Haven't been out on the water that much this month. Life getting in the way. But dear surf sister, Sherri, went with me last weekend for our first evening surf. No one was out there -- or very few. It was wonderful to have the waves to ourselves, even if we couldn't do much with them. The beach was still busy, though, and parking at night is a mess. So, we likely won't do this again -- it was beautiful, but no match for the peaceful sanctity of the morning. I really wanted to be out on the water when the sun went down, though, and let me tell you: it was absolutely stunning.
The waves were definitely too big for us. Sherri got up a couple of times, and though I caught a couple of waves to body surf in, I was mostly practicing duck dives and paddling in these monster waves. I'm getting pretty good at getting outside these days, and this evening was definitely good practice at not getting clobbered. The waves did seem to slow down a bit as the sun went down, but still too big and fast for me to actually try to get up. It didn't matter. I always feel so much better after having spent time in the water. Maybe it's the benefits of cold water, maybe it's the lovely company, or maybe it's because I feel such a sense of accomplishment and joy just being out there, it never matters what happens. I am so glad to have done it.
And I have needed it this month. Needed the joy to turn me around. I'm in a funk and I'm betting a trip home to see my parents is the origin of the funk. I don't know if any of you have a difficult time at home. I think we're in good company if you do; even Ram Dass famously said, "If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family." I only spent the weekend, but that was enough. And I did well this time. I wasn't swamped by waves of resentment. I didn't try to control things. I was more present on this visit than I have been in many years. I'm finding balance -- getting better at getting outside myself and my history, not getting swamped.
Thanks to the meditation training, the health coaching training, and some advice from an old friend, I had a lot of good strategies going in. First, my old friend said, "Pretend they're not your parents." While some might think this is cold or a way to numb my feelings, I found that it helped me step out from behind my defenses and not turn into my old 12 year old self when I walked in the door. I could avoid seeing these humans as people who have done a lot of damage in addition to providing good care for me growing up, prompting loads of habitual responses to crash the shores of the visit. Instead, I could see them as two 80 year old people who are doing their best. Seeing them that way -- as they are, apart from me or mine -- allowed compassion to well up and overcome my usual churn of residual resentment and automatic negative thoughts and behaviors.
Second, health coaching is all about helping other people find their own goals. As a coach, I never tell people what to do. I listen carefully and ask questions to help the client discover their own goals and how to get there. Active listening and motivational interviewing are skills I've been practicing. Instead of imposing my will, I ask questions to discover the will of the client. My parents are incredibly unhealthy people. In the past, this has been incredibly frustrating for me: a source of massive angst, argument, and desire to control. So, instead of going in and trying to get my parents to be healthier with their diets, I just let it go. I know it isn't my job to change them, or even help them. They are two autonomous, grown ass adults who can make their own choices, so I treated them that way.
I did address a few issues when they brought things up. I'm dealing with an alcoholic and codependent, so the level of denial and double speak is award-winning. Though my diabetic dad doesn't drink anymore, he now abuses food and insulin. A dry drunk, as my counselor friend explained to me. (He doesn't drink anymore, but he didn't do any therapy or work around the drinking so addiction is transferred to new things.) And my mom absolutely supports his new habit. I was amazed at how I could calmly meet the denial and prevarication with a verbal boundary without getting angry or hooked. I didn't try to change anything, but I also didn't let any ridiculousness go unaddressed. How beautifully freeing.
I totally credit the meditation course and frequent practice "on the cushion" for this sense of equanimity. While I was there, I was present. I was unruffled. I felt my feelings of sadness and grief, regret and longing. I also felt joy and nostalgia. It wasn't all bad. On a sweet afternoon, we looked through old pictures and I saw them with new eyes. We had a lot of resources when I was growing up. There was a lot of love in that house along with the rest of it. I was sad coming home on the plane. It is likely that I have seen my dad alive for the last time. I took the next day off from work to recover and grieve some more, wondering what the point of it all is.
The next weekend was another women's class surf lesson, and last weekend, Sherri and I did the sunset surf. These are two islands of loveliness in a melancholy month. I'm feeling really in-between right now. One part of me is here, as described by Dr. Glenn Patrick Doyle, "Ironically, when we start to get better, we also often get sad -- because we start to realize how much we've missed out on, how badly certain people failed us, what the younger version of us actually deserved. Healing involves healthy grieving. No way around it." A beautiful missive from my favorite "promiscuous thinker" Jessica Dore the other day told me to "start where the pain is," and quoted from one of my favorite movies, Beatriz at Dinner, in which Beatriz says, “I’m tired. You think killing is hard? Try healing something. That is hard…You can break something in two seconds. But it can take forever to fix it. A lifetime, generations, that’s why we have to be careful on this earth."
Be careful on this earth. Hold my grief lightly. Allow it to breathe, and maybe something new will be born. The other part of me is looking around, like Carrie Mae Weems, an artist who said, "I'm determined to find new models to live by. Aren't you?" My models these days are powerful women. The ones surfing right next to me, overcoming all kinds of shit, are infinitely inspiring. The fierceness, the joy, the courage and encouragement -- their presence makes me braver. That I am counted as one of them means I am fierce too.
I also have the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift and her Eras Tour this summer. In a brilliant article in the NYT Magazine about the Tour, Taffy Brodesser-Akner writes, "You could watch this concert — you could watch this entire phenomenon — through the eyes of the idea that Taylor Swift frees women to celebrate their girlhood, to understand that their womanhood is made up of these microchapters of change, that we’re not different people than we were then, that we shouldn’t disavow the earlier versions of ourselves, our earlier eras." Not merely accepting, grieving, and overcoming our history, but celebrating it. What a wonderful model to live by.
I need to consider that awhile longer. I'm in my in-between era.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to grieve, to search, to be lifted up and thrown down in the waves, and to cry in the shower. This business of living is hard. As I write my third act, everything seems to be about releasing the old and welcoming in the new, but the new that has always been there, underneath. Uncovering rather than hiding out. Working on moving through big waves with skill and grace and equanimity. Surfing into my sunset era with aplomb. Be careful on this earth. Better to be in the water.
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