Earth Day. Trudy’s birthday.
I tried not to think too much about today and it being Trudy’s birthday and fittingly, Earth Day. But too many mystical tugs and sweet remembrances from friends made it impossible for me to not write about the beauty of Trudy and the beauty of our Earth.
Continue reading Earth Day 2023
It’s a little cooler. Still humid though. Damp, overcast, still. Quiet — eerily so.
It’s a busy day. Several zoom meetings, groceries to get, and then I need to make one more phone call this afternoon.
I am very upset. I have gained back all the weight I slaved to take off three years ago. I don’t like the way I look, or the way this feels. But, I am the same soul inside this puffy coat.
All roads out of this “coat” lead to grief. There is sadness in giving up my favorite foods — cookies, in particular. And, hope is dashed in feeling young again — lighter, less trapped and controlled by how tight these jeans feel.
Without much thought, I slip into old defaults of creating calendars with harsh diets and fantastical weight goals, followed by the predictable genuflect at the WW altar app. I pull up just in time to remember and write:
One day at a time. This day at this time.
It really is about one day at a time. This body. This mind, and most importantly — this soul.
What does this soul want most of all?
To be loved. To express. To be allowed to imagine and play as a soul alone, and a soul with others.
Long after the flesh has rotted and these bones have turned to dust,
this soul will carry on.
Its light and energy bound to nothing
and everything and everywhere without a how.
I can know this when the fires of fear fade to smoke,
and the smoke of yesterday’s stories clear — if but for a moment.
Maybe no longer than the firefly’s short glory against the darkening sky,
but long enough, at least,
to light one speck of space
in the humid blanket hovering over the bean field.
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I was journaling this morning about disappointment in the scale and in myself. Then an idea came:
What if I dropped into this body, as it is today, from outer space and no time? No expectation, control, or history of disappointment or pain in hearing ‘tub of lard’ as a teen?
I’d look around it, inventory all the working parts, look under the hood and kick the tires and determine that ‘she’s got a few good years in her yet’. (I’m 67.) Relatively healthy. No major diseases and all fingers and toes and senses accounted for.
I took a sip of gratitude from the well of real, not should.
Then, I saw my sense of entitlement.
I had never seen or owned this before. I saw how all of my life I had hated what my body was and wasn’t. I was busy drinking Diet Rite Cola, then Tab, then diet Coke and binging on pizza in the dark. All the while mad and confused because I was big, not small. Somewhere believing that the ‘small’ women were the good women. The women of value.
In response to this old and familiar reflection I heard that new word coming out of this broken record song: entitlement.
Ouch.
And a real question:
Where did I get the idea that I was entitled to eat without restraint AND be slimmer than the average?
After the horror and embarrassment of seeing (and feeling) this honesty come forward, a measure of self compassion sneaked in as well. Then, I returned to reading from my meditation books and ultimately landing
here.
Today I am agreeing to love my body-self as I am right now—as I have been dropped into this good healthy miracle of flesh and thinking, spirit and senses without any of my doing or merit.
This morning I am making a decision to support myself with good choices. This includes connecting here, and wishing all of us well too.
One day at a time.
This day.
This.
What is God’s will?
This question has followed me around all of my days, but today, “this” is the answer that I want to become better at accepting.
This place. This moment. This feeling. This body.
It seems that I don’t get to say what God’s will is for others even as I sometimes try to control or wrangle or direct. But today, one grace-filled nano-second at a time, I want to practice trusting that God’s will for me is in the holy now of This.
