“Find a creative practice that works for you,” I tell my clients in classes and coaching sessions. “Something that opens your heart to the mysteries of life. Something that nudges you out of rigid left brain thinking and frees your right brain to meander through spiritual pathways. Something that helps you meditate and feel more fully alive and mindful. Something that begins to heal the brokenness in your heart.”
“Painting, dancing, photography, writing, mandala-making, doodling… any of those and more can help you find your path along the winding, bumpy pilgrimage of life,” I say, and I mean it, because each time I am lost, a creative practice helps me find myself again.
“But I’m stuck,” I hear from so many people. “I don’t know how to create. I’m lost in a sea of inertia. I stare at a blank page and can’t get started.”
“Just start wherever you are. Let go of expectations and limitations that trap you. Don’t aim for a finished product. Don’t set goals.”
“I’ve tried morning pages,” said one client, “but every time I sit down to write three pages, I feel rebellious and get even more stuck.”
“Then let it go,” I said. “Forget about the three pages. Just tell yourself that each morning, you will sit with a pen in your hand for no less than ten minutes. Just that. Open the door a little to the creative muse and don’t put down the pen until the ten minutes are up. It doesn’t matter if you doodle, write, draw stick figures, or write on the walls or just stare out the window holding the pen. Just don’t put down the pen.”
I say all of those things and more because I believe in this work.
But… then suddenly I’m the one stuck. Inertia. Fatigue. A mom dying of cancer. Disappointment. Too many financial worries. Anger. Buckets full of tears.
And I can’t create. I can’t make mandalas and my paint brushes lay idle. I can’t even hold a pen in my hand without being tempted to throw it against the wall. Some days, I can barely get out of bed.
About the only thing I can do is go for slow meandering walks through the woods – because as much as I know creative practice saves me, I also know that Mother Nature and movement save me.
And so I walk. And lean on trees. And watch geese fly by. And take occasional pictures. And stare at deer. And sit by the water.
And then one day, while I’m sitting by the water, I pick up a jagged rock and place it on another rock. It balances there in an unexpected way. So I pick up another and another and place them, one on top of the other, precariously balancing in odd and unexpected ways.
As I place them, I feel the tension in my hands that tells me “shift this one slightly to the right to help the one beneath it to keep its balance.” Some of them defy gravity by balancing on a dime. Others cling to each other just by the friction of their rough edges. I am amazed and pleased at what forms in front of me. A balancing act that doesn’t seem to make sense, and yet it works.
I walk away feeling lighter. A little more balanced myself.
I don’t know why, but this strange activity draws me back to the water again and again. I balance bigger rocks, with even less logical reason to hold together. I make families of rock people and I sit and watch the sunset with them, in awe of how much less alone and lost I suddenly feel. One night I walk away and turn to look at my creation just before it’s out of sight. A family of ducks has dropped in to visit my rock people. It fills me with such delight, I almost start skipping.
Along the river near my house, I leave behind little inukshuks, marking my place on the journey of life. “I have been here,” they say. “I survived this, and then I carried on. If you see this, trust that you too can carry on.”
When things get particularly hard, I take a day off and drive up to the lake. The day is filled mostly with tears, but once the rocks start coming together, I suddenly find myself singing. It’s been a long time since I’ve caught myself singing. Ringing through my head are the words of a favourite song I’ve heard my friend Steve sing from the stage many times. Here by the water, I’ll build an altar…
Here by the Water (written by Jim Croegaert)
Soft field of clover
Moon shining over the valley
Joining the song of the river
To the great giver of the great good
As it enfolds me
Somehow it holds me together
I realize I’ve been singing
Still it comes ringing
Clearer than clear
And here by the water
I’ll build an altar to praise Him
Out of the stones that I’ve found here
I’ll set them down here
Rough as they are
Knowing You can make them holy
Knowing You can make them holy
Knowing You can make them holy
I think how a yearning
Has kept on returning to move me
Down roads I’d never have chosen
Half the time frozen
Too numb to feel
I know it was stormy
I hope it was for me a learning
Blood on the road wasn’t mine though
Someone that I know
Has walked here before
I sit across from her, waiting for her to take her next move. Neither of us has any capacity for strategy today, and so we play slowly, absent-mindedly, unconcerned about winners, losers, or points.
We’ve always played games together. It’s how we’ve passed many a pleasant Sunday afternoon. When we were young, she’d haul out Dutch Blitz or Pit – noisy games that would fill our house with laughter. Now it’s mostly Rummicube or Dominoes – quieter, more subdued games.
But today, I don’t want to play games. I want to stomp my foot on the floor like a toddler and say “I want to play outside instead!” Table games feel too slow, too quiet, too much like what people do when they’re getting old and tired.
I want to jump up from the table and say “Mom, let’s go for a drive! Maybe we can stop for ice cream, or find an old abandoned house to explore. Remember when we used to explore old abandoned houses? Let’s go do that!”
“Or we could plan a trip! Don’t you want to go to Alberta one more time and hike in the Rockies with me? Or at least we could take the kids to the States and play in the hotel room pool for hours on end. Remember that time you came on that business trip with me and you looked after the girls while I worked? Remember how they couldn’t get enough of the waterslide and you took them up again and again so they could woosh down, safely held in your arms? Let’s do that again. Please?!”
No, playing games is not enough. It’s too quiet, too solemn, too tired. It only shows a shadow of the fun-loving energy that filled her life and ours. It leaves out the best of her – the parts I adore most because I see them in myself. The adventure-junkie, the explorer, the life-lover, the risk-taker. The mom who would rather have water fights with the kids than sit with the grown-ups at Sunday School picnics. The woman who prided herself in being the only Grandma who climbed trees with her grandchildren. The same one who came home from seniors’ camp every year with a prize for being the fastest one (or the only one) up the climbing wall.
But this is all I have now. These games. Her wrinkled hand on the table. The love shining in her smile. The soft grey hair that grew in new directions after the chemo. The mother-heart that still wants to make sure I have something to eat before I go home, even if it has to be bought cookies because she can’t bake anymore. The concern that puts my weariness ahead of her own. The twinkle in her eye as she laughs at me for taking silly pictures. The hugs when I have to say good-bye.
This is what I have. Despite my angry fist waving into the sky as I drive home, this is what’s left, and there’s nothing I can do to change it.
All I can do is show up again next week and smile and nod when she says “do you want to play a game?” Because games are better than nothing.
I am sitting here wiping tears from my eyes. I’ve just spilled a glass of water all over my cluttered desk. I’m crying for the mess that I had to clean up, I’m crying for the clutter, and I’m crying about the weariness that has made it so very difficult to clean up that clutter lately. Or any of the clutter that seems to have taken over my house. And I’m crying because of that ugly voice in my head that wants me to believe I’m not worthy because I have a messy house that I’d be too ashamed to invite anyone into right now.
I am fatigued. So very, very tired.
I’m crying silent tears, because my daughters are in the next room and I don’t want them to come running. It’s not that I never cry in front of them, but sometimes it’s just easier not to have to explain mommy tears.
The truth is, I’m also crying because I’m hearing the voices of my daughters complaining that there is so little food in this house for them to eat and they don’t know WHY I haven’t gone grocery shopping lately and WHY I make them suffer and… oh, there is a long list of complaints.
And then there’s the fact that I’m teaching tomorrow and I can’t seem to focus on my teaching notes, and I’ve already resigned myself to the fact that I won’t get papers marked in time to hand them back tomorrow. I’m always one of those consistent teachers who hands things back right away and now I have to let myself down as well as my students.
Those are all the little things that mask the big things. My mom’s cancer. Our financial challenges. And… did I mention my mom’s cancer?
All I can do is cry. I should be shopping for groceries, or marking papers, or cleaning my desk. But I just want to cry. Or nap.
A nap would be really, really good right now. I think I could stay in bed for the next 24 hours and I’d still wake up exhausted.
I’m trying so hard to be strong. And brave. And not worn down by life. It’s what I do – I carry on. I buck up. I put on my big girl panties and fight the battles that need to be fought. I survive.
I’m trying, but this afternoon I feel too weary to fight.
I wasn’t going to write about this. I’ve been censoring myself lately – deleting Facebook statuses that sound too whiny or negative or just plain weary. I don’t want to be that person – the victim, the self-pitier, the energy-sucking needy friend who always talks about how hard life is.
I don’t even know if I’ll hit “publish” on this post yet. But I feel like I need to write it.
Because this is the authentic, warts-and-all, tears-in-her-eyes, unpolished me.
I fall apart sometimes.
I want you to know that, because too many people have been saying “you are one of the strongest people I know” lately. “If you can’t handle this, nobody can.”
Really? Am I really the strong woman you’re picturing me to be, or have I just managed to paint a picture of strength to hide the flaws, just like I scramble to hide any messes behind closed doors when you come to visit my house?
I’m not always strong. And I have a messy house. You could eat off my kitchen floor, simply because there are so many crumbs and bits of food you could make a meal out of it. I don’t have the energy to clean it up, or even to remind my daughters that they were supposed to do it last night.
I have been diagnosed with adrenal fatigue, and the diagnosis is teaching me some big lessons.
My body is designed to cope in the middle of stress. The adrenal glands pump out extra adrenaline and cortisol, preparing a person for fight or flight. But after too much stress, the adrenal glands get worn out. They have nothing left to give. They have to recuperate so that they’re prepared for the next stressor.
There have been very few months in the last 3 years that haven’t included stress. First my job wore me out. Then my husband’s mental health took a nose-dive and he attempted suicide. As his advocate in a flawed mental health system, my adrenal glands had to kick into overdrive. Then there was the rocky road of self-employment with more bills to pay than there was money coming in. And my mom was diagnosed with cancer. And my marriage nearly crumbled. Add to that the daily challenges of parenting teenagers.
My body has nothing left to give.
I have been pushing it to the brink. I have been treating it like my slave. I have been acting like a cruel parent who berates her children for being tired after cleaning house all day.
I have been unkind to myself.
I have lied to myself about what I am capable of.
I have been unfair to my community, not letting them help when they want nothing more.
I’m not even giving God the chance to lend me strength.
I am doing my best to change that. I am doing my best to live authentically. I am doing my best to let myself be weak and not pretend otherwise.
Because I believe in the power of community. And I believe in my body’s wisdom about when it needs to be cared for. And I believe in the beauty of vulnerability.
I believe that admitting weakness is the first step in allowing God’s strength to work in me. Real strength, not the kind I like to pretend I have.
I am weak.
And now I am going to hit publish before I regret this.
