Tag: letting go

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The Best of the Worst

Written Nov. 30, 2019

From one moment to the next, chaos reigned upon the stage. Maybe it was the panicked baby angels and intimidated shepherds. Or Joseph rallying the Wise Men to put a beatdown on Herod. Or Mary wanting to know why she couldn’t name her own baby, anyway.

Missy giggled. I guffawed. And the audience at the Longmont Performing Arts Center rang the rafters with laughter and applause.

The Herdmans had never been better.

If you haven’t yet met the rampaging Herdman children, I have some wonderful remedial reading for you. They first came to life in the children’s book “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” and have since stormed their way across stages and television screens around the country (including the current Longmont Theatre Company production). Whatever the adaptation, the core of the story remains the same – the worst kids in town invade the local church Nativity pageant and turn it upside down.

It’s been a favorite of mine since grade school, and not just because of the crazy antics. This is a story that gets the heart of the holiday absolutely right.

Maybe I’d better explain.

Few things are as powerful at Christmas as tradition. There are songs we always sing, decorations we always put up, fights that spring eternal from year to year. (“I told you, the stockings get emptied after the presents are opened, you weirdo!”) That can be a lot of fun – but it also risks changing a wonderful holiday into something routine.

Christmas was never meant to be a china Nativity set, standing peacefully in the corner, unchanging and undemanding.

It’s meant to be transformative.

Disruptive.

Even a little terrifying.

It’s a story of being cold and tired and needing the help of strangers.

It’s a story of having a calm night shattered by visions you don’t understand, and beings that have to remind you “Don’t be afraid.”

It’s a story of having friends you never expected and enemies who fear you without ever having met you.

Most of all, i’s a warning that routine doesn’t last. That the world – that our world – can be transformed in the most ordinary of places, at the least expected of times.

That’s hopeful for all of us.

On the surface, we get it. We see snow transform a familiar landscape into something new – and maybe a little unnerving if you have to drive it. We put out lights that turn cold darkness into beauty for anyone passing by.

But it goes deeper down. Or it should.

It’s not a season that demands perfection, like a pageant where the manger has to be exactly so. But it does demand perception. It calls on us to see that there’s more to the world than our expectations. It asks us to truly see the least of these, even when it’s uncomfortable, and to go where we’re needed, even when it’s inconvenient. It challenges us to see how the worst may be the root of the best.

Even if it’s kids like the Herdmans.

Maybe even especially then.

And if we miss that opportunity in favor of what we’ve always done, then we’ve treasured the wrapping paper and thrown away the present.

Be uncomfortable. Let go. Step out of the usual dance. It may mean that life is never the same. But that can be the most wonderful and hopeful possibility of all.

And if it comes with the chance to laugh your head off at a warm and hilarious story – well, call it an early present.

And then watch that present carefully. The Herdmans may still be around.

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Carrying On

The Missy Purse is dead. Long live the Missy Purse.

In all honesty, this was not a surprise. Our developmentally disabled ward Missy tends to pack her ever-present purses to the breaking point – and then about three trailer-loads beyond it. A black hole attracts less mass than a Missy Purse. Soldiers have traveled with smaller loadouts on campaign. In fact, since Missy stands under five feet tall, and weighs less than 100 pounds, you could make an argument as to whether the purse carries her.

Mind you, Heather and I stay vigilant. We’ll periodically smuggle the purse out of sight – which is a little like hiding an elephant under a windbreaker – and cast off some of the detritus. But no matter how many times we revisit it, its contents always seem to regenerate, including:

  • Seven weeks worth of bowling scores, folded until they resemble origami.
  • Three Hot Wheels cars, still in their well-handled packaging.
  • Intermingled flash cards from three different decks.
  • $13.72 in loose change.
  • Two Harry Potter winter hats – even in July.
  • A thick stack of bingo cards, secured in a Ziploc bag.
  • The Ark of the Covenant.
  • The missing “dark matter.”
  • A partridge in a pear tree.

Like the TARDIS of Doctor Who fame, Missy’s accessory of choice always seems to be larger on the inside. But even the mightiest purse has limits. Zippers cease to fasten. Stitches start to give. And, inevitably, the shoulder strap will wear through.

Just as inevitably, Missy will refuse to give up on it right away. Sometimes dragged, sometimes hauled, sometimes presented to one of her Official Porters (us) with a curt “Here,” the Missy Purse will be paraded in honor for another day or two, before it is finally allowed a decent burial and replacement.

It’s hard to let go. Even when it’s become too much. Even when it’s become an obvious, uncomfortable burden.

Sound familiar?

Most of us have carried something similar, even if it isn’t a bright red piece of faux leather. Sometimes it’s an old resentment. A toxic relationship. A painful memory that shapes expectations. Or yes, a prized possession that’s become “What’s it in the shop for this week?”

Sometimes we’re not aware of the damage it’s causing. Sometimes we have to be told or made aware. But most of the time, we know darned well that it’s become a burden – but it’s easier to hold on than to let go.

Letting go means unfamiliar territory.

Letting go means figuring out what to do next.

Letting go means admitting we’ve held on too long, to something that no longer rewarded the attention, if indeed it ever did.

There are a million reasons for not making the hard choice. We know the burden well. We’ve learned to live with it. It’s not that bad, really – right?

And all the while, the seams are splitting. And the shoulder is getting sore.

Ultimately, the choice is ours. Friends can help (and welcome help it is). Advice can offer suggestions, empathy can provide comfort and relief. But the hand that loosens the grip has to be our own.

Only then can we make way for something new.

There’s a new Missy Purse now. Black, this time – a rare choice for her – and rather snazzy. Yes, it’s already accumulating stuff of its own. But it’s more manageable, more comfortable, more useful. And when its time comes in turn, maybe it’ll be a little easier to make the separation.

Maybe.

After all, it’s all a matter of purse-ception.

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Making the Takeoff

My mind had become a steel trap, my body a living extension of my car.

Gone was my usual, doubtful sense of direction.

At that moment, no version of Google Maps could have plotted a more efficient route, and no GPS unit could have outguided the conversation in my head.

“This light is always fast, but turn anyway; there’s a truck ahead … ok, this can be a 10-minute run if there’s no cross-traffic on Mountain View … 17th is slow this time of day , be aware of conditions….”

Medical emergency to attend to? Package to meet? Natural disaster to outrun? No, no, and no. This was far more vital.

In roughly 15 minutes, Missy’s van would be arriving to take her to art class.

So in roughly 15 minutes, I had to be there, or she would refuse to go.

As regular readers know, life with our disabled ward Missy is both wonderful and curious. In the seven years that Heather and I have been caring for her, we’ve gotten used to a lot of things. The overstuffed purse that comes with her everywhere she goes. Her ability to love and rejoice in simple things, whether it’s acrylic paint or pie at dinner. The way she latches onto the details in a bedtime story, or seems to remember every person she’s ever met.

But some of them take a little more adjustment. Of those, the most notable may be her reluctance to take off from the house on an activity unless I’m there to see her go.

There are occasional exceptions. If Heather can talk her into waiting together in the front yard, or if the driver seems cute (yes, really), or if the van comes exactly when she’s on the threshold of the door, there’s a chance. But even then, it’s a roll of the dice without the best of odds.

It’s not a dislike of the activity. Once she’s at art, or the bowling alley, or her trip of the day, she has a blast. But for whatever reason, Missy needs to have the full team at home before she’s ready to leave it. Maybe she wants to make sure I’m OK. Maybe I have the deep, authoritative voice that she’ll listen to. (Relatively speaking; my timbre is more-or-less normal, but compared to Heather’s vocal pitch, I’m Johnny Cash.)

But the need is there. And once in a while, when the need just can’t be met, she’s missed some fun things because of it.

I can sympathize with that a lot. I think most of us can.

After all, there are always times where it’s just not easy to let go.

Sometimes we’re holding on to memories that won’t let us move forward. Sometimes we’re holding on to fears that keep us back. Sometimes, for the best of reasons, we’ve convinced ourselves of a need that isn’t. It might be a harmless “magic feather” like Dumbo’s that’s just needed to build confidence, or something much more toxic or dangerous that would be better left behind, if we could just figure out how.

But in all those cases – good, bad, or ultimately harmless – holding on can mean missing out. We lose opportunities because we’re just not ready.

There’s not a magic light switch to change that. All of us become ready for things in our own time, in our own way. But we have to know the choice is there and in our power, or we’ll never reach for the next thing at all.

I’m pretty sure that Missy knows. And I don’t mind being part of her launch party as often as I can. What caregiver, or parent, or guardian, doesn’t want to be loved and needed?

But when the day comes that Mission Control can repeatedly report a successful takeoff of the USS Missy, without hesitation or reluctance, that too will be welcomed.

And then, at last, the GPS can go off duty.

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Up And At ‘Em

For Missy, all the world’s a trampoline.

It starts with a smile, a sudden drop, and a shout to the skies. With no effort, Missy’s thin, tiny body falls backward onto an armchair, onto a sofa, onto the bed. BOOMF! She strikes the cushion and springs back up again, standing right where she was and ready to do it all over again.

“Wooooo!”

Her face brilliant in its glee, she’ll repeat the bounce twice, three times, still more. It’s contagious, really. By the second or third bounce, I’m usually laughing and cheering along with her – well, as long as the armchair hasn’t been slammed TOO hard against the wall.

“Yeah!!”

It’s not hard to understand the source of the excitement, or some of it anyway. Missy, my wife’s aunt who is my age by the calendar and much younger in mind and heart, has disabilities that keep her moving through life at a careful walk, often balanced on a wall, a chair, or someone’s arm. But when she free-falls, none of that matters. All at once, she can really move. Heck, she can practically fly.

“Look, lookit!”

When she’s really excited, it doesn’t even matter if the chair’s occupied. Not if the person inside is someone she trusts to catch her in time, so she can bounce once more.

“Careful!”

“Yeah!”

When she’s tired enough, the drop guides her to a safe landing and a bit of a rest. The moment was there. The movement was there. For now, that’s enough.

I think a lot of us could understand her just fine.

It’s easy to feel restricted in life. Maybe it’s through high demands at work, or family worries, or money pressures. Maybe all is outwardly fine, but you’re left wondering if you make any mark or leave any impression.

Those are the times we most need to let go into something that wakes us up again. Even if it’s a small thing. Because if it lets you rediscover the joy of the moment, it’s not that small.

A former pastor of mine, who now lives in Maine, once told me that the best advice he had ever gotten as a minister was to take up an activity that he could complete. When you’re in a job that never really ends, the mentor told him, “It’s good to be able to finish something.”

He took up carpentry. Not necessarily the greatest carpentry, he would laugh. But the quality didn’t matter. This was his motion, his letting go, his chance to connect again with the joy of creation.

Sometimes I wonder if something similar doesn’t infuse the various populist movements, for better or worse. At the federal level, we’ve often seen stubbornness that has fused into outright paralysis, where it doesn’t matter if you get anything done, so long as you can prevent the other guy from doing anything. It can be frustrating to watch, even maddening.

In a situation like that, is it any wonder that so many pursue candidates who promise forward motion, a change, a transformation? The call can draw people to the best or the worst, with no regard for the chances of victory – only the knowledge that they’re moving again, part of something bigger than themselves.

Obviously, as we’ve seen with some would-be leaders, that need can be misused. Someone who drops without watching what they’re dropping into might hit something unyielding … or fall to the floor … or smash through a sliding glass door. You have to keep your eyes open. The idea is to fall freely, not blindly.

But just because we can do it badly doesn’t mean the need isn’t there.

Let go. Aim well. Fall into something better and come back smiling.

I’ll be over here, keeping an eye on the armchair.

“Yeah!!!”

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Snownose

In the shady recesses of the Rochat back yard, the last holdouts of snow still linger.

For a little while each day, so does Duchess the Wonder Dog.

For those who haven’t met her yet, Duchess is our eldest dog, an 11-year-old mix of border collie and black lab who’s both too smart for her own good and too shy to be believed. A rescue dog, she latched onto my wife Heather like a furry guardian angel and still gets anxious on the rare occasions that the two of them are apart.

She’s getting a little slower these days, as older dogs do. She rests a little more, takes a little longer to hear her name, trots downstairs a little more slowly when it’s time for a run or a meal. She’s hardly on her last legs yet, but those legs have less hurry and more care than they used to.

Until the winter comes. And then something magical happens.

A sparkling fountain of youth arrives.

When the nights are cold and the ground is white, Duchess is in her glory. She crouches. Buries her nose in the snow. Takes off at top speed for the next drift. Buries her nose again. Then repeats and repeats and repeats, running an Indy 500 course through the yard, looking more like a puppy than a Grand Old Lady with every snowflake.

Like Clark Kent becoming Superman, Duchess has become Snownose the Unstoppable. No fear. Just pure unadulterated joy.

It’s worth watching. Even if it does mean opening the door … and opening the door … and opening the door again in hard-freezing temperatures just to see if she’s finished up her business yet. Not only is it fun to see the young dog I remember, but I even get a little jealous of how thoroughly she can lose herself in her wonder and exuberance.

That is, until I recognize in her joy an echo of my own.

No, I don’t spend Friday nights sticking my nose in random snowdrifts. (Well, not unless the walk is really icy.) But I have noticed that when I start to write, the rest of the world falls away for a while. Even headaches of near-migraine level will get pushed to the back as the cranial supervisor declares “Sorry, no time for that now. We’ve got a fresh shipment of words coming in and we need the space.”

Maybe it’s an extreme focus on the moment. Or the power of routine for someone who’s been putting fingers to keyboards for far too long. But at its core, I think it’s a passion, a liberation, even an embrace.

It’s knowing what you were meant to do. And then doing it.

And it’s a joy I think too many of us never discover.

That’s not a condemnation. Especially these days, many of us just try to make it from moment to moment, doing what we need to do just to keep life going. For someone burdened by the “now,” asking to reach for something more may seem frivolous, even cruel.

It’s not an easy escape. But when it happens, it can give the moments meaning.

And once reached, it’s hard to resist going back.

I know an author, Christopher Paul Curtis, who wrote his first novel on an assembly line. Literally. He’d double up on hanging car doors to give a friend a break, then take a few minutes to write here and there when his buddy did the same for him.

He reached for his joy. Even in the middle of a car factory.

And it changed his world.

Maybe it’s a battle to find even five minutes. Maybe those five minutes won’t produce the next hit song, or the recipe of the year, or the business that lets you lean back and retire.

But if the effort takes you out of yourself – no, takes you more thoroughly into yourself – that’s the real prize. And the more it happens, the more you want it to happen. Even if it means fighting for that five minutes again.

When you get there, it won’t matter.

All that will matter is the chill of the night. And the waiting dance of the snow.

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Hands off the Wheel

The nightmare went right for the gut.

There I was, sitting at the wheel of a car in a crowded parking lot. A car in motion, describing constant circles, not answering any of my attempts to steer.

Foot brakes? Forget it. Parking brake? Somewhere on here, but where? Each new lever or button seemed to make things more disastrous, popping the hood, opening the trunk, making it harder and harder to see the oncoming doom.

The crash was coming. And I couldn’t stop it.

Finally the dream had mercy. Moments before waking, my fingers found the “angel of mercy” brake and yanked up, bringing the car to a slow – of course it was slow – stop.

My eyes blinked open. Relief.

I was never touching that cold medicine again.

We all have our fundamental fears in life. I’ve seen people paralyzed by the presence of a friendly dog, or whose breath grew short in a closed-in space. I even interviewed a phlebotomist once, a professional blood tester, who used to have a deathly phobia of needles.

Me? Well, there are things that make me uncomfortable, like sharp objects or falling sensations. But the deepest, darkest, most basic fear I have – one I share with my wife – is losing control.

After all, I’ve seen some of the consequences.

I’m epileptic. It’s well-managed, to the point that I can live a normal life 99.99 percent of the time. I hold a job, raise a family, even drive a car.

But on those rare nights – only three of them so far, all while asleep, all when off medication for some reason – it’s like Dr. Frankenstein reached over and plugged in the lightning rod.

The mercy of a seizure, at least in my experience, is that you’re not aware of it while it’s going on. You don’t see the jerks and pulls, or hear the noises coming out of your mouth, or know about the bizarre behavior that goes on in the immediate aftermath. (Heather once called an ambulance because my seizure had gone on so long; as they started to put me on the stretcher, I picked myself up, walked to the bathroom, did my business, and came back, completely unconsciously.)

The aftermath: that you know about. If Peyton Manning ran four quarters of the Broncos offense over your body …  if you suntanned on a lane of I-25 at rush hour … if you’ve tried bungee jumping and forgotten that silly little detail about fastening the hook … then you’ve got an idea of what it feels like for three days after a seizure.

It is the loss of control personified. After all, how much more basic does it get than not being able to control your own body?

I hate it. And yes, fear it. Letting go is hard. Admitting I need help – with anything – is even harder.

But lately, I’ve had some reminders.

And most of them are named Missy.

If you read the column last week – or, let’s be honest, many of the ones before – you know our ward Missy, Heather’s developmentally disabled aunt. In many ways, she has control over very little of her life. She reaches for an arm to help her walk. She needs help in a hundred different ways every day, from tying her shoes to managing her home. And yes, there’s many times where it’s frustrating for her, where I can see her wanting to communicate something very simple and not quite knowing how.

But so many times, I see the joy instead.

When we gave Missy her big birthday bash last week, we remembered food and guests and all the usual items – but we also remembered a DJ. Because at her heart, Missy is a dancer, at home with loud music and open floors.

And for  three hours, with only short breaks, Missy danced. And danced. And danced some more.

They weren’t the moves of Baryshnikov or Astaire. They didn’t have to be. Just the bends and the sways and the slow spins of a person in gleeful ecstasy.

Missy had just enough control to reach joy. She didn’t need more. Maybe she even reached a deeper joy by letting go a little.

That’s something I need to remember.

Maybe I don’t always have to drive the car. Maybe, sometimes, it’s OK to just watch the road and enjoy the ride.

Once this cold medicine wears off, anyway.

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Speaking Ill

I’ve used this space many times to take a breath and reflect.

This time, it’s just good to be able to breathe.

That’s right. For the whole week surrounding the Fourth, Casa Rochat was officially the House O’ Plague. At times, it felt like a twisted version of Old MacDonald, as we went about with a hack-hack here and a bleah-bleah there … well, you get the idea.

We never did work out if it was the world’s worst cold or a mild to moderate flu. I’ve decided that the main difference, so long as you never wind up in the hospital, is sympathy. You can get this:

 

Hypothetical co-worker: “So what do you have?”

Self: “I’ve got a really bad cold.”

HCW: “Ah, you wimp, tough it out!”

 

Or you can get this:

 

HCW: “So what do you have?”

Self: “We think it’s a really persistent influenza.”

HCW: “Ack! Flu! Get away from me!”

 

Meanwhile, when you’re dealing with a burning throat, heat flashes, muscle aches, coughs, sneezes and enough dripping mucus to provide sound effects for a dozen Scooby Doo episodes, the last thing you care about is taxonomy.

Still, a week’s worth of enforced rest does make you appreciate the fundamentals.

You learn to appreciate your wife. Especially when she’s violated Spousal Rule No. 17 and gotten sick at the same time as you, to the same degree.

You learn to appreciate sleep, in much the same way that a broke investor appreciates gold. You may not be able to get any, but boy, do you understand its value.

You learn how to use quiet time again. Long books. Mindless stretches on the Net. Periodic bouts with cough drops and throat spray. Anything that distracts you from feeling like an extra in Monty Python’s “Bring out your dead!” scene.

Most of all, perhaps, you appreciate the need to let go and just let things happen.

These days, we’re all about control. Take charge of your life, grab hold of your world, make the existence you want to have. And that’s not a bad thing. Heck, as an epileptic, I can really get into that – being out of control for me isn’t just scary, it’s downright painful.

But we fool ourselves. We make ourselves think we can control everything. And sometimes we do a good job at crafting the illusion.

Right until the next wildfire.

Or the next family illness.

Or the next anything, good or bad, that upsets our plans, blinks our eyes and forces us to say “Where the heck did THAT come from?”

Like supercolds or nagging flu, they don’t last forever. But they can’t be ignored, either. All you can do is make the best of it and ride it out, doing what you can with what you’re given.

Even if all you’re given is some books, some Kleenex and a bottle of Chloraseptic.

Still, everything has its upside. As a wise man once didn’t say: “What doesn’t kill me makes me too bleary to focus on TV political ads.”

You might say my attention flu.