah…you’re my horse.” Colorado in front of me, Dakota behind me, Carl all around me. Slowly, I warm to the possibility of things I do not yet know.

I love you, Carl. I love you for showing me the woman I want to grow to be.

{originally published Dec 29, 2014}

first christmas.

I love you, Carl. There is never a day you’re not with me. I’ve always loved Christmas, but my appreciation for it has shifted into something of a watershed, a place where all the love, like water, has come to gather. There is so much I wish I could write about this morning…but it will have to wait. I’m leaving for Brainerd so that I can finally wrap my arms around my grandma and tell her how much I love her. Just a few days before my grandpa died, my grandma sent me a handwritten card. She wrote about how very hard it must be for me to have lost Carl and that, when you love someone that much, you are one…like her and my grandpa after 67 years of marriage. She wished she could wave her magic wand and make all the pain go away, but that life is simply not that easy. She ended the card by saying that, always, grandpa and grandma are there for me.

I end this year in unexpected ways, but one thing I know for sure is that it is filled with love. Carl, I miss you today. I missed you last night. I’ll miss you tomorrow and the next day and the next all the way into forever. But more than anything, I am grateful. In this life, I have been blessed.

Merry Christmas friends and family. I love you all very, very much!

{originally published Dec 25, 2014}

sipping coffee.

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.

2,000+ miles to peace.

Finally, I found some peace today. (1.) Carl’s sunset. Windows rolled down in a little blue rented Fiat. Exploration and healing on the back roads of the Florida coast. (2.) Comfort found in the Great Mother, a full moon rising over an equally full ocean. (3.) A place to rest my weariness in good company next to a warm hearth, complete with a sleepy old dog at my feet. And now? To sleep. Grateful for what this day has brought me. I love you, Carl.

{originally published Dec 6, 2014}

sunlight.

Carl’s sunrise. Mid-air and halfway to heaven…where there is nothing but Love and LIGHT!

I don’t mean be selfish, but wow, that sunrise felt like it was made just for me!

“On the Way to the Wedding”
To be on the way to the wedding is to honor the great
ring of mystery in which we live. It is to praise the circling movement that is
ours, the ever-growing orbits of our lives. When I look at my life dancing in
the great ring of mystery, I know now that each season will greet me with the
energies I need to transform to make my life and love richer. I know that I
will come around and around on my personal cycles to all that I have lived before,
and no matter how painful or terrible or dark some
of that time was, it is now the rich rock from which I mine the crystal visions
for my healing. ~Schierse Leonard

I love you, Carl.

{originally published Dec 4, 2014}

good lord, show me the way.

Stop. Drop. And selfie. + a black dog photobomb. A moment today that included a genuine smile.

…and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too.

Nearly impossible to summarize the past few days…North Dakota, being on the road, the sunsets, the immense amount of work, the roller coaster of emotions, the amazing help, the late night trip home, the exhaustion, this day of gratitude…

I don’t know where to start and so I’ll start right here. With this moment on my kitchen floor. This moment when the Thanksgiving festivities were all over and we all missed Carl and I felt a little consumed by how many days ahead of me I have without him. I came home and put on his old flannel shirt. I was all alone and not knowing how I felt about that, but ended up smiling because my dog Ella attacked me with love and then Henry wanted in on the fun, too. Which leads us right here to the present moment.

And all the while I’ve had this song playing over and over and over in my head…for over a week. I dream it, I wake up to it, I hum it, I pray it, I fall asleep to it. I hear it while I drive or tend to tasks. Over and over it keeps playing like a song that Carl is sending me, just like he always used to do.

Good Lord, show me the way.

the thing is…

Friendship. It is a miraculous thing. It’s been filling in the cracks where Carl’s earthly voice and body and love used to be. Henry and Ella are somewhat inseparable today. They’re also known as “HenryElla.” A name that somehow stuck when Carl and I would call them to come in from outside. We laughed at that because the combined name rolls off the tongue so nicely. smile emoticon They were always the last ones to come in…and, well, nothing has changed about that! My big dog, Louie, lays on the floor beside them. I’ve got a good four-legged crew. But what I also have is a tremendous human tribe, too. It seems cliche to write about it, but many times I have thought about what it would be like to be going through this without this kind of support. Carl and I were both people magnets, each in our own way. I sometimes had to laugh (and worry) about how full our life, together, might become. There have been times when I’ve tried running to the ends of the earth just to be alone, but people came looking for me anyway. There are other times when, because of the nature of my work, the feeling of solitude becomes overwhelming. It’s a Catch 22 and yet, somehow, this problem was solved by being in a relationship with Carl. We were there for each other in an easy way, always, in the quiet moments, in the busy moments, and all the moments in between. We were surrounded by loving friends and family and yet we enjoyed our time just the two of us, too. It was the best of all worlds, really. Amazing.

Last night I saw a friend who I haven’t seen in over 20 years and others who are willing to travel to the ends of the earth to be with me. Gifts like this just keep showing up. And then there is Carl’s people…his family, his friends, his employees. I’ve loved Carl’s family from the beginning, but now that love has deepened to the center of the earth and the width of the universe. Carl surrounded himself with good people and, really, he saw the good in everyone. He talked and texted more than anyone I’ve ever met. And so now…messages, phone calls, texts from Carl’s friends and family…oh, it is like gold to me. Please don’t stop. Eventually, I would have gotten to know all of these people. But now we’re left to do it on our own. Horse people, woods people, business people, family people, work people, church people, international people….SO many people populated Carl’s world.

I am grateful for it. And ol hairy legs, Henry…well, he is too.

Here’s a poem for all of us, from my friend, Britta…

The Thing Is …
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again. ~Ellen Bass

Peace and friendship. To all of us.

{originally published Nov 17, 2014}