Sand, seashells and dander

I'm on the road again, this time in Florida.  In some ways, it feels like I've been gone for a long time.  I think that is because I have a weird relationship with travel.  For some reason, I always find it so disarming to be plucked off my spot of the universe by a jet airplane and dropped down on another one.  And, though Florida isn't SO  far away from my particular spot, it is incredibly different.  Packing was a challenge.  I found it difficult to think about what to take, and not just because of the temperature difference.  Moving from scarves and boots to flip flops seems drastic, and, I didn't have immediate access to my summer gear, and, I'm in winter mode so not that excited about revealing my pale, winterized flesh.  Also, because my life has become more farm-like - I don't know another way to describe it.  Florida is clean lines, sea shells, white carpets, shades of light blue.  My life is wood piles and bark debris by my fireplace, dog fur, hay remnants, muddy boots, and grounds from the occasional hippie coffee shop.  No, I'm not actually living on a farm, but some days it feels as if I'm preparing to do so.  I had scary thoughts of entering my Florida friends' lives looking like "Pig-Pen" from Peanuts with my little cloud of dander!  Ok, that is an exaggeration.  I clean up pretty well I think.  I know I can count on my flexibility and ability to adapt to a variety of situations and being able to  meet whoever I'm with right where they are - right where they live.  But in my mind, my cloud stays with me! Come to think of it, I love my cloud.  It is a combination of the beautiful dander of my children, my animals, my friends, my house, my yard, a farm, a campus, darkrooms, lecture halls, alumni homes, coffee shops of every port, student and alumni campsites, lovely dinner meetings, an old alumni house, classrooms and my rolling Prius home.  It is real and rooted.

There were two really important posts/blog messages I read this week from women I love and depend upon for insight (both Guilfordians!).  One was about community.   The other, about authenticity.  Both seem pertinent to the meaning of why my "job" has relevance -- why I travel to meet Guilfordians "where they live,"  why Guilford College's survival is of importance, and why keeping Guilfordians' Quaker liberal arts education alive and fresh makes a difference in one's daily existence.  My dear friend put (another) this important message on her facebook page this week (thank you Cyndi!):

Don’t change yourself
just to fit in
with a place
or a person.

You risk
becoming an exile
to the luminous plans
that first brought you here.

- Frank Owen, Medicine

Then, there was this excerpt from Patti Digh's blog about community, which really speaks to that place where you find your "tribe" -- where you can honestly and with support explore, and find creativity and innovation for what might become:  

“Community is not a talent show in which we dazzle the world with our combined gifts.
Community is the place where our poverty is acknowledged and accepted,
not as something we have to learn to cope with as best as we can
but as a true source of new life.” -Henri Nouwen

True community is not clever. It does not necessarily speak in Twitter-worthy quips. It is not dazzling or quick or sarcastic or cute. It is not a place to impress people, but a place to be vulnerable about our shared poverty--our human-ness and our frailities and the promises we make to ourselves and often break. It is a place to see that shadow self not as something to be overcome or "fixed" but as the very thing from which new life springs.

I hope you have such a tribe. You will know it when you find it, a place where admitting is met with recognition, not an urge to "fix." Where sorrow is allowed, not swept up in our collective urge toward tidiness. Where showing off has no place. Where your shadows are your gift.

Finding your tribe may make all the difference for you, as it has for me. In a fluid, hyperconnected world of dazzling surfaces and promises, look beneath.


As I'm on the road in the name of Guilford College, I know I am seeking the ties that bind we Guilfordians as a tribe.  I look for what has remained with us, and what continues to influence  we Quaker liberal arts graduates from that time on campus when we too were "vulnerable about our shared poverty--our human-ness and our frailities..."  The place where, hopefully, we all experienced moments where "..sorrow  is (was) allowed, not swept up in our collective urge toward tidiness.  Where showing off has (had) no place.  Where your shadows are (were) your gift."    I have heard from many of us who lived for a time on those 380 acres, at the head of the Cape Fear Water Basin, in the Piedmont, on the edge of those historical woods, that Guilford was a place true to Henri Nouwen's quote above.  A place where "poverty,"  our "poverties, " became a "source of new life."  


How will I continue to bring my own "dander' to the place where I meet another person in a respectful and authentic way?  How will I keep fresh the time when I was in that Guilford campus "tribe" of learners and explorers?  How will I support members of this tribe to keep the tribe alive?  How might I assist in making connections between we tribe members?  I'll have to keep traveling and keep meeting,  even if it means packing flip flops in February.  

What if I'm wrong

This morning and the last few days are filled with confusion and self doubt.  The doubt crescendo ed the other night like a big wave, yet I must say there is a back drop of hope to it.  It's like I must ask these questions but I daresay I think I'm on the right track.  (Wow, that was bold.) But, what if I'm wrong?  What if, after five years on my own, the dust has finally settled and I've taken a long road to nowhere? What if my hunches and instincts, the things that seem to be my biggest asset (because there aren't any others?) were just the scared me running away from adult challenges and responsibilities?  Just me running to a fantasy land.  A land where I could feel safe, make my own decisions and deal with my own consequences. This hope did come out of my childhood.  It was more about protection;  more about avoiding pain than pursuing love.  Susan Richards writes this after talking about her mother's death:  "So I had yearned for the day I would belong only to myself, free from anyone who could make me feel like a burden, who could leave me or die, as if that was possible."  But I think my hopes become healthier over the years.  They included fantasies of  my own space, my own dog, where friends could feel welcomed.  The fantasy future time when I would know that I was loved unconditionally;  that I would feel chosen and supported, and maybe even celebrated.  Where I was interesting enough to induce another's curiosity.   Where I would be encouraged to listen to my insides and pursue leadings even though there weren't any sure bets on where they would take me.  Where I would push through challenges and get better at things, and would be helped with those challenges even if it just meant having a cheerleader nearby.  (Wait, isn't that where I am now in some ways? And, doesn't that sound like a great job description for a mother?)

But the last few weeks have left me discombobulated.  I feel like I'm in the spin cycle of a dryer - I don't know which way is up.  I don't know how I am supposed to know if I'm on the right track or the totally wrong track.  What if I'm wrong and all the things I listed above are not of any lasting value?  What if the things I wanted (and have gotten?) are a weird detour or worse, a dead end and I have no where to go from here?  What if I did take a long road to nowhere, or worse, I took a loop road and I'm right back to where I started?

Two interesting story lines have developed recently.  Story line number 1 has caused these old fears and doubts to rise up causing me to face my big issues, my lessons to learn, again in big ways these last few weeks. It has turned the spotlights on my pathological optimism - which might be ok when it's mixed with practicality and self-care.  That damn spiral staircase.   Yes, I've moved up the stairs, I have a wider view.  Yet, as I circle around to make new upwards headway, BAM there I am again, greeted by the same, exact issues as before.  Hey, if you won't stop meeting me like this at every turn of the stairway, (I say to my "issues"), am I going to have to make peace with you?  Why can't you just magically disappear?  Why can't I be fast enough to dodge you?

If I am going to have this companion-- my very own, special issues-- perhaps I should get to know them better.  Poor issues, I've just been trying to beat the ever living crap out of them with my big angst stick.  Or, sometimes I put on the darkest pair of shades I can find so I just bloody won't see them.  It doesn't matter, I can fight all I want to.  I can be that horse who is so fearful that I will try anything to get away - FLEE!  I can buck and kick.  Or,I can shut down and hide.  It doesn't matter - these are my issues and they are not going anywhere until I call on the other parts of myself to make peace with them.  I need to name them and then greet them and then mess around with them.  Even if I'm terrified.

That is where story line number 2 comes in.  Some forces have conspired to to get me within range of some horses and their people.  I can choose to see this as random coincidence.  But the knowing place inside understands this differently.  That place knows that as I am ready, new opportunities to learn come forward.New teachers present themselves.  For me, I think I've been getting ready for learning that gets me out of my cerebral hiding place, and into relationships that extend far beyond words and theories.  Horses don't analyze their issues to death.  They have issues for different reasons.  It seems to me to be about nature and nurture.  They are born into their animal culture and are prey animals in the kingdom. Just like all of us, we are born into a system  Some of it is the environment they got born into.  Just like all of us, they were nurtured, or not.    They hang on to their fears as long as they have to.  But miraculously, even with the fear of being prey, they will endure those fears and risk moving into a relationship when safety and respect is offered.  It is trans-formative!  It is truly miraculous when you think about it.  In this relationship, person and beast, we have the opportunity to embrace our own fears, and simultaneously call upon our own strengths and gifts to give. We get to make peace and be companions with our own issues, and those of another.