The 20-something half

I am the 20-something half of this blog, the 60-something's eldest daughter. We hope to hear from many other pairs down the road.

I had an interesting thought yesterday, as I was sauteing kale, watching midday TV; balancing the healthy with the guilty pleasures.

I was thinking about my parents, worrying about them, fretting about future careers for my mom, and ways to help my dad feel "juicier" in his life. Then I was thinking about me, and worrying and fretting about my life. And then I had a new thought in the midst of my daily anxiety agonizing, which was:

This is the moment when my life and my parents overlaps, not because of any sort of dependency, but because our life purposes are actually overlapping for the first time, ever. The circumstances are a little different of course, but our purposes are astonishingly similar.

They are trying to figure out who they are, where they want to be and what they want to be doing, in the absence of steady careers and family life. And I am trying to figure out who I am, where I want to be and what I want to be doing, in the absence of a steady school schedule and family life.

Wow, I have always intrinsically known this, but now I am a true believer: there is so much we can share with one another, us adult children and our parents.

Watch this 5-min short film, all the way through: http://youtu.be/U08lAYIdZlE

I did a little laughing and a little crying.

Our Own Thanksgiving

I know it can happen at any age, but somehow the 60something entry into the frailties of the human body makes it a sudden wake up call.  I give thanks that we were able to have our own family Thanksgiving yesterday. It was something I almost missed. In the afternoon, my heart went into in atrial fibrillation and it looked like I was going to get a Medflight to the hospital instead of the delicious dinner we had been working on all day.  But after the IV of liquid and some oxygen, suddenly, my heart flipped into its normal rhythm. Yes, I will have to get it checked out. I will have to learn the triggers. The evening proceeded with both daughters home for one precious night, our own Thanksgiving, because it was the only date that worked. Gratitude was on the table, for family, our own rich history, the amazing food and the wonderful paramedics and EMTs of our island.

Big Love/Volunteers for Peace

I decided on our trip across America (see Drive Across America; Travels with Jack) to give myself the gift of mornings. It has been amazing. I am not naturally a morning person and in my early years, I loved the late evenings most. These days, I am too tired in the evenings. On the trip, we learned to get up and get going before dark. We noticed that the mornings are full of promise and energy and SPACE. After noon, it seems, the world has tipped and you are just running to catch up. I love it enough to get up in the dark and meditate, followed by two bountiful hours of writing and researching. By 9AM, I am ready to join the world, having had this time to myself.

Anyway! I have been researching a way to travel in some way that connects my travel to something bigger. I was inspired by an article by Lisa Funderburg, More Magazine (see Big Love images here) in the dentist office yesterday. It is about a woman who went to Thailand--not to lay in the sun or or explore, but to tend to elephants in a sanctuary--elephants who had been abused or abandoned.

This morning, after a couple of hours of looking, I found a great web site. I have set up volunteer programs before and I know why they charge, but most of them are too expensive for me--or you, probably. So, I really like the projects and prices of Volunteers for Peace. Check it out. 

Travel

It is sweet, this dark rainy season. Perfect time to make soups and dream and get to all those unfinished projects. Also, without me saying it's okay, my brain sneaks off to think about sunny places and escaping America--or at least the Northwest winter-- for awhile. If you are the same, take a look at Back Door Jobs. For those of us who love to travel, with the growing awareness of climate change and the inequities of life, having a purpose in doing so makes more and more sense. Travel. Witness. Serve. Gain work experience. Make some money. Plant trees.

Falling Through Time

It is too early in this blog to write of this. But here I go, anyway. We call it Empty Nest but it is so much more. I will simply say it is like falling through time.  I will let you decide what that means. I will add that it is grief, pure and simple. BTW, I am not trying to find 5 Ways to Overcome Empty Nest (and yes, oh so many articles exist). 


I am simply living with it, alongside the many things I do that add value to my life. I understand the miracle of being aware and alive to be here, on this planet with 7 billion people--- and that beauty and pain and loss and joy and grief shimmer simultaneously every second of every day.  It is all happening at once.

Rick Bass, a western writer and activist whom I deeply respect for his love and courageous fight for the protection for wild rivers describes how he felt when his first daughter was born.
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"What I think I felt, that next day, was a newness of responsibility: an utter and concrete reminder that I was no longer the most important person in the world—that, in fact, I was nothing, and she was everything. How such knowledge saves a person, I can't quite be sure, but I felt rescued, felt as if I had passed completely through that thin curtain and into some finer land where the self dissolved, and another was born. I still feel that way, anytime I look at either of my daughters . . . . and I know that other parents feel that same way . . . ."

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Anyway, dealing with that feeling, when your kids grow up is what is called "Empty Nest" and what I feel as falling through time.  It's like the foundation of this house I call my life has been removed. Freeing. Scary. No matter how many others have gone through this, it is the first time for me. 

The rest of that article is pretty damn wonderful, by the way. If you want to read it, click here. 

"How we fall into grace. You can't work or earn your way into it. You just fall. It lies below, it lies beyond. It comes to you, unbidden.” --Rick Bass 

For a great article on Rick Bass, see this Orion magazine article.

 

Perfect art for November

 My friend Deva likes owls. Of course she does, since she is one. While you and I are slumbering away, this is what she does. I love that she wears a tattoo like a spirit guide on her arm. Awesome Deva. Here is her blog site.: Various Distractions From Sleep.

Deva

On a whole other note, here are the lyrics by a John Gorka song that stopped me in my tracks this morning. I like the idea of growing up to be a tree very much.

When I grow up I want to be a tree
Want to make my home with the birds and the bees
And the squirrels, they can count on me
When I grow up to be a tree

I'll let my joints get stiff, put my feet in the ground
Take the winters off and settle down
Keep my clothes till they turn brown
When I grow up, I'm gonna settle down

CHORUS:
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach
I'm gonna reach, reach for the sky
I'm gonna reach, I'm gonna reach
I'm gonna reach, till I know why

When the spring comes by I'm gonna get real green
If the dogs come by I'm gonna get real mean
On windy days, I'll bend and lean
When I grow up I'm gonna get real green

(BRIDGE)
If I should fall in storm or slumber
Please don't turn me into lumber
I'd rather be a Louisville slugger
Swinging for the seats...

Day of the Dead vs. Halloween: Some Humor

Need a laugh? Like all humor, it has a sharp edge of something serious, but it is fun and perfect for now.
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/10/24/111024sh_shouts_semple

Want Some Inspiration: Check out these 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winners!

Tawakkol Karman (Yemen)

The Nobel Peace Prize Winners for 2011 

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2011/

Leymah Gbowee

The Nobel Peace Prize 2011 was awarded jointly to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (President of Liberia), Leymah Gbowee (Liberia) and Tawakkol Karman (Yemen) "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work". 

Tawakel Karman is called The Mother of the Revolution, the first Arab woman and second Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize. She is a journalist and politician and human rights activist who heads a group Women Journalists Without Chains”.  She influenced the Yemeni protests to follow the Arab Spring (or, as she calls it, the Jasmine Revolution).  Yemen was one of the first countries to follow Tunisia as part of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the first and currently the only elected female head of state in Africa. “She is a member of the Council of Women World Leaders, an international network of current and former women presidents and prime ministers whose mission is to mobilize the highest-level women leaders globally for collective action on issues of critical importance to women and equitable development.

During the 2011 Libyan civil war, Sirleaf added her voice to a chorus of calls from the international community for Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi to cease the use of violence and tactics of political repression. However, she criticized the international military intervention in Libya, declaring that "violence does not help the process whichever way it comes".” (quoted from Wikipedia)

"Nobel Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee, 39, mobilised women from across Liberia's ethnic and religious divides to call for an end to Liberia's brutal 14-year civil war.

Amid the shells and bullets, they prayed and protested for days on end, demanding that the conflict between former President Charles Taylor and rebel forces stop.
"In 2003, it was very difficult. We had lived with 14 years of conflict. A group of us, women, decided to take action for peace - including picketing, fasting and praying," Ms Gbowee told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
"This [award] is a huge recognition of the struggle of our women." " See full BBC article here.