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Saturday, December 30, 2023

Looking Forward

 As the year drifts quietly to a close, I inevitably think of promises kept-- and those broken --and wonder about what lies beneath the lovely wrapping in the gift of the new year. Usually I am busy making lists and resolutions at this time, but not this year.

A solidity has settled in me; a stillness, of sorts. I have some plans, of course, but they aren't revolutionary, they are already in place, supported and shored up. My major goal for this coming year is to stay the course, keep my bearings and keep looking up and out to see what's next. 

I got some big wake up calls this year. The same ones that come over and over at my age and have been hitting us all hard since CV-19 entered our world: Relationships are finite, ought not be taken for granted and can end without notice. Pay attention to what -- no who -- really matters and let go the rest. Nothing else matters. The only thing I can leave behind is the impact I have on the people I love. 

Before I move on to the next part let me talk a little about church. I'm a believer - - there's no doubt -- however, I am not always faithful. I struggle, a lot. I have talked to a trusted pastor about it and he has encouraged me, basically, to keep struggling. For now, that's where I am. I go to mass, mostly alone, because that's the most comfortable for me. It's a challenge with a gay child, and a rebellious child and kids who drift in and out of willingness to cooperate. I don't agree with THE CHURCH's stand on everything, but I did a lot of study to get here and it's where I fit most so I am trying.

It's an awkward fit at best. It's like my arms and legs are too long for my clothes and everything is stretched out of shape, but still, they're my favs. I'm good with God. On that, I'm clear and if I'm not, there will be a reckoning, right? Still . . . I'm resting easy.

Which leads to the next thing. When I was a teenager, Billy Graham was a TV evangelist. He was big on people memorizing Bible verses in case they were one day imprisoned. As an impressionable kid with a lot of time on my hands  -- there was NOTHING on TV in those days -- I took his warnings to heart. Whatever he was trying to accomplish obviously worked because many of the verses I memorized way back then are my guiding principals to this day. This has been my theme to keep me lighthearted and hopeful in the face of many challenging and un-funny family situations:  

Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trial,
 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
And let steadfastness have its full effect,
 that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
(James 1:2-4)

With that, I take a big, satisfied breath. I am indeed "lacking in nothing." It has been a year of hard work with sound results. Everyone  is okay, learning and growing, including me. There is no other way to be but joyful!

I have some plans for next year but the biggest one is this: Take a breath and simply do what's next. I've got this and you do too. 

Here's a wish that the New Year dawns full of hope for you. Cheers!



Monday, November 20, 2023

Never Happier

 
"Tears were spilling down my face. I'd cried more this summer than I had in all the years since I was Izzy's age, and I'd never been happier. "

            Mary Jane by Jessica Anya Blau

I could have written this line. It seems to me -- and I admit that I am not an expert --that when we accept that which needs grieving, life gets easier. This has been the absolute hardest lesson for me to learn. I come from very stoic stock. We are not "crying" people. My family does not even cry at funerals. I once bragged that if you put 12 of my closest friends in a room, together they would not know half the turning points in my life. I rode over all of them and stuffed them down. It was a source of pride.

Disclaimer: This was all before the 90's when I chose to make my life an open book. It turned out that it was MUCH easier to just open the book than try to keep it bound shut. 

The question then, is what is going on with all these tears? More importantly, is it "above the line" grief -- true sadness that comes from a place of empathy and compassion or "below the line" crying that is dramatic, self-pitying, or attention seeking? So the answer is a bit of both, but mostly the former. I have some heartbreak over my "Middle Little" being locked away from me. There are many, many good points which I've often reiterated but there is grief there too. It's hard to see someone you love struggle with addiction (or anything, right?) I want to "fix it," of course, but that's not my part. 


There is a below-the-line piece to work on though. The piece about how I should have done something differently, better, or "right."  That is our perennial struggle as parents. We will not get it all perfect or even right. And the things we thought we got right will also be some of the things we get "wrong." We're human, after all, and even though there are lots of books, THE MANUAL isn't a real thing. We can't go by the book because we're humans raising humans . . . you know, free will and all that. We can try to be "book parents" but there is no real book. 

What I'm trying to say is, there is something beautiful in tears. A child may be struggling in a certain way and another in that, and mom is losing her memory and we are all aging. . . etcetera, etcetera, etcetera . . . all these tears are signs of an opening heart. 

  • One of my students got of the car and her dad said, "I want to thank you because this morning Machi said, 'I love to come to school because Mrs. Tischler loves me."
  • There was a partial solar eclipse -- so rare and beautiful and other worldly -- and I am here standing on the earth as a witness.
  • I have had some amazing conversations lately with "old" friends and new ones -- deep connections -- such a rare and beautiful gift. 

  • I read an old poem by Mary Oliver, "The Summer Day," and it changed my life in a heartbeat. 
  • My "grand-dogger" meets me at the door with seriously unbridled joy at the end of the day. I don't believe animals don't feel emotion. 
. . . and the waters flow!
 
I hear myself joking that COVID 19 turned me into "an old softie" but I'm going to stop that here and now. That's patently false. During those months at home with my youngest 2 kids and sometimes my oldest, I had time to reflect on what truly matters to me.  

Many years ago, I had the privilege of traveling several times for a few weeks to Costa Rica and staying among local people. There is a saying in Costa Rica, "pura vida," which means, basically, to live a simple or pure and clean life; an unencumbered life. This is what I aspire to now!

After CV-19, I noticed a softening in the world around me. I saw it at school, too. Even though for the first year, we had to stay in our classrooms a lot, the staff seemed more caring and connected. I see it in stores and restaurants, even on the news. I don't think it's just me. As a world community, we've become aware: life is fleeting. 

Over the last few years, perhaps I'd gotten hunkered down with a very busy household and a pretty demanding job. I'd let myself get overwhelmed, at times, and forgotten to soften my eyes and take in the beauty around me. I hadn't let myself  turn up the tunes and sing out loud or dance like Elaine or run like Phoebe. 

Those days are over. The time is short. Look out, world!

Sunday, October 22, 2023

Sharing

 



This is a poem I wrote in honor of my "sister of the heart,." Sharon Parish.  It's close to her birthday now so I thought I'd post it here to say hello. 




Sharing

by Dreena Melea Tischler

©August 24, 2006

We passed in the night
like an exhaled breath,
slowly whiffing out 
until every last sigh of it
                                        was gone.
Then I trudged into my future 
and you slipped into yours.

I cannot now see you
except 
in backward glances. 

I see you as in 
a foggy mirror 
and sometimes . . . 
I do not recognize you there.

I see you in a dress
lovingly decorated with ricrac
and a photo
and a daughter.
I see you in your tarnished pin
which I do not wear
but only hold and polish. 

Solitary, I long for that night
in which we each went to our futures
and to hold again your hand
and hear again your breath
mingled and shared,
                                    my dear,
                                                    with mine.



Image by Albrecht Fietz from Pixabay

Sunday, January 15, 2023

A Spotted Pony Kind of Girl


I tell my students that I'm from "the olden days, and  I am! I know about rotary phones, life before Google, and remember having to teach people about the value of email! In this case, however, I'm talking about being from a time where your parents decided what you would be when you grew up. 
All four of us Huntleys knew a few things for absolute certain: we would turn 18, leave home, go to college, get degrees and support ourselves. We would have careers, marry and have children, and all in that order. None of this was ever in question. Our parents would not (and could not) help us. We'd pay our own way through.

I don't know what my siblings were told about their futures but mine was a bit ambiguous. All my life, I'd wanted to be a mother, a teacher and a helper of children. I had no other ambition. (I had a "calling" -- with an uppercase /c/ -- but that's a story for another time.) When we played with the neighbor kids, I was the teacher, running the school. 

However, my dad forbade it. "It was no career for a Huntley. I was too smart, it doesn't pay well enough it, there is no future in it." When I was a kid, if your dad said you couldn't do something, you didn't do it. So I set my sights on becoming a dietician, but my heart wasn't isn't it. All my friends at school knew what I was really doing there . . . I was working toward my Mrs. degree. I got it in my first  year and  the Mr. got me to Texas, land of my dreams.

On our trip down, we stopped to see my Uncle Myke who helped me with my vocational planning. He is the one who first called me a Spotted Pony. He said I'm like the Appaloosa*, rare, courageous and fierce but good at lots of different things and that I should NOT listen to my Dad and follow my heart and have my future wherever I wanted it. I was only 19 at the time, though, and not brave enough yet to go my own way. 

I spent several years in work far from teaching. Administrative assistant, full-charge bookkeeping, office management, that kind of thing. I loved those roles, actually. I'm really good at seeing what someone needs and quickly filling that void. One of my bosses called me "Radar," - we just had that synchronicity you sometimes have with some people.

Yet eventually, I couldn't avoid my calling. Unce Mykes words stayed with me. I worked "around" teaching: Children's Minister, Life Coach, Mentor,  Homeschool Mom and then the spotted pony finally shone through. I came to teaching at the perfect time in my life, when I had the patience to finally take on a job that takes YEARS to learn. Who knew?  I'll tell you now, I couldn't have stuck it out in my 20s. Maybe it takes a spotted pony to be a teacher. Maybe it's easier if you get caught in some fences and brambles along the way first, so you know you can get out and be okay.  

Whatever,the reason, I know I'm home. I have plenty of room and sunshine here. Happy New Year.

*The Apaloosa are a breed once found only on the Palouse, just miles from where I grew up, so very familiar to our area

Friday, February 4, 2022

A Vivid and Life-Changing Dream and the Juxtaposition of Atonement and Work


This week as I've been at the hospital recuperating from Afib, one of the medicines I was taking was giving me very vivid dreams. One particular night I had what I can only describe as an "end of life dream". I have never had a dream like this so I will share it as articulately as possible. 

I was seeing scenes from my life play out. These were not full blown memories, more like vignettes.  I was aware of an ocean-like "rolling" around me as I watched these pieces and I (present me) was not "in camera" so to speak. The vignettes were displayed in a tear-drop shaped vessel of some sort and they were very brief and very very fast. 

The pleasant moments came first, at lighting speed. Some of the ones I remember now are: holding each of my children for the first time, being at Astro-World with Paul, laughing uproariously with each of 3 best girl friends, my kids being in a play at church with 2 other dear families, the way my daughter's eyelids made perfect half-circles. I was riding the train to Silverton, my head out the window; I was looking at bear in Yellowstone, I had a giant spiral lollipop from Deadwood, South Dakota; It was Christmas and Santa left a doll named Carol with a trunk of clothes, I am in England walking on a public path, listening to music, grieving and healing, I saw flashes of many of my mentors and teachers, I saw a little student who died in 2020 - he was running toward the class on the playground and his face was lit up from within. My last moments with my dad; days and days of last moments with my sister in law. There were more and more and more; and if any of these are familiar to you, as well, you know some have their losses and sadness attached to the events -- but hear this: There was no tinge of sadness as I witnessed these tiny glimpses, only the purest joy. 

Writing that phrase, "the purest joy," I remember how easy it is to let guilt or anger pull us into dramatic behavior that inhibits or blocks the joy. As I think about my dad's death, I could easily lapse into anger at God or regret for not spending more time with him every day or . . . or . . . or. I'm going to give that temptation to misery a name: it's mindtalk. You know, when you're watching your child sing at school, or do ballet, or take those precious first steps and the mindtalk comes in and you start thinking how they grow up too fast, or someone else's song was longer; on and on and on and suddenly your joy has a tinge of sadness or regret or resentment. 

The "Not That"

This moment was not that. There was nothing but joy and love. So much, so many moments so incredibly fast, but because it was a magical dream, I could extensively experience every single moment to it's complete and maximum fullness. Full is the right word, too - how full I was. I was standing tall, my vision glued on the display, my shoulders soft, my face and eyes wide open; I was simply breathing and experiencing. It was expansive.

I remember feeling the ocean rushing around me, pulling at my ankles and legs, my toes sinking deeper and deeper into the sand beneath. I could feel the wind whipping my hair in and out of my eyes and the tears streaming down my cheeks as I witnessed hundreds (?) thousands (?) of these twinklings.

It ended and seamlessly the other memories began. For lack of a better word at the moment, I'll call these troubling memories. These I remember even more vividly. There was the time as a child I broke some crystal my mom was returning to a neighbor, the first time I lied to a friend I did not want to play with, fighting with a sibling, knocking the "paddleboard" behind the stove so mom couldn't find it. Those childhood infractions were there of course but moreso, it was the adult things - lying to a prospective date, standing someone up, cheating, throwing a rock at the neighbor's dog, not offering a hug to a crying child, frowning at another parent in a grocery store, being impatient with my children -- there were many of those, driving past a person begging, walking past a person begging, refusing to forgive quickly,/holding onto a resentment, not wanting to make an expected phone call, being to much in a hurry to stop and greet someone, mess, waste, loss. Interestingly, there were a few I would not objectively consider "transgressions," necessarily. For instance there was not taking a job offered by a trusted friend, not accepting help from my boss as a young single woman, oh so many times I was grumpy, times I withheld information about my own needs, times I skipped my "quiet times," my knitting untouched for months, my daughter's skirt unmended. There was the time I gave up on communication when a friend in pain wasn't taking my calls, not calling a parent whose student shone that day, not sharing a treasured item and so many times I did not notice myself withholding love and on and on and on. 

Here is what was truly amazing about this part of the display. While I needed to label this section to portray it to you and while it was clear to me -- absolutely -- how these images differed from the first, at no time did I feel guilty or sad or remorseful or angry or even particularly surprised. I am only now experiencing surprise as writing has helped me remember what I saw. In my body, I felt like a young child. I was standing there in the surf as the waves frothed around me, more urgently now, and I was just as calm as before. I was perfectly still and whole, simply taking it in for what it was, not in surrender but in absolute acceptance and yes, wonder. This was the past, my past. I was there not as judge or penitent, but as witness. 

Inside the Teardrop

Quite suddenly, the display was over and I was somehow inside that teardrop. I was on the floor - the place of prostration - and the wishes or prayers or thoughts (but not words) were rushing from me unhindered. It was a mix of things coursing out and I have the notion that I addressed each image. Again in the magical mix of technicolor dreaming, I was somehow addressing several things at once yet separately. There was an apology for one thing at the same time (or nearly) as gratitude for another; a commitment to be different or more at the same time as love was expressed. It is fair to say it rushed from me and yet there was no rush in it; perhaps it was more the quantity of what I expressed that makes "rushed" the right term as well as "flowing." The tap was on and the fitting response flowed straight from me. 

When I woke up, lying there in the fragile expanse between awake and asleep, I first thought I had just atoned for all my sins.  However, later, as I started remembering more and more of what was displayed, and remembered my responses (which were still not words so much as "intentions") what became clear was that these displays were all the "work" I have yet to do. In some ways, it is the the opposite of atonement, which implies both forgiveness and finishing. It was, quite clearly, a call to action.

It was the most cleansing moment I have ever experienced. Whereas, before, during the display, I was both full and fulfilled, now I was empty -- as empty could be -- but without the loss so often associated with emptiness. It was more purifying than a process or retreat or confession. I was hungrier than I have ever been - a very physical hunger - but without the desperation. Here's the best example I have so far: it was similar to having had a amazingly hard and thorough workout and then a shower, and finally that very unique and pleasant experience of being clean, accomplished, empty and hungry at the same time. 

Can you see it? What do you think of this experience? Yes it was a dream, but it did come from my brain! I'd love some feedback on this wild ride. 

It was the most holy experience of my life. What happens now remains to be seen . . .

Stay tuned.