Anniversary Ode

Five years ago tonight, we said "yes" to each other. 

At the time, neither of us believed we were each other's soul mate...we still do not think there is such a thing. We weren't sure it was the right thing to get married when not everyone could marry who they love. We did not think marriage is the highest ideal of a committed relationship, rather a way of life some of us wish to choose. And though we understood that this chosen path would challenge and disturb us more than we could imagine, we had no real idea of the difficulty ahead.

What we DID trust and believe on that November night in is our ability to recommit to one another each day, to turn toward one another in humility and mercy, and to strive to learn the deepest lessons of love beyond preference, convenience, even emotion, by loving each other. What we have trusted - and continue to trust - is that we hold the capacity to ask for forgiveness, to find joy in one another, and, when things are dark, instead of "Why would you? How could you?", to ask, "What will we do together to take the next step?"

The depth of pain when trust is betrayed takes much time and effort to heal. Who I am now could not explain that fully to the young couple, bright-eyed and hopeful, on their wedding night. Yet, we chose the processional song, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free, 'tis a gift to come down where we ought to be...And when we find ourselves in the place just right, 'twill be in the valley of love and delight. When true simplicity is gained, to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed - to turn, turn will be our delight, 'til by turning, turning, we come 'round right." Somehow, in a deep place, I think we knew we would learn.

I could not have conveyed how hard it would be to walk the journey of becoming parents together, the anger and jealousy and physical exhaustion...and the alchemy of self-sacrifice that leads to miraculous beauty. I did not know that, through 43 hours of labor, Robby would hold me up, that we would birth Oak together, and that it would be the most incredible experience of my life. Yet, we chose the poem, "The ruby and the sunrise are one. Be courageous and discipline yourself...Work. Keep digging your well. Don't think about getting off from work. Water is there somewhere. Submit to a daily practice. Your loyalty to that is a ring on the door. Keep knocking, and the joy inside will eventually open a window and look out to see who's there." Somehow, I think we knew we would be taught the way.

Allowing one another to grow and flourish on our own paths while living and learning together is a challenge beyond articulation. How could that be told to any pair of people yet to spend years together? Yet, the ring with which Robby proposed reads in Sanskrit, "Ahimsa" - "Do no harm" by respecting the deepest nature of every being, including the one closest. And the words, "Blessed are the poor in spirit...Blessed are they who mourn...Blessed are the meek...Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness...Blessed are the merciful...Blessed are the pure of heart...Blessed are the peacemakers..." reverberated on the walls of the building in which we were married. Somehow, I think we understood the journey to come.

"Wherever you go, I will go..." That is our promise. Robby, I still love you with all my heart, perhaps more because I understand what we both have given, and realize I have no idea what we have yet to give, to make it true. Walking this life with you has reoriented my heart, expanded my mind, and given me a new directive. You help me to see "La Vie en Rose." You have nurtured me, tended me, and loved me beyond any capacity I could earn or deserve.

Today, I choose you, my love, to be my partner and fellow seeker, to hold me accountable and inspire me, to work with me to make the world, and our life, anew.

"Not in the dark of buildings confining,

not in some heaven, light years away—
here in this place the new light is shining,
now is fulfillment, and now is the day.
Gather us in and hold us forever,
gather us in and make us your own;
gather us in, all peoples together,
fire of love in our flesh and our bone."

In Kindness

Today was one spent mostly in bed, trying to feel warm and keep my nose wiped, staving off aches with tea and soup. My good partner allowed me the space by tending to our boy who, by mid-afternoon, it was clear, was also sick. A(nother) day of rest at home was welcome, but also troubling, given all that is happening in the wide world.

I spent too much of the time I had my eyes open today looking at a screen, taking in the vastness of pain and suffering in our world and letting out tears. I felt so physically weak, so emotionally vulnerable. And who cares how I felt? I was unaware that an attack had happened in Beirut until my more globally-aware friends showed me on Facebook. I was self-disgusted because I didn't know, and because I did not feel immediate outrage when I heard the news of Paris. I felt grief and despair - all violence deeply disturbs me. But I mostly felt selfish annoyance at my many friends posting pictures of Eiffel Towers...because I saw myself in you.

Please don't misunderstand: I honor and appreciate the place of solidarity from which these outpourings come. That is a GOOD place, a place that connects people, that ushers justice, that makes peace. What bothers me? Your circle is too small. No matter who you are, your circle is to small. And so is mine.

I fail to realize most days how ignorant and sheltered I am. Collectively, we do not care enough about people we think are not like us. Thousands dead in Nigeria and there is barely a peep in the west. Millions of Syrian refugees fleeing from the same source of terror that, when it threatens a city we romanticize, suddenly becomes understandable in its horror...but until then, is not enough reason to make room at our inns for the families who have been threatened for months and months.

No need to look so far away. Why can't I be bolder with the truth that Black Lives Matter? Just like terror, systemic racism and white supremacy are real threats that kill real people every day. Just like terrorism, their complex roots, old and pervasive, must be acknowledged by white people for us to seek holistic solutions. Why do I struggle to find the words as a white person to call in others to look, to challenge my own, embedded racist tendencies, to change?

I fall short because I am tired. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed that taking care of my tiny circle is more than I can do. I try to be a good mother, partner, family member, friend, co-worker, community member...and I feel stretched even then. I know that these are essential works of justice and that I try to do my part, but it never feels like enough. I continue to fall into the mental, emotional, and spiritual traps that lead to disharmony and violence on a grander scale...and the cynical pitfall, "What can *I* even DO?"

As I laid in bed and cried, tucked away in comfort and cushions of care, I knew my self-judgment was not healthy or helpful. It does not serve us to say to ourselves or each other, "Our circles are too small." What helps is to say, and MEAN, "I am always trying to grow my circle of care...and I need your help." It helps, first, to be humble and to admit that work needs to be done...in us. It helps to invite each other in and hold each other accountable. It helps to make the most of where we are, who we are with, and what we are given. It helps to remind each other that it is ALL part of the bigger picture.

Yesterday was a Day of Kindness. That word, "kindness," often sounds trite or simplistic to my ears, sort of like "nice." We can be kind to someone without liking them...so I think it can be a wonderful first step. Our good acts should never depend on our subjective evaluation of another person's worthiness. Even if we struggle to feel for another, we can be kind. But that is not far enough. We also need courage. Coeur + large = courage. We need bigger and bigger hearts. We need kindness that comes when it is difficult to care, that transmutes to compassion - learning to suffer with others.

Such courageous compassion pushes against the edges of our awareness and expands our domain of attention. We begin to see people we didn't see before. The root of the word "kindness" articulates kinship, similarity. When our kindness begins to connect us more profoundly with people we did not even know we overlooked, it widens our circle of care. When our kindness helps to expand others' circles, it creates peace. "What can *I* even DO?" becomes, "What can WE do together?"

I need you to join me. Let's try to expand together. Let us mourn the victims in Paris, hold vigil in our hearts and homes, extend the love that is desperately needed...then, tomorrow, let's pay attention to the rest of the world. Let's never allow each other to overlook those killed across town or across the globe. Let's awaken our vigilance to our planetary kin. Is that too much to ask? Absolutely. Yes, there will always be too much to hold. That's why we hold it together. That's why you and I must stay courageously, radically open - to being challenged, corrected, consoled, and converted to greater compassion, and to do this for others with true kindness.

White people, call me in when I'm not being an ally. Friends of color, feel free to correct me when my view is narrow. Queer friends, let me know what I am missing. Tell me who I am forgetting to see or hear. Make me uncomfortable. Treat me kindly, but help me to love more courageously. Let me do this for you, too.

Tonight, Oak rested his head on my arm as we watched a video of Tracy Chapman perform "Imagine." Later, he proudly stacked the pictured structure that forcefully reminded me of the familiar landmark of a city in mourning. I never cease to wonder what he will dream and build in his life. Holding his vulnerable, sick body reminded me how vital it is to be gentle with ourselves and one another. Apathy or anger will not save us. Staying vulnerable and dependent on each other will. Judging the confines of my small space, my fragile body, my limited mind will only shrink them...but loving myself, and letting you see me and love me, too, will only help possibility to grow.

Rest well, my friends, and know tomorrow I begin again. I do not know if I will feel stronger on my own, but I want to be more connected. I know that, in itself, will strengthen me. Kindly, will you help me grow?

Eulogy for a Bee

Mandy Olivam 2015

I knew she was dead when I saw her. Although this November day is mild, the colder weeks preceding it have left little hope for insects to survive.

There she was, her glaring yellow fur and shiny black eyes catching my eye among green, hardy mint stalks and curled brown oak leaves. I bent closer, feeling my inside recoil as I dared to peer nearer than instinct cautioned. Her intricate legs clung to the flower, her grasp firmly set in death.

I felt spontaneous grief at the poignant arrangement. I have rarely seen a dead bee; I do not know if predators find them before I do or if the typical place bees go to die are usually unnoticed by the likes of me. But that this one came to rest on a blossom like the many she must have visited in her brief life read like a poetic eulogy.

Perhaps, whether or not she knew the end was near, she kept on doing what she was born to do as a bee and continued her rounds from plant to plant until chance led to her die on this particular one. But maybe she knew, in the way bees must know something beyond any human conception of knowing, that it was time. Maybe she sought out a green spot in a world turning red and orange, then brown. Perhaps the cold compelled her to a familiar site of warmth and summer, a memorial of her life in its glory.

Did she die with the taste of nectar on her long, agile tongue? Did she savor the sensation of petals against her abdomen? Did she want to delight one last time in the beauty that was living, to watch this holographic world grow dark from the color of springtime?

She would not even laugh at me if she could, surmising about her motives - I imagine bees do not sense humor or experience motivation, let alone sentiment, in any capacity I could apprehend. Nevertheless, something about her creaturehood, and the meticulous earthiness of her complex, still body, stirred the human emotions of love, sadness, and loss within me.

And like a human who seeks pattern and meaning in what she can never understand, I choose to imagine that she wished to make the most of her journey until the end, like I do. I think she, too, sought sweetness even as things changed and delighted in the simple pleasure of being the creature she was. Even in her death, the happenstance and choice of her existence left a mark on the world, left lessons for a stranger of another species, stirred foreign feelings to reverberate in a day of a life she could not have imagined.

Love's Bond

Sixteen months, a week, and two days: that's how long I have nursed him. I never planned to breastfeed this long, nor did I plan not to - since his arrival, we have simply taken each other's cues. I could have never guessed something so eventually natural would begin with such uncertainty, would feel so foreign, would require such work. I had to surrender to trust in my body, in him, and give up old ideas of ambition and independence. Soreness and fatigue, frustration and fear, slowly gave way to comfort and nurturance, joy and revelation.

In time, together, we found a rhythm that felt as familiar and reflexive as our mutual devotion. My days became patterned by this regular ritual. I felt as in need of our quiet spaces of connection as he did. In the dark, half-asleep, I would rouse mere moments before he would wake and root; latching him on as he laid alongside me let me feel his breathing, which I unconsciously mirrored. We aligned such that, even when he began to drink my milk apart from me, I knew when he was hungry because my body told me at a distance. Nothing could be more profoundly recentering than a constant awareness of my interdependence with my son.

The weeks slipped into months; I witnessed in wonder my own growth and his. The constancy of our nursing relationship was an anchor through transition and tribulation. Sickness and injury, unfamiliar places and overwhelming spaces, were made gentler by this simple, earthy comfort. All days required work. Each new milestone felt like a miracle. Every time, I breathed in surprise - "We made it this far." What was once unimaginable was now an integral reality. Not only was nursing normal, it was a part of my identity. I knew no more holistic fulfillment, no richer grounding in the condition of being human, than feeding him close to my heart.

Shortly after he turned thirteen months old, we learned he would become a big brother. I knew early because my breasts, and my nursing boy, told me clearly: something was different. Nursing had already started to happen less frequently throughout the day, but as the weeks progressed, my supply steadily decreased. The mutual comfort I had always felt when breastfeeding began to morph - at times, the closeness was stifling. The pain was strangely complex. I felt tidal waves of emotion, dramatic peaks of the familiar love but also newly roaring resistance. I was internally conflicted each time I put him to my breast. As he stopped asking to nurse during the day, and as he got less and less milk each time he nursed, I felt a new, stinging despair. "It's ending." Our precious and life-giving nursing relationship was changing. What was the right thing to do? And how could I even begin to imagine letting go?

Thanks to much support, I was reminded of the deep truths that allowed for us to have such a beautiful breastfeeding connection in the first place: trust in my body, trust in my boy...now, too, I must trust that the new life making her/his home in me is requiring what I can give. My boy is turning more and more to kisses, "ugga-muggas," and big hugs than to nursing for our physical affection. Although I put up a kind face when he sweetly asks to nurse, I can see in his eyes that he knows I am in pain. More than once, after a minute or two, he has simply unlatched and rested against me instead. The past week, he has only asked once each night to nurse. Even then, he does not get much milk, and I feel we both know these times are reaching an end.

Tonight was the first night I put him to bed all on my own without nursing him. He did not ask; I did not offer. I sang him songs we've shared since he was first born and I would put him to my breast. He soon settled with closed eyes in the cradle of my arms, hand gently resting over my heart. As I sang old, familiar words, tears choked my song - it became a whisper in his ear: "Baby mine, don't you cry. Baby mine, my oh my. Rest your head over my heart, never to part, baby of mine..." Holding him close, I let the tears come and the bittersweet ache of this new season permeate my heart. This dimension of our love will transform, but it will not pass. Everything is new, yet the bond between me and my boy will never end. The frustration and fear will give way to joy and revelation.

Soon, I laid him in bed, breathing heavily in his sleep. I don't know if the last time he will nurse has yet to happen. I do know that whatever these upcoming days hold will require work, will feel foreign and uncertain. But I trust in the beauty of what we have created together: a bond to shepherd us through unfamiliar places and overwhelming spaces, a love that, even at a distance, helps us to know we belong to each other.