Embracing the moment with the help of DH Lawrence

“I embrace this moment” is a wonderful idea, but I’m having trouble with the implementation. I spend much of my time planning for the future and, considering the circumstances of my life right now, that makes sense. My husband just got a new job, my daughter is going to high school next year and I am preparing to “go out on disability.” It will serve us better to plan ahead for these big changes.

I need to understand the difference between preparing and worrying. Here again, it’s all about the serenity prayer: there are things I can change and things I can’t.

Preparing means taking action now that will make a probable future go more easily. My husband will have to travel to get trained in his new job. Activities that were scheduled for that week need to be rescheduled. My daughter needs to fill out and submit forms to choose her classes for next year. I need to stop putting money into my retirement fund. Each task of preparation, though gesturing to the future, is done in the present moment.

Worrying is excessively creating detailed pictures about what may go wrong. I am a champion worrier. Chronic, progressive illness can easily invite worry. The strength in and dexterity of my hands has diminished over the last few years.

How far will it go? Will my hands be paralyzed? Will the spasticity that nags my legs start bothering my arms? Will I be able to manage while my husband is traveling? Will my daughter be warped by being around a mom dealing (sometimes none too gracefully) with disability?

My inner narrator starts sounding like the announcer at the end of an old soap opera.

When I find myself worrying, the present moment can save me.

“I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers one up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.”  –D.H. Lawrence

By immersing himself in physical, creative activity, Lawrence returned to the present moment.

Thoughts of worry arise from the biological instinct to Keep Myself and My Love Ones Safe.  It’s a useful instinct.  That instinct has made our species the spectacular, 7 billion strong, success we are today. My spinning, obsessive, negative thinking? Not so successful.

I need to let go of my worrying mind and return to the present moment. I can do that by taking a deep breath and noticing– with compassion – what my senses are experiencing right now.  I can say to myself, “In this moment, I am safe.”

After a moments’ rest understanding that I am safe, I can ask myself. “Are there actions I can take that will help me feel safer?”  If I can take action immediately, that’s great. If it’s an action that has to be taken in the future, I can write it in a list or calendar so that I am reminded about it when the time comes.

Meanwhile, I have a new phrase to recall me to the present moment: Shred oranges and scrub the floor.

It's a Wonderful Life

I ended a recent newsletter with the declaration that "Adventure is moving into the unknown believing wonderful things will happen. I need to rediscover life as adventure."

I was immediately humbled by a post by John Ptacek on the Fight Like a Girl Club website that "Surrender meant discarding the idea that life is always supposed to be wonderful; it’s just supposed to be life."

"Is believing wonderful things a naïve and ridiculous approach?" I asked myself. Speaking of wonder to "cancer and disease warriors" might be unwelcome.

I thought about the word "wonderful" and its root:

won·der

verb (used without object)

1. to think or speculate curiously: to wonder about the origin of the solar system.
2. to be filled with admiration, amazement, or awe; marvel (often followed by at ): He wondered at her composure in such a crisis.
3. to doubt: I wonder if she'll really get here.

Wonderful –Full of wonder: full of curiosity, admiration, amazement, awe, doubt.

A couple days after writing the newsletter I went to our local Renaissance Festival, a good place for an adventure. We enjoyed laughing at our favorite acts, watching the dancers, listening to music, admiring the people… It was wonderful. We did not enjoy the dust, the uneven ground, the crowds... It was wonderful.

Wonder is a word that encompasses bright and dark. Adventure is like that too. It doesn't force things to be positive or negative; it allows for ambiguity. It allows for life.

The Frugal Enthusiast

A nine-month-old has inspired me to describe myself in a new way. My newest creative experiment is to think of myself as a frugal enthusiast.

Charles Vachon posted a time lapse video of his nine-month-old son, Charles-Edward, as he played on the floor. Four hours of play were condensed into about two minutes of "synaptic exuberance."



Baby Edward's curiosity and sensory involvement are glorious to watch. Robert Krulwich, writing about the video on NPR's Sciencey Blog concludes,

"babies go wild making connections and then, as we grow into our preferences, our personalities, life is like a scalpel. We slowly shed what we don't need or use or want. Having watched Edward for those time lapsed four hours, it's hard to imagine what he’s going to give up later in life but he's got to give up something. We all do."

My mother will turn 90 this year. She was describing how much more difficult it was this year to pack away the Christmas decorations. She just doesn't have the energy or stamina she used to have.

Though I am 40 years younger than she, I find myself in a similar situation. The natural losses of aging are compounded in my body by chronic illness.

We all have to give up something. The trick, of course, is to do it gracefully.

In the late '80s I watched a television show called "The Frugal Gourmet." Host Jeff Smith cooked good-tasting food prepared with an eye toward budget and prudent use of ingredients.

I love Baby Edward's engagement in the world. I remember the childhood feeling of wanting to do everything, to try everything. There is a piece of that I don't want to give up.

On the other hand, at my time of life, conscious choices are my allies. In a metaphorical Baby Edward's world, if I spend too much time kicking the oval basket, I may lose energy before I get to crawl under the chair in the corner. As we age, we get better at seeing our options. As a person dealing with chronic illness, I have to take a step back, consider the universe of choices and set priorities. If that chair is important, I better visit it first.

So I have arrived at the phrase "the frugal enthusiast." Frugal because I need to be economical, not wasteful, in my expenditure of energy. Enthusiast because I want to be a person active in interest. I would rather get excited about things for seconds than be bored for hours.

Inviting Change: The Power of Less (book response)

[I have decided to post a few notes about a book before I mention it in my monthly newsletter. This is not a review of the literary value of the book, but rather a record of the response I had while reading it.]


The new year invited me to think and read about making positive changes. That's what New Year's resolutions are all about, right?

I was reminded what dangerous territory the idea of change is for me.

My adult life has been organized around coping with changes thrust upon me by living with a chronic illness. What with changes engendered by living at the turn-of-the-century and living through an uncertain economy, etc., most human beings are coping with enormous amounts of change. The new jargon for grace in response to change is "resilience." Building skills in this area is a survival mechanism for all of us.

But what about inviting change? I've been spending time recently with a book called The Power of Less, by Leo Babauta.

I was attracted to the book because Babauta is the author of the popular blog Zen Habits. I hoped he would not get too aggressive and heroic with his advice about how to make changes.

The book does, indeed, take a gentle and sane approach to change. Babauta encourages us to identify what is essential in our lives and eliminate the rest. It is about simplification.

I enjoyed and was inspired by the first 60 or so pages and then found myself getting into trouble. It took me a few days of processing (I'm not the fastest heifer in the stampede) before I realized my difficulty and made accommodations.

Babauta's Power of Less Principles-- and his explanation of them-- are fine:

1. Set limitations.
2. Choose the essential.
3. Simplify.
4. Focus.
5. Create habits.
6. Start small.

In the second part of the book, "In Practice," he gives examples of how to apply the principles in various areas of our lives. I found myself getting more and more frustrated with this section, until I identified my difficulty.

My problem, it turns out, is that I have little control over the practicalities of my life. I can't, for instance, get up half an hour earlier and create a new morning routine without inconveniencing several people. I have to have help to get out of bed, get dressed, have a cup of tea… I have to have help with pretty much everything on his morning routine list. I ran into similar trouble with many of Babauta's suggestions.

I returned, as I often do, to the safety of the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Babauta's book encourages us to think about goals and projects. To his process, I need to add:

1. Identify tasks wherein I have control.
2. Identify tasks with which I would need to ask for help.
3. Decide with which tasks I am willing to ask for help.
4. Identify potential helpers.
5. Ask for help as decided.

My experience is that asking for help comes with a cost. If I have consciously decided to ask for help and accept the cost, then I will find it easier to make the changes I want to make.

Babauta's emphasis on focused, small, present-oriented changes makes it a good fit for someone like me who is working within limitations. As with most life processes, however, I have to take a little extra time to tailor his suggestions to my specific needs.