WE ARE NOT ALONE

Just a quick follow up to the last post about depression.  I'm better.  Way better.  Back to "normal", whatever that is.  It was a month-long slip-slide into darkness, and now it's light.  Sometimes it seems to happen overnight.  Sometimes I can feel the light getting in through the cracks more gradually.  Anyway, I am grateful to return to feeling like I'm an OK person and maybe, just maybe, people like me (a little) and I'm not a scourge upon the earth, wrong and ignorant in every way.  Sheesh.  

When I hit "publish" on the last post, it was because I was convinced that someone needed to hear they were not alone.  And guess what?  I got comments on the blog; I got emails; I got comments on my Facebook page;  I got one private message; and I got two texts all from people who could relate, who also are challenged by bouts of depression at various times, some currently.  That made risking my own vulnerable sharing worth it.  That is what we need to do for each other.  Be honest, be real, be there.  We are not alone.

I've been reading how we are all so isolated from each other, especially with the rise of social media, the horror of the pandemic years, and the polarized world we live in.  All true.  But I know, even with all those things, it only takes reaching out and telling the truth about our lives to make all of us feel less alone. 

Community can be formed in many ways.  I try to form community here on the blog.  I try to form community on my Inner Journey Yoga Facebook page, even on my personal Facebook page, although so many people these days have bailed on FB that it's rare to get personal sharing there.  But I persevere.  I also do it with the occasional email to my geographically closest neighbors and on the Messenger app group for my family.  Also, every Monday morning I Zoom with a group of smart, funny women friends who have met together now for several years.  I do a phone chat with a BFF weekly.  None of these are in person, none IRL (In Real Life), but they are all also forms of community.  I would miss them if they were gone.  I would be much more alone.

Of course I see family and friends in real life too, but far less often than I did pre-Covid.  I actually sort of like the less frantic social running around.  So it's OK, but I ask myself sometimes, "Do I actually have any friends?" when it feels like I can go days not seeing anyone outside my home, compared to the busy, calendar-full of events and activities I used to keep up with.  I can see why some of us suddenly feel lonely for a former fuller life.

But to completely feel alone, not a part of something, not important to anyone is not OK.  And depression tells us that lie.  That we are not worth being with and we are alone.  So, I'm grateful that my blog post found those who needed to hear that is not true, that we have worth and value and that the darkness will pass.  I'm grateful for the communities that exist in whatever form that keep us connected.  I am grateful for you.

At least, that's the view from here...©

:Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

THIS SHIT GOT REAL

NOTE: I wrote and published this one before I added the Daily Musings, which is why it feels stuck in the middle.  Still relevant though.
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Nobody's laughing anymore.  Only a handful of idiots (mostly a few Red State politicians, some diehard partiers and...well, the current "President" of the United States) are taking this lightly.  I said two posts ago that Seattle was not a ghost town.  Now it is.

Here are today's numbers, to compare to my two previous posts on this topic:  Coronavirus worldwide: 460,065 cases; 20,828 deaths.  U.S.: 61,062 cases (including someone I know well); 20,828 deaths.  Washington State: 2469 cases (including someone I know well); 123 deaths.  The county in which I live: 614 cases; 16 deaths.

Many states, including here in Washington, are now on a "stay at home" order decreed by the Governor.  No one is to go out and about unless absolutely necessary -- for food, medications, essential services, work.  We can be out in nature going for walks and such if we keep a physical distance of at least 6 feet from other people.  Restaurants, bars, many retail stores, churches, gyms, theaters, etc etc etc are closed.  Meetings are cancelled (no gatherings allowed), weddings and funerals postponed.  Businesses closed; people are working from home.  Even the big Boeing assembly plant is shut down.   Health care providers and hospitals are begging people to stay home and stop the spread and alleviate the stress on hospitals and supplies which are in high demand and stunningly short supply.  I won't go into all the details here -- it is well documented and "coronavirus 2020" will show up in history books, no doubt.  This is a very consequential and terrifying period in our collective lives.

As for me:   Anxiety waxes and wanes.  At times I feel calm and secure in the knowledge that I am being so incredibly careful and sticking incredibly close to home that this thing can't catch me.  Then I'll feel a headache coming on, or a scratchy throat, or a little throat-clearing cough and I'm suddenly doing a body scan and counting on my fingers the days since I last saw someone outside my home or perhaps touched a surface and then my face unconsciously.  Then the anvil sits on my chest and I'm sure I can't breathe, which makes all the "symptoms" more pronounced.  I recognize it as an attack of anxiety and start my meditative breathing to calm the nervous system....and on it goes.

Hub and I are deadly serious about our physical distancing plan, only going out for groceries weekly, at the early morning designated "senior hours" at local supermarkets and Costco, implemented to try to shield older people from the general population.  It's been 16 days since I've seen any friends; 10 days for Hub.  We had our grandkids stay with us last week while their parents were traveling.  We are relieved they made it home before further limits on air travel took effect.  We loved having the girls with us, but now that they are home with their mom and dad, we are not sure when we will see them again.  They are all sticking close to home too, all of us fearful of inadvertently passing something along, unbeknownst.

This virus is most unforgiving to those over 60 and/or with underlying health conditions.  Hub and I are fortunate that we are basically healthy enough overall, but we are definitely on the over the hump side of 60.  Hub celebrated his 70th birthday last week, party postponed. At our ages, there is no longer a perfect health profile.

It's hard to describe how all of this is impacting us.  It's surrealistic; it's lonely; it's unsettling; it's chaotic; it's terrifying.  It's also oddly relieving to NOT have to keep up with the frantic pace of life; to be ordered to stay home and hunker down.  There is nowhere to go; nothing to do; no one we have to see.  As an introvert, I fluctuate between reveling in the open spaciousness of my days and feeling like "OMG, I'm trapped!"

And just saying that points to my privilege.  We have a big, warm, lovely home in a great neighborhood with all the amenities and plenty of food, entertainment options, access to email, text, Zoom, social media, etc.  We are retired and have enough money for now to see us through. (The stock market has crashed, though, so we will see how that goes over time.)  We love each other and enjoy each other's company, so being together is fun and comforting.  (I cannot even go there to the domestic violence and child abuse situations this stressful lockdown might be fostering, in some homes.)

I am grateful for so much right now -- for the new relationships forming online, for the many acts of compassion and care I'm witnessing in the local and wider community, for the seriousness with which many of us are making the sacrifices needed to slow the spread and "flatten the curve" of this outbreak, for selfless and dedicated health care workers who run into the fire every day at great risk to themselves, for families who are creatively finding ways to connect and be in touch supporting and encouraging and loving all the more, for finding that all we take for granted comes with no guarantee.  All we have and think is permanent is built on sand that can shift from under us at any moment.

Some are urging "social isolation".  I get it, but isolating socially is a lonely road and not accurate.  We need to practice physical distancing and social solidarity.  We are all in this together.  Find a way to reach out.

At least, that's the view from here...©

SHARED GRIEF

I'm just now getting around to writing about this, a week after the shocking news of three young people killed 10 miles from where I live, and a fourth young man gravely wounded.  The shooter was a classmate of all of them when they were in high school, the former boyfriend of the young woman killed.  All were 18-19 years old and in their first years of college;  all of life ahead of them and by all accounts talented, gifted, vibrant individuals.  I'm just now writing about this because writing about it sooner would have made it too real.  I just couldn't believe it.

The story is that the shooter broke up a couple of months ago with the young woman he killed.  She began dating other guys.  He wanted to reconcile and was jealous.  There was a gathering of a bunch of friends at a private residence in the small, quiet waterfront town where they lived.  It was not unusual for this family to open their large home to these kids who were well-behaved and just having fun together.  (My younger son, when he was in high school had good friends in that community, his best friend in fact, and hung out at their homes at parties and gatherings just like that one.  I could picture him there, on a similar summer night, having fun with his buddies.)

At about midnight, the shooter showed up.  He saw his ex-girlfiend with another guy, returned to his car to read the instruction manual for the Ruger semi-automatic rifle and two 30 round magazines he had purchased days before and returned to the party to shoot his ex-girlfriend.  He did, as well as three others before finally fleeing the scene.  The girl and two boys died there.  A third boy was wounded and taken to a Seattle trauma center in serious condition.  A community woke up last Saturday morning to this shocking news.  It had happened again.  It had happened here.

I've been reading about the kids who were killed.  There has been less written about the shooter other than that his parents are devastated and remorseful.  I can't even imagine their shock and grief.  He was apprehended a couple of hours later driving south of Seattle, making frantic cell calls to out of state friends.  (Police were able to pinpoint his location based on cell tower "pings" off his phone - technology can be a good thing.)  He basically confessed to everything and gave the police a chronology of his actions.  I don't know what kind of defense they will mount for him, but I heard he's entering a "not guilty" plea.  The law baffles me at times.

What I haven't said yet is that I know the father of the boy who was wounded.  He is engaged to a friend I've known for 20 years.  We've socialized with them and I met his son last December at a gathering at their home.  It is unbelievable that my friends are party to this, are devastated by this,   are unhinged and disbelieving about this.  Fortunately the young man is recovering from his physical wounds.  The bullets shattered his shoulder blade, likely saving his life, since the doctors say had it hit anywhere else he would likely have been killed.  His physical wounds will heal.  But how does anyone ever heal emotionally and psychically from seeing and hearing your best friends being killed, the screams from others at the gathering, the horror of the carnage left behind?    I know my friends and they are wise, compassionate, resourceful people with a huge support system.  They will do all they can to help this young man regain his strength and heart.  But such a tragedy, such an experience can never be fully overcome, can it?

I will say it now.  Had this troubled young man, the shooter, not had a gun in his hand, four lives would have been saved.  Kids fall hard in love at that age.  They have limited experience with break-ups and moving on.  Their brains are not fully formed.  They say and do stupid things.  They need time to live and learn and find perspective.  I would guess that "back in the day" this kid might have shown up to find his ex-girlfriend with another guy and maybe caused a scene.  There might have been yelling, pushing, shoving, maybe a punch thrown.  But I can't believe three people would have been killed in a pique of jealous rage.  And the shooter himself maybe would have walked away defeated, embarrassed, bereft for awhile.  But he wouldn't be facing a possible death sentence at worst, a long prison sentence at best, at the age of 19.  The families of all of these kids, those killed and wounded and those of the boy who did the shooting, wouldn't be torn apart by an unending grief.

A 19 year old can't legally buy a beer, but he legally walked into a store somewhere and buy a semi-automatic rifle.  He bought the second magazine for it the very day he killed his friends.  There is something very wrong with this scenario.  It is impossible to overstate how much I hate the gun culture we live in, how ridiculous I feel it is that so many people walk around armed, how the gun lobby has hamstrung our Congress to the point that common sense gun laws are stalled at every turn.  The CDC is prevented from researching the effects of gun violence; pediatricians are forbidden to ask parents of children whether they have a gun in the home and how it is secured.  We have a public health epidemic of gun violence in our communities and we are doing almost NOTHING about it.  It's harder to get a driver's license and maintain a car than to buy and use a gun.

I've joined Mother's Demand Gun Sense in America, associated with Everytown for Gun Safety, USA.  Mom's Demand was organized by an Indianapolis mother the day after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.  It has grown to have chapters through the U.S.  I hope to join (or start) a chapter in my county.  This has to end.

At least, that's the view from here...©

STEPPING BACK

Oh me, Oh my.  I do not like conflict.  But sometimes it's unavoidable and then I'm not afraid to face it head on.  It takes me awhile and I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, then I just get to a point where I feel I've done all I can do and have nothing to lose by falling into the fray.  I feel both liberation and loss when that happens.  Because I know for me something's gotta change.

I love my Unitarian Universalist church, but it hasn't felt very church-y to me for awhile.  I've been in some form of leadership position there for a very long time, active and visible and trying to help create a growing, thriving, welcoming place of personal refuge, spiritual growth, and targeted activism.  My focus has been on organizational structure and transition over the past few years.  There is a joke amongst UUs that trying to move that group in one direction is like herding cats.  We are an independent, anti-authoritarian crowd who rely on the democratic process in decision-making, but are not above a good protest when outcomes don't agree with our way of thinking.

I feel like we've had one controversy after another over the past couple of years and we are currently embroiled in a brouhaha that is slipping into way, way too much of my personal life.  Its tentacles are reaching beyond the actual "issue" and now even the response to the original issue is becoming the problem.  People are choosing up sides and I can't take it anymore.  Well, I don't want to.

A couple of weeks ago, when all of this sort of came to a head for me, I was visiting friends at their new beach house and one evening our conversation centered around our spiritual practices and what we want in a spiritual home.  It revealed to me that most of my actual spiritual practices have little to do with Sunday morning worship.  Meditation, yoga, writing, and my current addiction to the Outlander book series (HAHA) don't happen in the confines of my church.  It gave me pause.

Then, the following night we explored this statement: "If you don't know where you want to be in five years, you are already there", meaning, of course, that without a goal/plan/dream, nothing will change.

We each talked about our personal goals for the near future, which led us to realizing that if we are not already living toward that goal, living already each day in service to our dream, we are missing the mark.  No magic wand will wave and put us in our own personal Nirvana in five years' time.  I won't magically be in terrific cardiac health in five years if I don't get on the treadmill today.   Whatever the goal, it starts now.

We talked about what actions and activities touch our "essence" -- those moments when we are what is called, "in the flow", when chronological time seems to disappear and we enter "soul time", lost in pure joy and spirit.  For some it happens when listening to, singing or playing music, for others when painting, or gardening, or running, or hiking.  For me, again, I am lost in my Yoga practice, meditation, and writing; also when gathered in fun and laughter with close friends and family, and I would add lately when doing crafts with my granddaughter.  No church building or committee or controversy over policies, politics, or personalities required.

This past week I resigned from an important leadership group at my church and have declared I will not accept any leadership position in the foreseeable future beyond continuing to facilitate the WISE  group for women over 60 years old, which I've done for five years.  This is not a tantrum.  I'm not party to or personally involved in the current controversy.  I have an opinion, but it's not public.  It's just that in my capacity of leadership I was being drawn into the quagmire, losing sleep, dealing with side issues and seeing some people I have admired and some I have called friends behaving with surprisingly questionable wisdom and appallingly questionable outrage.

Going back to the beach house conversations, it was clear that this church stuff was dramatically impacting my ability to have opportunities to be "in the flow" -- to make choices about how to spend my time and energy, touching my essence.   In five years' time I'll be nearly 70 years old.  I know how fast five years flies by; how fast a lifetime flies by.

I recalled Mary Oliver's brilliant poem, "The Summer Day" and its stunning closing words:
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?


I thought about my "one wild and precious life" and how much of it I've spent fulfilling commitments.  I took my concerns about "bailing on my commitment" at church into meditation; some would call it prayer.  My decision became crystal clear:  I will waste not one more sleepless night on policies and procedures, conflict and controversy not of my own making or of my personal responsibility.  I love my church; I love my community there.  But my sense of personal integrity around honoring a commitment I made to be on that committee felt like a burden -- and an obstacle to following my heart.  I was out of integrity with myself and if I didn't stop this pattern, nothing would be different in five years' time.


Stepping back is not stepping out, but it is stepping into a new way of being with a church and a community that has been central to my life for 23 years.  Liberation and loss.  Yes, that about sums it up on this sunny Sunday morning as I sit at my writing desk...in the flow, if not in the pew.

At least, that's the view from here....©

CHOOSE HOPE

This morning, watching the spectacular sunrise, I find my emotions walking the tightrope between despair and hope.  Life is so precious and so sad.  It's hard not to sound like a cliche-writing hack when one contemplates the fleeting nature of this human existence.  So, I'm not going to put many words to the swirling emotions I am feeling, shared by a community in shock and grief.

You've likely heard.  Our community was the "top story" yesterday across the nation.  Another school shooting, this one ten miles from my home, in a neighboring town where many of my friends live, where their children go to school, where some of their children go to that school.

I went to a candlelight vigil last night at our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.  We sang songs of comfort and strength, lit candles, held each other in love as grief washed over us.

This morning one girl is dead; the boy (who was by all accounts a popular well-liked athlete and leader) who used a gun on his classmates, and then himself, is also dead.  One boy is in serious condition, one boy and two girls in critical condition in area hospitals.  For all of them I feel such sorrow; for their families I feel such anguish; for all of us I feel such pain, numbed by disbelief.

And numbed by the almost commonplace nature of the event.  Our local first responders were remarkable -- but then they had trained for this.  The school teachers and students themselves were remarkable -- but then they had trained for this.  We now train ourselves for how to react to school shootings, so common have they become.

I won't go on my rant, my deeply-held belief that our national fascination with readily available firearms is partly to blame.  I know it's complicated -- not long ago another small local community endured the stabbing death of a student at school.  I know it's complicated -- funding for mental health services is so often on the chopping block when it's time to balance the budget.  I know it's complicated -- we model violence as conflict resolution for our kids with entertainments like video games, TV dramas, and outrageously gratuitously violent movies; we model it in our real-life wars and even with the specter of angry discourse in our political debates where anger and fear and intractable positioning seem to be the order of the day.

Still….what I see mostly around me everywhere are people of good intentions, who love their families, work hard, laugh together and want to find peace, happiness, and meaning in their lives.  This we share and this we must elevate to a cause for celebration of our shared humanity, even in the face of tragedy.

I won't fall into despair.  I choose hope.

At least, that's the view from here… ©

UPDATE:  One of the girls in critical condition died October 26, 2014.  Her parents chose to give the gift of life to others through organ donation.  And the grief goes on….

UPDATE:  On October 31, 2014, the other girl in critical condition died.

UPDATE:  On November 6, 2014, the shooting victim who was wounded, but recovering, went home from the hospital.

UPDATE:  On November 7, 2014, the last victim who had remained in critical condition died.