Wake-up Whistle

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

It is tempting to allow life to charge forward as if our moments are like boxcars clamped together into one great, endless train. We slip into routines that distance us from the felt experience of life, as if we are not really inside our own train but are watching as its tiny image chug-chugs on some distant horizon. The rote performance of our customary tasks is a gentle rhythm that lulls us from feeling the immediacy of new moments. Distracted from an awareness of the joys of the here and now, our inattentiveness has the effect of pulling us from feelings of attachment to our personal destinies, as if we have delegated to some invisible conductor the privilege of steering our course. Once in a while, however, seemingly unrelated events happen synchronously, and we are shaken from our complacency. Today, for example, is a day that my dear friend, Dawn Neely-Randall, marks with emotions wide and inexpressible. Today is the first anniversary of the death of her husband, the love of her life, John Randall. (See: Eternal Flame)

For those of us who love Dawn, The Year of Firsts has been a shared journey. Sometimes, we gave her space. Sometimes, we appeared at her door. In essence, we hitched as many boxcars of our lives to her train as we could without becoming additional weight that she had to pull. But now here it was: the First Anniversary. I woke up feeling as if I could let out the breath that I’d been holding since John passed.

But, then again, maybe not.

Early this morning, my telephone rang. It was Ronald Lane, whom my family and I had met shortly after his escape from Hurricane Katrina. He had thrown some possessions in his car and feld to Lorain, Ohio, where his mother, Grace, lived. He had spent the past many decades working as an artisan in the French Quarter. The hurricane destroyed his life-sustaining career.

My family and I helped Ronald as much as we could. He delighted in the laptop we were able to give him. My sons spent hours with him, teaching him how to email and peruse the Internet, which proved a good instructor for an eager student. He spent many evenings researching far-away places, like Egypt, that have always held his fascination. “I’ve been going on all kinds of trips,” he told me, chuckling. “I’ve been traveling all over the world with my computer!” Shyly, he mentioned that his Internet studies were improving his reading skills. He was more able to read signs now, he said.

My sons also set him up with a free Web site. They photographed his jewelry and inventions and placed them on the site. Ronald was hopeful that an Internet presence would be able to replace, somewhat, his physical presence at the French Market. But the business aspect of on-line marketing proved too tough for him to manage. He stayed in Ohio for a couple of years and then returned to New Orleans, hopeful that he could reestablish his jewelry making career.

Since then, Ronald and I have stayed in touch. Every time we spoke, Ronald expressed faith in the journey, faith that God had everything under control. His tag line was, “I love you, Maura, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it!”

In November, Ronald received news that his mother was in the final stages of lung cancer. He called me. If a voice could buckle, his was on its knees. Yet by the time we hung up, he was calm. He just needed to know he had someone who could be there for him just as he would be there for his mother.

He drove to Ohio and learned how to care for his mother. He told her, ‘Mom, you can’t use your legs to get around anymore and so I will be your legs. Your arms don’t have the strength they used to have and so let me be your arms. I am an extension of your legs and arms. Whatever you want, whatever you need, you just tell me.’ He cooked for Grace, he bathed her, and he kept her house as she wished it to be kept.

Two weeks ago, Grace was hospitalized. Ronald beat back Fear. He would not allow It to own him. He knew that he needed to be strong for Grace. This morning, then, when I heard his voice on the other end of the phone, hope rose in me because he sounded so different. He sounded elated. There must be good news, I thought.

“I wanted to call and tell you that my mother transitioned,” he said. “And she’s just fine, and I’m just fine."

And so there it is: A brilliant explosion of synchronicity. For Dawn, today is the end of The First Year. For Ronald, the same date is the beginning of The First Year. For me, the day escorts me out of Dawn’s First Year and into Ronald’s, blessing me with another chance to be a friend.

Synchronicity is a stick that prods us from distracted complacency.

Stone Books

Release Date: Tuesday, June 15, 2010

My heart was speaking to me. It told me to ignore the zillion tasks that were squawking at me. It told me, Go home. I lifted my eyes from my work at the computer, gazed out the windows of my study, and saw that my heart was leading me south. There was something that I needed to do. I decided to follow my heart.

As soon as I made that decision, of course, many frustrations arose to threaten my journey. They filled me with indecision. Are these omens telling me I should not go? I wondered. Half a dozen times I paused and considered turning back. Each time I decided to stay the course because the first message contained the essence of something we call "purity of heart."

It took many more hours to arrive at my destination than it should have. All along the way I coached myself - and truly believed - that it was all happening as it should. Despite the misgivings that flew at my resolve as if they were angry blackbirds pecking at my face, I felt centered. Calm. Purposeful. I was following my signs. I was ignoring false detours.

At last, I saw the exit to Circleville, Ohio. As I pulled off the highway onto the ramp, my iPod, which is loaded with more than 8,000 songs and which was set on shuffle, began to play "No Regrets" by Tom Rush. I was flooded with emotion. This song is special to me. It always calls up images of my mother as she mourned her husband and the love of her life--the man who was such a magnificent father to me and my siblings.

I drove a few miles ahead. There, on the left, was my destination. The last strains of Rush's song sounded when I flicked on my left turn signal and

watched for an opening in the oncoming traffic.

The next song on my iPod began to play as I pulled into St. Joseph's Cemetery. The first line of Van Morrison's "Reminds Me Of You" is "I miss you so much . . . " It was as if Morrison was seconding Rush's motion that this was exactly where I should be. That my heart had been true and I was correct to have followed it.

And so I brought my book to my parents, who always, always believed in me. I laid it just below my mother's name. The floodgates were opened and tears fell from my eyes. This was the moment toward which my heart had been leading me.

My hands were shaking so much that many petals fell from the peonies I placed in the headstone vase. Two fluttered down and landed upon the cover of my book. I started to move them and then stopped. How appropriate, I thought. Of course there would be two petals that would fall, one touching the other.

I started talking to my parents. I told them about meeting my Melchizedek and about how and protective he had been of me. I had heard that Melchizedek was hundreds of years old. Not mine, I told them. My Melchizedek is really quite young. In fact, he's extremely young to be so wise. My Melchizedek is awesome.

I placed daisies, the flowers that covered their graves so many years ago the day we buried them, in Robby's and Stevie's headstone vases. I talked to them, too. I told them how sorry I was that they had died so young.

I sat on the grass and had a long talk with my parents. Together, we recounted the moments that had led to this day. Together, we walked down Memory Lane. That walk brought me to a bicycle ride I took one beautiful spring day in Willoughby, Ohio. A two-year-old little towhead, my firstborn, Brittany, rode in a child's seat behind me as I cycled around Willoughby in the sunshine.

A few days later, Brittany asked, "Mommy, stone books?"

Our daily routine was to either ride the bike, or a tricycle, or sometimes I would push Brittany in her stroller, a few blocks to the library. At home, we read piles of books every day. So when Brittany asked me this unusual question, I tried to remember which titles were in the stack of library books. Nothing was clicking. There didn't seem to be a connection.

Brittany persisted. "Mommy. Stone books?"

And then it hit me. On our bike ride earlier that week we had passed by a cemetery. She was right! They were stone books!

And so it seemed to me on this eve of the release of my first book that, somehow, a 29-year-old moment was also part of this moment. The present had gone back, swooped up the past, and returned it to me so that I could recognize that God really does draw straight with crooked lines. He had been drawing me toward this moment long before I knew it. He and His universe had been conspiring to bring me to this day for a very long time.

Paulo Coelho writes in his magnificent The Alchemist: There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It's your mission on earth . . . The Soul of the World is nourished by people's happiness . . . And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.

So it had.

And I feel so blessed.

I introduced my parents and brothers to the best four-legged friend I have ever had, Donovan--the canine companion who has sat beside me every sentence of the way. Donovan sniffed their headstones and looked up at me with questioning eyes.

It was hard to say goodbye. I did so with many a backward glance.

But time marches us forward, doesn't it? And God rewards us for trusting in the future. Immediately upon pulling out of St. Joseph's Cemetery I received another message. I turned on my car stereo. Once again, the iPod shuffle found the perfect song for me: Bruce Springsteen's "Working On A Dream." I smiled. It is true. The release of Miracles Every Day is not the fulfillment of a dream; this is one accomplishment in my personal quest. I am still working on my dream. I'm far from finished here.

And so, today, I am filled with gratitude for everyone who has helped me to fulfill this part of my personal legend. I hope that my first published book gives honor to my parents. I hope that my family and friends know that their love has been the key to my happiness and that I treasure their love with all my heart. Perhaps most of all, however, this moment belongs to my Melchizedek. It is his voice that held me steady and kept me on course. I was blessed to have God's hand on the wheel and Gary Jansen's on the rudder.

On the journey home, I eschewed the highway for a country road. There were four confounding detours because of that decision. Even so, I had total confidence that I was where I was meant to be. My trust was rewarded with one final sign of the day. An American bald eagle, huge and majestic, swooped down alongside my car. He looked at me. Then he deigned to alight on a tree stump by the side of the road, allowing me to have a chance to admire him both in full flight and at rest.

Sometimes love and the pursuit of our personal legend is in full flight. Sometimes it is at rest. But, in life and in the fulfillment of our chosen destiny, love is always, always there.