Abundance

Abundance.

This is my word for 2014.

A word that I have so rarely used in my life; the concept of abundance has seemed almost foreign to me. I have spent much of these first 40 years of my life attaining, building, earning and in many ways enjoying the fruits of my labor, but the idea of living in abundance has never really occurred to me. Perhaps I was confusing this term for the extremes of excess or gluttony or avarice. Abundance is none of these things.

My childhood was not filled with abundance. Greed, envy and judgment? Yes. But definitely not abundance. This lack of security resulted in fear of scarcity and a relentless pull to make ends meet, provide for the family and “build a life for myself.” According to the Catholic priest Richard Rohr this is the task of the first half of life, to build one’s container for living and I would say that I have managed to complete this task relatively well.

Only recently have I begun to sense a feeling of fullness, a calm roundness, deep, joyful pleasure in my soul. I wasn’t sure what I was sensing and then I had a dream. It was what I like to call, “a healing dream,” the kind that when you wake up you feel at ease and reassured.

The dream took place in mid-air. I could not see myself but I was somehow suspended and floating in an ethereal space. I stared at a large floating cauldron. It was luminescent and large. It gave off a type of hologram depth and it seemed that I would never be able to reach it.  I watched and into the container poured tears from what I understood to be all of human kind. The significance of this was profound to me and I wondered, while dreaming, what it all meant. The constant flow of tears seemed oddly soothing and I knew there was comfort in that vessel.

When I awoke I thought of how many tears were being poured into that hovering bucket, yet the bucket was never full. There was such an abundance of tears but it all was calm and good. Then the word abundance struck me. As I mulled over the word I started to think that abundance is not just a thing to have but also something to feel. Abundance is not as much about having a lot, as it is about deeply living into your soul. And perhaps this is the reason I had been feeling so full recently, my soul work was paying off. God was doing God’s work on me.

As I enter 2014, I would like to continue nurturing this feeling of abundance. Not through accumulation of material goods but rather through continuing to feed my soul with gratitude, meaningful relationships and sharing my many blessings with this wounded human race.

Twilight Time

Twilight Time

“Heavenly shades of light are falling…”

I loved singing this song when I was little when the impending night brought a creeping sadness, the endless miles of desert road stretching out in front of that Olds ’98. My mother would wonder why I would cry while I sang. “Are you car sick?” I would shake my head and try unsuccessfully to explain why the end of the day brought tears.

My interior landscape was held hostage by anxiety. Unsure of what I was feeling, I decided that I must have been the victim of a car accident in a previous life. Perhaps this horrific end to my prior earthly existence took place around sundown and I happened to be the unfortunate passenger in the back of a large, American sedan. I held so strongly to this belief that I finally had to make my mind up that if I were indeed snatched from my former life through a vehicular collision then I certainly would not meet the same end in this life.  

Recently, as we drove west into the sunset, I glanced back at my children buckled safely in their seats. In my head I started to hum that childhood tune and again sadness flooded in. I thought of those days on the road with my parents and brother when I would worry what the next day would bring or if the next day would come at all.

Then, I remembered a time when I was about 7 years old and I woke in the back of our car at dawn to find my father standing outside and observing the sunrise. My mother and brother lapped on top of one another in the front seat. I got out of the car at the scenic overlook that was our motel for the night and approached my dad. We watched as the sun rose above the mountains. I noticed that my father had a tear in his eye. As a child this only added to my confusion but as an adult it feels poignant.

A moment of profound connection.

A completion of a loop.

My tears shed at the end of the day and my father’s at the beginning.

Perhaps this is how God works, entering our awareness at vulnerable times and creating deep meaning through darkness and light.

I still wonder about my previous life but if the end of that one opened the door to this one, I am endlessly thankful.

To Fill Up a Suburban

To Fill Up a Suburban

When I was in high school I would watch the large Catholic families leave the school in the afternoon. The chaotic masses were loud and energetic, as they filed out of the doors into the awaiting Chevy Suburbans driven by mothers who looked haggard yet glowing with confident love for their children. I was smitten. My mind was made up. I would one day have a least four children and fill up a Suburban.

I kept this dream alive through college and when Rob and I were getting married I shared my long-held plan with him. “We’ll see,” was his simple response. When I was pregnant with our first child, I proclaimed that this was just the beginning because there would be three more little Lowe’s to come! To this proclamation, doubters would respond with, “Why don’t you start with one and see.” Little did these naysayers know that my life’s vision was solidly rooted. To me, more children meant more love.

After two kids, Rob and I knew we weren’t done. Someone was missing from our family. By this time Rob was fully on board with my breeding plan, so two more were added easily.

Over the years various comments have been made such as, “You already have two beautiful children. Why would you mess with perfection?” and “How are you going to fit everyone in your house?” To this my answers were, “There is no such thing as perfect.” and “Why do you need so much space? To not be near the ones you love?”

And love our kids I do. Each one is a wonderful individual who brings new meaning to my life everyday. Some days are hard but I could never imagine life without my litter of kids and for that I am grateful.

Oh, and I never got that Suburban but I certainly hope that in my minivan people can see my confident love through my haggard exterior.

Wascally Wabbits

Wascally Wabbits

There was a point in time when I absolutely abhorred being a Speech and Language Pathologist. I remember wondering why I chose such an undervalued and underpaid career. To add to my workplace malaise I was hit with, “Special Education burnout” from having cared for those with special needs during my 6 years in college only to enter a profession tasked with assessing and treating communication disorders of those with disabilities.  I would drag myself to work and will myself to find some sort of light in the darkness of one impairment, after another.

To make matters worse Rob and I would attend parties that included other 20 somethings only to be met with patronizing smiles and comments about my “nice” profession. “I used to sttttuter!” or “Are you talking wascally wabbits?” I suppose these “jokes” were intended to be light hearted and they didn’t sting as badly as the, “You’re a Speech Therapist? Oh, how nice. That must be so rewarding.” I usually wanted to hide as these Assistant Project Managers, Level 2 Engineers and H.R. Department secretaries participated in what I viewed as self-important, entry level corporate pissing matches. My inquires about people’s work usually netted something that sounded like this, “Well, I am a project coordinator 2 for sector 4.” Huh? Whatever that was seemed much more happiness inducing and exciting than being a lowly SLP.

I finally got so fed up I thought it would be best to look at other ventures. So, Rob and I opened a cupcake shop! Sounded fun and exciting like that sector 4 person but better! The thing is cupcake shops aren’t fun. Yes the TV and radio personalities who would show up to talk with me and put me on the air made it sound awesome, like all good advertising does.  At parties people wanted to hear all about the cupcakes. I felt respected and interesting like that H.R. person.

The truth is the food business is incredibly difficult and soul sucking. There are generally 50 negative comments to 1 positive. Nothing ever seemed right and everyone knew how to bake better, run a business better or frost the better. Speech Therapy started looking really good.

I had to reassess everything and that I did.

Now as I take kids from their classrooms and they look at me and talk about their lives and laugh I wonder how I could have ever felt that my profession was anything but the best thing ever. I am often times the only adult who pays any real one-on-one attention to these students and I can feel in my soul that my presence makes a difference to those children and their presence makes a difference to me too.

What makes my job even better is that I am blessed to be able to share my knowledge with the next generation of therapists. I love training and mentoring these wonderful people and I always remind them that they have one of the most important jobs ever….Sector 4 be damned!

You Look Really Familiar

You Look Really Familiar

My 3 week old was solidly latched and nursing contentedly as the group of mothers went around the circle and introduced themselves. This was my third child and I wondered why I found the need to show up at that La Leche League meeting. I didn’t need support. My babe was nursing well and I really felt confident in my newborn skills. I introduced myself, “Hi, I am Danielle and this is Elizabeth and she is 3 weeks old. She is my third child and I also have a 5 year old daughter and a 2 year old son.” I went on to explain that I was also a Speech Pathologist. A voice from across the room called, “Hey! I am a Speech Pathologist too!” I peered at this blonde, sitting in her chair cradling her new born, her smiling face glowing with confidence. “Of course she is,” I thought, “she looks really familiar.”

At the break I spoke with this woman named Kristin and I insisted that I knew her from somewhere. She assured me that everyone said that when they met her because she must have a, “generic” face. I thought that was funny. I imagined that she perceived herself as the human equivalent of an off-brand canned vegetable.

That was the last time I remembered seeing her until I ran into her again. And again. And again. Still, we remained solely grocery store acquaintances.

Finally it was time for me to have our fourth baby. I had just run into Kristin and I asked her to meet for a play date with the kids. That’s when I proceeded to try to convince her that she needed to cover my maternity leave. “No,” she said. I used a different tactic. “No,” she said. I tried again, this time pleading. “No,” she said. It was no use.

This woman didn’t want to work!

In retrospect, Kristin and I laugh at the irony of her unwillingness to engage in gainful employment, because for the last 5 years all she and I have done is work. And work. And work some more. She and I have built a nice, small company for ourselves and have weathered together all of the storms that come with being business owners.

Some days are rough and others are absolutely awesome but I truly couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone else. Kristin has brought things to my life that I could never have dreamed. She fills in my blind spots, highlights the less emotional side of a situation, encourages me to be brave and creates one hell of a spreadsheet.

I guess Kristin is the reason I was at that La Leche League meeting. I am so grateful for her and often tell her that us meeting was a, “God thing.” To this she just rolls her eyes. And when we are together and people say to her, “You look  really familiar.” I always think, “She might look familiar but she is anything but generic.”