Letters From My Kitchen Table - Letting In
Squirrels! Bunnies! Ravens! But, mainly squirrels! This seems to be what’s on my pup, Parker’s, mind this morning. The sun was out on our morning walk. Its bright greeting welcome with all these days spent at the house. I try and spend as much time as I can outside, to counter my inside time. A little chillier than yesterday, so not always as easy as it is on a warmish day. Although today looks to be a fine day weather-wise or so the sun seems to indicate.
Parker tugs at the leash, straining at times to get that much closer to the bunny that is nervously eyeing me from under my neighbors’ car. You’re not letting go of that leash are you, the bunny seems to say, while holding perfectly still. Parker has already shifted his attention to the two squirrels dancing in circles around the tree the next house over and I see a little twitch in the bunny’s nose. “Close one,” I hear the bunny think.
As Parker and I walked through the neighborhood this morning, we were greeted by a cacophony of birds. I am amazed at just how many birds there seems to be, now that we are all keeping to our houses. There is a gang of ravens gathered in a tree, just above our neighbors’ bird feeder. An easy breakfast for them this morning, as they swoop down to the ground and back up to their perch. They squawk a greeting to us, seemingly nonplused by Parker’s drive to investigate everything he sees, as he passes the ravens while still trying to get closer to the squirrels. I guess he’s been in the house with me too, so it’s no wonder he’s so excited to get outside.
As I watch Parker’s interest intensify in the dancing squirrels, I laugh. The sight of Parker wanting to investigate the squirrels and the squirrels chasing each other, is pretty funny to me. A play of antics set to the tune of the birds in almost every tree in the neighborhood singing their own greeting to the day. The animals and the birds going about their day, with Parker and I a stir crazed audience. It feels good to be outside with the sun on my face, troubled as I may feel in my heart.
As I was standing there entirely delighted and amazed by the world outside, quiet now with none of the usual sounds of planes, trains and automobiles, I wondered after my feeling anxious. Anxious for things to get back to “normal”. My stir crazed feeling adding volume to my thoughts about when this might all be over. Yet, with scenes like the one that played out before me on our walk, I think, why would I want “normal” again? This was a simply delightful way to begin the day, why want it different than it is? Then I think, because everything is so uncertain, ungrounded, that’s why.
As I look around me these days I see in the news, posts online and trafficked in many of my conversations, this idea that somehow, someway, things will just magically get back to normal. As if our world is a summer resort town, just waiting for the winter to end and the summer tourists and traffic to return. Then the town of my life suddenly “normal” again, once summer begins.
I have many doubts about this as I watch the case numbers continue to increase. The graphs still in an almost vertical trajectory, with no sign of the line tipping over to show us this elusive peak everyone is talking about. Talk about how the peak of this pandemic is just a week away and then its another week away and another week. As if finally arriving at the peak will mean that instantly things will be just fine and “normal” will start just the day after.
If I get the anxiety going, I begin to wonder after the economics of what all these stay at home orders or what the stimulus package will do to “normal”. The economy severely damaged by everything that’s happening, likely not as back snappy as the talking heads would have us believe. Remembering that it took years to recover from the 2008 recession and that we are already way past those numbers. The economy didn’t just open again like a summer town back then either. It took years to find it’s feet. It’s heartbreaking to think about and so difficult to plan for the future. The wisdom of anxiety is that there is something that needs to be paid attention to. This pandemic and failing economy certainly qualifies.
No wonder I sometimes indulge in looking for those positive posts. The ones that bring a chuckle or make me walk across the room to share with Ty the stories that open my heart when I’m having trouble. It’s easy for me to want to ignore the data and graphs and look online for those stories of affirmation. The ones that confirm my own inner desire for everything to suddenly be as it was. My Summer town coming to life with laughter, kids playing together and warm Summer nights walking with my Beloved’s hand in mine and maybe some ice cream.
In the midst of my anxiety, for several weeks now, tugging at the edge of my mind, is a troubling thought. A phrase I have been thinking about quite a bit lately, “What once was, will never be again”. At times I feel like this simple phrase is the root of my doubt, my anxiety, and other times my sanity. It’s a phrase that acts almost like a mantra for me. It’s a phrase that grants me some real comfort, when I can let it in that is. A lot of the time I simply push it away and go back to dreaming about carefree Summer days.
Then there’s mornings like this one. Where I am delighted by my Pup, a couple of squirrels and some ravens. I remember my conversation from yesterday, with a couple of neighbors who stopped to talk with me as I was weeding the front walk, in another attempt to be outside.
It was a delight to talk with them and our conversation roamed the world. Each of us telling stories about our challenges, but mostly about how wonderful it was to be talking more and more with the very people who we sleep next to every night. Our pillows may be in a different house, but we’re really just a few feet from each other as we dream our dreams.
In my own house, we work with the day to day of this quarantine too. The uncertainties of money and food and the need to go out for supplies. Our outrage at the folks on the bike paths not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. The delight of giggling together while we binge watch a show on our couch together. Our socked feet intertwined in our comic delight. We share our frustrations and laugh with each other about all that’s happening.
With all that’s happening now, my own household has become a microcosm of the world. In the uncertainty of the times, I realize that it can be quite easy to focus on the basic badness of what’s happening. The outrage and disappointment pulling at the experience of the day. It is all too easy to defend myself from the suffering of others. To make myself right, put myself on the pedestal of somehow “knowing better”. I catch myself telling stories about why this or that is happening. It can be hard to counter the speed and discursiveness that can so easily take hours from my day.
I wrote in my last letter about the skill of Self Appointment and it is this step that I need to take to begin to step out of my freight train of basic badness. My household is the one place I have any traction in these times. By self appointing to stepping into my household, I bring the world into a more manageable place. One where I can begin to feel a shift of allegiance. A shift away from basic badness and toward a sense of basic goodness. This won’t take the trouble of the world away, but make it so that I might be able to let it into my heart in a way that doesn’t overwhelm me.
Letting In is another skill of household that I have thought and talked about for years. Letting In is a skill that has a lot to do with connecting to our own hearts. The idea being that the more we cultivate knowing our own hearts in these troubled times the more we invite others to connect with us on a deeper level. We don’t push away what’s hard and try to replace it with what we think is good. Trading one sorrow we think is bad for another sorrow we think is good. More that we make a place at the kitchen table for both of them.
By making a place at our own kitchen table for our basic badness and our basic goodness we sink deeper into the way things actually are. We begin to let in the troubles of our times alongside our delights. We begin to understand that we are not separate from those we love. They, in fact, are the reason we exist at all. That their very presence in our household and life is the very reason we have the life we do. Their hands hold you in your own life, with out them you’d be lost. You begin to see that you are not the only one in your household that is struggling in these troubled times.
The work of Letting In, is not about connecting to another person’s heart, but connecting to your own heart. In doing so we create an invitation for our people to feel more deeply, their connection to us. Engaging, actively, in empathy takes some effort. Our work is to sing songs in our hearts for those we love. To let in their suffering to mix with our own.
This is about standing in someone’s life who you care for with hearty encouragement, from a sense of how the person you love suffers too. In doing so we can give up on trying to “fix” something. Both of you sitting at the kitchen table together. Proof that you can find your way through in these troubled times together. A place for both of you, a way to break down barriers to our own empathy. A way to let in those you love.
So standing there this morning watching the squirrels dance, delighted and troubled all at the same time, I found a way to Let in, what once was, will never be again. Admitting this to myself is my sanity whispering in my ear. It is the phrase that lets my doubt be sane. Letting In lets me let go of the stir crazed feeling and relax into simply what’s happening now. The squirrels dance while the ravens have breakfast and the bunny twitches his nose. My household waits for me to sit down at the table and love it as best I can.
I wish you and your people all the best in Letting In these troubled times. May it help you relax into what once was will never be again. Letting In our discovery of what will come, together.
Wings Wide…
Raven
