Write Now. Write Here.

“Let your life speak” is a Quaker adage. It sounds abstract until you meet someone like my brother-in-law, Don Campbell. Don believed that God finds ways to speak to us and through us.  When one looks back at a life– we see the evolution of unique gift and purpose.  We see early tracks in the snow, footprints in the sand, bread crumbs on the forest floor… all clues to a life.  

Don loved puzzles: jigsaw puzzles, paper and pencil puzzles, mysteries, and math problems.   He looked for clues, for patterns, and sorted by shape and color.  He sought out the edges to anchor pieces that would fall into place- allowing a clear picture to emerge- where every piece had a place and fit just right.  He grew to expect that with attention,  things would turn out right.   Don loved math. He balanced out equations and tracked the rules of the universe as they sifted in the patterns of daily life. Things balance out.  

Like many other boys, he went through Cub Scouts. He had acorn fights with his twin brother, Ben (whom he always referred to simply as “Brother”).  They were fraternal twins, but I joked that they were paternal, always telling each other what to do.  Throughout all of this, Don showed up every week at St. Mary’s and memorized a new hymn every month, leaning into the beauty of the earth with a deep reverence for all creatures, great and small.  Don was fearfully and wonderfully made, as each of us is, and as these early experiences evolved, they enabled and empowered his life to speak.

Looking back, it was not hard to trace the innate pursuits and pastimes of childhood to the threshold of Don’s adult occupation and purpose.  Don became an accountant. The pieces had to fit.  The scales had to balance. He was good at this. He had a long and successful career with the US General Accounting Office.  Among his things is a plaque commending his review of a project in which he saved the government 88 million dollars. He never mentioned this to us–it was buried in a drawer of miscellaneous items.   

He served as treasurer here at St. Peters and then as Senior Warden. He was given a prayer book at the end of each of those terms. They were obviously treasured.  He kept one on his bedside table (with his own personal prayer list that held many of your names at one time or another) and the other on his coffee table.   

There are lifelong bachelors, and there are family men; Don was both. He stayed centered on family life with strong ties to siblings, inlaws, cousins, nephews, and nieces. When he woke up in the morning, his eyes would fall upon the family pictures on the dresser across from his bed. And with those pictures was a stack of maps and guidebooks of places he visited family: New York. Florida. Tennessee. North Carolina. Arizona.

His parents, Ed and Elizabeth Campbell came to a stage in their lives where they were increasingly being honored for their very significant contributions throughout the twentieth century.  Don became the point man and advance man for all of that.   

Every Sunday, he met his parents here at St. Peter’s and had Sunday Dinner with them afterward. Later, When Elizabeth was widowed, he tirelessly worked to honor her wishes and preserve her dignity and way of life by arranging support for her in her own home; he continued to bring her to St. Peter’s every Sunday and had lunch afterward until she died at 101.

Later, when Don retired, there was a shift, a confluence of events that was transforming.  It was his turn. He continued to work tirelessly to preserve family history.  But there was more for him to do: he got a personal trainer, Chauncey Grahm; he began to pay attention to nutrition; he formed a foundation as a way of making a difference and hired an interior designer to help him prepare to move into Goodwin House. 

Don was increasingly engaged in life-giving action for the rest of his life. He still loved puzzles, but the puzzle pieces were more subtle: What is mine to give?  What is mine to do?  What am I learning?  What do I want my life to say?

He read a book called Godwinks and believed that if we really paid attention, God found many ways to guide us.  He insisted that I read it.  I didn’t. 

“Annie…..” 

“I’ll do it,” I said.  I didn’t.   

“Just read the first chapter,” he implored.  

 “Okay, Okay.”  I didn’t.  

The morning he died, I downloaded the book on my Kindle and began to read. I immediately saw the profound influence this book had on his life. 

Don was openheartedly generous and earnestly frugal. I found a note that he wrote to Elizabeth Branner, then head of development for Washinton and Lee Law School.  He approached her through an email (presumably to save a stamp), “I would like to talk to you about making a gift from my foundation,” he wrote,  “Do you have a toll-free number?”

Don was physically frail, with a spiritual and moral fortitude that did not waiver. That physical frailty accounted for an easy irritation.  He wore his nervous system close to the skin.  His irritation was reflexive, but his kindness, generosity, and love were intentional and comprehensive.  

His moral and spiritual fortitude did not waver.  He worked hard to be faithful and to be true and strong to the last.  Transcending his broken body, he let us know he loved us.  He prayed with us. And he let us know he was okay. His heart may have stopped, but it never gave out.

Let your life speak. What was Don trying to say?  He kept a stack of index cards with inspirational quotes and prayers. He wrote out the baptismal covenant on one:

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?  

I will with God’s help.

Will you strive for justice and peace Among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

I will with God’s Help. 

And he did.

Let your life speak.  Don narrowed down what he wanted to say- he narrowed it down to the 3 Ps:  Pause.  Be Patient. Be Positive. 

Last week, I finished a year and a half of chemo infusions, radiation, and more chemotherapy. Then Monday, after working in Don’s apartment all day long.  We came home to Richmond. The most beautiful flowers were waiting on the porch.  It was a shock, momentarily, to find that they were from Don. He’d arranged for this a few weeks before.  He had dictated the card to the florist, ensuring that she got every word just right:

Ring! Ring!

Congratulations on your last treatment after all your perseverance and dedication.

And there it is. There were the two words he spoke with his life:  Perseverance and dedication. Let your life speak.

Ring. Ring. 

Ring the bell, Don.

This week marks a year since my breast cancer diagnosis. I’ve been quiet on this blog.  Silent.  My last post, six months ago, was celebratory and conclusive: I was done with chemo. I’d rung the bell. I knew I still had surgery and radiation, but the worst was over.  I’d done it. People joined in my celebration. 

But then… it got complicated.  The surgery showed “residual cancer”  that had gone into a lymph node and a “little” beyond its barrier. More surgery showed that it wasn’t worse than that– and we all knew it could have been.  It wasn’t the news I wanted, and I was grateful it wasn’t worse. I also felt like I’d lost my place in line for an easy, predictable prognosis. I didn’t know how to talk about something that hadn’t gone quite right in spite of my fortitude, agency, and (let’s just say it) positive attitude. I was so cheerfully public about my happy progress. And suddenly, I felt very private about a setback I didn’t fully understand.  I was open with friends but didn’t know how to write about it.  I wanted to shout, “But wait, I meditate.  And I do YOGA!  I have a good attitude, and I PRAAAAAY!”

A year ago this week, a breast cancer diagnosis landed in our lives.  It didn’t blow up our lives; it lay there silently, taunting dark possibilities. I slowly discovered that I wasn’t dealing with destruction. I was dealing with the unknown. It felt the same.  I felt healthy and normal; I was loving my life with my husband and minding my own business.  I was eating organic food and avoiding processed meats. The world was opening up after the pandemic, and I’d scheduled the things I’d put off during the shutdown.  One of those things was a mammogram.  I was happy to check it off my list.  

A phone call.  More imaging.  A diagnosis. Hard words clattered like spilled marbles on a hardwood floor. Breast cancer.  Aggressive. Tumor.  We can bring you in next week.

Ben and I spent a long morning at Massey Cancer Center.  My oncologist, whom I liked and trusted right away, explained that I’d been diagnosed with a kind of breast cancer that 25 years earlier, for the most part, had not been curable. But then, she explained, some courageous women had gone into a tough trial, and almost all of them got well.  When the trial was announced as an approved treatment, the oncologists present at the conference gave a standing ovation.  They’d all lost patients to this, and that was about to change. 

I visualized that standing ovation every day.  Sometimes, in my mind’s eye,  my parents stood with the doctors.  Even the family dog showed up a few times. I followed this with a prayer, “God give me a long life.  Hold the drama.”

I told my doctor I wished I had not skipped that pandemic mammogram.  She told me that we were not looking backward; we were looking forward.  That was then, this is now. I was filled with gratitude for this team of doctors and their contagious confidence.   That has never wavered. 

I was pragmatic. I made a playlist of strong uplifting “I Will Survive” music, opened a new journal, called the owner of the beach cottage we love, and scheduled my tears for early private predawn moments.  I made sure my meditation apps were up to date.  I was trying to take hold of a storyline with a plot twist that did not belong there. I was wrestling misfortune for the job as narrator.  When in doubt, I fell into my husband’s arms. We’ve been graced with a pretty big love story, but suddenly, the reality of mortality intruded. There was no place for dread in our determination-filled lives– but dread would not leave the room.

The surgeon put off my port placement for a week so we could go to the beach.  During our stay, the roiling post-hurricane ocean regained its steady calm, and so did we.  Tide in, tide out… waves in, waves out… breathe in… breathe out.   

One morning on that trip a year ago, we ran into our good friend Linda Lauby on the beach. She’d recently finished treatment for breast cancer (the same kind I had); I hadn’t seen her since she was mid-treatment.  She was strong, in great health, and fully taking her life back.  She had us over to dinner and made us the most delicious Latvian Stew, inspired by Amor Towles’ Two Gentlemen from Moscow.  The meal in her gorgeous home, full of art and whimsy, was magical. Nothing would taste so delicious for a long time. Linda told me exactly what to expect. She gave me caps that were the perfect weight and texture for what would become my bald head. She put these in a bag with The Cancer Fighting Cookbook and cozy chemo shirts that unzipped for easy port access.  Her extraordinary kindness guided me across a threshold I’d been terrified to cross and would later inspire me to help others I dearly loved. She was a living and beautiful reminder that, in a year, this would be over. 

After that meal, I was ready to tell friends and family, and with their help, I was ready to face treatment. My family and friends were so very present.  Treatment was hard, but life was rich.  It wasn’t hard to track beautiful moments each and every day. Cancer treatment can be lonely, but my family and friends made sure I knew I was not alone. Holidays happened happily, and birthdays were celebrated. A Meal Train kept us going. Friends gathered. Time passed.  

It is one year later. We thought this would be over, but it isn’t yet.  I am in a clinical trial with chemotherapy, that is much easier to tolerate.  My hair is growing back. Food tastes good again.  A generation ago, we whispered the  C word, piling helpless hopelessness onto any diagnosis.  Things are different now.  We are slowly catching up with science. Our medical research teams are way ahead of us and certainly ahead of internet search engines.

The doctors and nurses at Massey Cancer Center have helped me get over my preoccupation with prognosis. One of my doctors explained that patients who are overly focused on prognosis during treatment become overly focused on reoccurrence after treatment.  He added, “That’s no way to live a life.”   It is true.  Life is too beautiful for that, and that is just one of the things I’ve learned this year. 

Some other things I’ve learned:

1. Don’t confuse cancer treatment with the cancer disease.  The treatment makes you feel ill, not the disease. 
2. People will say the wrong thing– we’ve all done it.  Realize what they are really trying to say: “I want you to be okay.”
3. Forgive yourself for not returning emails and phone calls.  Everybody else already has.
4. Faith is seeking answers as opposed to having all the answers. 
5. Rumination is not prayer.
6. Fatigue requires self-forgiveness, the understanding of others, and naps. 
7. Fiction makes the world bigger.  Exercise the reading concentration muscle, even while chemotherapy makes concentration harder.
8. Soft qualitative skills (meditation, social networking, family connection, faith, exercise, good nutrition) are big qualitative guns in the science of cancer treatment.
9. Nature makes everything better.

This year, I’ve had COVID twice, chemo, radiation, and two surgeries. I’m not done.  I still sit in the infusion chair every three weeks (but for much less time), and there are lots of appointments and tests.  Somehow, my focus has broadened beyond cancer.  My prayer has shifted from “God, give me a long life– hold the drama” to “God, help me embrace today.  Hold the drama.”  Make no mistake– I am going for a good long life.  But for now, I am playing the long game in the present moment. Life is full of love and hope. My prayer is answered every day, and I am grateful.  I know how lucky I am. 

Last week, I  packed my chemo bag for the last time.  I called it my carry-on.  My infusion takes the same amount of time as a transatlantic flight.  At the end of those long days, there was no crackling announcement by a flight attendant to stow laptops and raise tray tables– no welcome to Paris or London or Rome– but there was a sense with each round that I was one step closer to that being possible for us again.

When I packed my “carry-on bag” every 21 days, I did not fly alone. The quilt that kept me warm was made by a dear friend.  Ben, my favorite traveling (through life) companion, was next to me every minute of every hour of every session.  We talked. He read or worked.  Even though my carry-on included a charged Kindle, AirPods, and a good playlist/podcast mix, I  usually used the time to be quiet and reflect.  The time passed– just like it does on a plane.   

The nurses moved in and out like angels.  My doctor and nurse practitioner encouraged me and kept me informed.  The nurse navigator kept me on track.  We were surrounded by people no one could see: the pop-up compassionate community that surrounds Ben and me. 

When I was first diagnosed, a friend said, “You have given a lot; now you are going to learn to receive.”   

In the days, weeks, and months since then, her words have stayed with me.  Now that I am a student of receiving, I have learned more about its reciprocal process: the art of giving. 

I’ve learned that gifts are not weighted.  A generous impulse is just right, and kindness is never wasted.  People act and stone soup grace transforms every action into bounty.  I’ve learned that when we show up, we are not the only ones showing up. We all show up in different ways: a quick game of cards, a meal, a book, a movie recommendation, a conversation, ice cream, flowers, granola, colored pencils, or a link to an article or a song from Spotify.   People show up through their cards, texts, emails, Facebook messages, and prayers across three faith traditions. They show up with tangible gifts of beauty and comfort.  People show up, figuratively and literally, to walk with me.  

The gift is always just right, strengthening a safety net wrought of glorious and shimmering threads of grace.  The fibers are made strong with every generous move, tiny or big. 

 When I went for my first chemo infusion, I heard someone ringing a bell.  “That will be you before you know it,” said the nurse.  She then explained that the bell was rung at the end of the final round of chemo.  The nurse was right.  Suddenly I was done, and it was my turn.  The nurses applauded as I rang the bell; I rang it loud.  I rang it for me. I rang it for Ben. I rang it with gratitude for the doctors and nurses.  I rang it for all the love and support from our family and friends that got us to this point in treatment.  I rang it for the women that entered the trial that became a cure in 2005. This was the first part of the treatment. There are more phases.  But I think this was the worst part. 

I am astonished  when people  say, “I wish I could do more.”  Because now I know the secret. Every stitch and stir, every meal, and every encouraging word is a prayer.  Even the tiniest act of kindness is a pretty big deal. 

On Sunday night I sat across the table from my husband at a restaurant with huge windows that opened onto the sidewalk.  It was a moon-drenched night — just as it was in Honolulu the night my parents got married.  

It would have been their 68th wedding anniversary. I recently found the contract for the Luau/reception that was held in the garden at my grandmother’s house in Hawaii: singers, dancers, drummers,  and torches.  There was my mother’s signature: “Miss Barbara Ann Elliott” and then, in parenthesis, “(for the last time).”  Her name would change.  Her life would change.  And so would his.  

Sitting in the restaurant with Ben, I was feeling all of it– how we all step lightly and stomp our way through this transitory life.  As a child, I came across a storage closet that teemed with the surplus favors from my parents’ wedding: white porcelain ashtrays with their nicknames embossed in gold: Sparky and Lefty.  And the date: 1954. I can feel the cool of that round shape in my palm at the moment of that discovery  But they are gone now. 

I looked at my husband across the table. “Let’s play a game,” I said. “Let’s take turns coming up with bits of marriage advice.  It will be fun.”  

“No,” he said.  “And I can tell you are writing something.”

“Close,” I said.  “I want to give my writing friend, Jonathan, some advice. He’s getting married and advice from you would be golden.”

“I knew it was something like that,” he said.  “My advice is going to be very different from yours.”

“Well, it can’t be that different. We are living this beautiful life together.”  

“I don’t know– it won’t have anything to do with yellow checked napkins and fresh blueberries for breakfast.”

We both laughed at this parody of my idea of living a beautiful life together. 

He relented. He leaned back in his chair, “Be attentive. Care.  Love your wife.”

That was it. Simple and profound. Golden. A summation of the true with integrity.  I echo it back:

“Be attentive. Care.  Love your husband”

It is the best advice.  Anything I add is commentary, but here it is… for my friend Jonathan.

1. Don’t go to bed angry.  And if you do, don’t stay in the same bed.  It is a toxic feeling. But wait… if you do move to the couch, the chance of her foot finding yours or yours finding hers is gone.  Don’t go to bed angry.

2. The most important thing I can say is this: happiness in a marriage cannot survive contempt… contempt for one another, for one’s self, contempt for one another’s families. 

3.  Don’t be afraid to be the couple that doesn’t talk in a restaurant– that couple you said you would never be.  It turns out that couple may have learned comfort in companionable silence. 

4. Walk the dog together– not every day (it is only right you should take turns), but sometimes. 

5. Being authentic, accepted, and loved does not mean you showcase your worst qualities to put your partner to the test. Don’t.

6. You are composing a life together with disparate elements: pathos and fear and sadness are balanced with beauty and serendipity and hope.  Be intentional.

7. It is really tempting to leave it all on the field when trying to get a reaction from your partner.  Things fall apart and things come together.  Be patient.  You can wait for a reaction.

8. Your story is not the only story in this marriage.  This is an odyssey with two heroes.  Be an appreciative witness to one another’s epic journeys. 

9. Travel.  Pick apples. Plan stuff. Plan perfection and don’t despair when your plans don’t turn out perfectly.  You have a lifetime to get it right. 

10. Be very wary of throwing around the “D” word to get a reaction.  Divorce is a hard word to get back in the bag. 

11. Sharing beauty together is a form of prayer. Share sunsets and moonlight and dawn and music and plays and movies and festivals.   Reach for each other’s hands when you do.

12. Dance.

13. Make the bed.  

14. Set the table.  

15. Invite each other in.

16. Save stories from the day for each other.

17. Create traditions and rituals together that are yours. Honor traditions that make sense. Let go of the ones that no longer do.

18. When children come, welcome them.

To sum it up:  Be attentive.  Care.  Love your spouse. 

This goes well with yellow checked napkins and fresh blueberries.  

The year that my sister and I got camel saddles was the Christmas we never stopped talking about.  

In 1966 we lived in a fashionable suburb of Cairo.  Our villa was just a few blocks away from the vast Sahara desert, where we would sometimes walk after dinner with our parents.  That Christmas night we placed the camel saddles we’d received that morning at the end of our beds.  We sat on them and sang.  When we ran out of songs, we made up stories, and when we ran out of stories, we described all that we saw– for now our camel saddles had transported us and we were on a journey that we helped one another see.  We described the infinite number of stars suspended in an ink-black sky, with no water to reflect it.  This was the first of the imaginary desert rides we would take.  There were more. Cross-legged on those saddles, we dreamed futures and told each other’s fortunes. These fortunes involved a mix of TWA, Pan AM, the UN, and Broadway.  Neither of us did any of those things, but symbolically those dreams foretold who we would be. 

My sister is gone now, but the camel saddles remain as my Christmas image in that snow globe that shakes up flurries of memory and longing and gratitude.  Now I travel without her under that vast sky– an epic journey begun together, continuing in stillness in the growing light of Christmas each year. Alone and yet never without her.

My sister, my parents, and my brother were writers.  They wrote letters and journals and stories– leaving a trail of anecdotes and laughter set free by the typewriter ribbon and held in place by the ink on the page. 

In going through my mother’s papers, I found a letter that she had written to her mother.  She was writing about our Christmas in 1966. In it she said that the worst thing had happened: the Christmas presents had not arrived from the States.  By the time the final post came and she realized the presents were not in it, the shops had closed on Christmas Eve.  She made her way to the market at the Mosque in the center of Cairo.  She clearly despaired as she wrote: “All I could really find for the girls were a couple of camel saddles.  If they were disappointed, they didn’t show it.”  

Had she not known?  Had we never told her?  Those camel saddles carried us into our futures as we sang the epic song of a childhood Christmas year after year.

Once I had a student from Egypt who asked me for a word in English.  He took an Arabic word I did not know and created a picture of it in my mind.  “Mrs. Campbell,” he asked, “What is it called when it is no longer day, but not yet night?”

“Twilight,” I answered. 

I was struck by the way he was able to arrange and use the words he knew to seek the word he did not– and that he was able to do it in such a poetic and imaginative way.  The Latin root of imagination was clearly in play: imaginari–“to picture to oneself.”

By its very nature, imagination resists being confined by language. It is easier to say what it isn’t than what it is. Imagination is not the potter or the clay, but it’s the animating force that gives form and shape to inspiration.  It is not the artist or the canvas, but it is the relationship between the two.  It is not the story or the teller, but it is the dreamlike image conjured and brought to life with carefully chosen words.   It is not pedagogy or practice; it is the bridge between the two.  Imagination is the twilight space between the desire to know and knowledge.

Imagination can work with limitations. It understands rules, respects meaningful convention; it can thrive within parameters. It shrinks and shrivels under the inflexible command of conformity.  It has to be honored. It grows with space for play and expression. It shrinks when it is trivialized and dismissed as “make-believe.”  

Without imagination, our ideas calcify and begin to sort themselves into tired creeds of collective group think.  Without imagination, we are unable to tell our story, or worse,  we are unable to imagine a new story for ourselves and for others. Disdain and cynicism mask a lack of imagination and masquerade as sophistication.  

With imagination, we integrate new ideas with old ideas that work.  We begin to organize and reorganize our thoughts and narratives through the creative process.  We shape and reshape elements of our lives and knowledge in new ways.   We begin to adopt an attitude of simplicity, returning again and again to “beginner’s mind” to see ideas with fresh eyes.  We strike word against image and then wait in the space between what we know and what what we seek to learn.  We wait with reverence and patience for the blaze of insight and discovery.   The possible is hope, not failure.  Our work in the in-between places of “not yet” becomes art.

The artist and the intellectual are not mutually exclusive– both  seek to use imagination and creativity to harmonize thought and events in new ways.  

Our imagination enables us to see the universal in the particular–and then to test the particular, through theory and hypothesis, for universal truth.  

No academic discipline should exclude imagination and storytelling. When we teach imagining possibilities we teach human beings to play heroic roles in their own narratives, and to identify and embrace the narratives that are not their own with heroes that do not look or think like them. Imagination plays a vital role in connection, compassion, and renewal. In her beautiful essay, When I was a Child I Read Books, Marilynne Robinson wrote: “Story is an exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification.” 

When imagination is honored, it shows up.  Because imagination is born through image, it often shows up as metaphor– an image that can reveal ideas and deepen thinking. Metaphors contain insight waiting to be uncovered by language– knowledge waiting for words to catch up.  Metaphors take us deeper than our words can go and invite us into a communal practice of respect for emerging words and ideas.

Our imagination works with metaphor to take us beyond the places we have known. It ferries us through the twilight spaces between places– from the desire to know more to the not yet discovered.  It is a renewing and amplifying gift that makes teaching and learning an art. 

Imagine

I am at the beach remembering–weaving the past into the present moment and at the same time committing the beauty of now to future memory.  We  memorize the moment and outline it with what has been. Hope realized has its roots in a time before this.  The sigh of relief is that the fear of ‘then’ has been averted by the promise of now.  We walk into beauty’s embrace with the fleeting confidence of a life that won’t stand still. 

I am at the beach, measuring my life in stories and sifting, sifting, telling, feeling, sifting my story like sand.  The hands that write this built sand castles as a toddler; then later joined Coppertone tan teen hands with friends jumping waves; and later still held hands with a husband; held babies in the waves….  And now my hands hold the hands of granddaughters as we stare at the vastness of the sea.  These stories sift and shift and shimmer. They won’t stand still.

“Remember?” We say it over and over, as if our memory is communal. In truth, we hold our own stories and our own stories shape our memory.  Memory shapes our experience. Experience shifts and  reshapes our stories; the way we remember is an ever changing coastline.

Some stories are held in place by the bookends of birth and death.  We, the survivors, when we are ready, edit the material that lies between these bookends.  We edit and refine and restore to life the very essence of that  which wants to live forever.  “Remember?” we ask, only now we can’t get the word out without laughing or choking up or stopping for what comes next (as though we don’t know).  These are the moments that catch the light of eternity.

“I do remember!”  I call into the wind. My voice is swallowed in the crashing predawn waves, in the stillness of the guitar string, in the empty chairs on the deck, in the porch swing that moves with the weightlessness of the gone.  I do remember. I don’t stand here long.  I see the white caps on the waves– a warning to turn around.  The sirens of grief run deep.  I turn from the vastness of looking at it all at once. The sun has come up again and in its coral light,  I walk back to the beach house with deep gratitude for the family that was– and will always be– a cast that populates my life, dreams, and stories.  I turn to the family that is.  We’ll laugh about a game we played.  Otters are already an inside joke– a punchline that no longer needs the story. Fresh. New. Hilarious.  And  beautiful in the shadow of the word “remember.” 

The role of family archivist has come to me. Red and blue bordered airmail envelopes and postcards of ocean liners or TWA jets and brochures from far away beaches, sift through my fingers like sand, ephemeral and evocative. Unfolded blue paper, tissue thin, recounts the experiences that have shaped and reshaped the stories I have known or lived.  The past runs like a current into the present moment, where the sifted sand shimmers and glimmers. 

A two year old granddaughter holds a lemon popsicle and looks out at the ocean– vast and blue and brand new. The past tense flows into the present tense.  It is my  gratitude for the now that allows me to look at the past so unguardedly. The present tense is current.  I remember. I am grateful. Life is Beautiful.

I hear this year’s anthem of our collective grief over and over: “2020 sucks.” I find myself dumbly nodding and it feels like a betrayal. It isn’t that I’m blind to the suffering and losses of this year. I’m not. Or that I fully escaped suffering. I didn’t. Or that I don’t feel the heartbreak.  I do.

But I also know that life is too beautiful and finite to write off an entire year. We cannot turn a blind eye to joy and gratitude–not even in a pandemic.   Perhaps we feel we should as an act of solidarity with those in grief’s most terrible grip. Choosing misery on behalf of others is not compassion. Being present and alert is. Attention shows us what we can do and guides us to a deeper presence with and for others.

Attention has another job, too. With alertness we scan for beauty and track it in our lives. We keep the light on for it. We train our alertness into an alacrity for grace–and then we welcome it when it shows up. Yes, even in a pandemic.  Where was the beauty this year? How did grace show up? In what ways does 2020 not suck?  What goes on the list? 

My list includes the opportunity to learn new things that make my world bigger in a time we can’t travel. It includes online groups of thoughtful readers and writers.  Each Zoom window zooms in on one good thing about 2020. This includes my teacher (once upon a time my student) who, through Facebook Video, teaches me stretches that lead to better balance and strength. Then there is the Book Group with readers bundled up, masked, and six feet apart in a park. And friends and porches and fire pits. 

Also on the list: I feel creative a lot of the time. I have never felt healthier.  I fall asleep and wake up every morning next to someone I love deeply.  My cooking is off the hook. “Who lives here?” I wonder when I open a refrigerator full of yellow lemons and bright green herbs and mason jars full of homemade soups. 

Add to that: The books. The streaming. The playlists.  Yes, yes, and yes.  Grateful. The phone calls where I have time to actually listen rather than multitask while I act like I’m listening.  And what about the blankets on the porch with low lamps and tiny lights?  Or walking in the woods at sunset every day with Ben and our dog. Add to that: Face Time with grandchildren and family and learning how to play in a different way. 

I am grateful for the blank page where I show up to write every morning like a runner at the mark. I move through paces with words and spaces, the said and the unsaid running side by side. On the page, I live the good moments twice. 

I love the walks and talks and meditation. Zoom coffee hour on Sunday Morning.  The sense of home and place that I have longed for is right here, right now. I take off my shoes and step barefoot into the pools of all I’ve yearned for throughout my nomadic life. I listen to Oscar Peterson and Bill Evans while I cook– as the daughter of a piano player, it sounds like home. I cook soup in my mother’s soup pot and it smells like home. I sit in front of the fire with my husband and our dog and I am home.  

I am grateful for the resolution of the challenges in my own life this year.

I am grateful for the ways that we have found to help each other and protest together and inspire each other and campaign for the things and people we believe in.  I am thankful for Christmas. We were much smaller in number this year, but it was merry and bright. We were able to let our hearts be light. A granddaughter and I set up a jar and strips of paper so family members could write good things about 2020 throughout the day.  We had a farewell dinner for 2020 and passed the jar around. We took turns randomly pulling a strip from the jar and reading it aloud, reliving the moments of happenstance happiness. Each strip of paper was a reminder: “Love Your Life.” Some years are really hard. Every year matters.  Leave the light on for beauty. Roll out the red carpet for grace. My prayer is that a happy and healthy 2021 will be full of both. And that we will notice it everyday. Here is to 2021. And here is to you.

The doorbell rang. This is a tiny detail, but I love tiny domestic details. I love them in Virginia Wolfe and Elizabeth Berg and Anna Quindlen and Ann Patchett. And yes, I love writing them. The doorbell rang. I was cooking and quickly washed my hands. I dried them off and remembered to grab a mask before I answered it. The mask–a contemporary domestic detail that I do not love– tiny, but with a dark dystopian overlay. I put on the mask and opened the door. The delivery van parked in front of my house was from my favorite florist. The delivery person, a welcome stranger, held out fragrant flowers in every shade of blush. I reached out for this beautiful gift. I took the flowers in, and placed them in the center of our dining room table. The flowers were from a dear friend who knows me well. I read the card. Her message was full of the hope she knew I needed. She knew my hope was tired. “Now you can breathe again.” I smiled at her loving generosity and took a great big deep breath.

Life is beautiful even when we think it isn’t. Beauty interrupts as a firm reminder of what we are in danger of forgetting. A doorbell rings, a bird sings, the world’s tilt rights itself. Beauty interrupts fear. Beauty is hope’s calling card.

The accident. The phone call. The late-night drive from the beach. An ambulance. Another. A transfer. A trauma team.

The life that was saved was my youngest son’s. He and his wife and his baby girl were here visiting from Chicago. How many Little League games? How many high school baseball games? “Safe,” called the umpire back in those long-ago games. “Safe,” said the doctors as they made their rounds in the trauma ICU. Safe, but be careful.

What was to be a two-week vacation turned into five days in a hospital and a month’s recovery at our house. We have a big blended family and a quarantine squad of friends; I am so grateful for both. Step-parents and parents and siblings and siblings-in-law gathered with the common bond of love for John and Megan and Sylvia. Matthew stayed by John’s side the night of the accident. Jodie created a playroom for Syl, Susanna and Matthias provided lots of chocolate and love and support. Charles helped to adapt the guest room to support John’s recovery and set up a work station for when he resumed work. We were ready and when John came home, a full house welcomed him.

Syl asked me for the story every day as she worked to understand. “Da-Da?” she would ask. I would tell her: Your daddy got hurt and had an operation, but he is strong and getting better. He can’t pick you up now but he will one day soon. We are strong and beautiful and smart and we can wait. We can do hard things. Everything is going to be better. “Again,” she would say. And I would tell it again. I told the story to her and I told the story to myself. The story was full of hope.

Hope was an ally, but my battle with fear was a curse. Fear is a bully and cornered me when no was looking. Fear had my ear; I was afraid to name it, but my son knew. “Stop asking me if I am okay.” It wasn’t that I didn’t know better…I did. I do. Are you okay? There is an unintended message that jogs beside that benign-sounding question. Are you okay? (You might not be.) Are you okay? (I don’t think you are.) We ask a simple question hoping that a simple yes will vanquish our fear.

“Yes, Mom. I am okay.”

“Ha,” says fear. “See, I am still here.” If I paused for fear, hope would not let me stop for long. But oddly, I also felt that I was increasingly unable to linger for hope. It is fear that makes us afraid to hope. Fear tells us that hope will make fools of us. But hope doesn’t make fools of us. Courage is action in the face of fear. Hope is invisible courage. Hope surrenders the outcome, and at the same time knows that everything is going to be okay.

In no time the walker was moved to the basement. Megan and John’s tentative walks around the block turned into miles. We began the day with omelets and ended it at “Ice Cream O’Clock,” a term cleverly coined by Megan. We settled into a rhythm of family. I know for each of us some days were longer than others. We lived a rhythm of children’s books, bubbles, playdough, and big thick crayons. Syl sat on my lap for Zoom meetings. She joined my Zoom exercise class and did Downward Dog and sang “Happy Baby.”

“Ah-BEN,” said Syl from her highchair at the end of the prayer.  We laughed with delight. Saying grace was her favorite part of the meal and one night we said it three times. Sometimes after dinner, Ben played the guitar and we sang. The Fox Went Out on a Chase One Night…Hush Little Baby Don’t Say a Word…Froggie Went a Courtin’. While Megan put Syl to bed, John dealt the cards.

I couldn’t write, even though I am a habitual write-myself-awake-every-morning writer. I couldn’t write because I was holding my breath. I learned minute by minute how to do the next right thing. John resumed his work as an architect from the guest room. Step-parents and parents came together for a meal on our porch. Megan made a cobbler with Virginia peaches.

The stitches came out. John made pizza. We laughed at Will Ferrell’s Eurovision. We laughed a lot — in this house, even the baby is a comedian. Megan edged and weeded flower beds. The days looked long in the mornings, but by night we wondered where they’d gone.

“Still here,” said fear.  

“But so am I,” insisted hope, my old friend.

I was learning fast what I’d known in my bones my whole life: hope and fear are not either/or propositions. They are traveling companions; but we have to choose which one we want to sit with. Fear fuels irritation in a crisis. Hope fuels joy and laughter and creativity.

We celebrated the last night together with a cookout. The next day we ordered in our favorite sandwiches and had one last lunch together before they left. As they walked toward the car, we blew kisses and waved and I held back the tears. “Fuv,” said Syl (her word for love). “Fuv,” we answered in our grandparental call and response. It was what we’d all hoped for. When they got home, they Facetimed us as John was getting ready to grill dinner. They were embracing the normal and familiar.

I could breathe. We are okay.