Overwhelm: The Roof is Leaking. I Totaled My Car. Dolly & Tim Died.
Oh, and the president issued an executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America.
This week has been a bit much.
This has been a rough season. I tell myself often that it is a season, not the entirety of my rather privileged life.
Overwhelm happens easily for me, likely a result of growing up in constant crisis, drama and conflict. It has been my life’s work to unlearn unskillful and unhealthy responses to stress.
Still working on this.
Stay tuned please.
I sense that there are many folks dealing with a lot right now. The prices of groceries and gas, the lack of living wage jobs, and the uncertainty in general of life are just a few of the external challenges that I see around me.
The intensity of the weather patterns are impactful in our home with the recent rain-storms finding their way into our abode through three leaks in the roof. The little leak became larger leaks, and eventually part of the ceiling came down. This is in my home studio/home office, workspace.
This is inconvenient and not devastating. Nepal is devastating. We are still waiting on word from our dear friends in that part of the world who don’t live in the area impacted by floods, but have family throughout the country. (Update, they are safe and devastated for the enormity of this unfolding crisis).
Two days ago, on my way to play music for a hospice event where we release butterflies in memory of loved ones who passed away in our program, I rear-ended a truck who slowed down suddenly. The truck sustained no damage, except for the rear camera. My car was totaled. I am OK, other than being sore around my sternum from the seatbelt and my neck and shoulder. We carry limited liability and I recently sank $1000 into the car that is no longer functional.
This is unfortunate. I am grateful for my injuries being minimal and that I am OK. It is not possible for us to absorb a car payment at this time so we will make do in our family with complicated logistics with one car.
So many of us are vulnerable financially right now when these events happen, it can be frightening in these uncertain times.
Perhaps that is why it hits us hard when beloved, cultural icons die.
I loved seeing all the tributes to Dolly Parton and the joy that she brought into the world so authentically. I cover several of her songs and appreciate her songwriting as well as her philanthropic endeavors, her love of LBGTQI+ folx and general merriment vibes.
I was first introduced to Tim Curry through Rocky Horror Picture Show at Kings Court, Theatre on Forbes Avenue in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh in the late 1980’s. This viewing confirmed that I had found my people and gave me more confidence to fly my own freak flag.
A completely different scenario, but just as impactful was Tim Curry in Muppets Treasure Island playing the part of Captain Hook. In the year 2000, our daughter Riley had in utero surgery for spina bifida at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
The whole of this experience is a story for another day.
Our family lived in the Ronald McDonald house in Philly while Riley, born at 29 weeks, weighing 3 lbs, was in the NICU gaining strength (I pretty much lived in the NICU, pumping breastmilk around the clock, and then eventually nursing). This is the first Ronald McDonald house in the US to support families dealing with children that had health issues. The house accommodated close to 100 people from all over the world. There were several areas throughout the large house where you could gather and watch television. It was expected that there would be a discussion and a consensus around what was watched. Our son Johnny, three years old at the time was literally obsessed with Muppet’s Treasure Island. He won the consensus just about every time in the Ronald McDonald house and we watched Muppet’s Treasure Island on more than one occasion with the Amish (also living in the Ronald McDonald House- I often wondered what they thought about the Muppets.).
Culture shapes our lives in many wonderful and unexpected ways
The weight of grief, even for people that we don’t know personally, is real.
Trying to juggle all of the challenges of life in the midst of uncertainty and having more balls fall to the ground is a trajectory towards overwhelm.
And then completely unnecessary bullshit shows up, such as the president writing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America. While I realize this is likely a giant distraction from all the economic chaos, war, remodeling of the White House at taxpayer expense, as well as the everyday racism and misogyny and much more egregious behavior (like being an adjudicated sexual offender and EPSTEIN FILES!), your girl here is a Rochester New York native that grew up learning to swim on the shores of Lake Ontario. So, nope, not having it!
(The featured picture in this blog is me standing on a rock in front of Lake Ontario in Rochester, New York, July 2023)
so my nervous system had had just about enough.
Time to call in tenderness
tenderness is solid medicine.
The tendrils of tenderness penetrate rock-solid hard anger, as well as the emptiness and numbness of despair. I access tenderness through movement, lamenting, sometimes crying, often singing, and remembering that I am not alone. Tenderness supports my body, with its challenges of fibromyalgia and aging as not a problem to solve, but a container for this tenderness. Tenderness reaches out to encompass the people of Nepal, my driving accident and my layers of self judgment, all of us grieving.
Tenderness holds with gratitude in my heart, my husband, with his massive skill set that includes problem-solving and construction and carpentry knowledge (and not judging me for totaling the car,).
Tenderness holds my rage and my grief, and doesn’t tell me that my suffering is stupid or unnecessary.
Tenderness gently tells me that now is not the time for numbness, self righteousness or self judgment.
Tenderness shows up fiercely, sweeping out pity, throwing out the urge to curl up in the little ball for the rest of my life. Tenderness as a loving grandmother, wise elder crone, sternly reminds me of the necessity of not turning away from joy, even in hard times. The fierceness of tenderness urges me towards the resilience cultivated by showing up time and time again in the face of the uncomfortable, inconvenient, and even the unbearable.
Tenderness shows up softly, wrapping me in soft, comfortable, imaginary blankets, holding my heart and whispering that it is OK to love and grieve and hold space in your heart for the entire universe.
pay attention to tenderness. It is potent medicine.
even for a week like this week.
*************************
please consider supporting the people of Nepal
doctors without Borders in Nepal
