New Year, New Blog Plans

Dear Readers: As I finish this year with my 25th blog entry, I want to thank all of you for your faithful readership and insightful comments. I have enjoyed writing my life stories for you, as I knew I would. The unexpected surprise for me has been the comments that so many of you have written. You have shared deeply and thoughtfully, and I am delighted by the dialog that has begun between so many of you.

In the New Year, I hope you will share my blog address: www.myseatonthebeach.blogspot.com with friends and family. In the coming year, I plan to continue to write about mental health issues, divorce recovery, creativity, spirituality, and love!

Please continue to write and even suggest blog topics. Also, if anyone wants to serve as a guest blogger, let me know.

Desiderata--Happy Holidays and A Peaceful New Year!

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly, and listen to others,
even to the dull and ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be
greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career
however humble;
it is a real possession in the
changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you
to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit
to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore, be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham,
drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

                                      By Max Ehrmann

The Message in the Bottle

Two years ago, on my 53rd birthday, I took off my wedding band. It was a man’s wedding band: gold with a gold and copper strand (appearing pink) intertwined with a gold and bronze strand (appearing green) down the middle of the ring. Chaz had the same band, three sizes larger.

 I wanted the man’s band. It had more heft than the typical woman’s delicate ring. I was making a weighty commitment and the size of that band seemed symbolic of the stoutness of my devotion.

For the next thirteen years, I only took the ring off when I wanted to scratch an itch underneath it. Then the day arrived when it was no longer appropriate to wear. He was gone and he wasn’t coming back!

So what to do with the ring?

I’d like to say that originally I sought an honorable method of disposing of it. But no, I took the mad woman route at first. I tried to burn it in a cauldron with thirteen years worth of anniversary , birthday, and no-special-occasion cards! (Did I really think I could destroy gold with the heat of a match? Or was I trying to transmute it based on the intensity of my ire?)

Next I tried to pawn it…or at least find a jeweler who would be willing to transform it into another piece of jewelry. No such luck. The braided segments of gold mixed with other metals made the ring unlikely for any other use.

Clearly the time was not right to dispose of the symbol of my marriage because no viable option was coming to mind. So, I decided to sit with the ring, and the betrayal, pain, and loss it represented, until I could find a way to break through to a place where I could let it go with love.

I purchased a gold bird’s nest in which to place the ring, covered it up with gold confetti hearts for another year, and let it rest amidst a stack of books and articles espousing the virtues of a spiritual divorce.

When I turned 54, I revisited the ring question. A year had past, yet I had not received any guidance from my Higher Power about what to do with the ring. I purchased a heart-shaped alabaster  box, with a dove on the lid, and placed the band there for safe keeping. In the meantime, I set about collecting photos from my marriage, cutting them into teeny-weeny pieces, and burning them in the fireplace!

My divorce was finalized on February 14 of this year—Valentine’s Day. (How bizarre is that?) In the ensuing months, I have continued to do the very personal work of letting go: experiencing the grief, accepting the reality, feeling the loss, and trusting that my Higher Power is in control and everything is working out as it should.

The hardest part? Forgiving Chaz…and myself… for …everything. (Honestly, I think I will be recycling through that stage a number of times before I am completely through the process.)

Yet, when my 55th birthday rolled around this year, the perfect answer to the ring dilemma presented it self. I realized I needed to give the pain, the regret, the sadness to My Mother, the Ocean. Yes! Water, the symbol of purification. Stop trying to burn everything, YaYa. Give it to the ocean.

So last Saturday morning, I awakened early, and took the ring, a jar, and a pink index card to the lighthouse. I thanked the Goddess for all that I had learned in my marriage. I asked her to take from me the sting of divorce. And I rejoiced in the new life and new love that is opening up before me like a flower in bloom.

I wrote an invocation on the card, scrolled it into the jar along with the ring, tightened the lid, and flung it into the ocean.

Now, a week later, I wish I could add an addendum to the message in the bottle. It would read: “It is not physical transformation nor transmutation that is necessary for healing. What we need to heal is an experience of spiritual transcendence.”

Advent Star

My birthday is tomorrow. I was born on the second Sunday of Advent, the day on which the afternoon Christmas Pageant service was traditionally scheduled. My mother, Marion, and her best friend, Jane, were on their way to the 4:30 p.m. service when I made my intentions known. Apparently, I was in a hurry to get the holidays underway.

As the story goes, the two young women briefly debated whether to go to church and sing some of their favorite carols before going to the hospital. They wisely by-passed St. Peter’s Episcopal Church and continued on to the other side of town to All Souls Hospital. It wasn’t long before I commenced my joyful noise. My mother still tells with amazement that she was only in labor with me for a half-an- hour.

Just this morning she reminisced, “You were in a real hurry to get here, and when you arrived, you were so at peace…a sweet lovely baby. You only cried  a little bit, and then you seemed captivated by everything going on around you.”

Her friend Jane later became my Godmother, and it was she who, when I turned 30, recounted the day of my birth as if it were a fairytale. It was my turn to be amazed. How often had I been an angel in the Christmas pageant? How many times over my lifetime had I sung myself into tears with my rendition of “Away in the Manger” and “Silent Night.”

But not until the night Jane gifted me with her version of my birth did I understand I was born on what had become one of my most favorite days of the Christian Advent calendar.

Jane said she and my mother sang verses of “O Come All Ye Faithful” between contractions. ("O Come All Ye Faithful!") It tickles me to think that the carol I so love actually invited me out of the womb, and I responded with a big swooshing “Yes!”