Hair Wraps

Over the past few years, getting a hair wrap has become a big part of our Ocean City beach trip for Ava. It's a simple thing, which has become a summer tradition. She loves picking colors and showing friends her summer style.

It's funny what something as simple as a hair wrap can do to me now--it's a sort of emotional unraveling, full of reminders and continued gratitude.

Ava spent last August in Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh. It was sudden, unexpected, loop-throwing, reality-changing whirlwind--deep breaths and prayer material. Among my most vivid memories of that month, are those of Ava making sure that the doctors, nurses, technicians, etc., didn't mess up her hair wrap. There were times when she wasn't aware of much that was going on around her, but you better not mess with her hair wrap. Other than their having to cut off metal at the end of it so she could get MRIs, the hair wrap survived the hospital.

As her sister Anna and I sat along the Boardwalk while Ava beamed getting her new "do," my mind bounced back and forth from last year to now. It's been a great year--after missing the beginning of the school year in the hospital, she was named MVP of her field hockey team in the fall (she wasn't expected to be able to play most of the season), earned honor roll every semester at school and Principal's Honor Roll for half of them, and finished her lacrosse season this spring with a two-goal game.

It's also been a trying year as a parent. Ava still has occasional seizures, as well as more frequent "spells," where she shakes and has trouble focusing or being able to respond to what's going on around her. Despite tears and protests, she had to stay out of the ocean and the sun for a day during the beach trip this past week, because she couldn't shake a series of spells that recurred throughout the day. We don't have it all figured out, and have just switched her neurology care to a new hospital after being thoroughly unimpressed with her last one. It's a process and lessons in seizure management.

When you look at the pictures above, it's hard to notice a difference in the two years. You can't tell what her eyes have seen or what she's been through. And that speaks to Ava. It's her personality; she rolls with the punches and looks to what's next--facing forward, not backward. She has taught me more than I can put into words.

I've tried to learn a lot of letting go over the past year. I've seen and felt the power of prayer and community. I'm trying to learn to hand over to God those things that are beyond my control (which is pretty much everything big). I am grateful for both Ava and Anna and the people they are becoming, and the blessings they bring to my life every day (or at least most days ;).

Our attitude towards what we find in life can color everything we encounter. I like this thought that the internet gives to Albert Einstein:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

This morning I am thankful for sunrises--new days, new weeks, months, and years, and enjoying them all. And I am thankful for hair wraps. And Ava showing off this year's colors.

Amen

"Amen," had been in my head all morning. That's not uncommon, it has been a mantra of sorts for years. An affirmation. Acknowledgment. Gratitude.

Tom Robbins wrote that there are only two mantras in life: yum or yuck. Amen has been part of my yum.

In church later that morning, the pastor looked at "Amen." Amen is "yes." And praying is you saying Amen (yes) to God, and God saying Amen (yes) to you.

That struck a soul-chord with me, as my favorite notion of prayer has been both the pray-er and God sitting quietly, listening to each other.

Amen. Yes.

To course corrections. To waking up and realizing what things, activities and people bring out the best in me. Amen.

Annie Dillard wrote that, "How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives." And Andy Dufresne in "Shawshank Redemption" said, "Get busy living or get busy dying." For realizing and spending our days as we would spend our lives. Amen.

For the smell of honeysuckle bringing back childhood memories on a morning walk before work and for taking the time to notice and watch small, odd fish swimming in unusually clear water by the shoreline. Amen.

For the girls getting pulled into and excited about working on projects, even at the end of the school year and watching them think, create, and accomplish. Amen.

For spending a Wednesday evening paddling longer/farther than intended and watching skate swim under the board and Great Blue Herons flying overhead and calm, cool water and welcome sun, and Tred Avon memories. Amen.

For community gatherings and talks on Blackwater Refuge and carpe'ing the evening diem to go catch the tail end of the sunset after. Amen.

For understanding what "community" means and coming together to celebrate times of joy and newness and to grieve and help and support in times of sorrow. Amen.

For cutting grass, moving dirt, planting tomatoes, weeding gardens, yard-earned sweat and outdoor smiles. Amen.

For morning runs, endorphins, and sweaty-striding solitude appreciated in the moment and after. Amen.

For stars strewn across a night sky overhead, summer breezes, Chris Stapleton playing on the deck, arms wrapped around neck and waist and slow dancing, swaying, and storytelling and laughing. Amen.

For watching the girls appreciate and enjoy the town I grew up in, on their own, doing some (but not all) of the same things I loved doing. Amen.

And the pastor prayed:

Lord, I ask that you would speak directly to each one here; that you would give them each one word that they might know your presence; that they might know you are there, Lord.

As I lifted my head up and opened my eyes, I wiped away tears from my cheeks that I hadn't felt start.

I already had my word.

Amen.

Spring Prayer

Let me take the time to sit on the steps with my eyes closed and the sun warm on my face, the girls riding bikes or playing catch.

Wake me with bird song for my alarm clock and remind me that spring is about rebirth and it gives me that same chance.

Give me ink, words, permanency, all thrust into the heart, coming from the heart, sent as an extension of it into the world.

These words are scrapbooks of a sort, timelines, testaments. Behind them, where you cannot see, they hold secrets even from me.

Echoes of an old prayer. The kind of prayer you write on a paper bag or a napkin, because you have to, because you can't risk letting it get away.

Prayer. Putting gratitude into the Universe. Throwing hopes and dreams into the air with all the might in your soul's shoulder. Asking comfort for fears or protection for loved ones. It's not in the answering, it's in the asking where the worth is.

Prayer. A deep breath and exhale at a sunset on the river. Reflecting with the sun.

Prayer. Seeing the smile of your child spelled out in the stars at night. And knowing the Universe, however vast, is there in the smile.

Motivation; Used to do

I used to run.

I used to be in shape. I used to seek out adventure or meet it head-long when it found me.

I used to play with the kids. I used to grab a longboard when Anna wanted to go for a bike ride. I used to kick the soccer ball, play tag or field hockey one-on-one in the back yard.

I used to be interesting. I used to be interested. I used to beat the sunrise up and smile at it with my eyes.

I used to have a couch without an ass-print on it. I used to not watch too many TV shows. I used to be mobile. I used to go mobile.

I used to connect towns with my feet. I used to run through the woods like a kid. My miles in the morning used to be a source of pride. I used to be proud. And humble. And not numb.

I used to run. I used to do.

---

Those thoughts and others like them are what go through my head when I decide to make and keep a date with myself to run 7.5 miles on New Year's Day, 2011. A source of motivation to push myself, to fight against complacency. To seek and create my own discipline, to go after the feeling that comes with running and with finishing an hour run on a day when I don't have to run, but I want to.

It's not a long run or a memorable one, but it's a run. It helps me think about goals for myself, for running, for work, for life and what I am going to do to move closer to them.

Running connects me to the road, to the town, to the water, to the trees, to what I encounter on my run. It connects me to my mind, to my body, to my will, to my soul, over the course of an out and back route that I have run more times than I can count.

Running lets me start 2011 the way I want to. On my terms. It is a prayer. Of thanks. Of hope. Of looking forward. Of being present.

I see you, 2011. Welcome. Let's dance. Check that. I don't dance much. Let's go for a run.

* Co-posted at Rise Up Runners

A Prayer, Listening in the Spring

Merwin gives me hope. When I feel like I've wasted too much time. I've started too late. I haven't done enough. I should have committed earlier.

W.S. Merwin was born in 1927. He won his second Pulitzer Prize in 2009 for a book published in 2008. I'm not a big math guy, but that's something like 81 years. And prizes aren't everything, but that book, "The Shadow of Sirius," is one of the best I've experienced ("read" isn't a strong enough word).

I'm not halfway to 80. I'm not grandiose or vain enough to aspire to be a Merwin, but he gives me hope that I've got my best stuff ahead of me. He gives me hope for exploring self and world and the big questions and observations over the long haul. I read his "Migration: New & Selected Poems" like a landmark standing on the rocky trail on the uncharted search for the soul. So I wake up and it's spring now, and I am listening.

It's spring and that means the birds sing in the morning dark, awake and chatting while people sleep. And I am listening.

It's spring and the warm weather and light air lighten my legs running at sunrise. And I am listening.

It's spring and the girls ride their bikes around the neighborhood, wide eyed and windy smiled. And I am listening.

It's spring and our five-year-old, our youngest daughter sleeps sideways across the bed, stretched and she's skinny and longer than she has ever been, no longer a baby. And I am listening.

It's spring and my shoulders and calves lengthen, elongated, smiling through Downward Facing Dog, different than they were yesterday. And I am listening.

It's spring and Robin and I are coming on 15 years spent together, 15 out of not quite 38, and I think of the things we have done and seen and been, together, and what we have yet to do, or see or be, together. And I am listening.

It's spring and my hands are in the dirt again and the sun is warm on my skin and the gardens that we can never sustain or keep up with are full of possibility, waiting to see if this is their year. And I am listening.

It's spring and I think about Mother Teresa's commentary on prayer, that she and God both sit, saying nothing to each other, just listening. And I am listening.

Temple of a Mid-Atlantic Lake

I wish America had more temples, though I'm not sure they'd be a hit on Maryland's Eastern Shore. When I read travelogues or history narratives of the Far East, writers frequently encounter and describe temples, which are austere and welcoming and always open. People go in and sit--to pray, to meditate, to be still, to be thankful, to be mindful. And I feel like that is something we are missing out on.

Our churches are locked when there isn't a service scheduled. You don't just walk up and go sit in a church by yourself or with other spiritual pilgrims if you're rolling through or you might find yourself meditating in the back seat of a squad car.

At the same time the predetermined open/closed nature of an American church seems a good analogy for how we see God/the Universe/Creation: we worship only at certain set times, say Sunday mornings. Beyond that we don't have time in our fixed schedules. And we need an ordered service spelled out for us to tell us how to go about it; an instruction manual, Salvation! Some assembly required. Why would we know how to do something like that ourselves?

If there is a "temple" that is American, in its architecture, in its meaning in our history, in the way it/they dot our countryside, I'd vote for nominating the barn. You could take that shape with its connotations and turn it into something cool. But don't go poking your head into someone's barn to sit and pray or meditate or you're likely to find yourself at the wrong end of a double-barrel scepter...



A few years back Mike Keene and I went to Appomattox, Virginia, to run 34 miles on trails around a lake--our first ultra marathon. It was February, pitch dark, and 14 degrees cold when we started. There were about 250 of us. The lake was frozen.

As we ran and the sun came out and the day warmed slightly, this strange, beautiful, eerie, welcoming, off-putting, awe-inspiring sound began to unravel as we ran along the lake. I've never heard a dinosaur bellow, but it might have sounded something like this sound. It was the ice on the lake cracking and melting. Living on rivers that is not a sound you will ever hear.

I think about that morning and that race and the people I met and talked to and why they were there, and the things we saw and heard and experienced that day. And that lake and that sound and the cold and my body and endorphins and soul warming over the temperature, and that is the first thing that comes to my mind when I picture a temple that I have been to. A temple of a Mid-Atlantic lake and the pilgrims who were there, that morning, that day, to pray.


Holiday Lake 50K++, Appomattox, Virginia, February 2007, with some fellow trail pilgrims, from the race that got me to start writing this blog, three years ago. Photo by Andrew Wilds Photography.