I Have Collar Bones (Or Self Discovery)

I was looking at myself in the mirror in the ladies' room at work the other day when I noticed something that I had not noticed before:  I have collar bones.  It's been a long time since I've noticed them.  Maybe never.  I think when you're the right size for you, you may not see individual parts of your body; you just appreciate your whole self.

Now that I'm shrinking back down to a more appropriate size for my height, I'm falling in love with body parts I'd never particularly thought about before.  Like collar bones.  And wrists.  I like my thin wrists.  I've lost a shoe size too.  That's also kind of exciting to me.

The fat doctor (she wasn't fat--that's just what I called the bariatric specialist I saw for a while many years ago) would be happy with my neck.  She was always fussing about how big my neck was and what that portended for my overall health.  She probably would be happy--as I recall, she wasn't a very happy person.  At any rate, I think I'm out of stroke danger now that I have a normal neck size.

Of course it's all just metaphor in the end.  Yes, I'm liking the way I look these days.  But, what's more important, I'm liking who I am now:  the new, better balanced chick.  There's more to go, of course.  About 25 more pounds.  That's going a little slower now as I near the end.  And then there are other unresolved resolutions to tackle . . . writing more thank you notes, keeping up with home paperwork, cleaning out one drawer a day until they're all done  . . .

It's a work in progress.

Talk Me Down

Once upon a time, after babies, I had a part time job.  I was the coordinator of Children's Ministries for St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Morristown.  I started as a volunteer and at some point which I don't really remember, they started paying me.  The job grew and grew and so did I.  Eventually, it became my full-time vocation.  I loved that.  Never in my life did I experience such creativity and freedom.  

About a year or two into divorce, it became clear that working weekends, days and nights for a small salary wasn't going to keep the single mom and two kids in their house so I left for the job I still have, assistant to a school superintendent in a nearby tiny town.

But the love affair with Children's Ministry wasn't over.  About a year or so after I left work at St. Peter's, I went to work with a friend and shared the responsibilities for children's and youth ministry at church in North Jersey.  It was after-hours work for both of us and eventually proved to be hard to handle with our regular jobs and family responsibilities.  We worked for a friend who was an amazing priest (now a bishop) and were continually inspired by him and his congregation.  After about two years of a long Sunday commute and missing our home parish dreadfully, we bowed out, satisfied with having brought them to a place where they could manage to grow without us.

Meanwhile, St. Peter's was experiencing growing pains (or, more accurately, lack of growth pains).  I was called and offered my old job back on a part-time basis.  I didn't have to think about it very long before I answered the call in the affirmative.  I started immediately and fell in love all over again with kids and parents and volunteer teachers who met each week to explore their faith and learn the story of God's saving plan on earth with an earnestness that never failed to impress and inspire me.  We did a lot of good work together and I never felt so complete as when I spent time in the undercroft of our historic building, imagining lessons, retreats and pageants that both instructed and, hopefully, brought both children and those who care for them further along in their faith journeys.

After four years or so, exhaustion set in.  My job in the school district is demanding.  It can start as early as 5 AM with teachers calling me to tell they're sick and in need of a substitute whereupon I'm up and making phone calls in the wee hours.  They can call me until 11 PM at night so it's potentially a long day.  I almost never leave at my appointed leaving time (3:30) but I did when I worked for the church too so I could get to my lovely office on the third floor with views of our cemetery, dating back to pre-Civil War times.  And I was there on Saturdays (often) and every Sunday.  Those years I gave most of my vacation time to full weekdays at my part-time job so there was very little time off for recharging and renewing.  I was eating a lot of meals in the car and packing even more weight onto my already overweight 5 foot 2 inch frame.

Tired and feeling like I was no longer giving my best, I retired for a second time.  Melissa, the priest in charge of family ministry, refers to my retirement as a sabbatical.  I was adamant that it wasn't time off; I was really done.  Needing to concentrate on my health issues and, perhaps, take a vacation once in a while, I felt sure that leaving was the appropriate thing to do.  So I gave myself a couple of months to get organized and then "Operation Make Me Over" was going to begin.

That was the plan.  But August brought Hurricane Irene into my life.  Literally.  Within a couple of months of coming to grips with that life-changing event, my father became seriously ill--his final illness.  In and out of the hospital over the next half year, he eventually succumbed to his pulmonary issues.  Then my mom's 95-year-old sister also became ill and we had emergency trips to Canada to see her until she also left us.  I now see that I needed to leave that job in order to be able to have the time to handle a year's worth of crises.  

Operation Make Me Over started 10 months late but it's going well.  Most of the excess weight is gone and I'm back in shape.  There's time for me.  This past fall I made little forays back into my former ministry.  I'm back doing Parents' Night Out, a program I'd started a few years ago.  Over the summer there were plans to share our classroom space with a nursery school so we packed everything up to renovate that space.  Recently those plans fell through.  So today saw me back in my space, unpacking box after box of curriculum material.

Handling the Godly Play stories brought me right back.  Back to ideas and energy and spiritual wakefulness.  Back to storytelling and liturgical awareness.  I started yearning for my own circle of little people, of spending wondering and work time with them.  I played with the Jonah story ... picturing how children retell the story with Jonah, putting him on the boat and in and out of the big fish.  I see them learning a literal story today and picture them 30 years from now, engulfed with some issue that might be "swallowing" them up and seeing them say to themselves "Aha, now I get that Jonah business."  I smile at the thought that I might be a little bit involved with their spiritual maturity.

I feel the pull.  I need someone to talk me down, though.  I love my new life.  Healthy, more balanced, complete with family, old friends and new, community service and time left over for me.  Reconnecting with old loves in a new way (like music and reading).  Dreaming about the future and imagining what it might hold.

My new life revolves around moving forward.  All the walking is sort of a metaphor for that.  And I know I'm not the only one who can do that job at St. Peter's.  (However, I do recognize that I'm probably the only one who wants to.)  So hold me back.  Don't let me cram my time with work, no matter how loved, from sun up to sundown.  Help me live in the moment and stay true to the new me.  I believe I can serve everyone better from this healthier place.  I just need to keep moving forward and stay in balance.

One of the most beautiful places I know:  http://www.stpetersmorristown.org/

Godly Play is more than play:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw_mrzZJx00

Get Out

Part of my path along the river this year has included copious amounts of walking.  Like a lot.  As in miles and miles.  The doctor told me last April that I needed to walk a half hour each day.  That's how you manage diabetes--with diet and exercise.  I think I cried.  Taking care of myself has been so low on my list of things to do for so long I couldn't imagine fitting in a half hour per day walk.  The diet I wasn't so afraid of since I'd had a good experience with Weight Watchers in the past.  Not that it stuck. Hence the diabetes.

But all of a sudden I was thrust in the position of really having no choice but to start paying attention to myself.  The former aerobic-instructor-turned-obese-sedentary-perennial-community-volunteer/single mother needed to get moving.  So I went for the first walk.  I did about a mile.  It took about an hour.  By the time I got home I was crying again.  How in the world would I ever keep this up, let alone fit it into my life daily?

It turns out, it's not such a hard thing to keep a commitment to yourself once you make it.  There was immediate success with the change in diet and adding in the exercise.  Pounds started rolling off and I took off.  Nothing like success for motivation.  Spring turned into summer and a mile a day turned into up to 12 miles a day.  I made 6 miles my minimum each day while the weather held but some days I managed a morning walk and an evening walk too.  That's when the miles really added up.  The walks became something I looked forward to, craved even.  I couldn't wait to leave the office to get my sneakers on.  

As I walked I took pictures.  I've lived in this town 28 years and never noticed all the beauty around me  . . . until I got out of my car.  Spending a couple of hours a day briskly walking around town introduced me to historic sites, tiny pockets of parkland, up close views of our lakes and I started my reconciliation with the river that had invaded my house.  After miles of walking alongside her, we were fully reconciled by the 1-year anniversary of Hurricane Irene in August.  Mid walk, I usually posted my favorite view of the day on facebook--my mini-blogs of appreciation for the walks, the sights and the music that kept me going.

Which brings me to the music.  When I bought my iPhone, I recall saying to the sales clerk that I didn't have to know how to use the iTunes app because I'd never download music to my phone.  I was strictly a CD girl.  Liner notes and all.  But around the same time I was told to get out and get moving, I discovered the music of Gavin DeGraw (story for another time).  I'd already bought the CD's, all of them.  Then I bought them again--a second set for the car.  I craved this music more than anything I'd ever heard.  I can't recall any artist ever that got my attention so completely.  And so I downloaded music to my phone--lots of music.  At first, it was just Gavin.  Then it was anyone he recommended and the folks he was touring with last summer.  Then it was whoever my new friends on Twitter (yet another story for another time) were listening to and whomever those people toured with or recommended.

The music, the sunrises and sunsets, the trails in the woods and parks, the lakes and river--it all powerfully combined to get me out and to keep me going.  So I don't mind the weather.  I walk in the rain or snow.  I'll go out if it's below freezing (today) or above steaming.  I've managed to take off 94 pounds since April.  I'm off blood pressure pills and my A1C is normal.  There're a few more to go but even when I'm at my goal I know I'll still be getting out.  It's as much for my head now as it was for my health.

Here's today's view (Indian Lake from the deep beach docks).  A gorgeous sunset on the ice-covered lake.  How can I not be inspired to keep this up?  It's a beautiful world out there.  But you've got to get out ...

Love Stories

It's still Valentine's Day for another hour.  The past 24 hours have me thinking about all the ways love manifests itself in my life.  I posted an outline of my thoughts on facebook tonight.  I hope my friends forgive the way I treat facebook like a blog sometimes.  This is probably a more appropriate forum for the ramblings that seem to continually clutter my head.

It all started, really, with Gavin DeGraw but that's another story for another time.  It could be it's own book, I think.  If you don't know who he is, search for him--not on Google but on YouTube. The last 24 hours started with a song he co-wrote for the movie Safe Haven which opened tonight.  Now pay attention, my stream of consciousness is taking over and it might not be entirely clear ...

Safe Haven is based on the book of the same name by Nicholas Sparks.  AMC Theatres ran a double feature of the famous Sparks film The Notebook plus Safe Haven last night.  I read the book (Safe Haven) because of the song--that motivation will be examined at a later date, as I said.  I'd never seen The Notebook but I was anxious to see Safe Haven so I bought a ticket for last night.  I've avoided The Notebook all these years because I knew it was extreme romance--romantic love on steroids.  True love like I didn't experience.  I couldn't see it because I didn't want to face some truths in my life.  But the last year of journeying along with the ebbing and flowing of my river taught me to face the those things I couldn't face the last 15 years and one of the gifts that the music (the Gavin DeGraw music) has given me is hope that there might exist a possibility of letting love back in.  Some day.  Some time.  Maybe.

So the last 24 hours started with a double feature with a double lesson:  true love does exist and there are second chances.  Now I've had examples of true love all around me (my mom and dad being the prime example) but when your own fairy tale ends not with the prince in the castle but with your being thrown in the moat, it takes a while to believe again.  When a relationship ends with words that play over and over like tortuous crappy music on repeat, you start believing them and doubt begins to rule your life.  The stories I enjoyed last night, while fiction, were like affirmations of truth I may have known all along but buried during the last 15 years.  So Valentine's Day started with love lessons.

Valentine's Day at work is usually fun and this year was no exception.  I work in an elementary school so there are parties.  And cards.  And cupcakes, brownies and chocolate covered strawberries.  We had all that in abundance today.  Small children and innocent expressions of precious friendship.  A  reminder that love can be sweet.

After work I attended a rally to urge politicians and leaders to stand up against gun violence.  The Have a Heart-Take a Stand rally.  There were speakers--local mayors who've banded together because they are tired of the devastation in their communities, because they realize Newtown can happen anywhere--prayers and music, people with signs and petitions.  It was heartfelt and passionate.  A group of strangers bonded together by outrage and sickness at the thought that 33 gun deaths happen each day.  Every day people lose someone they love because of guns. A group of strangers bonded by a belief that ultimately, love will win over violence if our leaders will have the courage to stand against the selfishness of the gun lobby.  Outraged love.

From the rally I drove to our local Girl Scout office.  I was recently appointed to the Gold Award committee in our council.  That's the highest award a girl can achieve in our movement to "build girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place."  Tonight we had four girls from 9th to 11th grades proposing final projects to earn their Gold Award.  These ranged from projects to benefit soldiers on a base in Afghanistan to helping children making their First Communion in Hurricane Sandy-ravaged South Jersey.  They were young leaders in their neighborhoods and schools who were passionate about local hunger issues, relieving stress in pediatric cancer patients through art therapy, marking spiritual commitment and international relations.  They were inspiring in what they've accomplished so far in their young lives--excellent students, presidents of organizations, active in their faith communities, good communicators, highly organized, poised for success.  Girls who cared about their neighbors, towns and those less fortunate.  Generosity in love.  Love and leadership in action.

Arriving home at 9:30, I brought in the mail.  Among the envelopes of mostly junk were two cards from my daughter.  Late birthday cards with Valentine messages hand written in.  Small treasures.  Tokens of her love to be loved and treasured by me.  Also tucked in my mailbox was a rice krispy treat--a heart-shaped rice krispy treat, in fact.  Someone obviously read my facebook post from this morning pleading for a rice krispy treat to arrive amidst the other sugary treats passing through my office.  I think I know who put that treat there.  It was further proof that I have a wonderful community of friends who form the backbone of my life.  Love in my mailbox.

My "24 hours of love" day started with a song by Gavin DeGraw that led to my reading a book that led to my seeing a film last night.  So it's only appropriate that these 24 hours end with Gavin DeGraw.  He and the musician/friend with whom he co-wrote the song, Colbie Caillat, sang the song on vh1's morning show this morning.  I just watched the tape of their performance.  The song channels the themes of finding a second chance for love and overcoming one's past from Nicholas Sparks' Safe Haven into lyrics and music.  They'll sing it again, a few minutes from now as I write this, on the Tonight Show.  I'll be singing along.

"We Both Know"
(Gavin DeGraw with Colbie Caillat)

They all say it
All the ones that made it
Once you find the one you claim it
But you're gonna have to fight
When I think back
The things that threw us off track
We handled like a heart attack
Cause we didn't see the light
Oh, yeah, now
We both, know our
Own limitations, that's why we're strong
Now that we spent some time apart
We're leading each other, out of the dark
Cause we both know

From this moment
Forget what we were scared of
Say we're never giving up
You say you'll always
Try to be my
Helping hand
Try to be the one who understands
When things don't go as you've planned
We're still worth it all

Oh, yeah, now...
We both, know our
Own limitations, that's why we're strong
Now that we've spent some time apart
We're leading each other, out of the dark
Cause we both know
What we're scared of
And what dreams are made of 
They can take us further than what anybody can see, yeah
We both, know our
Own limitations, and that's why we're strong
Now that we've spent some time apart
We're leading each other, out of the dark

We both know our
Own limitations, and that's why we're strong
Now that we've spent some time apart
We're leading each other, out of the dark
Cause we both know

We both know.

Weighing In

The eve of weighing in is an anxious time for me.  There shouldn't be any surprises because against all advice I weigh myself several times every morning.  I can pretty well predict what number is likely to appear in the little window just beneath my feet.

The night before weighing in there are all kinds of questions running around in my head ... did I work out enough hours ... walk the right number of miles ... make the correct food choices ... get enough sleep ... Paying attention to all the changes made in the last nine months and never--or hardly ever--letting up should result in something positive (well, actually negative) on the scale.

It almost always does.  The scale is my friend now.  It's steadfastly honest and some weeks rewards me with a nice big number in the loss column.  Some weeks it's not such a big number.  And even though I can usually predict my final outcome for the week, the night before I step on the scale for the official recording of that week's work is tense.  Will the feedback be what I need for another week of hard work?

The answer is "yes."  Whether the loss is small or large, whether I'm elated or disappointed, that number in the window becomes the motivation for all the choices that will be made in the ensuing week.  

It's weigh-in eve.  Drum roll please.

ReBirth Day, The First One

It was the river that caused it . . . my first rebirth day.  August 28, 2011, Hurricane Irene.  She changed my life forever.  And although she caused a lot of pain and loss (even more for some of my neighbors than for me), it was an experience that I will always value.  Note that I haven't said I wouldn't "change it" or "I'm glad to have had it."  I don't feel either of those things.  I would change it if I could.  I wouldn't have had the destruction that my neighborhood, my town and other towns along the Rockaway, Pompton and Passaic Rivers sustained if there had been any way to avoid it.  I'm not glad that one third of my home is now resident in a landfill somewhere and that the expenses of recovery outran the insurance checks, effectively eliminating my savings accounts.

But there was much value in the lessons learned through having come through the hurricane itself and the hurricane of emotions, confusion and recovery issues that ensued.  The outpouring of love and assistance that came rapidly from every direction was unbelievable.  Our town sprang into action with the precision of a Pentagon-like military team offering rescue and shelter at first and then support, food and endless amounts of information and communication.  I learned that I will always consider Denville, New Jersey my home.  No matter where I end up.  When a group of strangers from the dry side of town showed up 6 days later, when the 5 feet of water and sewage had finally receded from my family room, I was stunned and grateful.  They removed so much of the detritus that had been my furniture, books, games, toys, art, Christmas stuff and laundry and bathroom fixtures and whatever else was in the fully finished basement of my house.

My friends and family are the rock that I stood on during the whole recovery.  They came and cleaned, removed doors, carried more stuff out to the mounting piles that formed small hills along the front of my house.  My neighbors arrived at my house within a nano-second of the tree's landing on the roof and went into my attic to inspect the damage when I was too shaken to find out what more I had to deal with.  My co-workers covered for me for hours on end while I attended meetings at town hall, raced home to see insurance adjusters and contractors.  They raised money to help in my recovery and that of another staff member who lost most of her home too.

I learned that I have coping skills I was unaware of.

I learned that when you have no control, there is much you can still control.

I learned--for real--that stuff is just stuff and you can carry on without all your "stuff."  Except my high school yearbooks.  I really do miss having those.

I learned that I have so many people to lean on (from the Red Cross truck that brought meals to the neighborhood to all those whom I know and love and those whose names I never did find out) that I should be embarrassed by the richness in my life.

I learned that nothing brings people together like disaster followed by determination.  The strength we found in one another in the aftermath of Irene was, and continues to be, a precious resource.

August 28, 2011 is my rebirth day because it woke me up to my life again.  It brought me out of a stagnant way of life revolving around meeting deadlines and doing what needed to get done and taking one day at a time to rethinking my future, my priorities and my way of being in the world.  I hope it changed me for the better--I think it did.  Time will tell in the end.