In the harshest conditions, peace still finds a way. In the coldest moments, hearts still warm with compassion – Walk For Peace USA

Squatting, with my jeans pulled down, I tried to relieve myself on the edge of the slippery culvert off Interstate 64 in Apex, North Carolina.

But suddenly I felt my knees buckle and I went down head first into the grass (I was trying to protect my new hip).

For privacy, I’d been attempting to hide myself between a parked car and my husband’s large down vest.

He quickly grabbed the collar of my jacket and yanked me up. Mission accomplished.

Because I just couldn’t hold it any longer.

We had been huddling in the cold for almost 4 hours.

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We were standing in a line of thousands of people who had pulled their cars off of both sides of the highway’s shoulders, and here we waited.

Waiting, waiting for the Buddhist monks.

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I had heard they were on a Walk for Peace that was traveling from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington, D.C.

On foot, some of them even barefoot.

I was there to witness and pay respect and to simply be in their presence. Just to get a glimpse as they passed through North Carolina.

We had no idea there would be throngs of people wanting to do the same thing.

An assortment of them- children and old folks, Black, Brown, Indian. Some held signs. Some waved flowers. Some came to be healed. I’m not sure what most people wanted.

But their faces seemed to me to be happy and expectant.

Many were radiant.

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We had been instructed to stay quiet and only to bring our hands together and bow in prayer. And we were not to reach out to them or get in front of them. But we could follow along behind them and walk.

Throughout the day I felt the warmth and respect from those around me.

I’ve never been a part of a group like this. I’ve been to protests, but this was a different thing.

The air felt thick with promise. There was a restrained joy.

But mostly, there was a yearning. There was a hunger to see these men.

And finally the police escort lights were visible through the trees of the state park and the tiny figures moved closer.

Their saffron gold and brown robes moved along at a clip – they walked pretty fast.

I was holding my breath.

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My nerves had been so jangled.

Throughout the long afternoon of waiting I had also been endlessly scrolling my text messages to get word about my sister.

She was being arrested in Minneapolis at that very same time.

She, along with other clergy, were protesting at the airport.

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Later, I watched the media footage of them as they kneeled in the freezing cold, praying. They were bundled up, covered in ice and snow. Palms open to the sky.

And across the sidewalk a large group of fellow protesters chanted Let them pray /Let them pray.

And then one by one they were calmly taken away by the police, hands zip-tied and then put in a school bus.

This was all going on while I was waiting on the highway.

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My sister is so beautiful anyway, but seeing her like that took my breath.

She had a glow like an aura around her face – like the saints in those medieval paintings. I was transfixed.

Her breath came out in icy puffs but you could see that she was praying. Eyes closed, her face was simply luminous.

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Witnessing that scene was akin to receiving the beatific smile from the lively little monk who reached out to me and handed me flowers.

I couldn’t breathe, time slowed down and I felt golden warmth spread through my whole body.

As they passed, the glow went with them but a tiny bit, like holy pollen, brushed across my being.

I felt warm from the inside out and everything was shining.

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My husband and I could barely speak the rest of the way home and into the evening. Something had changed and we didn’t want to disturb that.

And even now, remembering the event makes me tear up.

In this world that feels so broken, there are these beautiful things.

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In these moments I feel hope. I no longer automatically default to that cynical vibe that believes that evil cannot be defeated.

Because I witnessed that mighty force that came walking bravely down the highway, undaunted and free.

A walk that embodied the hope that I’ve been searching for. The monks showed me what peace looks like.

I needed that because I’d forgotten.

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Courage and hope in one day. It was a lot.

And now I’m trying to keep those smiling men with bare feet in my mind, front and center as I go about my ordinary day.

And of my sister kneeling and praying on the curb at the airport, both of these images interlace.

I want to hold the light of these holy people in my heart.

As a reminder of hope –

for joy, for peace and for love.

These days the sun slowly inches higher in the sky. The morning air seems brighter, crisper, in sharp contrast against the brown lawn.

The bluebirds are scoping out the nesting box (it has a new camera). They peek inside the hole and cock their little heads. Is this a home?

At the end of February or so they will start a family.

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In January the world feels new.

And here in the kitchen a luminous softness radiates from my UV lightbox.

It almost feels like summer sun!

My desk is cleared off and I feel energized.

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On New Year’s Eve my annual ritual is to light all of the candles in the house – Christmas pillars, tapers, votives, old tea lights, all of it.

I strike the matches to the wicks to burn away the old year.

On the fireplace mantle, in the kitchen, in the bedroom.

And I let them burn all the way down to hard disks.

And when they are all spent I bring out a slim bayberry taper that my sister gave me.

When lit, it’s fresh green balsam scent fills the whole house.

I pause and breathe deeply.

And meditate on what is real and true for me in the moment.

And I let go of last year’s energy.

Or I try to.

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Back before Christmas I went into our attic storage area and dragged out a huge blue Rubbermaid container.

Inside were spiral notebooks of various sizes, some bound journals and some stacks of yellowed looseleaf papers.

Two of the tiny books had fake gold locks and keys.

My journals.

I drug them out mostly out of curiosity.

Should I sort out the “good stuff” and preserve it? Or just toss it all?

The lined pages were scrawls starting from my grade school years up until I was in my 30s.

Sigh.

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What was important enough to write about?

Did I write well or was it (the dreaded word) trite?

I was curious to read and trepid at the same time.

Mostly I was just afraid of looking backwards.

I didn’t want to re-live some of that stuff.

Most of that stuff.

Let the past stay in the past.

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So I had to steel myself before I started.

But after a quick taste from grade school 1975 (Robert Redford crazy), I deliberately left the bin open on the floor so I could dip into it at random.

For some reason it felt important to keep going.

Still it was kind of cool that things weren’t boxed up in chronological order.

It seemed easier to process the material this way: the heavy stuff alongside the ridiculous.

The sadness of my brother leaving home to go into the Navy.

The excitement of getting my first pet rat named Nicky.

The thrill of Halloween and riding our bikes all over town after dark.

Depression in high school after a huge breakup with my first crush.

The endless screeds about my weight.

And the tender entries from the days (and nights) after my kids were born.

The petty grievances against my sisters.

The blowsy love poems I wrote to my husband in college (gag).

And the running, always the running [see hip replacement].

The heartache with the sweet.

And of course the trite.

Anyway, I felt kind of brave for reading.

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Turns out that the young diarest from the past was pretty great.

A lot of the time she was self-indulgent and silly and reactive.

And boy could she brood.

And most of the writing was lousy – boring observations and saccharine poetry.

But she was scrappy.

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Because it wasn’t just that I had muscled through some challenging times, it was the fact that I wrote it all down.

When I was excited, hopeful and happy, yes.

But also when I was down and out and really struggling to see patches of light.

I was faithful to it.

That was me then.

And that is me now.

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And it gives me a little boost now to see the grace in the simple continuity of writing.

Yeah just a bin in the attic, but still.

I was a writer.

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So I’m looking forward to this coming New Year and having some days of inspiration.

At least I’m hopeful.

I have no doubt there will be writer’s block, inertia and plain old laziness.

And bad poetry.

But this morning as I flip on my lightbox and shuffle across the kitchen to brew my coffee, I can feel the warmth of the day’s possibility.

It fills up the room.

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My dusty journals are stowed away – all the old angst is buttoned down.

But what I hold front and center are the journals’ intermittent words of bright optimism.

Because as a whole, those actually eclipsed all the rest.

Joy and discovery in the mundane minutia of the day-to-day blah.

Kind of a hodgepodge mess – hardly a linear black and white enterprise.

Seasonally disordered at best, like me.

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So a new candle, a New Year and a new box to fill.

Today I will write.

Some people say that hip replacement surgery is a piece of cake. I think they say this because they forget the pain.

The white hot pain in the night that won’t let you sleep.

The bone on bone ache deep in the upper thigh.

The helplessness.

They don’t like to remember tenderly unpeeling the blood-crusted bandage for the first time.

The horror of the inflamed Frankenstein scar, but also the astonishment at how the body is repairing itself.

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Post- surgery reminds me a little bit like labor and childbirth.

The indescribable pain, the heightened focus.

The way the injured area dictates every movement of the body with the clarity of the survival instinct.

And now later, the way you forget the pain.

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These past 6 weeks added to a huge portfolio of respect – the one that I have on file for my husband.

You hear the phrase they showed up about people, but did I ever think it would involve him gently guiding my dangling foot into the opening of my underwear as I leaned against his back?

Every damn morning.

And how he kept a written schedule of my medicines night and day.

Helping me hobble to the bathroom in the middle of the night countless times.

Listening to the complaining.

Being present with me being present with the pain.

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To be dependent on a caregiver is a lesson in many things.

First, how to ask for what you need.

So, I’m not good at this.

Every time I need something I hear a whine in my voice, and it’s cloying. I hate it.

Only now do I see that a person who balks at receiving a helping hand is a person who is hiding a gaping vulnerability.

And saying no is my automatic protective response – like, don’t look at me, I’m needy, I am dependent.

I am vulnerable.

But my hip clearly needs me to advocate.

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We grow up learning the hard lesson that we must take care of ourselves, and of course this is true.

But it’s been so drilled into us, it’s not really a lesson that bears repeating.

Rather, some of us need to learn to ask specifically for what we need.

To be direct.

Instead of sayng “Gee, my Gatorade needs refilling, say “Can you get my water bottle for me?”

I’m a really terrible asker.

And with this surgery I had a lot of asks.

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Second, you have to give up the picture perfect image and outside expectations.

But it’s hard to let go of that ambition.

Perfection – how we grab for its shiny promise.

Perfection – another way to shut down vulnerability.

I boast that I only used a crutch once – one time going up the stairs after surgery. I was so determined to be like my mom who never even used a cane when she had her hip done.

Reportedly, she never took any painkillers either.

I did take them – and had to talk myself into every single pill.

So what does that family story teach me? Get up, get going, this is all on you. No one can walk the path with you, help yourself.

Such bull***t

We all feel pain, we’re just too afraid to own it.

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Lastly, take the long view.

I overdid it on my exercise. I wanted points for being plucky.

And after going to a dermatologist appointment 1 week after the procedure, the doctor looked at me, horrified. I should have been at home, leg elevated.

At any rate, we try to do too much and the body says no.

If we listen.

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So my days have been spent leaning on others for physical help and emotional up-lift.

It’s okay, I can learn this.

And it will take time.

Forget the supposed “milestones” described in the hospital pamphlet.

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And the healing is mostly hidden.

Deep within the cut muscles and bright new bone, a new universe in there is gathering itself up to heal.

I didn’t even realize there was an ache to be found in those places, in that layer of tissue, in that joint space.

But the bone is knitting itself back together, quietly, in the dark, without me.

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Lastly, when you can finally soak in a real bath by yourself your mind will play tricks.

It will forget the urgency of your body’s needs.

How dependent you are as a human.

Yes, you will take all the positive praise and soak it up. Feel relief and pride.

But deep inside, literally, is the reminder that you never did this thing yourself.

You are healing because numerous people at the hospital, named and unnamed, engineered this feat.

And thank God for insurance.

And for the grandson who brings sweet pink roses and a care package with his mommy.

And for a family that group-texts really bad photos of me right before I go under.

But mainly, I’m hugely grateful for the guy who’s been hanging around for 45 years, and who shows no sign of leaving.

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Yesterday after lunch we walked in the grey winter woods of the Duke Forest.

We made it just to the half mile marker. And then we turned back.

It’s the same trail that I loved to run in my 30s, 40s, even my 50s. I felt young then – vigorous and proud of my strong body.

Impenetrable.

And here I am at 62, leaning on my stick. Scuffing my left foot along.

Trying out my new hip.

And as my husband and I chat, I think of how often we’ve walked together, and how many times he’s listened to my blubbering and bleating.

And now having patience with this older, slower me.

Me with my emotions fizzing or my brain scrambling along trying to make sense of things.

Me being my scrappy self.

He has seen me at times and in ways that I don’t want to see myself.

Me super depressed, me being snappish, me with no bra on and wearing an ugly mauve hospital gown.

Flat-out scared.

And he had the grace to not tell me how painful this kind of procedure could be (he’s had a lot of them).

And so he lies to me in the best ways.

And every day he repeats the script – that it will get better and I just need to be patient.

And I believe.

And we both know that it is a literal metaphor for our marriage.

We fall down, we help each other up, and then we do it all over again and again.