Taking a Deeper Breath

Dear friends ~ As we finish out this first week, I want to thank you all for being on this journey with me. Thank you for your kind e-mails and the lovely photos, poems, prayers, and inspirational messages you’ve forwarded to me. “We’re all in this together” has been my mantra for the last several years, and wow, are we ever seeing just how true that is! I am grateful to be “in this together” with you. The daily e-mails are a gift to myself (a tether to sanity!) as well as my small effort to fight back against despair; I’ve been happy to hear that they are bringing enjoyment or help to some of you. But I now see that I need a periodic break from the effort. I need to spend less time at my computer, at least on the weekends. So I will still do the usual sorts of messages during the week, but something much more brief on the weekends. For today, I will share with you a photograph of some sidewalk art that Carl and I saw on our walk yesterday and some news that I have read. Here’...

It’s spring at last (and early at that)! Yesterday was the first day of the season, and it couldn’t have been a more glorious day here in Portland. After last weekend’s surprise snow, what a treat to have a bright, sunny day. And 64 degrees? Wow! These are the kind of days that make anyone fall in love with Portland. Wherever you are, I hope that spring arrived in a lovely way for you, too. Carl and I have been “going to yoga class” here in our home. When the gym closed, our fabulous yoga instructor, Tara Atkinson, started a Zoom class that’s open to anyone. More about that below. What I want to share with you now is a treasured poem by Mary Oliver that Tara read at the end of our class yesterday. Here it is for you to savor: Spring Somewhere     a black bear       has just risen from sleep          and is staring down the mountain.   ...

Do you like this painting? I love it. The colors, the gestures, the birds. All of it sings to me.  My cousin Ruthie painted this. She’s not a longtime artist; this is a new hobby for her, and she’s putting more time into it now that she’s at home. It’s one of the ways that she stays grounded and holds onto a sense of normalcy in her her life.   Look again at Ruthie’s painting. What are those people doing? Ruthie says they’re dancing ladies, and they are surely that. But is that what you see? Perhaps they might also be greeting the birds. Or waving goodbye. Or offering a blessing. That’s one of the great pleasures of looking at a painting. We each see the image from our own perspective. Are you an artist? Do you like to make things with your hands? Whether you paint or doodle, quilt or collage, sculpt or scrapbook, is there something you can make or work on today that would feed your soul and bring pleasure or delight to others? Creating art is holy and healing wor...

Have you ever seen this photo of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu? Can you tell what they’re doing?                                                                    (Photo credit: Tenzin Choejor) They’re dancing! Awkwardly, to be sure. But dancing. And with such joy!  They had a combined age of around 165 when this photograph was taken at the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday party, and they look like a couple of kids. Their impishness is legendary. And for real. Maybe that’s part of what has sustained them both through harrowing times in their lives. We can’t all be like them, but we can dance with joy in our own lives. Personally, I dance around in my house on a regular basis. If there’s music playing — and there usu...

When I was in high school I attended a week-long summer program that involved singing every evening. I was deeply moved at the time, sitting in a huge circle of girls singing patriotic and sentimental songs. I remember that one of them ended with the words, “if everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world it would be.”  Fast forward fifty plus years, and at what seems like a very dark time for all the world, those little candles are beginning to flicker to life. Whether it’s singing “Nessun Dorma” to a neighborhood on lockdown in Italy, leading a group of housebound Spanish apartment dwellers in jumping jacks on their balconies, or “caremongering” in Canada (don’t you love it?), people are finding ways to say, “we’re here. We see each other. We will lift each other up.” And this beauty, kindness, and generosity has a ripple effect. The smallest things can make a difference. Maybe right now we’re finding it easier to notice the gifts, and draw from them more energy a...

The world as we know it has shifted. Everyone has a story of how profoundly life has changed. Yesterday we attended “virtual church,” sitting in front of our computers as we watched Pastor Jennie lead worship before the empty pews. Between social separation and self-quarantining, it would be easy to think that we are distancing from each other more each day. But even as we physically separate, we are reaching out and making more intentional efforts to connect. Our need for connection and our human goodness are powerful forces, more powerful than any pandemic. Maybe, in fact, more powerful now   because   of the pandemic. I see rays of light in the responses I’ve received from you, in the photos and notes of encouragement you’ve sent. I see them in the listserv posts and neighborhood chat room messages offering help to strangers. I’m sure that we all have our stories about ways in which we’ve seen kindness and compassion emerge lately. Here’s a poem that beautifully sp...

Although I am limiting my news intake, we all need to know what’s going on around us. So I intended to watch PBS news last night, forgetting that it was Saturday. What a lucky mistake! Instead of watching news, I ended up watching a splendid Mr. Rogers special. There were many highlights (it’s pledge week, after all), but one was a charming excerpt from the video link below. As we turn our thoughts more to our families and give thanks that the virus is sparing little children, what could be sweeter than watching a young YoYo Ma accompany his small son in a duet of “Skater’s Waltz”? It’s about 2 minutes in, but the whole video is only 4 minutes long, and it’s a delight. And who doesn’t need more time with Mr. Rogers these days? YoYo and Nicholas Ma Do you have access to online music? YoYo Ma has an extraordinarily diverse catalog, everything from classical  to Brazilian to one of my favorites, the   Goat Rodeo Sessions  (which is just what it sounds like. More infor...

Dear family and friends ~ These are trying times, indeed. And the temptation — and ability — to check newsfeeds constantly can be both mentally and emotionally exhausting. We need to take a break. If you watch PBS NewsHour, you’ve probably noticed that Judy Woodruff has lately taken to ending the broadcast on an uplifting note. For those who missed it, here’s 85-year-old Lucile Day’s recent “Brief But Spectacular” essay:  Lucile Day    I highly recommend it for a four-minute reprieve from distress. It kept me feeling better for awhile. I woke this morning with Judy Woodruff on my mind. I’m grateful for her gifts of humanity and hope in these difficult days. And then it dawned on me that I could do my best to pass that on. So I decided to start a brief daily e-mail I’m calling “Taking a Deeper Breath.” But first, instead of getting up to read the online news, I went out for an early morning walk to be in the world and to clear my head. It was snowing hard (!?...