Our Tribe/Healing from the Outside In

Another Monday!  We've got to stop meeting this way! I survived the weekend, barely - I cobbled together a few good times, some good phone conversations, a bit of interesting reading, but there was also gut wrenching heartache that I had to either do battle with or just surrender to.  I'm getting really good at this being sad thing.  I'm thinking about auditioning for some really sad part in a play, musical or opera like Camille, or Anna Karenina or Violetta in La Traviata - I would be shoe-in.

This morning a fresh start, a fresh week, the beginnings of true acceptance, a solemn vow made for no communication, a decision to live.   I'm walking the walk, literally and figuratively.  Up at 5:45 and 1/2 hour on the elliptical trainer to the tunes of Anita O'Day.  Then out the door with Joey to the beach and an hour of walking for me.  It was gorgeous today - surf was up a bit and the lake sparkled.  Dogs and owners were nice although these days, I prefer sitting alone on the sand by myself looking out to the lake - a quiet time for contemplation.   And Joey sensed the tragic heroine in me today and spent half his time with me, loving me.  I mean really loving me.   He threw himself into my arms and I'm not sure who was holding who.  I clutched him, probably too hard, and pressed him to my heart and kissed him over and over and over again.  He leaned into me with his Labrador head on my heart as if to say, "you'll be OK, it's still beating in there."   Oh my God, that dog loves me and I him.

And the lake also seemed to sense my sadness because it threw me gift.  Every day, I scour the water line for smooth, paintable flat rocks - little ones. Usually I find one or two - today I filled my pockets with these presents from the "sea" that must have been thrown up onto the beach in the last day or two.    I've been collecting them all summer with an art project in mind.  Years ago when my kids were little and went to hippy school (Waldorf), I painted little quarter-sized stones with realistic faces.  Each face took me the better part of an hour to create - they were all different: naughty little boys with spiky red hair and freckles, blushing ingenues, Veronica Lake hair-over-one-eye women, grandmothers, trollish faces, etc. The Waldorf School has a holiday fair each year and there is one adorable room that adults aren't allowed into.  It's the toddler holiday shopping room and you have to be under four feet to get in.  The babes are given money to spend (the money is acorns) and little paper satchels to place their purchases.  Each item for sale has a sign that pictorially depicts how many acorns the item costs.   Anyway, my little rocks were quite the hit - they each fetched a few acorns.   I will donate rock faces again this year - it is therapy like basket weaving but hopefully not as nutty (wait that was a joke, right? nutty, acorns?)

Sitting on the beach I looked at my legs with some recent bruises and cuts from Joey (he is a puppy after all - isn't always careful with me).  In contemplating my wounds, I noticed how the healing always starts from the outside and works its way toward the center.  I remembered years ago when I seriously burned my chest with boiling water while canning peaches.  I gave myself 2nd and 3rd degree burns.  Almost all my chest blistered and when the blistered skin fell away, I was left with a chest with no first layer of skin.  It was fascinating because I had no idea how the skin would grow back.  Every day, I noted the healing and soon I saw new baby skin growing from the outside edges of the open wounds.  Each day the skin grew by centimeters until eventually the new skin overtook the wound and covered the rawness - from the outside of the wound to the inside.

So, I left the beach and decided that, while meditation and contemplation are inevitable and necessary, the real healing of my heart is going to have to come from the outside and work its way inwards.  There is no balm that can be directly applied that will provide any measure of relief.   The outside consists of the activities I schedule each day, the things I do to take care of myself however reluctantly, the friends I spend time with, the new songs I learn, the things I create, and the image I project even if I feel fraudulent.  I walked the lakefront path, head up, a deliberate smile on my face,  I even sang under my breath.   I made myself establish eye contact with each and every person I passed and I gave them my most winning smile and said mirthfully, "Good morning!"  Many people were startled out of their own reveries, but they all seem pleased, and they mostly said a hearty, "Good morning" back" and smiled genuinely.  During that walk I felt connected to every person I encountered, and as I jumped in the car with Joey, I realized that is as it should be.  We ARE all connected to each other whether we like it or not.   Just like the dogs at the beach who come in every size and shape, we are connected by virtue of being human beings, we are connected as a species.

So the challenge today may be to realize you are connected to the people you encounter today. If aliens invaded the earth we would become very possessive of each other and band together as a species regardless of our differences. We are a huge tribe.  Or if there were some horrendous accident and humans were reduced to paltry numbers (this actually happened about 70,000 years ago - the human population which had been growing nicely was reduced to about 1,000 individuals. We almost went extinct when, what is now Yellowstone, blew up - a super volcano.)  If that happened again and there were only 1,000 lonely souls rattling around the earth, each time we encountered another human being we would rush to each other and say with relief, "Thank God, another human!"  We belong to each other.  Now, even though I feel connected to you, when I meet you on the street, unlike the dogs at the beach, I'm not going to sniff your butt -  but do know I'm grateful you are on the earth with me - grateful to have a tribe.

Peace,
Sarah

Picture is of the death of Violetta - La Traviata - she died of consumption.