Return to Me

The first time I lost my beloved silver pendant, I knew where I had left it—in a patient office at a clinic far from home. I could remember I had unclasped the chain, laid it on a little bench behind the curtains where I had undressed from the waist up and then slid my arms into a blue cloth gown with those ties that never quite close the gown correctly or all the way.

I had not realized I had left the silver pendant until it was too late, and when I went back, the office had been cleaned and prepped for the next line of patients and then cleaned again overnight. Am I remembering this correctly? I was told to check the Lost & Found. You’re probably imagining a small clinic with a few patient rooms and a little brown box labeled Lost & Found with some credit cards, a bracelet or two, a wallet. Think again. Think bigger. Think clinic with many floors and also many buildings. Think Lost & Found with so many items there are multiple boxes and cabinets and drawers, and these are filled with papers and sweaters and IDs and keys and coats and scarves that someone thought they had, or counted on having, or counted on keeping. None of us likes to lose something that we believe we were meant to keep.

But this is what happened long ago, eight years, maybe nine, with my pendant. I wore that pendant nearly every day, and I had it, and then I didn’t. It was gone, and there was nothing I could do to get it back—except file a claim at the Lost & Found, hoping the pendant and chain would get turned in, that they might return to me one day after all.

I flew home and left that far-away clinic, and time passed, so much time that I lost hope. And the calls came, one by one, with updates on my health and good news and bad news and then good again so that I didn’t know what to expect with each call. When my phone rang once more with the clinic’s area code, I braced myself. But it was good news this time: they’d found my pendant and were sending it home to me.

I can’t tell you how my spirits soared, maybe because I had believed I could not get anything back, that a thing gone once was gone forever.

The years passed. I wore that pendant nearly every day. And as the years flew by, I was losing things, or maybe the better way to say it is they were being taken away, some small, some too big. This is the way of life. Some things come; some things go. I was trying to accept, am still trying to accept, trying to say that serenity prayer, trying to remind myself that there are so many things I cannot control.

And then about a month ago, I was in another town in another place, and I had that pendant in my hands and I was walking from one room to the next and I was deciding I would not wear the pendant that day after all—I had on a high-neck shirt—and that’s all I can remember, not because I fainted but because I let myself get distracted by a call or text or something I thought I needed to do right then and there and that now I realize of course I did not. By the time evening arrived, or maybe by the next morning, I could not find the pendant, and I looked through every room I’d been in, searched the pockets of every article of clothing I’d worn and combed through every nook and cranny of my terribly large purse. No pendant. Had I really lost it a second time? Was I really that careless?

Apparently, I was.

I left that place and those rooms, and there was nowhere else to look. I wanted my pendant back, but it was gone, and there was nothing I could do to get it back. You must learn to let go, I told myself, a thing I have told myself every day for the last year and longer.

But I wanted my pendant back. I wanted more than my pendant back.

Days passed and then weeks. I told myself it was just a necklace, small and silver. Still, I prayed to St. Anthony, but how in the world was St. Anthony going to give me back my necklace, and wasn’t St. Anthony perhaps busier with other, more important things?

Seven days ago, I returned to the place I had been when I’d lost my silver pendant the second time. I looked around all the rooms once again, but there was nothing. I searched pockets, that big purse. Nothing. The next morning, out in the parking lot, as I walked to my car, something shiny glimmered on the ground.

There it was, my beloved silver pendant, nestled in the mud and leaves.

I rushed toward it, scooped it up, determined to never lose it again. I held it firmly in my hands.

Had St. Anthony listened? Or was it just luck? I’ll never know. But I am grateful.

I can’t get everything back, and I want so much more returned to me. But this life is about acceptance, so I will wear my little silver pendant, and I will keep moving forward, trying to learn how to let go of all of it all along the way.

Photo credit: Otto Hyytiälä from Unsplash.com

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Upcoming Online Writing Classes

A Friend Like No Other

Today is her birthday. Maybe because of that—or because the last time I saw her was in autumn 11 years ago, or because three people I love are battling cancer right now, or because this season of my life is when I need her advice—I have been thinking of my friend Tsafi intensely these last couple of weeks.

We met contra dancing when I was single, post-divorce, and still lost and dazed in the dating world. We had a lot in common, despite being from different cultures. Maybe most importantly, we both had a view of the world that was fairly large: neither one of us believed that we had all the answers to how this life works and what happens beyond it. We had ideas, which we batted around. We talked endlessly about spirituality and the energy one brings to something, and what control a person has and does not have in what happens.

We knew each other about a decade, but we were very close the last seven of those years—her last years, as it turned out. Tsafi changed my life in dramatic ways. She singlehandedly altered my view of dating. She taught me how to not chase in a relationship, how to remain open to possibilities and people, and how to let go when letting go had become the obvious choice. Except how many times had I not seen the obvious choice? Countless times, I discovered. From then on, dating got infinitely easier—sure, I still had heartbreak, but there was a stillness inside of me and a certainty that shepherded me through breakups. I have long known about myself that I can do something, even if it’s hard, if I know it’s the right thing. And this is what happened. Knowing what was right came to me faster and became easier, and it gave me a peace.

And without Tsafi, I don’t know that I would have ended up with my husband. As soon as he and I started dating, I began writing my usual mental list of why it might not work. But then Tsafi came to the rescue.

STOP, she said, in the commanding way she had that never once bothered me.

Just be, she told me, reminding me again to be open, to be positive.

And so I was.

I’ve been asking myself this week: Am I a friend like Tsafi? Am I making the kind of impact on my friends that she made on me?

I don’t have answers.

But I do know I still miss her all the time, and I wish I could ask her for advice and guidance as I face life’s troubles. I still need her so much. But she taught me to rely on my own strength and certainty, so I am doing what she probably would have said to do: trust my gut, let things be, and keep on going.

Happy birthday, dear friend. And thank you.

Photo credit: Boris Smokrovic

The Things I Feared Most

At age 18, I started fearing my parents would die. From that point on, I dreaded the day that would happen, imagining what it would be like to lose them in a swift blow. How many years did I have, I wondered. Was it just a few? The answer was no. All these decades later, they are still very much alive.

When I got married the first time, I thought, “How will I go on if something happens to him?” I thought I could not survive his death. But he didn’t die. He left, sure, but from divorce, not death.  And yes, it was hard, and I cried, and I grieved, but I got on with the lessons I was meant to learn and pulled on my big girl panties and went on with rebuilding and working and dancing.

From the time I was in my late 20s and had my first big health scare, I worried constantly I would be diagnosed with a particular disease I was told I had a high likelihood of getting. When I went to my check-ups every six months, sometimes I would cry before and during them. I had scare after scare after scare—almost but not getting the dreaded disease.

Which reminds me of a story my mother told me long ago, about how my dad took a work trip across the globe—back then, that meant unreachable by phone easily or at all. My mother was young, and my sister and I were very small. My mother was so scared to be alone. The first night my dad was gone, she stayed up as late as she could, with the TV turned on in her bedroom for company. Back in those days, the TV programs would end late at night, and all that would be left were static bands of color until morning. She turned off the TV when that time came, and she tried to sleep, and then BOOM she heard a crash somewhere in the house.

Sometimes you must go looking for and face trouble even when you don’t want to, and my mother, cognizant of her own safety and those of her two small children, got up and checked the first room outside of her bedroom: the bathroom. There were two small shelves in that room, both filled with items (shampoo, razor, conditioner, soap, those kinds of things). But one of those shelves was swept clean, as if someone had taken their hand and pushed everything onto the floor. All of it lay there, tumbled down, scattered, but with the shelf perfectly in place.

She checked my room, my sister’s room—we were both asleep, and no one had broken into the house. She tried to go back to sleep, but she could not.

The second night, same routine: she put us to bed, went to her bedroom, turned on the TV until the programs ended. She tried to sleep, but then BOOM another crash. She rushed into the bathroom, but the shelves were filled with all their bottles and lotions. She checked my room—I was asleep; She checked my sister’s—she was asleep, but something else, too had happened. One of my sister’s shelves—filled with toys and dolls—was swept clean, all the items on the floor, except the shelf was in place, perfectly positioned still on the wall.

No one had broken into the house. All the doors were locked, no windows shattered. My mother was perfectly awake.

Who can explain fear, and how it comes to us, and how we learn to let it go?

That third night, my mother was exhausted. She put us to bed, and then went to lie down in hers.

Go ahead, she said to whatever had been, come get me. She was too tired to be afraid anymore. That night and all the nights that followed, the house was quiet, peaceful, and my mother slept.

When I finally did get the disease I had feared for so long, it was detected early and taken care of and gone, and soon I was running again and living the life I so wanted.

So many things I feared never happened, or didn’t happen in the way I thought they would, and the hardest things I have faced have been ones I hadn’t even imagined—other deaths, other losses, other hardships, ones I had never even considered worrying about. And they came anyway because life is filled with all of it—the joys and sadness, the ups and downs, the good and bad and in-between.

I am learning to accept it and, however slowly, how to let go of all that unwanted fear.

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Upcoming Online Writing Classes

Prompt-Writing like Speed Dating: Prompt, Write, Next, Prompt, Write, Next (online)
Sunday, August 4, 3-5:00 PM Eastern
If you’ve attended Let’s Write Together with me, you’ll recognize the format: I’ll share a piece of writing to inspire you, offer a prompt related to it, and you will have time to write. Except I’ll be offering a new piece and prompt every 7-12 minutes during this two-hour generative class. Think of it like speed dating—there’s another piece and prompt ready to inspire you just around the corner, with plenty of time for sharing at the end. This class is in partnership with Press 53. THIS CLASS WILL BE RECORDED AND SENT OUT THE SAME WEEK. Cost: $45. Register here.

Poetry Prompts for Publication (online)
Wednesday, August 14, 3-5 PM Eastern
This is a generative poetry-writing class where you will be given prompts to write to, time to write, and then a specific publication where you can send each piece for consideration (if you want to). Come warmed up and ready to put pen to paper. This class is in partnership with Press 53. THIS CLASS WILL BE RECORDED AND SENT OUT THE SAME WEEK. Cost $45. Register here.