The Sunday Salon: Inspirational Reading

Although not a traditionally religious person, I am one who seeks ways to add a spiritual dimension to my life. I am also constantly struggling to define what that means: right now it’s a desire to connect to something larger and more lasting than my physical presence on earth, and to do so in a way that adds meaning to my life and to the lives of others. 

It comes through daily routines and rituals I craft for myself: time alone in the morning to think and read and write, walking outdoors, listening to and playing music. It comes from being with people I care about, bearing witness to their stories, doing things that might make their lives a little easier or more pleasant. 

And, not surprisingly, inspiration for my ongoing spiritual journey often comes from books. These are some of the books I’ve turned to - and keep returning to - for guidance and insight:

Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh: I first read this classic memoir in the 1980’s when I was a young mother, dealing with the multiple demands of daily life with children and family, much as Lindberg was doing when she wrote it. It spoke to me of women’s eternal journey and struggle, and the deeper meaning in all the myriad details of our days.

The Crosswicks Trilogy, Madeleine L’Engle: Since I read A Wrinkle in Time in fourth grade, Madeleine L’Engle’s work has touched my intellect and my heart. These three memoirs delve into her history, her family life, her love of music, writing, science, and God and they way they all intertwine together. 

Magical Journey, Katrina Kenison: When I first read this warm and meaningful memoir two years ago, I knew I had found a kindred spirit. Katrina Kenison writes with an uncanny sense of prescience into my own soul. A woman's journey into and through midlife is fraught with uncertainty and change. Reading this book felt like Kenison was taking my hand and leading me gently forward into it with her, providing a guiding presence along the way.

Paradise in Plain Sight, Karen Maezen Miller: I knew nothing about Zen Buddhism or Japanese gardens when I opened this slender little book last fall. She opened my eyes to an entirely different reality - one where it’s not only permissible to let go of unrealistic expectations and perfectionism, but to embrace a sense of calm and peace, a belief that life unfolds as it was meant to do one moment at a time. 

Wishing you insight and inspiration for your own spiritual journeys this spring, wherever you may find it.

 

Dress for Success

Last week a young woman of my acquaintance, an extremely bright, mature, and socially aware high-school student, took on the administration of her school in protest of dress code changes that would, among other things, prohibit students from wearing leggings to school. Apparently there had been some demeaning sexist comments from students and teachers alike regarding this item of clothing and the students who were wearing it. The administration’s response to those  comments and attitudes was to prohibit the students from wearing the item - rather than tackling the more difficult and disturbing behavior that prompted the comments in the first place.

This in itself isn’t surprising. It often happens that the innocent get punished due to the misbehavior of others. It ain’t fair, but it’s a sad fact of life. One worth fighting, I believe, and I’m proud of people who stand up against it - like this young woman and her friends, who were effective in their campaign, the administration agreeing to allow female students to continue wearing leggings to school. 

 This incident made me recall a similar situation from my own life. Back in the dark ages (about 1968) I mounted my own little dress code campaign. I was sowing some social justice oats of my own back then, and as the youngest-ever editor of the school paper I was having a good time wielding the Power of the Pen. 

But my issue was somewhat different: My mandate was to change the dress code to allow girls to wear pants to school. Remember, this is 1968, and the micro-mini skirt was in style. Every dress or skirt I owned at the time was at least six inches above my knees -  and I was considered a “conservative” dresser. But somehow or other, the authorities deemed it necessary for girls to wear dresses (no matter how short) in order to have the right frame of mind to learn. If we wore slacks to school, it was feared that our minds would no longer focus on education, we’d feel “too casual,” as if we were dressed for “playing outside” instead of learning. (The principal actually said those very words to me, I remember it clearly to this day over 40 years later and I think my jaw is still slightly open at the stupidity of it.)

In 1968, the news was filled with stories about women taking a stand for their “rights,” for the freedom to be taken seriously in the world outside the sphere of their home and family. For many woman, dress was a huge part of this struggle. Remember the mass “bra burning” at college campuses across the nation? Adult women were facing problems in terms of attitude about the way they looked. I had grown up seeing my mother dressed every day in cinched waist, full skirted “house dresses." Bras and girdles contorted a woman’s natural shape into one society thought most pleasing, no matter how uncomfortable. My 13-year old brain watched this all with great interest, and it seemed to me at the time that women’s clothing should not have any bearing on their intellect or their ability to achieve their professional or educational goals.

Plus, I was tired of freezing my ass off in short skirts while I waited for the bus during those cold Michigan winters.

So I started an editorial campaign to encourage a change in the dress code, at least for the winter months, using the cold and snow as leverage. I had enough support from other students and parents to finally achieve success. Girls would be allowed to wear “slacks” to school - solid dark colors only, no jeans, and no pants with “rivets” on the pockets. The rule soon filtered out to the other junior high schools, and the high school as well. The rest, as they say, is history.

These days we are debating something very similar, but also something very different. Yes, these girls were well within their rights to discuss wearing clothing that appealed to them. Aside from my personal feelings about the particular item of apparel in question, (and I have to say I think leggings are an abdominal piece of apparel) I am pleased that they were heard, and consideration given to their requests. 

What I really wish is that they didn’t want to wear those leggings in the first place.

Or the scoop necked tops that reveal embarrassing amounts of cleavage.

Or the spike-heeled shoes that make them walk like Chinese handmaidens with bound feet and will undoubtedly result in all kinds of back and knee impairments later in their lives.

I know these items are all fashionable and trendy. But I guess I’m still carrying around that 1970’s bra-burning mentality that shaped itself in my brain when I was 13, the one that tells me dressing provocatively doesn’t earn women the kind of respect we deserve. I wish women didn’t think they needed to wear tight fitting, revealing clothing in order to feel feminine or pretty or desirable. 

The term “dress for success” has some merit. I’ve been working on a project at my own company, revising the Policy and Procedures. At our office, we have a dress code too - a quite extensive one in fact (and yes, it prohibits wearing leggings to work). Many of the staff interact with attorneys, physicians, and health care professionals on a regular basis. They need to wear clothing that reflects their professionalism and authority. Maybe it’s wrong that their clothing has any bearing on their perceived ability. But like a lot of other things in life that are wrong and unfair - it does.

 I probably sound like a cranky old Granny. I don’t care. I believe what we put on our bodies should have less to do with what’s fashionable and more to do with the perception we have of ourselves and the way we want the world to perceive us. 

I suggest people (men and women alike) think in terms of “dressing for respect” - our own self-respect, and the respect we deserve from other people with whom we interact. 

Write On Wednesday: How We Spend Our Days

Most Wednesdays I set aside as “writing days.” On Wednesday I start out with lofty ambitions and goals for my personal writing, plans for what I hope to accomplish, ideas that have been dutifully noted in notebooks and journals and tattered bits of paper. 

And mostly on Wednesdays, I fail. 

At least, I consider it a failure. Because most of my Wednesdays turn out like today. I woke up and looked at the clock, knowing the minute my eyes popped open that they wouldn’t be closing again to sleep until at least 16 hours later. I carefully (and somewhat painfully) extricated myself from the cocoon of sleeping dogs surrounding me, found my slippers in the dark, and crept down the stairs. I made some coffee, emptied the dishwasher, and took my cup back upstairs to my office where I finished reading one book, started another, wrote my morning pages, and then started on a list of ideas for writing later in the day. 

This is the point where the day begins to derail. My husband’s alarm goes off, and I get up to make more coffee. I begin to feel hungry, and decide to exercise before my hunger becomes unbearable. I get dressed, walk for 30 minutes, eat blueberry yogurt and granola, look at the email and scroll through Facebook, tend to first one dog and then the other, toast a bagel for Jim. I come back to my computer, open the blog page, type in the title. 

But the sun is shining so beautifully today. It’s quite comfortable to be outside, for the first time in many, many days. My little dogs would love a good walk, I think. 

So I walk again. 

I meet a neighbor, who tells me news of a lost dog in the neighborhood this morning, one she spent two hours trying to corral, and another hour locating the owner. Now there is a morning gone awry, I think, surreptitiously looking at my watch.

Magic is particularly “nosy” this morning, stopping every three steps it seems to root around in the still brown grass, soaking up the scents of every animal who has passed by since we walked this route yesterday. Finally, we make it home. I open the front door and the clock on my hall table reads 11:15. I’ve been up for seven hours, and haven’t written a word of what I intended, which included this weekly blog post.

Already on the road to failure, I think. 

But am I really?

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” Annie Dillard wrote these words, and most times when I read them, they rise before me like a yellow caution sign. “Take heed!” they warn. “Be careful how you spend your days, your hours, your fleeting minutes.” 

My intention lately has been to live with intention, to take notice of the ways my minutes accumulate, how I spend them like the precious currency they are. Perhaps by marking them, I can learn how to use them more wisely. 

Then I consider, perhaps writing is not always about words on paper. Perhaps writing lives in the simple noticing, in the layers and levels of being that every day brings. After all, just by living life, we are storing up impressions, memories, all the things that are important to the writing itself. 

Rather than hold myself to such a high standard of productivity, isn’t it wiser simply to allow things to be as they are? To be gentle with myself, because the world is rarely gentle with me?

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” 

Of course. Days rarely unfold with any predictability. Things don’t turn out as planned, and that’s alright. 

I believe the best writing arises from that which is truly lived, truly loved, truly experienced. 

The way we spend our days.

The Sunday Salon: When the Reading Is Hard

Practically everyone I know has been reading Kristin Hannah’s historical novel, The Nightingale. It’s a tale of two sisters trying to survive during the Nazi occupation and takeover of France during the years between 1939 and 1945. My Goodread’s timeline is awash with accolades.

If you read last week’s post, then you know how much I enjoy historical fiction, particularly that set in and around the two World Wars. I’ve been reading a lot of it lately - it seems that every book I pick up off the library shelf is in that genre or time period. So I got hold of a copy of The Nightingale and dug in.

First, I must add my voice to the accolades for Kristin Hannah - this book is quite a tour de force for her. It's an entirely different book from the kind she usually writes. Her novels are always well developed stories, with interesting and likable characters facing issues most women can relate to. And The Nightingale is no different in that regard. But it has a depth of feeling that is completely different than any of her other fiction.

And boy, was it hard to read. Emotionally, I mean. The stories of privation and loss and struggle and cruelty were absolutely relentless throughout the nearly 500 pages. I cannot imagine enduring the horror that the French people suffered. And I suppose my naiveté shows, but it is stall hard to imagine one group of human beings willfully wreaking such pain and suffering on another. 

To be honest, the book scared me. I grew up on stories of WWII - my father and all my uncles were American GI’s who served on both fronts during the war. All this evil happened in countries we readily and easily visit, less than 75 years later.  I should (and do) feel relieved that these countries are now peaceful and thriving, that they have recovered from such horrible devastation in such a relatively short period of historic time.

But I don’t believe we ever learn as much as we should from history. 

So it could happen again. It could happen anywhere, even here in my nice, safe backyard. 

The major question Hannah asks of her readers is this: What would you have the courage to do to protect not only the people you love, but perfect strangers? In the face of horrible evil, how far would you go to fight for the right? I admit, it made me uncomfortable to consider. Both Vianne and Isabelle, the main characters in the book, displayed remarkable courage and strength, staring death in the face every single day, a strength I know I don’t have.

I finished the book yesterday, and I was glad to finish it. I wanted out of all that horror in the worst way. 

And I was only living it in the black and white words on the page.

Sometimes, reading can take us to places we don’t really want to go. Sometimes, books are hard.

But I think that makes them all the more important to read.

How about you? Have you read books that were emotionally difficult?  

Life Goes On

Life in general has been quiet these days. I’m waiting every so impatiently for spring to come, and the sight of minuscule star-shaped snowflakes trickling from the clouds this morning was not the sight I hoped to see on the 27th day of March. Still, I will bundle up again (winter coat, earmuffs, gloves) and walk the dogs and try to ignore the frosty wind, thankful at least that the pavement is dry.

I have settled into a pattern this winter, getting up very early to drink my first two cups of coffee in the quiet house, wrapped in a warm sweater and curled into my corner of the couch. I write my morning pages, go down in the basement to exercise (yes, I still do the Walk at Home program with Leslie Sansone!), and eventually make it back to the kitchen counter for breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fruit. By this time, everybody else is getting up, so it’s time to take the dogs out, prepare breakfast for Jim, and let the rest of the world in on my day.

If I were to choose a favorite time of day, it would most certainly be those few hours in the morning when I’m the only one awake, the house still and safe around me, the promise of the day bright and shining in front of me. Those precious minutes when there are no demands on my time, when no one needs anything from me, those hours I call only my own - those are golden. 

I’ve never minded being alone - of course, I’ve never had a steady diet of it, never lived alone as a permanent state of being. I went directly from my parents house to my own house with a husband. I never spent one night alone until I’d been married about two years and Jim went off on a business trip. 

That was a long and restless night, I can tell you: I was acutely aware of every thump and creak in the house, and drifted off to sleep only in fits and starts. But he traveled a lot, and I got used to it soon enough.

We get used to things, don’t we? We grow accustomed to the little changes life throws our way. I’m used to going outside with the dogs now, rather than having the convenience of letting them out the backdoor into the fenced yard. And they have become accustomed to hurrying out, taking care of business, and being herded back inside, waiting for their daily walks to satisfy the need for sniffing and meandering.

I’m used to waking up too early every day, the shifting hormones in my body going through their mysterious cycles and waking me up before first light. I’ve come to enjoy it, see it as a gift, and make the most of it, even though in these early spring days it means I’m often struggling to stay awake before it’s completely dark outside.

We settle into our routines quite easily, and the older we get, the more deeply ingrained in them we become. That hour or two in the morning with my coffee and a book is absolutely sacred to me. Maintaining that little routine governs more of my activities than you might think. I never schedule appointments early in the morning, I’ve turned down jobs because they would required early morning start times.  There were many, many years when I shot out of bed and jumpstarted the day - breakfast, carpooling, work. 

But no more. One of the benefits of my current stage of life is the ability to slow down, to step back and know what I need in the day and then find a way to make that happen. 

I ordered a t-shirt the other day because I loved the sentiment emblazoned on the front: 

happy. healthy. balanced. peaceful. life.

As life goes on for me, it’s exactly what I seek for my future.

Most days lately I’ve been fortunate enough to find it. 

But only if I get that two hours in the morning with my coffee and a book.