WITH GRACE AND WITHOUT REGRET

 

Yikes!!  I have accepted an offer on my house. This feels like a very big deal.  

  

Shall I explain?

 

My ex and I bought this house in 1993 when our girls were young.  The girls are now grown and have families and homes of their own.  My marriage to their father ended over 25 years ago, and I shared this house with a new husband for more than 20 years, until he died last summer.  

Since Bill's death, I have been living in too much house with too many memories.  It is definitely time to downsize.  Still, leaving this house where I raised my daughters and saw Bill through his final days, and starting over by myself in a new neighborhood feels daunting.  Perhaps most daunting is the thought of leaving behind the garden I have tended for so long.  It is true I have reached the point where the garden has become too much for me to handle, but it will still be a wrench to leave it behind.  

 

                                Here is a slice of the garden I am so reluctant to part with.

I have read that our bodies experience fear and excitement in exactly the same way--racing heart, sweat, adrenaline--and that it is our brains that decide which label to apply.  At the moment, my brain is vacillating between fear and excitement.  And is it any wonder?  This whole house-sale thing happened very fast--just a few days between listing the house and accepting an offer. 

 

My head is spinning.  

 

I was the weekly garden columnist for The Columbian (my City's daily paper) back in the '90s, and while riding my waves of emotion this morning, I remembered a column I had written about making peace with the transience of home and garden ownership. Thinking I might find some wisdom there from my younger self, I hauled out a box filled with my columns and found the one in question.  

 

Here it is, more or less as written in 1995:

 

             A year and a half in this house and I was beginning to feel that this garden was really “mine."  Sure, I had been intimidated at first, impressed by the 30 years of landscaping that had preceded my residence.  But hadn’t I ripped out miles of ivy and replaced it with perennials?  Hadn’t I disposed of a slew of junipers and put in blueberries and old roses?

 

             Surely my hours of weeding and planning, not to mention the title to the house, qualified me as the rightful owner of this garden. Well, yes, but yesterday I was reminded of the tenuousness of my claim.

 

             Here’s what happened.  When we moved in, there was a small, square wooden planter out in front of the garage.  Painted the same color as the house, it looked as though some thought had been given to its placement.

 

             There was a Mexican heather in the box when we took up residence in November of 1993, but it didn’t survive the winter.   So, last spring, I replanted the box with various annuals and kept them watered and fertilized.  Nothing thrived.  This spring, I set out some perennials, but again they just sat there looking puny.

 

             I decided to empty the box, replace the soil, and start over.  Which brings me to yesterday when I lifted the box to dump the soil and found a board at the bottom, carved with the names of the home’s former owners.  I expect they would not want their names bandied about in this newspaper, so I will call them Dan and Susan. 

 

             Susan is living in a condo now, where I understand she has a small space for gardening.  And Dan, far too early the victim of Alzheimer’s disease, spends his days and nights in a facility for those stricken with this cruel ailment.

 

             But when I uncovered that board, I was filled with the sense of  their presence.  I could see them planning the gardens, planting the junipers, trimming the bamboo, raising their kids, living their lives on this small plot of land to which I have so quickly become so fiercely attached.

 

             And I could see for a moment the next resident finding some artifact from our days in this house and pausing to wonder about our lives, then gathering her own life gratefully about her and getting on with the task at hand.

 

             Isn't this is as it should be? We don’t really own the land, no matter how many deeds we have in our safe deposit boxes.  It’s a funny thing about gardening--it makes you feel closer to the land, but it doesn’t necessarily heighten your sense of ownership.         

       

             Maybe that’s because gardening is an activity marked by transiency.  We watch as seeds grow into plants, then tumble into compost.  Favorite blooms—iris, tulips, peonies—are often the most ephemeral, and while gardening activities may stretch to cover seven or eight months in our mild climate, the high gardening season lasts five to six months at best.

 

             With so much of gardening given over to dreaming and planning, rearranging and starting anew, there’s rarely a sense of  being finished, even after many years.

 

             And while it is possible to view a house as a thing, a property to be owned and sold, the longer we labor on a piece of land, the less likely we are to believe that it belongs to us.

 

             Of course, we may become attached, even devoted to the land that we tend, but our very work forces us to see the larger hand of  nature at work. If we seek to create beauty without doing harm, we come to understand that we are mere stewards of the land, handmaidens to the seasons.

 

             And so, as I work outside today, I think of Dan and Susan and their family, and I feel gratitude for their stewardship and for our time in this garden, which I hope will extend for many years.

 

             And I also hope that when the moment comes for us to move, we will pass along this patch of earth to its next caretaker with grace and without regret.

 

Reading over this old column all these years later, I understand what it is I must do to midwife myself through this move, and that is to move forward with grace and to waste no time on regret.

 

Happily, the new owners, if this deal goes through, seem like they will make good stewards of my home and garden.  Believing this helps me to lean more toward excitement than fear as I imagine my next home.

 

There will be another, more manageable garden.  There will be another, smaller house. I can't quite see the details yet, but I expect it will all be just right for this new chapter of my life.  

 

 

 

          

 

         

 

         

 

 

 

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

 

                                                Matthew 22:39

 

And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

                                                I Corinthians, 13

 

 

I think this is the first time I have quoted from the New Testament in my blog. These words, learned decades ago, came to me as I was thinking about love - not romantic love, but another broader, unsentimental kind of love. The above-quoted words had meaning for me when I was a child, and they continue to challenge me today.  (While I have issues with institutional Christianity, the words of Jesus still resonate.) 

 

I have been thinking about love a lot lately. Perhaps, in part, because I recently participated in a book study group, where we read Love Is the Way by Bishop Michael Curry.  Bishop Curry writes of a love that can bind a community, a radical love that might bring about social justice. I believe this is the same love Martin Luther King, Jr. was referencing when he said. “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." It is, I think, the love the Beatles were singing about in the song from which I took the title of this post.   

 

Of course, it is all well and good to set forth quotes about this kind of radical love, but how, I find myself asking, are we to cultivate and embody such love in a world so filled with hate and violence? I don’t know about you, but I am not making a lot of progress in loving certain of my neighbors.  And I am not referring here to the people in my immediate neighborhood, but to some of the people I see and hear in the news. People who spew hate. People lacking in compassion.

 

You get the idea.

 

One way I try to cultivate love, with varying degrees of success, is through the Buddhist loving kindness meditation.  Some of you are, no doubt, familiar with this meditation.  It is quite simple, although there are multiple versions.  Here is the one I like:

 

May I have an open heart.

May I be free from suffering.

May I be happy.

May I be at peace. 

 

After reciting these lines, the next step is to substitute someone you love, as in “May (name your loved one) have an open heart, etc.” After reciting the lines for as many loved ones as you like, the lines are recited for a person or persons about whom you feel neutral – e.g., the person who checks out your groceries.  

 

And then comes the hard part – reciting the lines for a person or persons about whom you have negative feelings.  I struggle with this.  Can I do this for those I believe are destroying the institutions in our country or preying on fellow citizens or starting an unnecessary war?  

 

When I try the meditation with these people in mind, I find myself reciting the words through gritted teeth.  And so, I often change the words to something like this:

 

May (the person I struggle to like, let alone love) have an open heart.

May they find compassion.

May they find empathy.

May they find humility.

 

Not perfect love, but the best I can do at the moment.

 

And what actions can we take to drive out hate with love? Perhaps we can take baby steps. In the words of the Dalai Lama, "Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”  Maybe this would look like supporting our local food bank, protesting cruelty and injustice, smiling at strangers, picking up litter, helping a friend.

 

And what of faith and hope?

 

I have faith, against all evidence to the contrary, that our lives are undergirded by love.  I do not know where this faith comes from.  Maybe from my childhood religion.  Maybe from reading about near-death experiences. Persons having had such experiences routinely report experiencing, and being surrounded by, an indescribable love, a love beside which any love experienced during our lifetimes pales to a mere shadow of that encountered during the NDE.

 

As for hope, I have hope that people of good will, working together can bring about a kinder, gentler world.  Without this hope (which I sometimes struggle to hold onto), despair will surely drown out both faith and love. 

 

I will leave you with this thought:

 

“Even practicing loving-kindness for the time it takes to snap the fingers is beneficial. Each drop of practice is significant and, as the Buddha said,‘with dripping drops of water, the water jug is filled.’”

-       from insightmeditationcenter.org

May we each, in our own way, contribute to filling the jug. 

 

              Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

 

 

 

MORE NAGGING QUESTIONS

                                   Photo by Matt Walsh

Gentle reader - I once again find myself bedeviled by questions large and small, important and not so important, some keeping me awake at night - others not so much.  There is no natural order to these questions; they, in fact, make for rather a lumpy stew, which I suppose is a reflection of the state of my mind. . . . 

Here goes:

Why did the neighbor on the corner of my block still have a 12-foot-tall skeleton on display in his front yard four months after Halloween? (It disappeared this morning, just as I sat down to write this post.  The neighborhood sends its thanks.) 

Why does the neighbor across the street from the skeleton-displaying house still have Christmas lights up two months into the new year?  I like festive lights during the holiday season as much as anyone, but the juxtaposition of these lights with daffodils and other spring blooms is a bit jarring.

Why is the pull-off backing on pills not pull-off-able? You know the ones I mean.  They look like this.

Am I the only person who is not able to remove the backing without a wrestling match involving scissors and a good deal of swearing?

How does almost every single actor* (regardless of the age of the actor) in almost every single TV show or movie have teeth that resemble chiclets? Perfectly square, perfectly even, blindingly white. Are they veneers?  

Are they chiclets?

Bonus question:  Why has no one found a cure for the common cold?

Turning now to more serious subjects:

Why has the president who promised no wars on his watch started a war in the part of the world that most resembles a tinderbox, without bothering to seek authorization from Congress? 

Would the most cowardly Congress in my lifetime have stopped him if he had sought authorization? 

Before starting this war, why did our president threaten to attack Iran if it did not stop killing its citizens, even as he was sending forth ICE agents in our own country to terrorize and kill our citizens? 

Can anyone spell hypocrisy? 

Believe me, I have no admiration for the Iranian government, but are we really venturing into the Middle East again after the debacle in Iraq?

Have we learned nothing?

Why does the nation with the second-largest nuclear stockpile in the world (Russia has us beat) -- the same nation that is the only nation to have deployed a nuclear weapon against the citizens of another country -- feel free to criticize and attack other countries for trying to develop nuclear weapons?

Of course, I don't want any more countries to obtain nuclear weapons. But, as every parent knows, "Do as I say, not as I do" is not an effective message.  Perhaps cutting back our own stockpile would be a good start to making us seem less hypocritical.  (There's that word again.)

Asking for a friend - Is it possible that this war is an attempt to distract us from the high cost of groceries?  From the Epstein scandal? From our broken healthcare system?

Why are corporate leaders--and the members of Congress they have bought--still putting profits ahead of environmental concerns?  Do they not have children or grandchildren?  If they do have progeny, do they think said progeny will be able to eat, drink, and breathe profits?

Has our president read the U.S. Constitution?  If so, can he or one of his minions please point to the part of the Constitution that supports his claim that the recent Supreme Court opinion declaring many of his tariffs to be illegal was "unconstitutional"?  Has anyone told him that the definition of "unconstitutional" is not "something I don't like"?  

Why has Congress (I'm looking at you, Republicans) freely ceded its power to the president? 

Sigh.  I think I need to lie down.

*Per my actor daughter, the term "actor" covers both males and females. 

IF NOT NOW, THEN WHEN?

I am scared.  And I am angry. 

A while back, a niece a couple of decades younger than I asked me if I had ever before experienced a time like the one we are living through. I thought for a moment, and then told her I had lived through many scary and upsetting times, had lived through administrations I abhorred and seen presidents take actions with which I vehemently disagreed, but I had never experienced an administration that was hell-bent on tearing down our institutions, that had so little respect for the rule of law. 

Here is something else I have never seen before - Congress and the Supreme Court ceding virtually all of their power to the Executive Branch.

I have seen presidents act lawlessly (e.g., Watergate), but I have never before heard a President baldly state that the only restraint on his power is his "own morality." (And we have seen what that "morality" looks like.)  

I am scared.  And I am angry.

I've been scared before.  I was scared during the Cold War,  particularly during the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).  I was scared on 9/11/2001.

I've been angry before.  I was angry when my country kept escalating the Vietnam War.  I was angry when my country invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. 

But, truly, I have never experienced a time like this or felt the fear or anger that I feel right now.

Today, I want to address just one thing that is making me angry and afraid, and that is the ICE crackdown on immigrants-- both those who are here legally and those who lack papers.  I have read that ICE is arresting people (including two children with cancer) even when they protest that they are citizens, and placing them in detention until they can prove their citizenship.  I have read of the horrible conditions in these detention centers.  I have seen videos of people being dragged from their vehicles.   I have read of people being sent to countries to which they have no connection, where they are held and tortured.

And now an American citizen has been shot and killed in Minneapolis, and despite videos clearly demonstrating otherwise, our president is claiming that she ran over an ICE officer. 

And two people have been shot by federal agents in Portland, with the administration again claiming they had "weaponized" their vehicle.  The facts about this shooting are not yet in, but this has not stopped the administration from creating "facts" of their choosing. (And even if, as the administration claims, these people were gang members, do we shoot people for this?)

Oh, and here's an interesting fact - ICE agents are trained not to stand in front of vehicles or to shoot at moving vehicles.

Look, we may need to reform our immigration system, but is this how we want to do it?  With cruelty and violence?  And do those who think these mass deportations are a good idea understand that it is immigrants, legal or not, who pick our fruits and vegetables in the hot sun, mow our lawns, clean our houses, wash dishes in restaurants, and do other jobs that those more fortunate eschew? Let's see how mass deportation affects our economy . . . 

So what shall we do?  If we do nothing are we like the "good Germans" who did nothing to prevent the rounding up and killing of Jews by the Nazis?  Never before have I felt so helpless, a feeling that is shared by most of my friends. 

There's only one thing I can think of to do, and that is to speak out, to take to the streets.  Last year, I did not do this.  I had two reasons.  One was my husband's death and the strange new place I found myself in. The other was fear.

But this year it is time for me to step out from behind the shield of my widowhood.  After all, I know Bill would be speaking up.

And yes, in this climate, I am afraid to take to the streets.  Hell, I am afraid to publish this post.  But, those of you who read my last post know that courage is one of the three words I have chosen to keep in front of me this year.  I am determined to walk through my fear, to raise my voice.  This is what my morality requires.

Last night, I took part in a candlelight vigil for Renee Good, the woman killed in Minneapolis. Hundreds of people gathered at a busy intersection in my city.  

Many people honked their horns in support. Two people yelled angry obscenities at us, and a car drove over a curb on one of the corners in an attempt at intimidation.  So, yes, there is reason for fear, but imagine the fear of those who are being targeted by ICE.

I know that my taking part in this vigil was a small act, but if more and more people speak up and step forth, maybe we can stop the madness.  At least we will know we didn't stay silent in the face of cruelty and injustice. 

Let me close this post with the quote from which I took its title:

If not now, then when?

If not me, then who?

                   - Malcom X

Good night and stay safe. 

(If you would like to find actions that you can take, look for a branch of Indivisible in your area by clicking on this link and scrolling down to the "SEARCH FOR YOUR GROUP" button: https://indivisible.org/)

WORDS TO LIVE BY

I am not one for New Year’s resolutions, but I do like the idea of choosing a word or words to set the tone for the new year.  There are those who settle on one word; I prefer to choose three.  

 

Here, in alphabetical order, is the list I started with for 2026:  

 

Acceptance

Appreciation

Courage

Creativity

Faith

Focus

Forgiveness

Generosity

Gratitude

Hope

Kindness

Patience

Service

 

After much contemplation, nay agonizing, I have settled on these three:

 

Acceptance

Courage

Gratitude

 

(This is not to say the others will not guide my intentions for the new year, but contemplating more than three on a daily basis could lead to an inability to focus on any of them.)

 

Here is why I chose these three.  

 

Acceptance

 

As those who follow this blog know, this has been a challenging year for me. When something devastating happens – the death of one’s husband, say, or the totaling of one’s car -- the first reaction (mine anyway) is to fight against the reality of the event, to utter an elongated noooooooo.  It is difficult to take in a huge, unwanted life change.  The mind rebels.  But sooner or later, we must accept the reality that this is the way things are – there is no turning back. 

 

This is true not only for personal, but also for community or global happenings. Gun violence, wars, political insanity – all of these are real.  I will say again, as I have said before, acceptance is not resignation.  Once we stop fighting reality, we can figure out what to do about it.  Resignation will not lead to action, but acceptance just might allow us to move forward with our lives after a great loss or to move in the direction of healing our broken world. 

 

Courage

 

Acceptance requires courage.  It takes courage to move forward in the face of loss, to take steps, however small, toward addressing the heartbreaking realities present in our world.  I’m not sure what these steps might be, but I intend look for them in the new year and to try to move forward with courage.  (Suggestions are welcome.)

 

Gratitude

 

Gratitude is a great healer.  When I become teary over my husband’s absence, I will try to remember to be grateful for the time we had, and to think back over happy moments. 

 

Gratitude also leads to contentment. Noticing what we have is a great way to stop regretting what we do not have. The other morning, I turned up the heat and experienced a moment of pure gratitude for my functioning furnace. Sometimes, I stand in the shower and feel gratitude for hot, running water. Occasionally, in a grocery store, I look about me and feel amazement at the bounty on the shelves.  (This helps a bit with my shock at ever-rising prices.) 

 

And what will I do now that I have chosen my three words?  

Well, I have posted them in my office and will add them to the notes on my phone.  I will try to remember to contemplate them on a regular basis in the hope that they will ease my path through the new year. 

                                                                        Photo by Martino Pietropoli on Unsplash

 

 May you find words that will do the same for you. 

 

IT WAS THE BEST OF TIMES; IT WAS THE WORST OF TIMES

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . . it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us . . ."

                                            - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

As I sit down this evening to write about the year that is ending, I must beg Mr. Dickens' pardon for my stealing the brilliant first lines of his much-lauded 1859 novel. It has indeed been a year of highs and lows for our country and our world.  But tonight I'm going to write about personal highs and lows.  

                     

                                            Photo by Custom Patches By Bob on Unsplash

When I began to think about this past year, I was surprised to find that sad and challenging events notwithstanding, there was much that was positive to be chronicled.  I will begin here with the worsts, in order to make way for the bests.

The worsts

I endured the loss of my beloved husband, Bill, and the "firsts" without him that followed -- his birthday, my birthday, family birthdays, Thanksgiving, our anniversary, Christmas.

About three months after Bill passed, my 2014 Prius was T-boned by a car exiting a parking lot.  My car was totaled, and just as I was completing the paperwork that attends a death, I was confronted with insurance paperwork, along with the necessity of purchasing another car.

Eczema, something I had never suffered before, entered my life while Bill was sick.  It became worse when he died and much worse after the accident.

Bill, God love him, was a pack rat and he left me with mountains of stuff to deal with. 

The bests

I was surrounded by love and support from family and friends in the wake of Bill's death.  I will never forget this kindness.

Bill's sons and I planned and pulled off a wonderful celebration of his life.  His sons also spent many hours over several days going through his stuff, taking what they wanted and helping me to dispose of much of the rest.

I was not seriously injured in the accident.  My whiplash is being treated by wonderful physical therapists.

I have taken advantage of the six free massages offered by a local hospice.

A friend and former colleague has taken over interactions with the insurance companies that are handling the accident.

My daughter Anne and her husband Peter searched online for a car. Peter found, and went with me to purchase, the 2024 Kia Niro plug-in hybrid that I am now driving. 

I was buoyed by the support group I participated in for two years before Bill's passing.  The people in this group - their stories and their vulnerability - will be forever in my heart.

I visited Victoria, British Columbia with a friend, travelled east to visit old friends, and drove six hours to visit other old friends.

I spent many happy hours with my very young grandchildren.  I hung out with friends.  I read and I wrote.  I gardened and I walked. 

Of course, I never stopped missing Bill, and the above events and activities were interspersed with bouts of deep grief.  While I do not in Dickens' words have "everything ahead of [me]," neither do I have "nothing ahead of [me]."

I know my grief will be with me in the new year, but given the many blessings in my life, I am cautiously optimistic about 2026.

May we all find reasons for hope as the year turns.