Tag: shadows

Slow

Everything has gotten way too fast. Way too quick, too easy, too convenient, too expedient, too disconnected to pay the least bit of attention to what is actually going on. This isn’t, incidentally, a veiled attempt to make excuses for the long delay between my last post and this one. For that I truly apologize. Actually, scratch that. Instead I’ll say that I missed this way of connecting and I have heard that others have too. I am happy to be back here with you! I hope that everyone is well. I hope that everyone is finding their way along the path of your own individual and our collective evolution. 

I have been busy. Busy, busy, busy. This is perhaps shocking given how much things have slowed down in response to COVID-19, but we are in a rush to rebuild our home before snow falls. It wasn’t just that. Somewhere in there, after a hiatus since in the midst of last winter, the calling came to pick back up writing my book. Book has now become books. I have written the first two and am now onto the third. Don’t get too excited though! I am going to take my time editing while beginning the long process of moving toward potential publication. So that’s my brief update.

Now for the longer, slower version. The house reconstruction is a bear. Everyone who has ever gone through constructing their own home knows that it is an emotional roller coaster. We knew that it would be going in. Fortunately this is not our first rodeo. Shannon and I have worked on quite a few design-build projects together. We have learned many lessons along the way about how to navigate ourselves and each other. That doesn’t mean that it will ever be easy, but at least we have some skills that prevent us from actually killing each other. We have been employing those for sure!

The harder part is the inevitable meltdowns. We finally hit what we hope to be our biggest doozy thus far (and hopefully for the duration) this week as we were demo’ing the interior of the house. Actually it has been building for more than a few weeks now, beginning with the realization too late that the house didn’t come down as level or as plumb as we hoped for. It’s one thing dealing with an old camp that has been through at least four iterations over its lifetime. It wasn’t level to begin with, so it wasn’t like it was going to magically be so after the new foundation was put under it. It’s just that it could have been better than how it ended up. The out-of-plumbness is beyond what I would consider structurally sound. That means that while we were already planning to do a great deal or reworking of the structure, we now have to do even more reworking than we were planning. The end conclusion: we should have torn it down and started over. That would have been way easier. 

We had considered- no belabored- that option, but couldn’t quite pull the trigger to just flat out demolish Shannon’s childhood home. We just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it. We couldn’t bring ourselves to submit it to a wrecking ball. That would have been faster, of course. It would have been gone in a matter of a day or two. The bandaid would have been ripped off and discarded. As it is, we are dismantling it stick by stick, board by board. Much, unfortunately, will go to the dump. That said, we are saving anything and everything that we can, carefully removing things like wood finishes and dimensional lumber, which I then carefully denail (as in pry out the nails one by one). It’s slow and tedious work.

We started on the second floor ceiling and walls last weekend. Then by midweek we had moved on to the first floor. Opening up the walls revealed a veritable shit show of one mangled surgery after another. No, let me rephrase that. What is being revealed with each blow of the hammer, yank of the crow bar, or buzz of the sawzall is the long, complicated, twisting and turning story of this place. We had moments of appreciating that up until the opening of the first floor walls. That threw us over the edge as we realized we would have to reconstruct much more than we had planned. Let me just be honest. Our meltdown wasn’t pretty. 

The thing with Shannon and I is that we are so finely tuned that typically when one of us heads into a tailspin, so does the other. That is the nature of our interconnectedness. That leaves neither of us to save us from ourselves. We know this, however, so we have learned some strategies for how to deal with it. I took space by heading home to sit with myself and feel my feelings. Shannon stayed behind, reaching out to the ever supportive Bob and Edie (thank heavens for Bob and Edie!!!!). Bob was able to remind us that we got this, which Shannon shared with me when she came home to find me curled up in a ball on the couch in Tiny Drop. We were then able to talk ourselves off of the ledge. 

By the following morning it dawned on each of us separately that we could have it no other way. Our decision to move forward as we did was not arbitrary. It was not without careful consideration. Yes, we could have opened up those walls to understand better what we would be confronting, but I suspect we would have made the same decision. And the truth is that nothing really prepares you for the journey. Sometimes you just have to step into the shadow of the valley of death not fully knowing what awaits you. In many senses it is better to not know. That is what we had done. The best way- perhaps the only way- forward is through.

After our crash we found ourselves centered enough to reflect on what was actually happening. With each step we were not only uncovering the story of this place, we were confronting each and every decision, pressure, skillset, knowledge, limitation, hope, dream, fear, and love that had shaped that story. We were learning it one board, one nail at a time. Slowly. Ever so slowly. That is the only way to truly take in a story. We go way too fast these days to notice how much we miss. Within this particular story is not only the story of Shannon’s childhood, but also her family, their family friend who gifted his camp to them, and of the place that brought them all together – Lake Hortonia. 

The only way forward is through. Shannon and I have both been committed to our shadow work for quite some time now. That means that we go in to face and heal our childhood wounds. Incidentally, if you don’t know this already, we all have one. When we don’t acknowledge it, face it, notice the patterns that we have constructed around it in order to survive, work to deconstruct those patterns, and reconstruct new ones by nurturing the innocent child within, then our shadow rules the day. When our shadow rules, we slowly rot from the inside out, all while projecting the cause of that rotting to some force outside of ourselves. The rain, the wind, the snow, the whatever, is the problem. The house itself isn’t the problem. Or so we tell ourselves.

The only way forward is through. If we want to live in healthy houses, we need to slow down to deconstruct the house that we are living in board by board, nail by nail. We need to learn our own stories. What shaped them? What did we include? What did we not include? How did we respond to the various experiences that shaped us? What skills and knowledge did we have at the time? What skills and knowledge did we not have? What pressures were we responding to? What were we aiming for? What did we accept? What disappointed us? What gave us the hope and strength to continue? I could go on and on. Just ask the question and then go down that rabbit hole. Is it scary? Yes. Is it worth it? Absolutely. On the other side of that abyss lies our true selves. Walking through that abyss is the path of healing. What awaits us on the other side is pure potential, wellbeing, freedom. What awaits us on the other side is the world that we all long for. In order to get there, we each need to face our own shadows while we together face our collective shadows. Story is our way in and through. Let’s do this. We got this. A better story awaits. 

Storytelling

Our stories are so important. They tell us who we are. Shannon and I are all about the stories these days. We have just initiated a Story of Place project with our community on Lake Hortonia. More about that in the future. For the moment it means that we are out there making connections in and around our community as well as with the storytelling experts, such as those at the Vermont Folklife Center. On Wednesday we went to see their exhibit, Ice Shanties, and ended up getting a tour of their archives in the process. Then yesterday we went to an event/workshop that they were co-hosting in Burlington. It included a “story booth”, where everyday common folk could go in to tell a bit of their own personal story. We decided to take it for a short test spin just to get the feel for it. Shannon (very quickly I might add) took the role of interviewer, which meant I had to be the interviewee. Sample questions were posted around the booth and I pointed to my favorite. It was simple: “What time period of your life would you like to talk about?”

I quickly realized that just because I liked the question didn’t mean I had an immediate answer for it! Or to be more precise, I knew, but I wasn’t ready to go there in that moment. There are some things that are easy to talk about and others not so much. I went with something easy. We were just practicing after all. One of the main points of yesterday’s event was to share research that shows that the better we know our family stories, the healthier we are. Yes, that is what the research shows. The organizers of this event were interested in extending the same thinking to the community at large. If we better know the stories of our community, does the community become healthier? I suspect that it does. It’s pretty simple really. The more we know our stories, the more connected we are. The more connected we are, the more whole we are. The more whole we are, the healthier we are. Simple. All we have to do is open our mouths and start sharing.

It should at least be easy to share the nuts and bolts stuff, the joyful stuff, the fun stuff. Yet now would be a good time to ponder how much you really know about your parents and their parents and so on. How much of their stories have/did your parents and grandparents actually share with you? How much did you listen?! There are a ton of questions that get at your parents’ stories such as “what jobs did your parents work when they were younger?” I know that my father pumped gas and changed oil at his father’s gas station growing up. But as it turns out, I don’t know what jobs my mother may have had growing up or up through college until she became a Registered Nurse. In addition, I know my paternal grandfather’s work history, but not my maternal grandfather’s. This could well be because I wasn’t paying enough attention, but it’s also true that my father happens to be a talker (I mean storyteller!) whereas my mom is not quite so much. Well, Mom, you now have your assignment. You have three days to get your story straight! I am looking forward to seeing you both for your birthdays on Wednesday.

So it is interesting to discover where the holes are in what we know of our family story, and it is important to fill them. It should be relatively easy to share and to discover the easy stuff. Just volunteer the info or ask the questions. That is a great start. Yet if health is what we are after, then we can’t just stop with the easy stuff. We have to keep delving. All the way down into the hard stuff. The messy stuff. The stuff we don’t talk about. The taboo stuff. The off-limits stuff. The family secrets. All those things that we lock down in the basement never to be seen or heard. I’ve explained why before. In short, because those are the things that in large part are subconsciously controlling the story that we are writing right now. That is how unhealthy patterns are replicated through families, communities, cultures.

This is delicate work. It requires every empathetic bone in our body and then some. Starting with the easy stuff really is the best way to start. That helps to build our empathetic muscles. I would say go slow and tread consciously. That and be gentle with yourself and with others. It’s scary work. This isn’t sprint work. This is training for the marathon work. Best not to plow through it. Let me give you a case in point.

I’ve mentioned something once or twice in passing throughout this blog, but unless you are personally in the know about the previous chapter of my life, you are likely to have missed it. If you are somebody who got to know me only in my most recent chapter, you are likely to not know this about me (as I discovered from a recent reflection from somebody who had no earthly idea). Actually, there are even people from the particular chapter of my life that I am referring to who don’t know this about me! Here goes, because apparently I failed to make the announcement: I am a parent. I have two daughters, Madison and Kristen. Those two beautiful people in the photo above are them. There are a million and one reasons why not everybody knows this. As Madi said to me two days ago, “Out of sight, out of mind.” I see I have some storytelling to do.

Why has this been out of sight, you ask? Let me start by explaining that Madi and Kristen are technically my step daughters. My first partner is their biological mother from her previous marriage to their biological father. The kids were 4 and 6 when we partnered, and 16 and 18 when we split. So technically, yes, we are “step” to each other. The step never really mattered to me though. As far as I have ever been concerned, we are family.

But if step isn’t hard enough as it is, we were a gay couple on top of that. In the first place, we were not allowed to be legally married either in Texas or federally at the time. This is to say that we had no legal protections. On top of that, while things were changing in this country, they had not changed yet. My partner was deeply afraid that our kids would be taken away from her/us. This in spite of the fact that their father always knew the truth of our relationship and was supportive. So out of her fear, we remained closeted for most of our kids’ childhoods. And when I say closeted, I mean closeted… even to our kids. How we managed this, I cannot even begin to wrap my head around these days nor would I try to justify it. It was never my preference. But I was the step, so it wasn’t my decision to make. At least that is what I thought at the time. If I had to do it over again, I would choose not to participate in what was essentially a lie. In other words, I would force the issue. I would bring it to the surface. In retrospect, every single one of us would agree that being honest would have been much healthier for all of us.

But that’s not what we did. There were two schools of thought at the time. The first was tell them as early as possible such that all forms of love between two consenting adults are included in their worldview. The second is wait until they figure it out on their own because that means that they are ready to know. We went with the latter. It. Was. Crap. When Madi finally did pop the question at age 16, she was pissed. And rightfully so. In one fell swoop, the entire story of her life was upended. She no longer knew what was what, if she ever even did. Her response: “Why didn’t you just tell me??!!” Indeed. Why? And further, “If you had just told me from the get-go then it all would have felt so normal.” Right. Kristen, too, had her own processes, revelations, and breakdowns. The whole thing just sucked.

And that, to be honest, is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many things that I won’t share here, not because I don’t think that all things should be brought to the surface, owned, and released to the world for all to see. I do. But remember that this is delicate work, and it is a marathon not a sprint. Our family is still very much in the process of processing our story for ourselves and with each other. It is slow work. So slow. Painfully slow. I have been sitting here waiting, watching, holding space (at a painful distance) for my kids while the second hand ticks for over twelve years now. Madi is now 30 and Kristen 28. In that time there have been glimpses of progress, of readiness, of hope, and then… silence. Nothingness. Emptiness. Most of the time. I won’t even try to describe that pain or the sense of hopelessness that goes with it.

Let’s just say that both of my kids had, in Madi’s words, “volatile childhoods.” Yup. Very. My role in that was to be the behind-the-scenes stabilizing force. Nobody knew what was really going on or how I was handling it save my best friend Micki, probably my parents, and maybe anybody else who was observant enough to surmise what was not readily visible. Our lives were a mess. Yet as Micki likes to remind me, without me there in it, it wouldn’t have just been a mess… it would have been a disaster area. My every move was aimed at stabilizing the ship, at keeping us afloat. And I did, until I couldn’t any longer. I exhausted myself in the process. Over the years I was slowly disintegrating from the inside out. By the end I was one step away from comatose having completely forgotten who I even was anymore.

Yet even then, if I could have taken one more step for my kids’ sake, I would have. God didn’t let me. God, in her infinite wisdom, pulled the plug. That’s not the story that has generally been told about how that chapter of my life came to a crashing end, but it’s my truth. My Instructions were to model a healthy decision for my kids. Not that I really had a choice in the matter, because I didn’t have the capacity to take one more step anyway. I’m stubborn and the Universe knows it, so when push comes to shove It knows to force me to my knees in order to force my hand. I had no choice left but to trust the Universe. In that, I had to trust that the Universe was going to take over the care for my kids. I had to, because not only did I have no legal rights, I could never expect them to choose me over their biological parents. Not to mention they were young adults with minds and lives of their own by that time. I knew exactly what was going to happen next, it terrified me, it broke my heart into a million pieces, and all I could do was… watch. The aftermath was in fact all that and a bag of chips. If my kids’ childhoods had been volatile, their early adulthood was hell.

I won’t even try to describe to you how painful it was to be utterly helpless to be of any help. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I didn’t want to be there for them. Boy did I. Actually, truth be told, what I wanted to do was rip them right out of that set of circumstances. But I couldn’t. I was effectively cut out. All I could do was gently make my continued presence known to them without forcing them into a choice between parents that I never wanted them to have to make. For the most part, they couldn’t (quite) hear me. Not yet. But maybe now. Part of that has to do with the fact that I have my own wounds to heal, my own protective walls to tear down. Part of it has to do with their wounds, their walls, their own healing process. I have been doing my work, and they have been doing theirs. Perhaps we are ready now.

These days I am much better equipped to be a parent than I ever was when I needed to be. But in spite of that, I don’t regret any of it. You see I had to go down that path. I needed to be completely dismantled in all of the ways that it dismantled me. By the same token, I know in my heart of hearts that this was all part of my kids’ paths too. It made them into the beautiful people who they are today. The ways in which they have each been able to show up to their lives, to face their shadows, and to step into their authentic, loving, brave selves astonishes me. It takes my breath away. It gives me hope for the world, who we are as a species, and our ability to turn things around. We can do this by sharing our stories- even and especially the painful ones.

Madi told me a couple of days ago that her memories of childhood are foggy. I was there. I was conscious. I was an adult. I remember. I know things that shaped her life that she had no container for at the time. Same for Kristen. Sometimes when we choose a pattern- wait until they are ready to ask- we get stuck with it for awhile, until it fully plays itself out. But if we are patient enough, every choice and every path will lead us home. In the (ultimate) end, every story has the same ending- Oneness, Love. In the meantime, we each get to tell our own story as a continuation of the stories that came before us. The better we know the stories we come from, the better story we get to tell.