AN EASIER LIFE by Debbie Smith

“A harder life isn’t necessarily a better one,” my dad said, sitting in the diner one Sunday after church. We had been discussing my upcoming marriage. I was trying to explain to him that I knew what I was doing, that even though Chris had serious emotional baggage, that I was capable, up for the job of being his wife and mother to our as yet unborn daughter. I was eighteen at the time. Eighteen year olds are that blessed mix of being so sure and so unsure simultaneously.

What my parents were offering as an alternative was an easier life, no doubt. They were more than willing to have me live at home with them and the baby, finish college, and wait and see if Chris and I would work out as a couple, since we had only been dating for less than a year. All of their options made infinitely more sense than me signing up for the whole package, wife and mother all at once. I understood what Dad was saying, I knew he wanted what was best for me. And yet, there was always that side to me, the side who looked at the two sets of monkey bars on the playground, the lower placed rings which I already knew I could conquer and had during recess, and the higher rings that were more spaced out and therefore more difficult but, oh man, when you swung from one ring to another, you had to gather up your momentum and really stretch your arm out so far and so fast that it hurt all the muscles in there but it almost felt like flying, at least close enough, and wasn’t the only flying dream I ever had set in that very playground? Those rings were what I wanted to try. Even though, yes, I’d fallen more times than I could count, gotten gravel and dirt stuck in my knees and sometimes my hands burned so much but I loved those rings in a way that was almost wrong.

So sitting in the diner with my mom and dad looking so worried about me, I was already noticeably pregnant by this time; my dad already knew by the look on my face what my answer was going to be. That even though a harder life wasn’t necessarily better, and it would be harder, harder than the eighteen year old me could ever ever imagine, that that life was the life I’d already chosen. I’d chosen it when the stick I had peed on in the fifth floor shared bathroom of Dablon Hall, my dorm, turned out to be blue. That that life with its fights, frustrations, joys, heartaches and its ultimate destruction by an affair twenty two years later, that life had already happened even way back when on that Sunday afternoon in the Croton Diner.

A LIFE NOT LIVED by Sylvia Ruth Weinberg

If I had listened to my parents who sent  me off to college with a wardrobe such as I’d never before had, a wardrobe designed to help me catch a husband, which was after all their reason for sending me to an out of town school -- I would have married a rich man.

“It’s just as easy to marry a rich man as a poor man” was the line fed to me with dinner every night of my senior year of high school.

Steven Schucker, who had checked out all the co-eds coming to Cornell from Jamaica High School -- where his father was principal -- and who had decided I was the one -- was greatly impressed with this wardrobe.  He loved to say in front of people, "Tell them how many cashmere sweaters you have," which he secretly loved -- but feigned disdain for.

Steven with his crimped, pinched handwriting -- a metaphor for his crimped, pinched being.  Such a suffocating, demanding world he came from… I didn’t envy him.

But I on the other hand, who’d had no familial intellectual demands, was ill prepared for this community of scholars -- especially the ones at Telluride, the honor house where he lived and brought me to Saturday night dinners.  I loved the feeling of the Louis Sullivan house with the Brandenberg concertos playing in the living room, but I can’t imagine how I made it through all those meals with visiting lecturers and visiting performers -- like the Hungarian String Quartet.

I have always, it seems, been with and among deep thinkers and highly educated people -- artists and writers at the top of their game and yet this life -- a life of the mind -- is never a life I have lived.

SOHO 1985 by Kathy Robinson

I was a mix of college tweed, 1970s mentality and dread of my impending graduation from a small school in Westchester County, just north of the Bronx.  First kid in the family to continue her education beyond high school with a dream of success labeled “Getting Out.”  As independence from 16 years of schooling neared, I realized how empty the promise of a corporate career felt.  That, in comparison to the curious stirrings I felt walking the streets of Soho, stumbling through galleries looking at art I didn’t understand.  But I grabbed onto the crackle of energy coursing through the dirty streets, camera in hand, shooting black and white photos of layers of torn flyers announcing concerts, performance art, poetry readings – remnants of unknown Rembrandts doing anything they could to create their next piece, because they had to.

I spent my college years documenting those times from the peripheral, without the connections or the balls to penetrate those walls and stake my claim to this creative feeling that lay dormant until then.  I remember taking the train back to school, processing the celluloid and developing the prints in the isolation of the darkroom.  The glow of the red light, the smell of the chemicals, alone – watching a white piece of paper awaken with the images captured hours before.  Eight by ten slices of my life that were never composed of scenic waterfronts or skylines.  Rather, I was drawn to the inner workings of the underground – a tangle of bare bulbs and wires hanging like wild sculpture; streaked windows facing crumbling brick walls; rusted wrought iron bars covering heavy locked doors.  Unknown metaphors that would one day drive the artist to finally break free.

MY DHARMA by Lynne Reitman

We had our Buddha Book Club the other night – my turn – my house – and we were discussing, for the second time, Stephen Cope’s book about finding one’s “Great Work” in life.  I was resistant to this book from the start.  I had gone to a workshop of his and he was a tall, thin, very white man who smiles way too much at his own ideas.  He taught a yoga class that was very half-hearted and spoke too much about his mother, Barbara.

Anyway, the book asserts from the beginning that we all – everyone of us – has a   dharma which he explains is a “gift” that we need to express and if we don’t it will destroy us.  I found that terrifying.  I closed the book and thought – oy vey – another thing I am not doing right.  But being a dutiful group member I reopened the book and tried to understand what he was talking about so I could decide if I needed to despair.

In our first group discussion everyone had felt very inspired – looking for their gift and each other’s gifts – but then the discussion, as usual, deteriorated into one of the member’s new 3 bedroom, 2 bath apartment with river views.  Perhaps that was her gift.

Since that group and our closing meditation at the end of our discussion, I have been plagued by this feeling that I must not be living my gift and that’s why I feel so awful.  Frankly, I can’t imagine that I actually have a gift.  It seems pretentious to think that I do.

Then my husband was leaning over the toilet in severe pain, feeling like throwing up and I knew immediately that he had a kidney stone – it is not my gift  that I knew this – my father had them.  So I calmed him down and took charge – getting him to the emergency room and all medicated up and hydrated. Then helping him work through the impenetrable healthcare system which is impossible when you are sick.  I was very pleased with myself – I was comforting and competent and caring.  So I thought – perhaps this is my gift. – caretaker.  After all, I am a psychiatrist and I spend my day listening to people and trying to help them understand a hopefully overcome some of  their pain.

But Stephen Cope said that if you are living your dharma – although it is work and practice and a struggle – it is spiritually fulfilling.  I must admit that I am not spiritually fulfilled by caretaking.  I can be generous in the moment but overall I am resentful and exhausted and often wish everyone would just stop it or take care of themselves.  Or maybe even take care of me.  I actually believe that caretaking has made me physically ill.

So I thought this can’t be it – this is a curse, not a gift.  Then I remembered that someone in the group read a passage from the book that said you have to nurture your gift as if you were in training.  Get good sleep, eat well, practice long hours, and do other, non-gift related things to take care of yourself.

That was interesting – I had missed that part.  Since the meeting was in my house I had provided the snacks. I am terrible at this.  Some people make or find the most delicious snacks.  No matter how I approach this mine seem unappealing.  One time I thought that tootsie roll lollipops were a good idea and they looked so ridiculous on my coffee table when everyone arrived.

But what I did have was my new collection of bowls and platters and mugs that I have been making in my pottery class.  Don’t even think that this is my gift.  Nobody would make that error looking at the final products.  However, I loved making them so much and my pottery class is the highlight of my week.  Saturday afternoon with my lovely, thoughtful, patient teacher who somehow finds something genuinely interesting in everything I make even though I would never have noticed it myself.  This is certainly her gift.  I love the feel of the clay and the organic way the bowl or cup emerges from the wheel.  I love my meditation on the wheel or on the slabs and coils of clay I am piecing together.

So I decided that this must be one of the ways that I take care of myself. Maybe caretaking was my dharma but I needed to do more pottery. I was thinking about this when I got a call from a college student who had been a patient of mine several years ago.  I had helped him and his family when he was adopted from Russia.  His parents had recently called me to see their younger daughter who had also been adopted. He called to tell me that he hopes I do as good a job with his sister as I had done with him.  How adorable is that?  I felt fulfilled.  Maybe not spiritually, but in a secular way.  
   
   

IN TRANSIT by DeAnn Louise Daigle

I like small; I like small

Places, I like tiny figurines, I 

Like miniature paintings, small boxes,

Small jewelry, small uncomplicated

Life-style, small notebooks, small

Books, small computers.  I don’t know

Why I’m that way, I just am.

The more I think about Mom, the

More I wonder.  I never really knew

My mother.  She kept big secrets

From me, really big secrets, I would

Find out about and not have the courage

Or the know-how to ask her real questions

Or, was I afraid to find out that

What I’d heard was true?  And then,

What about Dad?  I loved him so

Much, then when, after Mom had told

Me he did not drink, I found that he

Disappeared periodically and this was in

Fact because he did drink.  He made Mom

Cry.  I was angry with him.  Why did he 

Not just stop drinking?

It did something to me as a young

Child to be getting half-truths, double

Talk, and protective untruths.  Somehow,

I had to muddle my way through this

Maze to find in life who I really

Was; and could that truth, would

That truth really be so bad, so incomprehensible

That I would rather die than go on

Living?  Why could Mom and Dad

Not just be honest with me?  Why

Did they feel so protective of me, so

Much so that it actually complicated

My life, making me timid, shy,

Reticent about what I was, who I

Was, and what if what I was

Told was true – about Mom – about

Dad – about me?  What if it were

True?  Could their love for me not

Hold me, shelter me, protect me?

Or were they so unfinished themselves

And so not quite grown-up yet

Themselves, that dealing with the 

Consequences of the truth-telling to a real

Other human being, another child apart

From themselves but part of them,

Be too, all too overwhelming?  Would

Having the truth come out be so

Awfully devastating that the unbearable

Would become the …? 

There were whispers in corners, in

Hallways, in the room at the bottom

Of the stairs.  I only heard portions

And I knew secrets were being

Kept from me, and I knew but

Didn’t know.  I always didn’t

Know until late in adult life

I just had to know – for sure,

For truth, for my own locked up

Inability to grow and become truly

Myself – to become myself.

And so, I justify the book.  My

Husband, my Jim, tells me I

Ought to embrace my book, be

Proud of my book – and it suddenly

Occurs to me that I treat my book

The way my mother treated me.

WHAT IS REQUIRED by Wendi Beck

I do not have the sanity required to deal with them/you right now or I truly do not have the sanity required to deal with or even think about any of this right now.

Words that I have either thought or said more times lately than I can count but still I am calm and patient with the kids, and the family, the federal government and holiday planning on how to make sure we can all survive having Mom and Dad under one roof and both sitting near enough to me but far enough away from each other to not cause more stress and strife. 

The required patience to make sure everyone is happy and calm is at best unlikely and at worst impossible.  Couple in with that a three-year –old, a teenager  and a husband who tried to make it through the holidays with the required calm and cooking to keep everyone happy and on their diets. As well as the growing sense of loss that I keep to myself from them over no longer having Nana here in Tennessee and knowing all the happy peaceful  holiday pictures that will flood Facebook from my family in Florida where they have Nana,  my sanity.

Then there is the new year and all it brings in: another court date with my ex and the continued parade of paper work and doctor visits with all the new checkups they want Dad to get.  Appointments for Brianna and my continued search for a doctor for my stress and depression.

I will make myself appear at least to have the required sanity, calm and patience to get through the holiday season and into the new year . I always do...

Well, kinda.

DESIRED OUTCOME by Carol Welch

The Way taught the "law of believing." Believing was a "law," like gravity.
If I believed positively, I'd receive positive results.
If I believed negatively, I'd receive the consequences of my negative believing.
One of the believing formulas was "confession of receipt yields receipt of confession."

Mid-1990s.
I sat in the hallway at the Catawba County building where the 4-H Department was housed. Like many home schoolers my children were involved with 4-H, the national youth organization that promotes hands-on learning. The four Hs stand for Head, Heart, Hands, and Health.

My children and I were at the agency for a meeting of some sort. I liked 4-H and what it provided for my children. One of my fondest 4-H memories is when my children and I incubated twenty-two chicken eggs and all but two hatched. My kids and I had fun going into a dark closet and "candling" the eggs. Candling is a process that shines light on an egg shell in such a way that a person can see the embryo developing inside the shell. It seems we used a shoe box or something to hold the egg and somehow direct the flashlight beam through a small hole that then allowed us to peer through the translucent shell and see the shadow of life in process.

I sat in the hallway at the 4-H building.
I sat in a chair leaning forward with my elbows propped on my knees; the forward-leaning position helped me inhale. I would often sleep in a similar fashion - sitting pretzel-legged while I leaned forward over a husband pillow.

I pulled out my albuterol inhaler, put the device to my mouth tightly wrapping my lips around the plastic mouthpiece that held the medicinal canister, pressed down on the aerosol canister, and inhaled deeply...as deeply as I could between my wheezes.

It didn't help much. Nothing ever helped much.

So I sat, as I had countless times prior and as I did countless times afterward.

I sat.
I wheezed.
I silently spoke in tongues.
I inhaled my aerosol.
I trembled.
I sweat.

I sat.
I waited it out; we had to be at the building for awhile anyway.

As I sat wheezing, Lois, another home school mom whom I looked up to as a mentor and who was a nurse by occupation stated, "Carol, have you ever thought that maybe it's God's will that you have asthma? That there must be some purpose in it, that He is trying to teach you something?"

Lois was a Christian.
I was too, but I was a more like an alternative Christian; I was a Way believer.

The Way didn't believe Jesus was God, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe the dead are alive, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe abortion was murder, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe there were two crucified with Jesus, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe that Jesus died on Friday and got up on Sunday, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth do Jesus, like most Christians.
The Way didn't believe a lot of things that most Christians believed.

As a Way believer I knew that God's will was always to heal; it wasn't just a belief, but rather an absolute truth.

I never blamed God for my chronic illnesses.
I seldom even blamed the devil.
I blamed myself.

If I could just believe bigger, I'd be whole.
I would "build my believing" by "putting the Word on" in my mind.
I would "confess" until I died that God wanted me well.
No one could convince me otherwise.

Between gasps for breath, I adamantly answered Lois. "God wants me well, not sick. Even if I die wheezing, I will die confessing that God's will is my wholeness."

Like the countless prior wheezing bouts and the countless wheezing bouts that followed that mid-90s late morning, within an hour or so I was again able to breathe normally like other mammals whose lung sacks are not filled with fluid.

It would be January, 1999, before I had my last real bout with asthma attacks. Doctors had discovered high levels of mercury in my body and I began the process of ridding the poison from my system. The desired outcome was better than I expected - even though I had confessed my healing for almost two decades, I never really thought I'd experience this earth-life without constant inhalers and injections and pills and concoctions and surgeries and the continual carousel of physicians.

It was a two-edged sword, that law of believing.

On one side of the sword, that law kept me going; I clung to that law like it was my god, confessing my healing and awaiting my deliverance from this wretched body that crawled with hives, that was flooded with itchy blood and inflamed tissue and pain, whose oxygen sacs were filled with fluid instead of life-giving oxygen. I would confess myself into believing; what other choice did I have?

On the other side of the sword that law was my accuser; I berated myself for my unbelief. I must be a despicable human being to have so many physical problems. When I had those thoughts, I'd cling to another Bible confession, "There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." I'd tell myself God loves me and doesn't want me beating myself, but what else could I do? The evidence of my unbelief was manifest for all to see.

Once I stepped outside Way doctrine, I began to heal.

What else could I do if I wanted freedom to live....