Today, I thanked Anxiety. I asked her if she could step aside, let me deal with it.
“It” was finding myself having to address that person. You know the one. It’s hard to meet their eyes because of the taste that seeps into your cells. You don’t want to remember their existence, but there he is, there she is, alive and secreting the sour mind-stink that makes your mouth turn down and your anxiety turn up.
Sometimes, it’s not so much that person as it is the thing that person represents. Either way, you don’t want to admit them to your world, and you try to look away, to preserve your mental health.
I suppose I did have a choice. But making the choice to avoid him (we’ll say “him” this time around) carried other choices. Sometimes, when a situation is so far awry that addressing it makes you sick, the only way out is through, even when your anxiety tells you NO. Sometimes, you have to say words, you just have to, and he was the one who had to hear what I had to say. (A lot of had to going on, and it was hard.)
So, I breathed.
Lately, it’s happened that a few mindful breaths, now and then, pile up a space of wide, soft air all around me. Anxiety dissipates, and I understand how this meditation thing could work. There really is blue sky above all the clouds, and the clouds are so soft to lie on. They thread and swirl and braid in my easeful fingers.
For a moment today, I found myself up there in the blue sky. And, he was on the other side of my shiny ring of clouds, so blurred and insubstantial I could hardly see him. Fresh, clean air in my mind, and calm, clear certainty radiating from my gut. Lovely.
Anxiety wasn’t so sure I could do it.
She pointed and tensed and crouched, but I could see how small and helpless she was, although ready to fight to the death to protect me. So, I lifted her as gently as I could (claws like a spitting cat), and put her safely outside my shiny ring of clouds.
Thank you, Anxiety. I know how much you want to protect me, and I appreciate it. You’re always there to make sure I know the danger. You’ve done your job well! Now, I’m ready. I can do this on my own.
I did. It was good. Thank you Anxiety – I’ll never forget you! 😉
He was standing apart from the other children, swaying, looking down and away from the activity of the room. Amid the noise and clatter, it was the quality of his silent, absent presence that held my attention.
I was at the Children’s Development Centre setting up my harp for a demonstration. Most of my gigs in those days were office parties, receptions, dinners, a lot of weddings, and occasional school music classes. This was different.
The staff were having a hard time finding people who were comfortable bringing their instruments and making music for this group of children. All of the kids at the CDC had developmental issues, and many of them struggled painfully with bewildering rules of a world they couldn’t understand and their inability to communicate their frustration, anxiety, or simple curiosity.
You never knew when a child might be triggered and start screaming or throwing things. And some of the children were very physical in their unpredictable affection: too-sudden sticky fingers on the instruments and awkward harp-tumbling hugs!
I admit it: I was worn out with teaching and gigging and being a mom in a failing marriage. I didn’t want to say yes to such a difficult, draining gig. But these children deserved a chance to hear the healing harp. They also deserved a chance to touch the resonating wood, pluck the strings, and make their own peculiar music just like all the more privileged schoolchildren and wedding guests I taught and entertained.
So, I said yes.
After I explained the interactive nature of my work, the startled CDC staff said I should limit this gig to playing only. They warned it might not be safe to let this group near the harp. But, however reluctant I was (very), it felt like a thing I had to do. My own two boys did without so much in the chaotic atmosphere of life with a narcissistic father, and my thoughts were an endless train of regrets over the things missed, experiences I couldn’t give them. I didn’t want to abandon other kids whose need was even greater.
I remembered so clearly (and still do) the first time I played an Irish harp, the delight of wood vibrating close to my heart, the wonder of strings singing in the wind, and the peace that instantly calmed my spirit. Very old Irish mythology has stories of harpers who evoked laughter, tears, or sleep with the magical geantraighe (happy music), goltraighe (sad music), and suantraighe (sleep music); they are stories, not history, but I’d seen and felt the extraordinary effect my harp music could have on those around me. It became a healing spiral spinning between my hands, my listeners, and my heart. I learned to let the music flow intuitively, to allow listeners to receive it and heal in whatever way they chose.
People came to talk after a performance, wanting to tell me how peaceful, calm, happy, and just beautifully better the harp music made them feel. At weddings, I often found myself playing the recessional with a parent and child crouched nearby, soaking it in. Wherever I played, I always invited the children (and adults, if they could overcome their inhibitions!) to run their fingers over the strings. They rarely needed reminders to be gentle, since the harp seemed to create gentleness in them.
As I lugged the harp from gig to gig, doing the same things time after time, I tried not to notice that I’d lost something of meaning and purpose along the way. It was always great actually playing the tunes, and I still felt a flutter of satisfaction with the kids’ enthusiasm, but there was something missing.
That’s when Barbara arrived for her piano lesson, flustered, hurried, and direct. “I know you’re very busy…” (they always start like that I thought, irritated), “I know you’re busy, but tomorrow at the Children’s Development Centre we’ve had three musicians cancel. It’s a special day for the children…please, please, please could you come for half an hour?”
So here I was in this unfamiliar space, pulling the harp up close, uncomfortably aware of a swaying little boy across the room who seemed to be altogether unaware of anything at all. I admitted that, right or not, I didn’t want to be there.
Barbara saw my glance and murmured, “Charlie’s not having a good day. He probably won’t even realize you’re here.”
I tried to keep my focus on the harp strings and the music. “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” rose to my fingers and to the rescue. Stillness filled the room even amidst mumbles, whispers, and creaking braces. One little girl, placed close by in her wheelchair, reached out her finger and touched the bow of the harp, smiling delightedly at me the whole time. Somewhere deep inside I felt a tiny, nearly forgotten tingle and I smiled back at her as I played.
That was it. This show had to be like all the others. These children needed to touch the harp and feel the strings quiver under their fingers. I finished playing and asked Barbara to make it happen. The staff hovered nervously, but the children approached quietly one by one, reached out their little hands, and made music. Even the boy with the thick glasses and angry scowl, the one who slammed toys against the wall if they didn’t work right, who hit his therapist as she tried to guide his hand towards the harp; even he slowed to delicacy as his fingers touched the strings.
The line came to an end, and suddenly there was Charlie standing in front of me, no longer swaying, and staring intently at the harp. There seemed a huge silence around us as his hand came out tentatively and sank back slowly. I waited. Then he touched a string.
“Twinkle,” he said, very softly, but clearly.
That’s all he said. “Twinkle,” again, a breath louder.
I looked at him and he looked at the harp, enormous patience in his eyes. So I put my hands on the strings and played “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” as if it were a concerto and a love song and the only music in the world, my heart speeding and my breath quick in the boom of his intensity. He stood absolutely still, and he listened. When it was over, there was a fleeting glance of his eyes directly into mine before he turned and shuffled slowly away, swaying again with each step.
The huge silence pushed my lungs as Barbara and another therapist helped pack and carry gear, both of them with shining eyes and wet cheeks. Outside, as we put things in the car, Barbara turned quickly towards me and touched my arm. “You have to know what happened in there with Charlie.”
“Yes?” I said, so confused and hesitant.
She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Charlie is autistic,” she said. “He’s five years old. He has never spoken a single word.”
That tiny tingle inside me fairly boomed. “Never?”
“Never. Twinkle is Charlie’s first word.”
That was years ago, and I am desperately glad that I decided to do that difficult gig. The mythological, magical geantrai, goltrai, and suantrai flow through my fingers, the magic is back where it belongs, and “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” makes me cry every time I play it.
That’s the new handmade sign on the tree at the end of the riverside forest path, right before a short but steep snow-covered hill that leads from the forest to city sidewalks, cars, and apartment buildings. I love finding art messages on my walks, and I’m always pretty certain they’re meant for me! Ok, they’re meant for every person who reads them, and I always read them.
Press on!
Not necessarily something I want to hear, not necessarily something that’s helpful to hear. For instance…
At the beginning of our first shut down, I decided to do yoga, just like I used to. Feel that stretch! Make it happen! Dig deep!
And I gave myself bursitis.
When it happened, it sounded as if every muscle in my hip tore. It felt as if my leg was hanging, unattached, but not quite falling off altogether. It hurt too much to walk. How much hurt is that? I don’t know how to measure pain, but I do know that I fell asleep between labour contractions. So.
It took months of physio before I could face that hill. Months of learning how to use my body, discovering I’d become used to a duct-tape version, worn duct-tape barely holding together neglected bits and pieces, catching in the non-act the muscles that were having a drink with their feet up while other muscles, not meant for the job, worked too hard and got hurt.
As I take some photos and enjoy a few more precious minutes of the frozen river and the tiny sounds of winter wildlife, I think about this new message. I wonder if the artist had that steep and slippery hill in mind when they hung the sign. Which kind of press on did they mean? Or did they want to leave that up to me, show me the possibility of a new way to press, dig in, demand more of myself?
Pressing on can serve you, and it can also harm you. Brene Brown talks about her experience of digging deeper, of pressing on, pushing herself to the point that her whole being stopped functioning and she had a breakdown.
But, we all know of circumstances where someone made a huge and beautiful life-changing contribution by hanging on, pressing on, digging deep for that last burst of energy.
So, what’s the difference? When should I, and when shouldn’t I?
“Men and women who live wholeheartedly do indeed dig deep. They just do it in a different way. When they’re exhausted and overwhelmed they get:
— Deliberate in their thoughts and intentions through prayer, meditation or simply setting their intentions;
— Inspired to make new and different choices;
— Going. They take action.
I spent far too many years digging deep in that old, exhausting way, pushing through to survive another chaotic day in the debilitating, possessive circle of a narcissistic, abusive husband (now so joyfully divorced for many blossoming years!), somehow coping, though not well, with raising two beautiful boys.
Now, I know the difference. I see that sign and I see the steep, snowy hill. The hill must be climbed unless I go all the way back to the beginning of the path–and, even if I do, there’s another hill! It must be climbed, and I can climb it. But I won’t huff and puff and slip and slide and climb it obstinately at any cost.
Instead, I pause to check in with my body, breathe deeply with the trees and the slow, frozen river, and make sure that the core of my being, the part that endured all those years of digging in, the part that is energetically and physically the centre of me, is engaged and ready.
I breathe and begin to climb, step by conscious step, grateful for my life now, grateful for the learning of my life then. I can see and appreciate the ever-changing perfection in my chosen path of deliberate, inspired, active intention. My morning walk on the forest path is a gift every day. I am blessed to be here. My body is stronger each time I walk the path, more ready each day to climb the hill. (My spirit is too.)
The quiet little sign with its handmade lettering and stenciled dove still invites me to press on every day. Whatever the artist intended, I’m grateful they made their offering here, where I can see it and be inspired.
Today is holy in many cultures. Here in North America, we’ve nearly lost the holiness in a mess of candy chasing and best-costume prizes. This year is different as COVID rages and people choose to — or are made to — stay home. I would have anyway (solitude is my refreshment), but I have rarely felt so deeply the need, on this day, for spiritual connection. Pandemics can do that to you.
Ghosts of October 31 past grin at me from the wind storm shadows and tossing branches outside my tree-top windows. Many Hallowe’en parties, many All Hallows Eve vigils, some Dia De los Muertes (thank you Mariachi Ghost!) celebrations, some Samhain gatherings. But this is the first time I’ve watched the full moon rise and understood the meaning of the night, looked for the ending and beginning that my heritage (Irish and Catholic) teaches me.
Samhain moonrise
My grandmothers and great-grandmothers for generations prepared in vigil for the Feast of All Saints on November 1. They would have kept, and slowly lost, the memories of an earlier time, a time when the great fire festival at Tlachtga in Meath marked the passing from the light half to the dark half of the year.
I imagine wandering back to Ireland, slipping into their Rosary circle, letting their prayers lead me deeper into memory, to ancient times, until we glimpse the brightness of the Samhain fire far across the island from my grandmothers’ homes.
“This is a momentous time in the lives of a people to whom the changing of the seasons was a matter of life and death.”
https://www.newgrange.com/tlachtga.htm
What did they do when they saw the beautiful light? Samhain was the end and beginning of the year, the last gifts of the precious harvest stored, the thinning of the veil between this world and otherworld, a time to honour and welcome ancestor spirits and protect from harmful spirits. There were rituals to be followed in those ancient times just as there were for my grandmother and her vigil with her ever-present Rosary, just as there are for each of us if we are willing.
And, I think there must have been private, hidden, silent words, soft thoughts and barely articulated feelings. Whatever the ritual then or centuries later, I think they said, thank you.
Thank you for the promise of the sun once we’ve made it through this long darkness,
thank you for the promise of light and new life,
thank you for
this dark night to let our sadness out and watch it disappear into the dark,
this thin veil to release the grief of the year past,
the sorrow of unwanted goodbyes,
the end of things we would have held closely.
Things change, and we need a holy place and time to make peace with the change. Our beings rest in ritual, relax in familiar prayers. We do well when we can set aside time and prepare a particular, separate space to give thanks for change, to allow, to rest without resistance as the seasons shift, as darkness and light circle in their long dance, and as the moon rises on this holy night.
“As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than there is wrong, no matter how ill or how hopeless you may feel.” Jon Kabat-Zinn in Full Catastrophe Living.
I’m breathing, and I’m here! This project, Fear is Weak I am Strong, is finally born, after years of thinking, writing, observing, planning – and quite possibly fearing, now and then. 😉 All my threads find a home here: harp therapy, sound work, writing blogs, writing stories, croning, aging, children’s storytimes, all are embroidered in this new tapestry.
There’s still plenty to do. And it feels exciting, inspiring, and energy-giving as I consider where this path is leading me. I’ve arrived here from a whole other world, tripping over a lot of rocks, getting pebbles in my shoes, getting caught in hail storms and mud, and collecting some interesting scratches and bruises as I clambered up an unknown mountain. I think this might be near the mountain top!
The bus was late. Not just late, it disappeared. I heard the same stories of late and non-existent buses from everyone on all the routes. (SHOUT OUT – transit drivers do a great job in stupidly tough circumstances. When are we going to realize that free transit is the best thing for any city? Oh and include in that a several-times-a-day disinfecting and cleaning schedule.)
Late buses don’t seem all that important anymore.
Four cases confirmed, the university closing and moving to online classes, food services laying off people after catering cancellations pour in, so, so, many artist friends report canceled concerts, art shows, fundraiser parties, and other self-employed friends who help supply and support those events share their worry about canceled contracts.
(You already know about all the big ones like the NHL and the way arenas dumped all their low-end employees. See, they’re just doing it for (as a friend posted) shits and giggles to decompress after their full-time jobs. They don’t need the money. The players still get paid of course. OMG, how would they manage if they had to do without a paycheque?)
Schools are closing! But not for another week. Because – well. I’m not sure why. Just because.
I work at the library. Not going to talk about it because – well, again, just because. Only to say that we’re starting to feel the stress. We see the families who come to the library because that’s the only place they can access for free, and it’s such a nice environment after cramped, noisy, falling apart apartments. We see the kids doing their work there because they don’t have internet at home, and maybe they don’t want to risk taking books home then forgetting to get them back in time. I am so grateful that I have a good job.
Throughout so much of my life, while I was married for way too long to someone whose emptiness could never be filled, someone who, over and over again, took what I had just because I had it, who spent money as if he had a giant trust fund because money is a river he said whenever he wanted something, and you can’t dam it up, throughout those dismal decades, I could not have kept our children fed and clothed, could not have paid for a place to live if this pandemic had happened then.
I am so grateful for where I am now. But I shiver and feel the clench of fear in my gut each time I think of families in those desperate circumstances. Trauma lasts a long time.
I know from experience (the bitter kind, turned sweet) that meditation is my go-to medication, and without it, the trauma will take over, bitter as f, and pack away all the thinking parts of my brain. So meditation is, thank goodness (goonness, I typoed. I like that.), back in my life to lead me through this crazy world.
My son is working long, long hours outside in the cold. I’m not too worried because he has excellent hygiene, and being outside in the fresh air is a good way to stay away from nasty viruses of all kinds. But no sleep and long hours and cold, freezing cold….He has a bit of something that does seem to be no more than his usual sinus and head cold. He has a bit of a smoker’s cough. I’m going to pick up some more immune-boosting supplements and Nyquil after work.
The Rexall across the street is out of things I didn’t plan to buy anyway: face masks, hand sanitizer, and alcohol. I didn’t check the tp situation, but I do need paper towels. Wasteful, yes. One more ethical conviction that fell in the face of real life.
I’ve given in to the lure of paper towels and Swiffer, but they don’t completely rule me, not yet. Instead of fitting up the Swiffer mop with its own cleaning pads, I use paper towels to sweep and the cleaning pads for a quick hand scrub of the bathroom. Can you tell I sometimes feel guilty about it? Hardly the act of an environmentalist.
Then I think of the years, decades, when hardly a disposable anything crossed my threshold and came through my doorway. Ferry trips from Salt Spring to Vancouver Island meant taking cloth diapers and extra terry cleaning cloths, plastic bags for the dirty stuff, and (for some reason I don’t remember) a small plastic baby food container. I think it might have had some kind of baby butt cleaning goop in it in case I couldn’t get to running water. In those days, change tables were scarce. Dryer? That’s why they made the sun.
Packed lunches – waxed paper if there was no other way, lunch boxes, and hard to clean thermoses. Candles made and remade from melted wax to save on electric lights. Melting snow for baths, dishes, hair wash when the well ran dry.
I think about it, and then I forgive myself – again. Inner balance, calm, stability has a way of spreading to the people around us. Mental health first means we have the strength and energy to create environmental health.
Back in the store, it turns out they are also all out of rubber gloves – the thin disposable ones. Something else I would never use, but recently, I’ve had a couple of allergy scares when cleaning. I don’t even use “products”. But it turns out that excessive amounts of TKO can cause me to blow up like a scarlet balloon if I touch my face. Now that constant cleaning is the way of life, and disinfectant (wonderful Benefect, for choice) is coming to stay, so are rubber gloves. I’ll have to wait on the disposable ones though, and make sure to thoroughly disinfect the yellow ones every time. It’s getting complicated.
There’s plenty of cough and cold medicine, lozenges, vitamins. Is that good news? People aren’t getting sick in droves, so there’s medicine left? I don’t know, but I buy enough to get my son through this and have some leftover. The staff are friendly and patient despite what must have been a hectic day.
I’m still unsure about how I feel. Anxiety is hanging around. I see my friends’ Facebook and Instagram posts, so I know I’m not the only one. I sit down to play some slow, simple, early music on the harp, breathe with the music, focus on heart energy flowing through my arm and into my fingers. Ah. There it is, the inner serenity, the spreading pool of golden light. That’s something I can do to – maybe -help.
I make public some of my earlier harp videos and share them with friends. I don’t know if listening to it will have anything like the effect of playing it, and my harp should be plugged in since it’s not fully acoustic, and my laptop mic and camera aren’t very good, and…
Oh. You again. Listen, anxiety, I really do appreciate your protectiveness. But I’m good, thanks.
Yesterday, it didn’t matter very much. I took it seriously, washed my hands, did the things, but I’m old enough to remember SARS, Y2K, and AIDS. Ah. Yeah, we should have paid more attention to that one. The bar band jokes that we all laughed at and had another Guinness – well, we didn’t know. But SARS didn’t destroy the world, and Y2K didn’t even happen.
I’m not given to panic (except about all the relatively unimportant things in life, but that’s anxiety for you), so the reports coming out of Italy, for instance, only caused me to get cleaner and be more careful.
I had moments of worry about my son, already dealing with a chronic sinus infection and now dealing with chronic exhaustion from 14-hour days (and longer) on a movie crew where deadlines and money rule all, and social distance doesn’t exist. But I always have moments of worry about my son. That’s anxiety for you.
It wasn’t until the notices started arriving in my inbox and the posters started going up today that it suddenly began to matter. There is, for instance, the slow realization of how many things we touch every day.
One of the sanitizers, the one we all prefer because it has fewer potentially harmful ingredients and it smells like peppermint, has no pump attachment. You pick up the bottle, take off the broken cap, squeeze into your hand. You clean your hands – and then you pick up the dirty bottle with your clean hands and put it back together. Easy enough to fix – put the bottle back together before you spread the disinfectant over your hands. But it wasn’t until today, that any of us noticed our foolishness.
We touch computer keyboards, books, desktops, craft supplies, washroom keys, pens, mouse, scanner, computer monitor, binders, drawer handles, door handles, coffee cup handles, food. So there is the path to utter disintegration.
Wait – don’t pick up that muffin. You just held your coffeecup with that hand! Yes, you washed it out. But did you thoroughly scrub the outside? Can you remember if you touched anything else after washing it? The kettle? Did you scrub the bejeebers out of the kettle handle? Cough and sneeze into your arm? And then what? How do you disinfect your sweater sleeve? What happens when you pick up an armload of files, cradle them into your germ-infested elbow? How far does this go???
The world is already going crazy. Toilet paper! Cats everywhere are delightedly plotting access, but really? I don’t want to join the panick.
I understood how far I had plummetted (not as far as the Toronto stock market, not yet) when my friend texted me to go to the play with her. Women of the Fur Trade, sold out, excellent, and my friend is one who is always comfortable to be with.
Yet – I hesitated, and not just because I tore some hip muscle or other on the weekend and it’s still hard to sit! (That would be another forthcoming story. Warm-up before yoga, folks!) I thought about people packed together in the theatre, no windows, unsanitized seats and armrests, coughs.
This is still March 12, in frozen, far-away Winnipeg. Nothing is closed yet, there are only 3 cases, and, well, SARS, our go-to fairy story about how everything turns out just fine. This will blow over, right? And the play is very good. Just yesterday, the interwebs were full of jokes about how even Covid-19 doesn’t want to come all the way to wasteland Winterpeg.
So, I went to the play. It is as good as they said it would be. I try to not think – too much – about all the people around me, but no one is coughing. Except one of the actors.
That turns out to be part of the plot, but she peers at us quizzically, “Nothing, I’m fine. Nothing to do with any of you.” The other actors stay in character and still manage to look nonplussed, “Oops, sorry. Nothing to do with the plot either!” We laugh and settle in to enjoy.
Later that night, I worry, a little bit, about the reason I had the opportunity to go to the play: my friend’s husband woke up with a cold. But I know them well. If they say it’s a cold, then it’s a cold. It’s not the coronavirus, right?
Oh, I see. Hello, anxiety. You must really like me. Please go away, k?
