Re-entry: What I bring verses what I take away

“Hello! Is there anybody in there? Just nod if you can hear me…is there anyone at home?” Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged. I don’t feel bad about that, other than I wish I’d been able to document the past year better. Although I write a little every day on a calendar journal I have, I don’t always capture the whole picture, be it little things that are too many words to write longhand, or the normal things (for right now) that I think will always be the same so why mention, or big things that just are too much to capture at night when I’m tired and I just want a few minutes more to spend in a book.

In July, we went to Hawaii. I’ve been wanting to do a big trip this summer to commemorate our family before it “changes” and we landed there. I don’t know what else to say about that, other than it was wonderful, horrible, frustrating, gorgeous, memorable, busy, heartbreaking, and spiritual all at once.

I had thought we would go to Europe this summer. All I wanted last year was to take my family to London. I was pissed I couldn’t do that, not actively angry, but just mad at life that it wasn’t possible. Then late in June a friend from elementary school shared pics from her Hawaiian vacation and I knew I needed to go there. Her photo shoot of her family on the beach, of zip lining on the north shore, of ringing a bell at a Buddhist temple called to me so strongly. So I brazenly copied her and yet had my very own Hawaiian vacation.

What drew me most was a place called Byodo-In Temple. It’s a replica of a 900 year Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. It’s also a place that many Buddhists have chosen for their cremains. When were there, my family got to enter the space where the cremains are held and it was one of the most impactful events I’ve ever had. It was powerful there. It was spiritual in a way I don’t want to define with words. I felt the peace there and I realized how in trying to find balance, I’m actually experiencing unbalance.

After we walked through the sanctuary, we wandered the grounds and I kept thinking the same thing – My Qi is off. I don’t even know really what Qi is, I just knew that in stopping attendance to the Mormon church over the past 10 months, I’ve lost my spiritual practice. While I have every intention of meditating (my current connection to quiet and spirit) I rarely meditate. I think – I should do that. But I also say that about reading more, sewing, making dinner every night, reaching out to family, doing yoga. You name it, I’m actively saying I should do it and then staying busy so I don’t have to.

The death of my mom hit me upside the head in a way I didn’t ever know it would. It’s not about the realities of grief but more about the absolute feeling of aloneness, of orphanness. I know I’m not alone – but the loss of both parents untethers you from more things than your childhood home and whose in-laws you eat Thanksgiving with. There’s no longer a singular person – or pair of persons – who have to love you. There are only so many mementos you can stuff your house with, only so many rings you can wear on your fingers, blankets to drape over couches and rocking chairs, Barbie dolls to stuff in bins for future grandchildren hands to play with until you realize:

Nothing has value. Except relationships.

At first I wanted all the things. I brought them home and put them in places, some temporary, some permanent. I sobbed the day I brought home my grandma’s end table and lamps. Sobbed hard in my closet on a freshly washed afagan my mom had made. Because the only damn reason that table and those lamps would be in my house is if my mom was dead, and my dad was dead, which means my grandma and grandpa are dead too. Their deadness however long doesn’t matter because the lamps are in my damn house now. They are all gone and one day someone else will get them and I’ll be dead too.

See, nothing has value. It stays, and the owner goes. My relationship to those lamps – and their owners – means more than the lamps. And that doesn’t translate, no matter how long they are in my house, no matter who gets them after me.

As I walked in the sanctuary at Byodo-In, all I could think about was managing the barrage of spiritual feelings coming at me. My family could listen intently to the docent and notice the mementos behind the glass next to the cremains. Shane and the boys saw the Bud Light can behind the glass, I only tell the story of it being there and imagine it. But what I experienced was the potently charged air, the crowdedness of the empty hall and sanctuary, the close feeling. It didn’t scare me, it brought out feeling in a rush of tears. I remember the smell of the incense and the ringing of the singing bowl, my family all being there barefoot and sweaty in front of an altar.

When my mom died, I talked at her funeral about what we bring. “How do we show up in our lives, and our loved ones lives.” I followed that feeling throughout the clearing, cleaning, and selling of my mom’s house. I went to Hawaii to connect with her in a way I didn’t know I needed to. There was something left of her visit there from 1985 that still was there for me to pick up in 2019. Maybe it was in the sand at Waimea Beach. Maybe she’d left it somewhere on Kam Highway going to the North Shore. Maybe I didn’t find it at all, but drove past it and just smelled it on the wind. Suellen Was Here.

Now post-Hawaii, my talk has changed to “What do I take away?” Do I keep being hard on myself? Do I just keep doing what I’ve always done? Hiding my feelings. Pretending things don’t hurt. Waiting for the permission to live the life I want to live. What do I take away from knowing my qi is off? Do I blame my weight gain on it and eat some more potato chips? Yes, I do, some days. Others I really do meditate and then I feel like I have a gold star for effort and I’m “back on track.” I’m in a hurry to get *there* where I’ve learned all the things and am better for it, instead of patiently (and impatiently) making stabs at it, trying to figure out what works.