Category: gratitude

family · gratitude · holidays

Blended.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

12.18.18My mom and her boyfriend have been together for a decade or so, she having gotten divorced from my dad about 15 years ago, he having been divorced for longer.  He is a mensch and we’re all very lucky to have him in the family, despite the absence of any government certificate saying he is so.

They’re coming out for a few days right before Christmas, and J and I are getting to plan for their visit.  It’s exciting (to be able to host a pair of full-on grownups, meaning not ones satisfied with a futon mattress on the floor… although at the moment we don’t have much better!).  It’s stressful (to have a week of work and then family drop in right at the end of the work day on Friday).  And it’s heart-warming (to feel that the integration of our families together has begun).

J’s met them both on two trips back East, so there’s none of the trepidation of, “Will they like each other?”  (They do).  It’s more the nerves of, “Oh crap, what are we going to do with them for 4 days?!”

So, the researching of Oakland’s mural and gallery walking tours, a Point Reyes lighthouse visit, our favorite pizza place (Zachary’s—and I don’t care if it’s an “abomination” of pizza!).  My dash this week to the two purported “good” bagel places in the area to taste test, to ensure the New Yorkers are amply satisfied with our West Coast fare!  A friend’s low-budget Christmas-special show, a trip to the zoo that is SF’s Union Square on Christmas eve.

Wearing as it is to feel “on” for 4 days, I gotta say all that sounds pretty rad to me.  And I’m grateful that our “families” have the marvelous fortune to get along as well as we do.

Happy holiday season, folks.

 

finance · gratitude · retirement

The Ant and The Grasshopper: Retirement Edition

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

12.4.18.jpgYesterday morning, I ran into a coworker in the faculty lounge (basically, where we drop our lunch in the fridge and leave).  She’s youngish, new this year, and somehow we got to talking about financial planning (I think we were talking about her having moved out on her own recently).

She said she didn’t really understand the whole financial world, and I offered that, whatever she did, she should take advantage of the matching retirement plan at work.  She replied that she’d wavered on that for a few months, but has finally taken advantage of it, somewhat reluctantly.

I said, Yes, it’s an act of faith in the future.

She continued that, Yes, because who knows if that system will even be in place in the future.

And I added, Well, yeah, but I meant that it’s faith that we’ll even be alive to take advantage of it.

Thaaat… kinda brought her up short.  I guess people aren’t used to talking about mortality before their morning coffee.

I said I had some health history that makes me think about things like that, then another coworker walked into the room and it didn’t make sense to continue the frankness of the talk.  I told her to check out the book I’d read earlier this year, Money: Master the Game, by Tony Robbins — because although, yes, it was about the basics of personal finance, it also came with a values-based bent because it was him.  (Not to say that I subscribe to all that he says or does, but the basics are there.)

What I’ve been reflecting on lately is that, with my slight increases in income and sharing the costs of living with J., I have some money that I can decide what to do with right now.

This month, I decided to put a third of my pay into my school’s retirement plan.

And this both brings me be agita and glee!

Because what my coworker says is true (we’re putting faith in the financial systems of the future that we cannot predict), and what I say is also true (we’re putting faith in the body systems of the future that we cannot predict).

So, I’m left with a bit of a Ant and Grasshopper moment: do I put even more into my retirement, which right now I can afford?  How much is too much to put there?  What about saving it as cash so I can use those funds to support other, non-retirement visions and goals?

And also, what about just being the Grasshopper?

My Ant freaks out: SAVE YOUR DIXIE CUPS!

My Grasshopper replies, Okay, but for what?  For my 35-year from now self, or for my 10-years from now self, or for my 1-year for now self?

How much saving is too much?  How much should go into the deep future now while I can afford it, as I don’t have children or other large financial obligations?

As I ponder these questions, which I did in my journal this morning, I also wrote about the following moment of financial distress 12 years ago, when I was between jobs (again), literally didn’t have $5 in the bank or in my wallet, and didn’t know where my next rent payment would come from:

“Remember driving in my car to another interview & knowing that all I needed then, I had: coffee, gas, heat on, clothing — just at that moment.

At just this moment, I have much the same things: coffee, heat on, clothing.  Plus, here’s a cat, a glass of Airborne, a knitted blanket and a hat.  A pen, a page.

How abundant, and too, how little my wants & needs have truly changed over time.  In 50 years, it will be the same!  Coffee, gas, heat, clothing.  Perhaps a cat.  Or dog.

Thank you.”

It’s important, as I contemplate where to put my money to best support my visions and goals, that I remember to come back to the moment of where I am, to be present, and to be grateful.

Yes, save for later; yes, save for now.  But as I finagle with those minutiae, I must pull back the frame of focus to encompass all that I already have.

I don’t know that either the Ant or the Grasshopper had that present-moment awareness.

 

abundance · gratitude · healing

Owning Abundance.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

10.29.18.jpgOn Friday after work, I was taking down the garbage from the Marin house, where J lives and where I’m apparently moving into (!).  As I was descending the stairs, a woman a little older than me was parking her car outside and getting her small son out of the car.  Many people turn around or park in the cul-de-sac where we live, walking dogs, playing, passing through the pedestrian short-cut, so I didn’t consider it odd, but she kept observing me.

She walked up to the front gate and asked, “Do you live here?”

I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond—since the answer was “sort of”—but I replied, “Yes.”

She told me then that she and her family used to live here when it was a rental property of the former owner and asked if a package had been delivered for her.  As it turned out, I was supposed to drop a “return to sender” package we’d received at the post office, but hadn’t done it yet… so YES!  I had her package.

She was kind of dancing around the front gate, unsure of where to be while I retrieved it.  Her son said something that he meant to approximate, “We used to live here.”  I told him that as I was cleaning up the yard the other day, I found a green plastic stegosaurus — was it his?  Did he want it?

He said yes (of course), so I invited him and his mom into the backyard to get it from where I’d placed it on the fence post, a reminder of the families who’d lived here.

He snatched it out of my hand, his mom asked me a question about the house, commenting a little shyly on how different the backyard looked now (without any furniture!).  I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

I walked them out the front gate and off they drove.

I was struck by the fact that I felt embarrassed.  I felt embarrassed and almost ashamed that this woman and her family were kicked out of the home where I now live, where J now lives.

Clearly, that’s absurd, but it’s also how I felt.  That I was somehow to blame, as I was party to the choosing of this house, for her family having to vacate and move.  (The 2nd bedroom has those glow-in-the-dark stars still on the ceiling in real constellations from where they’d placed them.)

The “fault,” if there is one, clearly doesn’t lie with me.  It was a home that was being sold no matter what, and J happened to be the person to buy it.  The family was going to be asked to move no matter what.

But I felt embarrassed to tell this woman that I was party to owning this home.  That I do, in fact, live here.  That this abundance was mine.

This is the piece I’ve been sitting with for several days now: for years, I’ve been talking about abundance, wanting it, working toward it, “attracting” it, visioning it, vision-boarding it.

And now here it is and I feel toe-in-the-dirt shy to say I’m achieving some part of it.

A person could roll their eyes at the woe-is-her struggle to own abundance, but the truth is I think many of us struggle with owning our achievements or our successes or our overflows.

When I was living in San Francisco in a 1bedroom, I had social gatherings and parties regularly because I felt so fortunate with my abundant space that I wanted to and had to share it with others.  Those gatherings were one of the most joyful experiences about my time living there.

The wonderful thing about having abundance is getting to share it more widely.  If I eschew it, avoid it, don’t have it, or don’t embrace it, then I’m not really getting the full benefit of it at all — and would be better off back in a small life that I can feel embarrassed of for entirely different reasons!

“Owning abundance” was never something I foresaw would be a challenge, but having to shed the smallness and embarrassment that is arising in me will be a journey worthy to undertake.

How can we hold the excellent and wonderful things in our lives with equanimity?  How can we honor what we’ve worked for or have been given with gratitude, awe, and celebration?  And… are we allowed to?

 

gratitude · spirituality · success

Pete and Repeat were on a Boat…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

10.3.18.jpegFrom the viewpoint of grace, which can [and will, when asked with gratitude] always give more, our lives should be a rising arc of abundance. ~ Day 13: Success Through Gratitude; Oprah and Deepak’s “Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude” Meditation Series

Okay, show of hands!  Who here has experienced life this way?  Who here wants to experience life this way?

Clearly when I track the history of my life, it is apparent that the above “law,” as they call it, is true.  It’s when I am wrapped in the horse-blinders of daily living that I entirely forget that law is so.

“A rising arc of abundance.”  Gosh, that sounds so nice, doesn’t it?

One way I’ve begun to sneak a peek over the side of those daily blinders is by writing down my weekly accomplishments before my Goals Group call on Tuesdays.  When, a few weeks ago, we’d arrived at the question of how we would “reward achievement,” we’d all come mainly to the idea that we would acknowledge what we’ve done.  So simple; so uncommon.

Therefore, to instate a habit of it (I love habits), I’ve begun to write down my week’s accomplishments on the Slack page we share to keep track of the weekly Goals Pages questions, our answers to them, our commitments to action for the week, and other somewhat germane comments (see: Kuramo’s vlog about self-love!).

On my own channel on the site, I’ve begun to keep this written log of everything I’ve accomplished in the week, and once I get started, it just pours out of me!

Anything from “cleaned the floor” to “got a massage” to “sent my bio to the J Weekly” to “went with a friend to the opera”!

All of these are accomplishments, achievements.  They’re ways that I am being and becoming more authentic and present and seen in the world (Yes, even cleaning my floor!  It means that I don’t have to feel gross at home, don’t have to fret when my piano player is coming over to practice, and don’t have those Serenity Moths gnawing at my self-esteem).

My world is only seen as a rising arc of abundance if I choose to see it that way.  This abundance is not limited to my bank account but there is clear evidence of an upward trajectory over the past dozen years.  And according to the groups with which I hang, financial abundance is an outward manifestation of our internal growth.  God is not separate from money, but money is also just a tool, but God is present in all aspects of my life including my finances, but my finances are only one measure of success…  Pete and Repeat…;)

I’ll conclude with another passage from that day’s meditation which may help to sort out this cycle of god/money/work/gratitude/action/grace:

What saves me from greed and selfishness is to take every gift with humility and gratitude. … Contrary to popular belief, it is not spiritual to shun external rewards — external rewards can be a sign that I’m connected to my true Source, which wants the best possible life for me.  What I need and want to avoid is my ego stepping in and claiming to BE the source of the good things in my life. 

Grace is always the source of abundance, not the ego’s selfish, anxious struggle.  

Grace needs my hands through which to work its goodness, and I need gratitude to become a conduit for that grace.  Pete and Repeat…

Good luck.

 

career · gratitude · meditation

Stupid gratitude…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

9.19.18.jpegThree summers ago, I was smack in the center of an stunningly risky leap: changing careers.

The Fall/Winter before that, having come to the end of my rope in administrative work—and being somewhat far from my regular spiritual practice, my mentor having moved away—I gave notice at my job.  I said, for the umpteenth time, that I was going to do something “creative.”  And again, for the umpteenth time, I had no true vision of what that meant, except that it would feel better.

By the time the following summer rolled around, I’d worked as a minimum-wage retail employee, a temp, and a model for a computer equipment photo shoot.  My “plans” did not unfold well… mostly because I had no plan!

Sometime around January, having driven across town from that retail job (8 hours standing on a concrete floor, pain in my feet, knees, heart), I sat on a friend’s couch bemoaning that I was too old to be flailing like this.

She said I needed to choose something, that frankly it didn’t even matter what.  Just a few weeks later, in morning meditation, the idea came that I should be a teacher (specifically a HS physics teacher, but whatevs).

So, I took that idea and clung onto it with dearest desperation of life, because frankly, continuing to do this “life” thing wasn’t seeming all that appealing anymore.

I reached out to a private school teacher acquaintance; I reached out to my former ed director at the Sunday School I’d taught at; I emailed my friend who was a public school teacher and asked to see her cover letter and resume.

I had begun a mission: Operation Teach School.

By that July, would you believe, I was teaching school.  I had harassed the summer school department at a private school for long enough that they found a place for me teaching creative writing for a few hours a day for 6 weeks.  Thereafter, I had no prospects.

But, before those few hours with students began, I did what I do now: journal and meditate.

The free meditation being offered at the time by Deepak and Oprah was the 21-day “Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude,” and I listened and wrote down what they said.  Every day, for 21 days.

Ripley’s Believe It or Not, at the end of those 21 days, sitting at my computer trawling for jobs, an email came through from the dean of my graduate department:

There’s a job, teaching, in Oakland, with Jews.

Fuhggettaboudit!

You gotta be kidding me.

I applied for that job.  I interviewed for that job.  I got offered a different job with them.  I accepted that job.

And lo, I was a teacher.  6 months after I had committed to Operation Teach School, I was a full-time, gainfully employed faculty member.  Cue divine trumpets.

I bought that damn 21-day meditation on gratitude.

And presently, I’m relistening to and rewriting down what they’re saying.

It’s the worst. 

I hate that I know that gratitude works.  That writing a gratitude list works.  That closing my eyes and conjuring things I’m grateful for, when I open them, the world looks just a teensy bit more magical and technicolor.

I hate that it works because … IT’S SO SIMPLE.

It’s so simple, it’s so easily overlooked, it’s so neglectable and discountable and ignorable… that I do.  I neglect and discount and ignore gratitude.

And then I am reminded.  And then I remember.  And then I try it again.  I close my eyes, I write those lists, I pause to say thank you.

And goddamnit it works.  I feel different.

I don’t know why it pisses me off that gratitude works, except that maybe I think it’s “too cheesy.”  That it “feels lame” to talk about being grateful, that it’s so saccharine, or maybe that others will think I’m naive (that maybe I may think I’m naive).

But I gotta tell you: Whatever the causation/correlation between my “Manifesting Grace Through Gratitude” meditation practice and my receiving an email that would ultimately change the course of my life, there is a piece of me that does truly believe Grace was hanging around, just waiting for me to open my eyes and my heart.

 

career · gratitude · TEACHING

Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

8.9.18 2There is a “gathering” feeling as the school year approaches.  The impending anxiety as the work you’d intended to do over the summer looms large.  The gleeful imagining of your reassembled and redecorated classroom.  The curiosity about the makeup of the new faculty and how it will gel.  The cynicism that the challenging dynamics that existed may persist.

The excitement to see your favorite students again, and the realism that 7th graders must needs grow toward independence and individuation, which may mean your favorites won’t be able to be who they were with you anymore.  And that’s okay; it’s just different.  Besides, you’ll have a new crop of 6th graders with whom to guffaw and conspire.

Arriving at my second year as a middle school English teacher, I experience a true love of my work, fully in its assets and detractions.  I worked as a 3rd grade teacher for two years prior to this, and “love” wasn’t what I experienced.  I felt merit in what I did; I appreciated who the students were, my own creative and professional development, and the leap of faith my boss took on a novice teacher.  But two years of chronic insomnia were enough to underscore I needed out.  And so, being here, looking my next year in the eye, I am so grateful.

I am grateful to walk through a university library gallery and snag a pamphlet on Alice in Wonderland sculptural interpretations, and feel excitement to teach my 7th graders this favorite of my books.  I’m grateful to toss my copy of The Outsiders on my bedside table just now, with the reminder to re-read it before the school year starts.  I’m grateful to fall down a Pinterest-like hole into the Facebook English Teacher groups… and feel awe, inspiration, overwhelm, and humility.

Many here know the path to anticipating my work with relish has been so rocky, its quarry-like walls have cut off the light of hope.  I squandered, despaired, agonized, railed, wallowed, isolated, and stymied.  That I can sit here today with excitement—and yes, plenty of realistic trepidation—is unfathomable.

And yet, I have swum up those fathoms.

 

generosity · gratitude · TEACHING

What act of generosity can I carry out today?

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

4.25.18.jpg

This is the central question I now have Post-Ited to my fridge.  Beneath it is one that reads, “What act of generosity did I carry out today?”

As things progress, stagnate, circumnavigate and develop, I can get a little lost in my brain, thinking about things to the detriment of actually doing them, particularly thinking about my relationship instead of myself.  Thinking is not always my highest mode of operation.

Therefore, it’s important for me to have a touchstone to come back to, coming back to myself and what’s happening before me and the people around me.

While contemplating this, today’s title question came to me: “What act of generosity can I carry out today?”  This helps me to reframe my day and my life to see how I can be of service in the world, and to employ the gifts I’ve been given to brighten said world.

I like the bookend nature of these questions so that, when last night I came home late from our school’s Open House, I got to reflect on what I had done for my students, rather than on the parent questioning me about why their 8th grader’s vocabulary scores weren’t higher on standardized tests.

Particularly, last night, I got to reflect on one piece of joy and light I brought to a family.

First off, my 6th graders are my saving grace.  While I enjoy and love (some of!) my 8th graders, depending on the moment, the 11-year olds are my delight.  Sure, teaching them during the last period of the day can challenge one’s patience, but that’s my own learning to ensure that there’s something active and capturing for that last 45 minutes of their schoolday.

One of my young students is one of those sports players I mentioned a while ago whom I’ve tagged as a strong writer, and his father stopped me in the hallway a few weeks ago to sincerely thank me for encouraging his son’s writing.  I replied that I was only acknowledging the talent that he clearly has.

And last night, that same dad and son came to Open House and, while the son interrupted with apologizing for grammar errors or “it’s not edited yet” interjections, I read them both the latest short story from the boy.  The father was staggered.  (If I’m not mistaken, his eyes were misty by the end of the reading.)  He was so clearly impressed and delighted at his son’s writing, plus it was my pleasure to read this story aloud and reflect to the son that his words (even without editing!) are of value.

This, my friends, is my act of generosity from yesterday.  I continue to feel that encouraging the talent of this student and others is my greatest act of generosity—and privilege.  While there are good writers in my classes and even poor writers, and I get to find the diamond in the rough of each of them, clearly the ones with writing talent are among my favorites.  I can’t help it, I’m an English teacher after all!

I am so honored and thrilled to have done something for this student (and the 3 other parents who stopped me last night to say that their child was absolutely loving my class, some even saying that their child didn’t even particularly care for English before).  This is my honor and privilege, and as much as I know there are still hills for me to climb professionally to feel more capable and confident and engaging in my teaching, I feel nearly dumbstruck with gratitude that I get to shine a spotlight into the talent-corners of these children’s lives.  Amen.

 

gratitude · loss · love · relationships

Conclusion.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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The Cousin, of teenage fame and love unquenched, is getting
married.
The Cousin (cousin of my brother’s best friend) and I had a
long-running on-again-across-oceans-again relationship begun when we were teenagers.
I found his photo recently when I was clearing out my “g-d box” of items taken care of by time and fate, and those still remaining in an
unresolved stasis. I didn’t put his photo back in the box, unresolved though I felt it to be — For the last month
or so, it’s sat by my jewelry box, the image of 16-year-old innocence and a complexity masked by his easy grin. I’ve spoken to it, asked it where he was,
if he was happy, what he was doing, if he thought of me, if we were through.
Last we’d truly spoken, I’d confessed that his moving to
California to join me was likely not a solution to the untethered life he was
looking to escape. California didn’t save me, I told him on the phone the night
of our last conversation. I had to do a lot of work for that to happen.
Our previous dreams of running away together, of his coming
to California with me when I initially moved, that painting of the white picket
fence that was more fantasy than reality, the painting of a life I wanted to
fall into with him, but knew was not supported by truth… All this was crushed
when I told him, No, you can’t move here to escape your life.
Years passed. There was one phone call, miraculously
coincidentally when I was home in New Jersey in 2011, clearing out my childhood
home before the house was sold. A fitting time to call, as I packed up a
childhood, and all its experiences. It was where we met, in fact — in my living
room, with my brother, his best friend, and his cousin, visiting from Ohio.
The brevity of that initial visit, a summer of love, to be
sure, meant that there wasn’t a foundation of reality to build upon, a life to support
our connection. And in that house, a few years ago, I packed up the life of the
person who’d fallen so passionately and deeply in love — as well and as messily
as a 19-year-old can do.
Our phone call wasn’t long. It was more a confirmation that we’d
allowed the strains of time and place corrode the thread that connected us.
But, I’ve never felt complete with that ending.
And so, his photo remained in the “to be resolved” pile in
my mental hopper, and for the last month, on my dressing table: his cheeky grin,
dark mess of hair, lips that rival a female porn star’s.
And that’s how I recognized him when I saw his photo put up
on Facebook yesterday by his aunt.
Time had changed him. His hair receded, cut short long ago
for a military life he chose when he couldn’t move here.
But his lips are the same. That pouting lower lip I
clung onto for hours. That framed his eager smile, formed his caressing
words, and confessed his inner demons.
And he looks happy. On a hilltop in Hawaii with another
woman. Someone who is available to make him happy, who can be there on his
journey when I can’t be, since I can’t be.
That’s our conclusion, then. It’s not the final phone
call I make to congratulate, to plant another seed or water a long-dead one. I
am not saint or enlightened enough to not want to love him still, but I am wise
enough to know we can’t – in the present, in reality.
So, I can put it here. I can write my gratitude for his
finding happiness, what I’ve really wanted for him, no matter my personal
desires. I can put here that I am glad to see him alive, well, experiencing
life. That this conclusion is fitting, acceptable, and perhaps a happy one.
But I can also put here this conclusion ends a chapter that has
spanned nearly half my life, has fed me great happiness, and has let me
experience a connection with another human that I thought eluded me – I can put
here that as I turn the page on “us,” I pack up that painting of the white
picket fence with a mournful finality.

ambition · faith · fortitude · gratitude · joy · life · participation

Third Star to the Right…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Call me a navel-gazer, but as the Jewish High Holidays approach, I get reflective.

At work, I’m neck deep in preparation for them, and acutely aware of their significance on the calendar than I ever was: Two years ago, at the end of September, I was diagnosed with Leukemia on the evening of Yom Kippur, our “day of atonement,” the day on which we are either “sealed into the book of life” for another year … or not. It’s a pretty significant day on the Jewish calendar, and I have come to hate it.

I hate what it “means,” about being sealed or not into the book of life. I hate how much changed in an instant, with one sentence told to me by a doctor. I hate remembering the sore throat that began the whole prelude to my ER visit, which kept me working from home, and feeling so badly about it since it was a brand new job.

But, what remembering this day also does for me is cause me to reflect on what has changed, and what has happened in the two years hence. I have endeavored to create “a life worth living” for myself against all the internal railing and nay-saying, against all my own self-sabotage, against all the foot-dragging and self-immolation I had previously submitted to.

In the last two years, I have dragged myself kicking and screaming into a life I consider worth living.

This isn’t to say that I’d done nothing beforehand, but here’s a list of experiences I’ve had & actions I’ve taken in the last two years, post-cancer:

  • Hosted my Creativity and Spirituality Workshop
  • Began blogging daily again
  • Went to Hawaii for the first time
  • Got a bedframe for the first time since childhood
  • Sang at a café with friends
  • Joined their band on bass
  • Played shows out, nearly once a month
  • Started ushering at Music shows for free & have seen,
    among others:
     – Paul McCartney (about to see him again next week)

– Red Hot Chili Peppers

– Doors guitarist Robby Krieger play “People Are Strange” with Warren Haynes…!

– About to see Dave Matthews

  • Bought a car
  • Celebrated July 4th near my old hometown with my mom and
    brother
  • Busked on the streets of Oakland and SF singing Christmas
    caroles
  • Got real headshots
  • Auditioned for plays and musicals
  • Got cast in 4 shows
  • Modeled for friends
  • Submitted photos to modeling agencies
  • Visited Seattle for the first time
  • Visited Boston to try out a new relationship experience
  • Dated with craziness
  • Dated with less craziness
  • Got laid well
  • Got laid poorly
  • Visited a best friend and her newborn baby for a week
  • Hiked Tilden & Marin
  • Took accredited acting classes
  • Took voice lessons
  • Flew a plane(!) — and landed it 😉

Any of these things could have happened beforehand (and some were indeed happening, with less gusto, determination & regularity), but most of the activities on this list are new to me.

I was talking with a friend a few months ago, another cancer survivor, and she said that she feels complete with the world – that if she died today, she’d be okay with that. I noticed how not okay I’d have been with that; virulently not okay. Granted, she’s about 10 years older than me, has a daughter, teaches in a way she loves, is married.

And I think those are key differences. Having created your own family, having a career you feel impassioned about. Those are items that are not yet on my above list, and I want them to be before I expire, thank you.

I do however, write this list to reflect to myself that there are things that I’ve done that are miraculous, fun, and inspiring for anyone to have done, let alone l’il ole me. I forget this, frequently.

It’s hard to admit this here, and it’s not precisely the entire truth, but if I were to expire sooner than later… Well, I won’t say, “If I died today, I’d be okay with that,” but that I am exponentially grateful for this role I’ve recently landed. To play in a musical, comedic role at a community theater is the cat’s pajamas. (If I have to go soon, I hope it’s after we open!)

When I returned from teaching English in South Korea almost 10 years ago, I said I was coming home to “break onto Broadway.” Then instead, I got sober!

And now, 8 years since then, I’m taking steps that are developmentally appropriate to that dream. It’s in the right direction, even if I never get there. It’s my impassioned avocation, even if it’s not a vocation.

I do not wish to expire soon. I have more experiences I want to add to that list, and more sanity and evenness I wish to accrue. But I feel more comfortable now than I had been even a few months ago in noticing that I am accumulating the experiences that, to me, express a full and well-lived life.

I wouldn’t have as many regrets if it were to happen soon. I have a few regrets of things I’ve done & ways I’ve re/acted in the last two years, sure. It’s not as if I’m a saint, and sometimes I still choose experiences I know are more damaging than useful.

But instead of waiting to be “inscribed in the book of life” by some entity or religion or benchmarks of success otherwise prescribed to me by my childhood, my faith, my inner critic…

Instead I am coming to believe that I am following my own North Star: I may never get there, but I’m headed in the “right direction.”

And for the first time ever, I deeply feel that.

 

abundance · community · faith · friends · friendship · gratitude · healing · joy · life · love · support

Card Reading

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I had very specific plans for when I came home last night:
watch Apollo 13, “take care” of myself,
and go to bed by 10.
Only one of these happened.
For most of the day, I was out & about in lots of conversation with
lots of people, expending lots of up, outgoing energy, and I wanted to counter it with
some quietude. Before coming home for the evening, I was in a coffee shop,
finishing up some extra work, and addressing cards for some friends.
I didn’t have the address for one, so I texted her for it,
and told her that I must have 10 of her envelopes at home with her address on
it; in fact, I had one of hers on my mantle.
She asked me which one, but I couldn’t recall exactly, and
told her I’d send her a photo of it when I got home.
This, was the first domino toward the hijacking of my
evening.
I did come home, take a photo and send it to her, a lovely
decorated envelope with stickers and curly-cues and kind words, like all of
hers. Next to it on my mantle (well, the top of a bookshelf, really) were a
card from the director and one from the assistant director of the play I was in
in April, with deliciously glowing, appreciative, complimentary, and supportive
words. Such kindness and such a reflection of my being “seen” by them, in one
of my aspiring avocations. The last one up there was a thank you card from my
best friend on Long Island’s wedding, thanking me for being there and what a
treat it was to have me there, literally in her bed, the night before the
wedding, and helping/watching her get ready the next day; that it wouldn’t have
been the same without me.
You can see why I keep these things.
But, it was also time to probably pack them away, do some
cleaning. And I wanted to send more photos of my friend’s envelopes to
her, since I knew she was in a space to need her own (literal) sparkle reflected back to her. 
And, down the rabbit hole we go, into the desk drawer where I keep
cards, envelopes so I can remember return addresses (yes, I know there’s a
better way), and art inspiration bits, like postcards from galleries or pages
torn from magazines.
I’ve known this drawer needs attending to. If, god forbid, I
were to croak, it would be hell for the person cleaning it out, and I know
they’d just trash the lot, since, who keeps someone else’s old greeting cards.
But, also, it’s unusably full at the moment. Because in it,
too, are all the cards I received when I was initially diagnosed with Leukemia
in late September 2012, and also a host of them came in around the
Hanukkah/Christmas season that year.
I’ve been avoiding having to carve through them. Because how
can you discard those messages?
When I was sick, I lined all the cards up on the walls of my
hospital room. I taped every single one up around me, to remind me of the
network of support and love that I had. Each card, a message of love, faith,
healing, fortitude, just for me. You couldn’t come into my hospital room
without immediately knowing that I was loved. And how f’ing important was that.
This was not the room of a dying woman. This was not the
room of a woman told she had a 40% chance of living through the next 5 years, even with treatment.
This was not the room, either, of a woman who looked like a patient, despite
the baldness, weightloss, and IV stuck into my arm and chest. I wore jeans and a
sweater, like everyone else. I was a human, not a patient. I was a woman loved,
not a pity case.
How rallyingly important was that to know, feel, and
remember every single day.
But, when the trips to the hospital were finally over, and
it was time to reacclimate to living in my apartment full-time, what to do with
those cards?
I’m a keeper of things. Sentiments, magazine pages,
interesting rocks I find on a mountain or beach. I wouldn’t say I’m a hoarder,
but I do have a bag of gently used tissue paper in my closet … but it’s folded
neatly and in color blocks, so it’s okay, right?!
I also have a bag in my closet of the covers to theater
booklets of plays I’ve been to; movie stubs; plane tickets; the brochure for a
place I went camping or an attraction I toured.
The trouble is, I’m not a scrap-booker, so I just kinda
carry this bag of non-chronologically ordered “crap” with me from home to home.
But, that’s okay. One day, like the cards, I’ll go through them.
But, last night was for the card drawer.
It was slow-going. I had to take a deep breath before taking
the rubber band from around the batch of 2012 holiday cards. I knew this was
going to take a while and probably bring things up.
But I began. And with each card, I was reminded of why I’d
kept them until now.
Here’s the one from my college classmate, now in LA, saying she’d
enclosed a gift card to Trader Joes.
Here’s one from a former colleague saying she loves getting
the bloggish updates I was posting then to my lotsahelpinghands website.
Here’s one handwritten from an Etsy company saying “a friend”
was thinking of me and wanted me to stay warm. This, I remember, accompanied a
package of 6 “chemo caps” ranging from thin to thick, the one I wore most, a
fuzzy leopard print that kept me feeling fun and warm. I still don’t know who
sent those, as there was no name. Thank you, whoever you are.
Last night, with each, if I knew the sender and their cell number, I
took a photo of the card, and sent it as a text with a note of thanks to them.
Each text, a reminder to us both of what friendship means, even for people who
aren’t close.
It was nearly 11 when I finally decided to stop. I’ve
barely made a dent into the drawer. But was able to cull a few things out,
deciding that with some, having a photo of them now is enough.
At the closing of this activity, I found myself in soft tears of
gratitude. So many people surrounded me
with love. With funny cards and sentiments, with crazy wacked-out envelopes, with heartfelt messages of hope and healing. And only a handful of these folks
were people I keep in regular touch with. So many people came out of the
woodwork to support me.
I was told once during the time I was sick, that I had no
idea how many people were rooting for me. I agreed. I knew I had no idea, and I
knew that was astounding and one of the greatest showings of human generosity
that I’ve witnessed.
I had priests, rabbis, Muslims, and Buddhists praying for
me. My mom’s hairdresser and my Aunt’s student. I had a class of
kindergarteners praying for me.
I remember, too, when I was sick, trying to figure out how I
could send thank you cards to everyone who’d contacted me, but I could only
handle a few.
In this retread through the cards, in sending them back out
to their sender with my note of thanks, I hope I am closing that loop of love,
and letting you all know:

Your prayers worked, and I love you back.