Snippets

On love crying, calming our nervous system, the power of gratitude, and the glory of Andrea Gibson.

Hello Beyonders!

I watched the glorious documentary Come See Me in the Good Light about poet Andrea Gibson and her beloved partner Meg Falley last weekend and my heart is still soaring. To my mind, Andrea is a bodhisattva, someone who is enlightened but chooses to come back to help others find their path to freedom from suffering. This does not mean that they didn’t suffer. Rather that they opened a channel to joy and love such as I have rarely seen. And when they stumbled and the connection was broken, they taught themselves how to find it again—and to show us how to do the same.

I interviewed Andrea whilst the documentary was being made. Their love-joy channel was so magnificent, so vibrant, so compelling that it was almost impossible for me to stay present in our conversation: I felt like I was merging with their heart, carried into a place beyond words—where all was understood. Needless to say, it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. Afterwards, Andrea and I formed a small friendship, and I was lucky enough to text with them and speak on the phone a few times, and the love-joy vortex was always wide open.

One of my favorite lines from the documentary was after Andrea’s spoken-word show to a sold-out and deeply engaged audience, they were crying backstage in Meg’s arm and Meg asked, “Are you crying because of the love?”

Becoming Love: A Conversation with Andrea Gibson, Part I

With Andrea alight in my heart, I thought about things I do to enhance joy and benefit my mental health.

A Nervous System Tip: Paint Birds

Like so many of you, I’m struggling to keep my nervous system nurtured, healthy, and calm amidst the various shatterings in this country and the world.

I mentioned briefly in an earlier post, how much painting birds via this workbook has helped me. I’ve never painted before in my life (well, except as a kid) and was surprised by how thoroughly and easily my mind quieted as I wet my pots of paint, mixed colors in my ceramic palette, and did my best to conjure a bird! I’ve talked to heaps of people now who’ve had this same experience with painting—or knitting or sewing or quilting or pressing flowers or woodcrafting or needlepointing or any of the myriad crafts we do with our hands.

Life Isn't Fair

My mom struggled with anxiety and was almost always in the middle of a needlepoint or a sweater. According to the NIH, she was onto something. Using our hands in creative ventures engages our parasympathetic nervous system which is responsible for the body’s rest and digest functions: our heart rate slows, our digestion kicks in, our blood pressure lowers, and we leave fight or flight mode. In other words, our body relaxes.

I’ve finished my bird workbook and am moving onto this flower one. My attempt at a hydrangea was a disaster! But even so, my body was delighted. So I’m sticking with it. And I plan on pulling the felt appliqué kit I bought a few years ago out of the closet to work on that, too.

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Nighttime Walks

Earlier this year, I wrote about my relationship with darkness—how I lost it due to health challenges and how finding it again has nourished me in myriad ways, including its profoundly calming impact on my nervous system.

I See A Darkness

I’m continuing to walk in the dark, which is arriving earlier and earlier these days. After dinner, I pop glow collars (aka rave collars!) on Delilah and her best friend Cookie, zip up my reflective vest, and off we go. Ypsilanti has a network of grass-covered alleys between houses where the darkness is complete; roaming those plus the quiet of the streets, the vastness of the sky, the sweep of stars, the briskness of the air, the distance train horn, the delight of D and Cookie at how different things smell at night—all of this invites my nervous system to trust the world for a stretch.

My attempt at capturing the magic of our nighttime walks utterly failed. Delilah and Cookie wouldn't both look at the camera at the same time. And the camera kept lightening the images as if we're walking at dusk or under street lamps, when in fact it's almost pitch black!

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A New Doctor and New Hope

My general practitioner of nearly fifteen years retired last year. It was quite a blow. I’d come to trust her immensely. She was an early advocate of integrative medicine, which has always made a lot of sense to me and has been of great benefit for my health.

It took a bit of searching, but last week I saw my new doctor. The moment she walked into the room, my body relaxed. I felt safe. And, as is always true, my body wasn’t wrong: Dr. Whipple is wonderful. My case history is long and layered but she listened attentively as I shared the key elements that apply to my current challenges.

When I finished she looked me in the eyes and said, “I’m so sorry for all that you’ve lived through and still struggle with. There is so much that is still unknown about head and brain injury, and often when doctors don’t understand something they shift it onto the patient.”

Of course, I already know this. Like so many others, in particular women, I have lived it. Over and over and over again. But to have a doctor both acknowledge and apologize for this was very new for me. If I hadn’t lost my ability to cry (although, I did cry watching Come See Me in the Good Light—which felt extra special as Andrea and I had talked at length about crying, something they were good at) I would have probably burst into tears.

She further added that a lot has changed in recent years around head and brain injury care, and she wanted to refer me to a specialist she trusted. Reader, it’s hard for me to get too hopeful about seeing this specialist because I’ve spent so much time and so much money and so much hope tracking down every possible healing modality currently on the planet—though you never know! But what did feel hopeful was Dr. Whipple’s hope.

While my previous doctor had helped me with myriad things over the years, when it came to my injury her counsel had taken the form of coping rather than recovery. Her attitude had long been “You have serious head and brain injury. Head and brain is difficult to live with it and most often the symptoms progress. You’ve done a terrific job of keeping some symptoms at bay and even healing from others. But this is simply the reality of your life. Luckily, you’re tough and capable.”

I am tough and capable, but I’ve never bought into “this is the best my health can be.” Because of that, I’ve healed beyond what most doctors said could happen. And I’ve learned to search out new healing modalities on my own, often outside of the Western medical establishment. So I accepted my previous doctor’s belief as the prevailing belief amongst medical professionals, even the good ones.

When Dr. Whipple made this recommendation, I felt a level of support and hope I hadn’t experienced during my nearly two decades in Michigan (my experiences in New York City were different). I felt less alone. Even if the specialist cannot help with the physical (I’ll keep you posted!), Dr. Whipple has already helped with the emotional and mental weight of carrying chronic health challenges.

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End of Life Planning (you might not have yet considered)

Within a recent five week span, five people I loved died. Four of them were in their forties and died suddenly. In addition to all the grief and sorrow and shock, the suddenness of these deaths rattled me. I’ve long had my inheritance wishes in order but the home that had once been settled for Delilah and Rudy was no longer viable. I went into extended panic imagining where my two senior babies might wind up. After a few weeks, I thought of the perfect solution for each of them, so perfect it should have been obvious from the get-go, and luckily both people said yes.

My beloved boos: Rudy Lu & D

Sorting all this through reminded me of an interview I did with the wise and gifted death doula Alua Arthur. If you haven’t read her book, Briefly Perfectly Human, I highly recommend it. She also offers workshops on end of life planning—including all the documents you need to prepare for your loved ones. If the workshop doesn't appeal, there’s also a workbook. Whilst I do have all my papers in order, after recent events I think I may sign up for the workshop because I bet there are all sorts of things I haven’t properly considered.

Guided By Joy: A Conversation with Alua Arthur

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We Are Life Itself

Interviewing National Book Award winner (it makes me so happy to write that!) Omar El Akkad was such a pleasure. He’s truly one of the kindest, most thoughtful and well-spoken people I’ve ever met. In an effort to keep things within a reasonable word count, I often trim my response to something an author said and this was true with Omar. But one of these exchanges has stayed with me.

Finding Community: A Conversation with Omar El Akkad

Omar said, “I remember reading this thing someone once wrote about their creative writing professor telling them that if they really, really thought deeply enough about the act of going to the supermarket and buying groceries, they would turn into a puddle. They would be overwhelmed by the grandeur of that.”

I was so surprised by this because a few days prior, I had come home from the grocery store, put the food in the fridge, and then shocked the hell out of myself by quite literally falling to my knees repeating “thank you, thank you, thank you.” I was flooded with gratitude for the safety of my life and for the healthy, nutritious food that I was lucky enough to have access to.

I found myself bowing. To whom? The Universe, the Great Mother, for their benevolence; the farmers who grew the food and gathered it, the drivers who transported it to the store, the store employees who shelved it and rang me up. Friends and family who have helped me through dire times when, amongst other things, money was skint and who still help me not wind up back there; Delilah and Rudy for, well, everything.

This was not an intentional practice, not anything I’d contemplated or planned. I was simply and unexpectedly flat-out on my kitchen floor “overwhelmed by the grandeur” of having food in my house. And to have Omar share that anecdote so hot on the heels of that experience felt like a blessing. We are all connected.

This circles back to Andrea who in the last years of their life was channelling the most radiant, magnetic joy, in part through gratitude.

“I didn’t understand that the present moment was bliss. What it feels like for me is a swell of pure happiness that I am aware is everybody’s birthright. I heard something recently —joy is actually the fabric of the universe and our pain is a result of putting up so many barriers between us and it. But to describe the feeling—it is almost as if Andrea goes away and there I am: life itself. I’m looking out my window right now, and there are prairie dogs running around the meadow. I do not think the prairie dogs ever have an experience of self. I think that they have an experience of life. That they’re life witnessing life. And that’s how it feels.”

—Andrea Gibson

May our creative hands lead to healthy bodies and minds and communities, and may beautiful prairie dogs remind us that we are life itself.

xJane

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What’s been going on your life recently? How are you keeping your nervous system calm and healthy these days? What’s moved you to tears? Have you watched Come See Me in the Good Light? I’d love to hear!