Life on the Edge

After our house flooded with hot water last Thursday we have been navigating the internal waters of doubt and uncertainty! Constant adjustments to our routine are happening every minute of the day. The new normal is improvisation!  Continuous reinventions of everyday routines make me realize that we are creatures of habit and monsters of expectation!



And then today as I was walking up the hotel stairs to get to the room, I currently call home; I discovered that I was actually enjoying myself! In the middle of all this crazy insecurity was a sudden flash of absolute joy and elation. I had to take a good look in the mirror as I entered back into my basic hotel room to make sure I was not sporting a weird rash or any visible signs of sudden madness… But no, all checked out pretty normal!


So what can cause a human being such joy in the midst of being displaced from their home, dealing with insurance claims, wet baseboards, ruined walls, damaged electronics, drenched furniture and soaked rugs, I asked myself. Total emotional confusion? Mental illness? Or possibly PTSD? Much to my relief an interior investigation revealed the following:


• All that was hurt in the flood was “stuff”. My family has suffered some minor trauma from the shock of it all – but nothing a little understanding and some honest conversation can’t fix. We are all ok. That discovery is so fundamentally joyful.


• We are surrounded with a caring community. We have neighbors that initially helped get the right kind of flood Remediation Company called in, and who helped us face the damages with a steady and calm presence. We have friends who upon realizing we were unable to be in our home for Mother's Day spontaneously invited us over for a lovely luncheon complete with a private concert by one of their talented daughters. In addition there are many who have told us to just ask if we need any help at all. The looks in their eyes and their sincerity speak volumes of the kindness of the human heart.


• Living in the moment of just “winging it” with regards to everyday occurrences adds a new kind of spontaneity and creativity to our days – A recent example: How does a 9 year-old do homework in the hotel room, when there are no pencils there? Well, he goes and asks and the hotel clerk who just happens to have a sharpened pencil, and is willing to let him borrow it…. The look of accomplishment as our young student bounces back into the room to tell me “it worked” shows renewed confidence in self and others.


• If I forget the key when I go out– I can just ask at the desk for another one!


• The simple realization that I am so fortunate and my current troubles are merely temporary in nature and fixable. My heart and my prayers go out to the people whose houses are totally flooded in the Midwest and South, the permanently displaced in Japan, the hungry and homeless everywhere.

 I also discovered that my previous worries and doubts were focused on scenarios projected into the future: “What if this happens” – type situations. When I am now actually in a situation of dealing with a bit of hardship, I live focused on the here and now, navigating the waters from moment to moment. This might be a blessing in disguise! I am reminded that life lessons can be found in all situations if we are able and willing to embrace them. I experience why community is so important to our well-being! A recent article from Ode Magazine describes this kind of new-found joy lived by people who are in the wake of an unthinkable disaster; the people of Sendai, Japan.

 So what is our definition of happiness in our acquisition focused world? How much time do we spend living out our projected scenarios worrying about loss of property or loss of life? What if our attempts to make ourselves “secure” is a big part of our internal suffering? What if accepting a helping hand from a fellow human being, or extending such, is more fulfilling than a new designer purchase? How will looking at “uncertainty” as “invitation for improvisation” change our perceptions? What happens if "keeping up with our neighbors" is replaced with "keeping our neighbors"?


I continue to live these questions as I put one foot in front of the other allowing each moment to envelop me in its perfection.

The Blues - The Flood - and The Flow of Life

 

This morning started with a phone call from the babysitter that our house had flooded! She sounded calm, yet had an urgency in her voice that let me know that this was indeed pretty serious. Turns out a hot water pipe had burst and flooded the house - and it was ankle deep in many places. To add insult to injury a "rain forest" effect had developed and water was dripping from the ceiling, the walls were drenched and all the electronics in the house were likewise coated in condensation!

I am in Memphis attending the Blues Music Awards. Right now there are floods in many states in the Heartland as well as here in the South caused by the Mississippi swelling and flooding. With this new information about my own flooding at home I find myself feeling a kinship with all the people who right now are in a similar situation - or in fact in much worse situations than I am in. Nonetheless I experience the insecurity, the doubts, the feeling of being powerless. As the stream of destruction has invaded my sacred domicile, a stream of questions and uncertainty seems to now similarly flood my mind: How bad is the damage? How much will be have to replace? Will insurance cover any or all of it? Are we going to have to move out for a while?

Walking down Main Street of Memphis with my husband by the hand, we soak in the sounds and the impressions around us with renewed intensity. A man is in the park with the sun shining down through the green leafy trees. He is black and past his prime. He plays his harmonica and sings of the heartache he feels. Something about the chords of the blues scale speak to me. In the open-hearted state I am in with all the uncertainty surrounding this flood at home, the chords of the blues progression go beyond any point they have gone before. Beyond reason. Beyond the mind. Beyond analysis. And also beyond my emotions. I allow myself to just feel enveloped and embraced by the eternal kinship - the never-ending identification with all people, black or white, brown or yellow that have ever been in a place of worry, fear, sorrow or pain through the soft, soothing and cyclical chords of the blues progression. We connect through time and space in the Blues.

I look at my husband - and he tells me that this is how the Blues always has spoken to him: The soft embrace of kinship - a feeling of being one with others who have been there before. And in this place of affinity is also a space where loneliness and uncertainty feels comforted and held by the consciousness of all - the flow of life itself.

And in this place of understanding I connect to the Blues in a new way, I also find a new purpose in partnering with a performer of this genre who brings this music to so many. I feel the real power of the Blues: The way it connects us to the deepest regions of our hearts and souls - the places that are beyond ourselves and thereby connects us straight to God and allows us to not feel alone anymore! I have the Blues today - and in spite of all the connotations of uncertainty and doubt - it is a beautiful, meaningful and revelatory experience.