The Hum

I am grateful.
A sweet small hum
trails through me.
Soft, wispy, caressing.
Totally uninhibited, ignorant
of a larger context demanding allegiance
to chaos and fear.

I love this hum;
child-like whimsy and innocence
skipping rope
deep within me;
tucked away, vibrant,
insistent that play and gratitude
are the core of living.

I'm not sure
where the hum comes from
except perhaps God,
and I am quite comfortable
giving God credit.
The hum is somehow,
definitely,
a part of me,
but is also,
so not of me.

This hum is sensory;
I hear the hum,
sometimes I even
feel the hum
as a subterranean tickle
tingling my fingertips;
my very cells
singing back
a chorus of life.

My hum and I are playmates....
       school girls giggling over a secret.

The Knob

Words
fill me; guide me.

I touch the cabinet knob
as I reach for a breakfast dish
and words spill into my mind
and escape through my heart.

Often I touch this knob,
but I never really see it.
Or rather, I never really
hear it.
The knob says, "remember?"

...remember how you scrubbed,
           claiming me;
...how you had no knob,
           and now you do;
...how you listened to Knopfler on Pandora in the background
           as you wiped off sudsy residue
           in rhythm to his cadence;
...how the hum in you
           snuck out through the dish rag
           as you whirled and twirled
           your fears away;
...and how in one moment
           you wanted to drop the rag
           and walk away;
           no,
           run.

But here is the knob
and my breakfast dish
and the sum of our conversation
as I
"waltz with fear in my heart."

Primal Friendships

I was reading one of Julia Cameron's essays in The Sound of Paper, titled "Befriending Time."

There is something about this word combination, befriending time - befriending the moment, that makes me smile.  Cameron writes how time, like a dictator pushes aside and smothers into the background rich and plentiful details daily surrounding us; but even so she insists, we can befriend time.  Like taking a few moments to catch up with a friend, we can slip away from our busy-ness and connect to the moment, connect to that specific time.  By opening up to and absorbing the sights, sounds, smells, and impressions of life around us, we fuel our creativity.  We become friends with the moment; we come alive.

And I smiled because it reminded me of a recent walk with my five year old friend, Kailani.  We took a mini-hike along the Cape Falcon trail.  I had picked her up for the afternoon and we were going to play super heroes (Wonder Woman and Bat Girl) at my house, French braid her hair, and fill up coloring book pages.  The hike was a spontaneous last minute decision as we loaded into the car.  She had on her new pink rain boots that flashed a sparkly light each time she set her heel down, purplish-pink paisley leggings, and a brand new white sweater appliqued with a black Scottish terrier on the front.  She was also wearing a good sized tiara.  Not typical hiking gear but oh, so Kailani.

We held hands as we traipsed along and chatted about all sorts of five year old things.  Kailani is a thinker with a delightful and sophisticated vocabulary, and what we talked about most was the current experience we were enjoying spawned from her observations.  Since she is so much shorter and closer to the earth, she was continually pointing out to me her discoveries.  And I realized, how much wisdom we can enjoy through these little people, still closely tethered to rich details hiding on the underside of leaves or tucked into tight, mossy carpets.

She was the one who spotted the racing black beetles, one dull the other shiny; the dime sized mushrooms erect and stubborn and charming in their teensy-ness.  She stopped us on the bridge to listen, to listen as the rivulet of water hid beneath the skunk cabbage but sang to us never-the-less.

Cameron associates creativity with child-like wonder and reminds us how essential to living are these primal friendships with the moment.

And what a gifted way to befriend time than through the magical friendship of a child.

Another Way of Knowing

I study her.
Day after day
I sit and stare.
I watch how she
Curls over
On top of herself,
Splays out
And then inhales
Herself back in.

I notice how
Sometimes
Her face stiffens,
Is steep;
Sometimes
Soft and rounded.
Sometimes
She darts
Here and there and all over
And then I'm not sure
Of her,
At all.

I observe how
Her shoulders
Uplift,
Perky,
Sassy-like.
Flirting,
I'm sure of it.
But then
They will
Drop
Like a deep sigh;
Almost cave in.
Often times
They do.

At times
Her arms
Stretch so wide,
Her fingers
Reaching for me
Sparkly
Like a giggling child.
Other times
She hugs herself tightly
Wrapped up
Like a yoga coil,
Creating
An expanse between us.

This fickle one I love;
I want to
Know her
In a glance.
Without looking at
Her tell-tale edges,
To peer into her core
While gathering my notes
And answer -
"Is she incoming
Or outgoing?"
And with my proficiency,
I will guess.
Almost always
Incorrect.

But one time,
In that moment
Deeply corralling the clues,
Amassing my observations,
She startled me
And said,
"Forget your scrutiny.
How do I feel
To you?"

And I stood there
And let go
Of what I thought
Or didn't think;
And I felt her.
Absorbed
Her presence
Into me,
     And knew her.

"Incoming,"
I said.
And this time
I was right.

...my beloved,
The sea.
She taught me this.
 

The World At Bay

A busy intersection

Fingers thrumming on the steering wheel

Looking left

Looking right

Waiting for a gap

Ready to spurt

Toward an appointment

Peripheral, to the left

There he is

At the curb

Stepping into the street

With his dog

On a limp rope leash

He squares his shoulders

Through a fatigue jacket

Soiled and heavy

Grins

Whiskered and creased

And then pauses

In the middle

Of the traffic lanes

Slowly

Deliberately

Calculated to a rhythm

Of his own orchestration

As if

He has done this before

He cocks his head toward the sun

Squints and adjusts his tattered cap

Looks back at the dog

Gives a little tug on the rope

Shifts his bulging sleep roll

And moves on

Into the heart

Of impatient merging quadrants:

A coffee date

Bus schedules

A court hearing

Soccer practice

Restaurant supply deliveries

 All waiting

Eyes rolling

Horn honking

Fist pumping

As he

Strolls

Savors his moment

Holding the world at bay

The Road to Ritual

I never cared much for sacred rituals.  They seemed archaic and got in the way of some sweet Mystery I sensed ached to step in and say, “hello there.” I wanted the ache, the Mystery, the simple hello.  I didn’t want formula.  I didn’t want to practice…anything.  So I dismissed ritual as useless.  

Until recently.

It wasn’t until I set aside a recent habit, and then picked it back up, that I realized I had created a ritual for myself.  Without understanding its value, I had been putting into practice a tangible pathway to connect to Mystery – a touchable way to process, to listen, to trust, to become.

What made this habit a ritual were the narratives I unwittingly assigned, one of which was “Carol, go the distance; just put your toes in the creek;” and the other, “Sweet child, put it on the rock; just leave it there. Let it go.”  The habit was a simple beach walk. The narratives were my way to tussle with truth.

I have different types of beach-walks.  There are times when I take a day long trek with a snack-pack, will snooze next to a warm dune after poking around tidal debris, and get caught up in filling my phone camera with shot after shot of the same smooth stone reflected in a pool.  

But there is a type of beach-walk I call “pounding sand,” where I hammer out whatever is bothering me.  I don’t head out intending to have a therapy session; I just want a quick peek at my beloved stretch of beach and sea, a brisk walk to breathe deep, to sigh big.  And invariably in that relaxed state, the embrace of sea-breeze, the sand-crunch and gull-cries will slip into that sigh and draw me into something else.  I begin talking to myself, to the sea and sky and gulls…and to Other.  I will vent, cry, laugh, ponder.  And then, for some reason, I will listen.  I will hear myself.  And so very often in hearing myself, I will hear Other – this wondrous Mysterious ache; the simple “Hello there.”

And this connection will come as a shell; the kind of shells I particularly treasure.

Usually it’s either a white limpet I call sand-kissies because they look like a white chocolate Hersey’s Kiss, or a worn purple-y translucent fragment of something iridescent I have yet to identify, or a perfectly un-fractured peachy scallop, or the exquisitely coveted whelk I have only seen twice (one of which the creature was still intact and I was tempted to dig it out with my finger so I could keep the shell but then I felt like Cruella Deville with a full throaty head thrown back cackle, “I vant your shell,” and thought better, and threw it back into the sea).  These particularly meaningful-to-me-treasures will be at my feet, catch my eye exactly the moment in my dialogue when I am most confused or angry or blubbery or frightened.  There it will be, speaking to me.  “Hello.  I’m here.”

I will scoop the treasure up and fondle this tangible comfort in my pocket.  And in this cracked open state, in this conversation, I will hear my truth.  

On one of those occasions as I was nearing the creek at the south end of the beach, I heard myself say, “You can turn back now; you don’t need to go all the way to the creek.  It’s almost the same as if you did.”  And as if a curtain pulled back revealing some dark, dank thing I saw my truth – my resistance to pushing through, my fear of the unknown, my inclination to fall back into the shallow, stagnant comfort of familiarity.  I saw it in direct relationship to the big, frightening, life-changing do-over decisions I was in the throes of navigating.  In that burst of insight I knew I needed to walk the remaining distance to the creek, that a simple few yards of sand was so much more.

I somehow understood I needed the physical, tangible practice of making myself push through my resistance; that I didn’t need to understand or define my resistance or which fear lay at its root, I just needed to choose a new habit.  I told myself, “Carol go the distance; just put your toes in the creek.”  And as I did, time after time, unbeknownst to me, I established a ritual, a physical practice bathed in a meaningful narrative, which helped me connect to a dormant inner strength, to hope, to a Mystery.  I always came away from these moments re-framed, comforted.  Better.

And then, right on the heels of that epiphany, on one of my walks back from the creek toward the rock wall, my other ritual developed.  Fingering my pocketed shell treasures and reveling in the joy of that day’s particular find, a most lovely, pearly, shapely scallop, I heard myself say, “You need to let that go; you need to give it back.” 

And I was shocked by the thought.  In the few minutes of delightful possession, this shell was now mine, and meaningful.  I had lifted it out of the sand, received it as an intimate comforting gift, an assurance I was not in this alone.  I felt my fingers clutch around the scallop and an intense argument ensued.  

“How ridiculous.  I don’t need to give it up.”

Silence

“Well, ok.  I get it.  I can be open, let go.  I don’t need all of these….I’ll put the others over there on the rock wall.  Kind of like an altar….of surrender.”

Silence

“Why does it have to be THAT shell?  I want that one; I NEED that one!  That one is SIGNIFICANT!”

Precisely.  

“Oh for heaven’s sake, it’s just a shell!”

But I knew.  I knew.  It was not the shell; and it was the shell.  THAT shell was the screechy, panicky part of my heart clawing for security, demanding control, insisting that possession and peace are synonymous.   

“Sweet child, just put it on the rock; leave it there. Let it go.”   

It would take me several more yards of clutching and screeching before I could let go of that simple, complicated exquisite shell of my heart, but by the time I reached the wall, the work was done.  I let it go. 

And I would need to do this again and again.  I would need the repeated physical battle, the experiential, tactile act of surrender to help reshape my heart as I struggled through an intense part of my journey.  At the time I understood these were meaningful moments, but I didn’t understand how essential my two little rituals would become until I got busy, set them aside, and attempted to grapple with a new ordeal.  In a moment of panicky frustration and exhaustion, I reminded myself that maybe I just needed to go pound sand again for a while; relieve some tension.  

For certain my beach walking relieved tension, but it was the literal stepping into a familiar practice I had created around a meaningful story, a sacred narrative enabling me to connect to The Sacred, that brought true relief.  I realized how much I needed these moments on a regular basis.  I needed to practice my metaphor to keep my truth in perspective – that I am prone to  cowering and clutching, but courage and trust are within my grasp. 

We develop physical stories, rituals, to help us connect to Something so much bigger than us; to become what we sense, but cannot seem to reach.  Whether we share a cup and bread, light a menorah, bow our forehead to the ground, beat a drum, or walk a beach picking up shells and sticking our toes in the creek, we need our rituals.  

I need my rituals to help me push on, to let go...to become.

Aperture

I could pretend
we are not fractured,
still.
That gauzy memories
fade truth,
and dimness
is the same as
Grace.

I could pretend
my impression
is whole,
framed by
a manageable sorrow.
That my prism
cast true:
a collected, refracted light
against a sepia canvas.

I could pretend
wounds close,
time heals,
Phoenix rise from ash;
the effigy I hold
and behold
will still cradle
my soul.

                          ...or not.


For sometimes
you cast your stone,
shatter my image.
A violent lens
boring down on
smudged edges,
blended hues,
seeping
watercolor memories.

And I must look anew,
widen the fissure;
gape
at another
reflection
and wonder,
what is true?

I could pretend
yours was
the sharper eye;
your palette,
loud with vitality and
crisp borders:
the sole herald.

Yes, I could
pretend
dimness
is the same as
Grace.

                          ...or not.


For sometimes dimness
                                       is Grace.
                                                        Precisely.


Aperture - regulator, opening, hole; exposure of time.

Wry Dignity

Forgive me
For wincing
As I become peripheral.
For groaning
Like breath escaping
A church organ
Bellows.
For not bowing my head
To the last Amen.
For refusing to disappear
Just before I
Disappear. 

Pardon me
That elephant skin
Now surrounds my knees
And elbows,
And neck.
That sometimes when I
Walk
Sit
Stand
Bend over,
I pass gas
Without consent.

Excuse me
For asking you
To repeat what you said
While finally
Telling you what
I think
And feel
And know.
For finally
Becoming
More of me
While
More of me
Becomes less.

Forgive me
For not quietly succumbing
To shame.
For letting my hair
And spirit
Go wild
With the calendar.
For dancing
Barefoot in a muu-muu
And singing
Off tune,
Plunked on a ukulele.
For shouting
At the moon
And laughing
With the gulls
And twirling
In the waves.

Forgive me
For reminding you
Of the
Unforgivable.

I Wondered

I wondered
What it must be like
To never touch bottom.
To grasp with toes fatigued,
Cramped from groping,
Aching for a slice,
A sliver of
Foundation.

To feel the ease
Of a stance
Only to be knocked
Askew,
To be swept away into
A current of undoing.
To take a breath
And hold it
And believe
That somehow
You could become
Buoyant
And that bobbing,
Skimmering across the surface
Would do.
Would do just fine.
Though your belly
Ached
For a tether.

I wondered
What it must be like
To hope,
When the very word
Falls from a language
Your ears don't decipher,
Your tongue can't seem
To touch.
To sense
Hope
As a vapor
Tingling against
Skin
Smelling of faint
Ash.

I wondered
What it must be like
To know the poverty
Of your own
Soul.
To peer into the
Empty bowl
And gape at the
Residue,
The remains of
Something,
Hints
Like rice grains
Stuck to the side.
To pace,
To growl
For beauty,
Insight,
One sweet moment
Of feathered
Peace.

I wondered
These things
As I watched
My neighbor
Pull at her sweater,
A dangling thread
She twisted
Around her finger
And pulled;
Twisted
And pulled;
Twisted
And pulled.  


For those, or their loved ones, who struggle with Post Traumatic Stress or mental health issues.  

Lesion

There is a wound
gaping,
bare.
Lying
over there.

I thought
I covered you;
Smothered you with
salve;
Gauzed you well;
Removed your smell.

You seemed to
scab.
Get crusty brown,
Tight all around
the edges.

You blended in
To skin
Grown thin
With age,
And memories
Too soft
For touching.

But there you are
Lying bare
Over there.
So raw
And red
And moist.

How did
You
Come back
To life?

Lying bare
Over there?

Solicitous Passage

Ease me through
To the other side
Of me.

Carry me softly
Across the current
Of my heart.

But please...
oh please
Let me not drift
Into eddies.

Catch my wilted sail
With your breath;
Tack me against
Your wind.

If I must stand
Lashed to bow;
If gales must be
the compass...

Then take my helm.
Ease me through.
Carry me softly
Across the current
Of my heart.

Oh,
ease me through.

AMEN

Sometimes...
Sometimes I just don't want to be
the gracious woman
anymore.

I want to be
A tantrum-ing
Kicking
Arm-flailing
Screaming
Conniption-fitting
Child.

Sometimes
I weary of
Arm-patting
Hand-holding
Tissue-issuing
Hugging.

Alright...
Once again
I guess I'm supposed
To step aside
To let you move
To where you
need to be.

But this time...
This time
I will be
Noisy
About it.

I will knock over
The planter
Leap on the table
Strip off my clothes
Hold my breath
Stomp through the hall
Cuss
And spit
And yell
To high heaven.

Because sometimes...
Sometimes
That's the purest
Prayer.

A Walking Prayer for Richard Twiss

Walking south to you Grandfather, sweet wind of hope,
my mother the sea
rushes to my side and runs back,
rushes to my side and runs back;
whispers at my feet.

Ask, she says.

I cannot bargain with the Mighty One.

Ask, she says.

Each step a plea,
a drumbeat.
Each step a wail,
a laugh, a dance.
Each step a prayer.

I cannot bargain with the Mighty One.

You can struggle;
You can wrestle,
You can ask.

Each step a plea,
a drumbeat.
Each step a wail,
a laugh, a dance.
Each step a prayer.

Walking south to you Grandfather, sweet wind of hope,
I see a great tree
standing tall like a man
alone on a hill.

Feet still upon the path,
arms reaching to your face,
fingers strumming your sweet wind.
A tall tree,
a graceful tree,
a bold, piercing, laughing tree
standing lone on a hill.

Stretched
Between
Us
And You.

Each step a plea,
a drumbeat.
Each step a wail,
a laugh, a dance.
Each step a prayer.

Walking south to you Grandfather, sweet wind of hope,
I see my heart.
That I am selfish.
That I want his feet upon the path.
That I want to anchor his root.
That I have already forgotten
a tree never dies.

Each step a plea,
a drumbeat.
Each step a wail,
a laugh, a dance.
Each step a prayer.


February 2013: In memory of Richard Twiss -   https://www.facebook.com/RichardTwissLegacy

I Cannot Deny

I cannot deny
Intentional Love
Toward me
From without
From within

Experiential
Intentional
Love

Signifiers
Sometimes a whisper
Sometimes a shout
Heralds
A Truth
"Beloved."

Beyond knowing
Yet known
Beyond seeing
Yet seen
Beyond touching
Yet touched

From without
From within
We dance

Experiential
Intentional

Love
Toward
Me

God.

Ode To Muse

An invitation to surrender
To worship
To sacrifice, lay bare
the echoes.

The loft - a sanctuary
Surrounds me like a hug.
The writing table - an altar
Invites me to kneel.
Calls me to reverence
Beseeches me to spill out
To trust
Woos me to Truth.

I balk
Tremble
Toy
Sigh
Walk by you, touch you
Walk by you.
Sigh again.

You tap my shoulder
Whisper in my ear
"I will meet you there."

And I know "there"
Is the altar of my heart.
The place I fear
Because I am inadequate
Unsure
Confused
Unskilled
Mediocre
Simple
Over my head - way over my head.

And I know "there"
is the altar of the keyboard.
The place I fear
Because I am inadequate
Unsure
Confused
Mediocre
Simple
Over my head - way over my head.

But You say
"Yes, I know my dear.
That's the point."

Oh, To Be Hushed

...........in the wake of Newtown (update, and now Boston);
and the Newtowns of Syria, Gaza, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uganda, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Mexico....


I pray for a Jesus-y voice to rise above the din, a voice that will hush us.

A voice that peels away, sheers off,
our logical defenses
our rationed benevolences
our self-serving agendas
our short-sighted intentions.

A voice that unites us in our shames:
of sensationalism above sensitivity
of glamour above mental affliction
of mammon above poverty
of sword above plow
of individual rights above human rights
of homeland barriers above a welcoming hearth.

A voice so laden with grace, with humanity, with heart-break
that we cannot utter a sound
to counter.

A voice that melts us
drives us to our knees
breaks our hearts.
Hushes us.  Hushes us.

A voice that speaks to the darkness
in us.

Oh, to be hushed.
To be hushed.

unRaveling, unWrapping the Gift

It's been several years since I've displayed my Nativity scene.

Part of the time it was stored away because I was living out of a suitcase.  Then when I found a little place to call home, I didn't have room for it.  No extra shelf space, nothing to rearrange to give it place.  So it stayed boxed up.  And I really didn't mind, because actually I've been sorting out this Nativity narrative for a while.  Keeping it stored away gave me permission to wrestle with it.  In a way I was deliberately abstaining from its presence.  I wasn't abstaining from my faith or the God of my faith, but I was and still am unpacking a lot of theology that has in a way, kidnapped Faith.

In my struggle, I have felt bound to human constructs that frankly squashes the very life out of faith, that denies doubt, prohibits questions, and demands unthinking allegiance.

Because I experienced  (for lack of a better term) a God-encounter set within a framing construct, the two, the construct and the encounter, became synonymous.  How we think about God, how we explain God, how we handle the ancient narratives somehow becomes the authoritative focal point rather than the lens.  Our human constructs become the bigger story, bigger than the God of the narratives.

We don't like mystery; we are puzzled, almost tormented by paradox; we quake in a void.  So we construct meaning we can digest, and we call this Faith.

Intuitively I think I knew this, but when it comes to grappling with Spirit, human constructs are both comforting and stagnating.  Despite the tensions of intellectual, psychological, and spiritual dishonesty, I held just as tightly onto my human constructs as I did to the God of my encounter.

It wasn't until I attended Seminary that I saw a distinction.  That gentle, respectful environment permitted room for wrestling, for sorting out, deconstructing the human elements from the mystery of God.  Layer by layer, after teasing out the literary genre, the historical context, the grammatical tenses, the archeological discoveries, the parallel literature of the Ancient Near East (which all shape meaning), what we were left with again and again was....

.....mystery, paradox, a void.  More questions than answers.

While acknowledging both, our human ability to understand and give meaning and our human inability to understand and give meaning, all we really have left is a response.....faith.

Faith in the Mystery, the Paradox, the Void.


The other day unpacking my Christmas decorations, I came across my stashed away manger.  Because I am living in a different house, I now have room for my Nativity scene.  Habitually I set up the pieces arranging the story like I'd always heard it, but as I did I felt agitated, grieved.  I tried to ignore the blah undercurrent, but I kept asking myself, why is this bothering you?

As I stepped back and caught the "whole story" framed there in my living room, I realized  my struggle.  The traditional setting of the Nativity is orderly, staged.  Everyone has their place and every place has its appropriate thing or person.  Kind of, theological-like.  It feels contrived, not real.  Certainly not real like my-world-real or even real like Jesus-in-his-scene-real.  There was something about the whole thing that felt, phoney.

I was about to put it away, but couldn't let it go.  I wanted it there.  But I wanted it to be more real; I wanted the imagery to reflect truth.

So I messed it up.

I moved the pieces all around; very random.  There are no wise men gatherings or shepherd clusters or barn animals framing a manger.  Baby Jesus is not fore-front but skewed over to the side; Mary's worshipping but she's focused on the angel (and bless its heart, I realized my angel has a broken wing, which now has become my favorite piece).  Joseph is confused and wandering, a wise man is talking to a camel and another is facing the wall.  I love it.

In the mess, Love is present.  In the confusion, God is with us.  In the chaos we are offered a gift, wrapped in Mystery and Paradox, presented in a vortex.  It is called faith.  And the wonderment is how God steps right in as we unwrap, unravel, accept.  

Merry Christmas - Blessed Nativity.                

                

        

Scarred By Love

At first glance, my demographic can be sized up pretty quickly - middle class, suburban, modest, white woman. Labels have always defined me. But as Kierkegaard said, "once you label me, you negate me." I think that's why I love my tattoo.

My crowd would assume I must have had a roaring drunk moment in my youth, or that I am a loose woman prone to impulsiveness, not giving much thought to permanence.

But my tattoo is not a novelty. It is holy ground. It was etched by one worth dying for; it symbolizes one worth living for. It hails a four year old child, my grandson Parker, who died two years ago from a tragic fall from a two story window.

My son and I were stunned in grief. I needed a way to touch that place; to touch it together with him. We had danced around his profession, a tattoo artist. I had come to accept his artistry and vocational community, but I hadn't yet found a way to embrace it that said, "bless you my son."

A few days after Parker's death, steeped in sorrow, aching the loss of my grandchild and the brokenness of my son, I found the touching place. Stroking the inside of my wrist, I knew I had found the place to meet my son, the place to connect in a combination of ink, tears, and hearts.

He designed it for me; he etched it as we clung together in love and loss, remembering a precious little boy who giggled his way into our lives and left his mark in our souls.

Yes; I am scarred with an eternal stain - the stain of Holy love.

Bless you my son(s).

Starbucks Bible Babe

I don't know what it is that seizes a woman in perfectly rational moments to go from humming along with a contented universe to a hyperventilating, sobbing, tissue-twisting heap of panicked mush.

I'm not talking about hormonal meltdowns. I'm talking about the kind of thing Nora Ephron points out in her book titled, I Feel Bad About My Neck, lamenting her foreign crepe-y-ness, or what Anne Lamott writes about in her Traveling Mercies chapter she titled "The Aunties," referring to her billowing thighs as ever present relations she must come to love. What I'm talking about is the much discussed issue of female self-acceptance and how it's entrenched to an impossible cultural norm shaped by youth and beauty.

Women cannot just "BE." We know this. That's why we exercise, tweeze, manicure, attach, implant, wax, shave, polish, perm, color, cut, blow-dry, moisturize, and labor over whether to buy the skinny jeans or stick with the good ol' standard cut.  We have a cosmetic bag chock full of current products, a drawer of half-used lipsticks, and a shoebox crammed under the bathroom sink of dried-out who knows what as back-ups. We DO NOT throw away makeup, and God forbid we run out of mascara. And this is the modest woman I'm describing. I haven't even begun to mention the women who have it down to an Oprah-science on what push-up bra goes with what sweater and why you need twelve different hair-brushes for the perfect comb-out.

Yes, I know; some women are liberated from such nonsense, are not held hostage to a corporate glamour image minimizing the true beauty of what it means to be "woman." But even so, there's not a woman alive that doesn't say when she glances at herself in the mirror either hmmmm, not bad, or hmmmm, I gotta do something about that. There is some sort of slide-rule of "o.k.-ness" every woman uses and gets from somewhere. From time to time we may have to adjust the standard a bit, but none the less, it's always lurking.

And so it was, one Sunday morning as I put myself together. I was feeling pretty good with what I had to work with that day. After all, I had lost about thirty pounds, had treated myself to few new outfits, and had come to sort of like my recent haircut I had tried to sass up a bit, even though I was having a hard time getting the hang of this gel-goo stuff that's supposed to help with the sass. I gave myself a last pat down as I slipped on my new trendy jacket and had one of those, hmmmm, not bad moments.

And this was an accomplishment to have a hmmmm, not bad moment. Not because I had arrived at some sort of acceptable standard, but because, on the contrary, I was working hard to let go of the standard. I was going to like what I saw, to accept what was, regardless. This was a part of maturity, right? I was no longer a young something or other; I was a baby-boomer. And baby-boomers were starting to droop, spread, and wrinkle. Even when I WAS a young something or other I couldn't live up to the standard, so why the heck should I be tangled up in it now? So on that note, I gave myself a firm nod of approval and strode out the door to meet my family at Starbucks after a little spiritual reinforcement at church. I WAS ok; yes, I was.

And I was still ok, nooked into a cozy Starbucks corner sipping my latte, chatting it up, when out of the corner of my eye I spied the most drop-dead gorgeous, flat-out, suck your breath away blonde step into Starbucks. She looked like she belonged on the arm of Hugh Hefner, her long platinum tresses wafting in the breeze as she opened the door, her sun-kissed face full of pout and whisper. She was tall and willowy, and her rabbit-fur boots with dangling puff-balls only accentuated dancer's legs clad in leather jeans so tight you could not miss one inch of what the good Lord gave her. Her matching fur vest, stretched over a taut pink tee, in no way could disguise boobs way out to God knows where. As soon as she glided across the threshold it was like some kind of ancient hypnotic curse exercised its power - "when in the presence of this kind of beauty, you SHALL behold and be in awe." Every eye turned in her direction as she walked up to the counter, and with each step you could feel every woman's esteem collapse like a wilted balloon.

It was like being on the inside of a barometer, the air pressure, measured in strokes of confidence, dropping with each female internal self-check. You could feel it as one woman ran her fingers across her bangs to puff them up a bit; as another subtly shifted her weight from one dimply hip to another in her chair; as another sucked in her belly and straightened her back....as we all remembered our last vision of ourselves in the mirror that morning. Hard as I tried I could not, along with everyone else, keep my eyes focused elsewhere for more than 16 seconds without checking her out again. And, with each sneak-peek I felt myself chafe.

I watched her reach into her back pocket and there, hugging the curve of her midriff, teasing just above her toned butt cheek was a rose-wrapped Harley Davidson tattoo; I rolled my eyes. Well of course, I slathered; why not? A buxom, blonde, biker-babe astride a hunkin' piece of growling metal. Every man's dream. As she walked over to a table smack-dab in the middle of the room, I had her pegged with each flounce of her dangling rabbit-fur puff-balls: biker-babe; bunny-biker-babe; Playboy-bunny-biker-babe; ditzy-Playboy-bunny-biker-babe. I was deeply mired in character assassination and a lavish righting of justice when she sat down, arranged her coffee and cookie, leaned over her suede bag and pulled out, of all things, a rhinestone and pink fur-covered BIBLE. She plopped it open on the table and out popped a matching bookmark; a sparkly, furry, pink puff-ball swinging back and forth on its ribbon over the table edge like a final punctuation.

This was too much. Now I was steamed. I mean, give me a break, God; and by now I was having a direct, ticked-off conversation with the Almighty. You have to understand; I like God. In fact I have come to love God and God-stuff, but it has taken me a long time to see how much God loves me, and a whole lot longer to love myself. Now, here was the impossible standard glaring at me, mocking me in all its pink puff-ball power, teasing me with, of all things, a biblical seal, a bling-encrusted biblical seal. I felt betrayed. How could You, God? How could You rub it in my face?

And that's when I could feel the Nora Ephron, Anne Lamott thing happen; could feel age like water rising; could feel every wad of cellulite, every jot of underarm flab, every eye wrinkle scream it was NOT a laugh line but a full blown crow's foot. Grace and mercy seemed to ebb away; panic clawed up my spine. Oh god, I knew there was no point in defying age, but I had hoped there could be a way to disentangle this impossible standard from the act of aging. I couldn't believe how fragile and snarled up I still was; I was going to choke on this from here to eternity. Good Lord, where was a paper bag? I needed oxygen; I was about to keel. I got up from my nook and headed to the Ladies Room. Part of me wanted to slink my way along the room's edge and part of me wanted to march across the middle, pass straight through enemy territory so close I could smell those Harley roses. By the time I reached the restroom I knew I needed a face-off, or a therapist.

Washing my hands in the sink, I fussed. I fussed with my attitude; I fussed with my hair; I fussed with how ridiculous all this was and fretted about how in the world was I going to rid myself of this preening-shackle, when a flash of florescent green caught my eye in the mirror. Looking closer, I could see that something was hanging from the armpit of my new trendy jacket that had validated me that morning, made me feel oh so adorable. Lifting my arm, groping around with my hand I could feel the sharp stabs of cardboard and a strand of nylon thread; I ripped it free. Oh god, it was the sales tag, flashing in multi-stickered discounted neon! It had been flapping and bobbing all morning as I had walked into church, waved to friends across the parking lot, gave hugs, reached for coffee.....forged across the Starbucks' bunny abyss.

I stared at myself in the mirror. It was hopeless. I was hopeless. No matter how hard I might pretend it wasn't so, or tried to keep up, the impossible standard would always be there eluding me; it was not going away, and I would always have sales tags dangling from my underarms.

I stood there letting that sink in.

And as I did, I started to laugh - a luscious, flat-out I'm either going crazy or I'm-being-set-free howl like a prayer; a chortle of gratitude; a wondrous hurrah. How it is that truth can slice a moment and split it open, I'll never know, but somehow it does.

I may not exactly understand how it is that a woman gets bogged down into quicksands of self-defeat, gets snared into marshlands sucking at her soul, but I do know what it is that gets her back, that delivers her up. It is the poetry of God. It is the cosmic, raucous throw-your-head-back laugh that knows, despite it all, the bottom line is always the beauty of mercy, the beauty of love. It is to face down irony with a flush of grace and acceptance. In the mirror God had me; trumped me in the poetry of a price tag.

I patted my moist cheeks dry, touched up my lipstick, rearranged my bangs and took a deep breath. Yes, those were lovely crow's feet; yes, I know - I was not a bunny-ized version of Starbuck's babe-ness, I was a version of my own beauty and truth.

And with that, I took one last, gentle took in the mirror, smiled and said..... Amen, as I turned and walked back into the world of babe-ness, triumphant in my moment of love and grace and mercy.....oh yes, lots and lots of mercy.

Trying Out A New Look

Kinda like getting a new hair style.............every once in a while, you just have to. This wasn't my favorite template, but it was in the COOL category and I could still read the lettering without my glasses. Interesting juxtaposition - COOL and granny glasses...........ah, well.