Resilience

Standing Tall to Finish Strong

According to Dr. Steve Maraboli, “Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving; we get stronger and more resilient.”  I don’t know Dr. Maraboli, an internet radio commentator, motivational speaker and author,  and I don’t know his work. But I do know exactly what his quote means because of the many cognitive, social-emotional, and physical trials my eldest son, Ben, has endured and bounced back from. Every area of Ben’s development has been critically affected by life altering trials, including the discovery of dyslexia; a diagnoses of Lyme Disease; sports injuries that have resulted in multiple surgeries that have side-lined him from all the sports that he loves and that keep him sane; and incredibly bad decisions by youth sports coaches, just to name a select few! Ben has learned first-hand that life does not get easier or more forgiving; but in fact, it gets harder and is very often unforgiving. There are literally waves of challenge that seem to keep coming – slamming into him again and again. Waves of trouble with an impact like those of the incoming tide; pounding the shore after a storm, with waves that sweep the sand back into the ocean, forever changing  the contours of a well-known and much-loved beach!  Still, Ben bounces back! Battered and bruised he stands again and again finding sure footing to brace himself for the next wave.  And the questions silently asked when this next wave hits…. Will this be the final wave? Will this be the challenge that trumps all challenges? Will this wave have the power to keep him down? I don’t think so. Despite all the adversity that Ben has endured during his young life, he has developed incredible resilience. He has discovered that he has the capacity to withstand stress and catastrophe. Resilience has become his shield against continual onslaughts as well as his sword to fight, come back, and thrive!

Morning Musings

I ride a public bus to work most days. It’s a park and ride type of situation. I drive 20 minutes from my rural home and park at one of the areas large shopping malls where I pick up the No. 12 and ride into the city.

The No. 12 has lots of interesting riders,  a true cross section of middle and lower class America. It’s a ride that keeps me humble and is a good source of life-informing anecdotes that are best saved for another day.

The trip from the mall to my office takes about 30 minutes leaving me with plenty time to think about stuff. Lately I’ve been thinking about some of the oddities of my life. One of those oddities is that my husband and I have almost completely changed roles. My husband takes care of home and hearth while working full-time at a job that he can easily be called away from in a moment’s notice. His office is close to our sons’ schools and the kitchen is his, as well as everthing in it. I have no clue where anything is! I am the chief breadwinner, house repairer and the primary interfacer with all of the things that happen outside of and away from hearth and home. This reversal of roles is due in part to who we are as people. My husband is a very nurturing fellow, probably due to the fact that he grew up in a household of strong, independent and nurturing women – his mother and two doting grandmothers -who were great cooks! And because his father was not really present in his life,  having left his mother after 25 years of marriage, when he was the very tender age of 8. And I grew up in a family of 4 boys, including a powerful father figure who told me I could do and be anything I wanted to be …so long as it wasn’t an engineer.😊

My mother was absolutely present and loving, but she had aspirations for me that did not include the domestic arts. I was to go to college, be successful and not be bogged down by the responsiblities of caring for family. One of the fondest and most revealing memories I have about my Mom is a disclosure she made when we were sitting side by side in Swan Boat in Boston’s Public Garden. She told me that at the urging of a science teacher in high school,  she had applied and had been accepted at MIT. MIT! But she didn’t go because there was no money for college and it wasn’t what women did. I was 35 years old when she shared that with me. It told me alot about my Mom and informed me about who I had become.

So, because of who we are as individuals, the relationship my husband and I have is sort of a social anomoly. Our relationship creates stress for us and for others and is a type of stress that is well documented in research. In fact,  these kinds of switches typically end marriages. We are not like any other couple we know. People often find it disconcerting that the wonderful meal that was prepared in our home for guests, or those baked goods lovingly prepared for a school event or church function were, so sorry, not made by me. Or, that I have power tools that you can borrow and that I can talk about how to fix things and feel comfortable about it. One of my favorite stores is Home Depot!

The one area where my husband exhibits a more traditional male role is in his knowledge of sports, all sports. He can talk sports anywhere and anytime. This is not something I can do with any breadth or depth and Trivia Crack doesn’t hesitate to remind me that sports is my worst category! Though my knowledge is poor, I am interested in and follow some sports: freestyle skiing, soccer, lacrosse, and tennis.

We are raising two boys and I often wonder how our  division of labor and orientation toward life will help and/or hinder their journey’s into adulthood and the forging of mutally benenficial and loving relationships.  Hopefully they will come to understand that gender does not determine roles, that women can be strong and men can be nurturing, and that partners in life determine how they will journey through that life together, not the pressures of unexamined  cultural or societal norms.

Lyme Disease

I suspect that when Emerson and Thoreau wandered through the countryside they may have found a deer tick or two on their clothing, but it was not a significant enough event to write about. Thoreau did mention beggar-ticks in Walden. But beggar-ticks are not bugs; they are the prickly fruit of a plant with yellow flowers that belongs to the marigold family. The only other mention of ticks in relation to the original Transcendentalists is a comment an avid reader makes when reading Walden outside, surrounded by nature, and discovers a tick on his or her person.

This 21st Century Transcendentalist has become well-acquainted with the deer tick (Ixodes scapularis) and the disease-causing bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi  and others that cause co-infections that these ticks increasingly carry, such as Bartonella and Babesia.

My son Ben was bitten by a tick in 2012. He was put on a 10 day course of reduced strength antibiotics due to his tender age and, according to the standard protocol of the day, tested 10 days later. The test came back negative; there was no bulls-eye rash! In September 2013, one year and a strange smorgasboard of seemingly unrelated symptoms later, Lyme Disease is suspected as the culprit by a caring, licensed clinical social worker who urged us to find Ben a Lyme literate specialist.

  Under the care of Dr. Steven Bock, Ben was clinically diagnosed with Lyme Disease (Lyme 1- Borrelia burgdorferi) and co-infections Bebesia and Bartonella.  This clinical diagnosis was confirmed by a Western Blot test conducted by IGeneX, a company in California specializing in state-of-the-art clinical and research testing for Lyme Disease and associated tick-borne diseases.

After 5 months of a twice daily cocktail of oral antibiotics and 10 weeks of intravenously delivered antibiotics via a PICC (Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter) line, Ben is back to normal, well almost.  It was a bumpy road. Ben is an athlete; a freeskier who lives to ski rails and do jumps. He had to stop skiing in February, just as the season was picking up, because Dr. Bock determined that Ben needed the full strength of the antibiotics to be delivered intravenously.  Being told that he wouldn’t be able to ski with the PICC line was very hard for Ben. But perhaps even harder was having a body that wouldn’t or couldn’t handle this strenuous activity. There was too much joint pain, brain fog, and fatigue. Luckily, a good friend sent a video put together by Angeli VanLaanen, a freeskier who, after a very lengthy battle with Lyme Disease, was finally well enough to participate in the 2014 Winter Olympics in the women’s half-pipe. The video “LymeLight”, detailing VanLaanen’s struggles with Lyme Disease, was produced to create awareness of Lyme Disease and to raise money for those that cannot afford the treatment. We used this video to explain to Ben’s high school teachers, coaches and guidance counselor what he was up against. “LymeLight” fostered empathy and a stronger community of support for Ben as he was going through treatment.

LymeLight – The Story Of Professional Freeskier Angeli VanLaanen Living With Lyme Disease from NEU PRODUCTIONS on Vimeo.

Ben is one of hundreds of people in New York State who contracted Lyme Disease along with two of the insidious co-infections that these ticks can carry. The treatment protocol resulted in the disease going into a non-active or dormant state, so Lyme and the co-infections still live within him and surface from time to time. This happens when his body is under stress or his immune system has been compromised by a cold or the flu. We address these flare-ups with supplements that act like antibiotics, but are not. We were fortunate to be able to find and to afford the care of a lyme literate specialist. We have insurance that covered the insertion of the PICC line and 4 weeks of the intravenously delivered antibiotics. There was also some reimbursement for our visits to Dr. Bock’s office and the frequent lab work and tests that were part of the treatment protocol. But most of the cost of Ben’s care was out-of-pocket. Lyme disease treatment is not cheap and it takes time, sometimes years, to “beat” the disease into a dormant state. Many cannot afford treatment and the medical community has uneven knowledge about Lyme Disease and widely conflicting views about how tick borne illnesses should be treated. This is all happening at a time when Lyme Disease and tick-borne illness are significanlty on the rise. Fortunately, on June 18, the New York State Senate Task Force on Lyme and Tick-Borne Diseases released “a report and legislation that provides a comprehensive set of recommendations for a state action plan to enhance research, prevention, diagnosis and treatment for harmful tick-bourne illnesses.” Based on our experiences with Lyme Disease, my hope is that more will be done soon to help those who currently infected and been under treated or not treated at all. I want them to be be able to feel relief from symptoms that can make them feel like and think that they are going crazy!

The Inspiration and Anchor for A 21st Century Transcendentalist: A Solitary Act of Civil Disobedience

On Friday, July 27, 1980 I drove my parent’s car to the village Post Office and registered for the draft. I was the first and only woman in my hometown to register. Seventy-five of us registered that week, 74 men and 1 woman.  I didn’t register because I was some sort-of radical feminist looking to advance the cause for women’s rights.  I registered to show solidarity in responsibility. It was my own version of civil disobedience. The action was not carried out in protest of laws, but in protest of pervasive social mores.  I wanted to make a public statement – a declaration, that I was prepared to shoulder the responsiblity of going to war to protect and promote our democracy. I wanted the boys (yes they were boys) in my town to know that I stood with them!  It really  bothered me that gender, and not personhood, was the determining factor of who would shoulder the responsiblity of protecting and promoting our democratic way of life in times of war. I believed that in our democracy the right thing to do was to make men and women equally responsible for carrying this difficult and troublesome burden.  The caption of the picture taken by the local newspaper to commenorate this event includes my statement, “We all have a common responsiblity and it’s something that everybody should do.  If they need me I’ll be there.”  And as I was signing my name on that dotted line, publicly affirming and guaranteeing that I would go to war, I was also promising deep in my heart of hearts to always be an advocate for peace.

Connections

I hadn’t really thought about Transcendentalism since my watershed moment in the late 70’s when I was laying on my bed reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Divinty School Address” and his words jumped off the page. His thinking caused me to sit-up and reread several passages over and over again. Emerson had captured the essence of God and spirituality and he was really ticked off that the graduates of Harvard’s Dvinity School  didn’t get it! These soon to be newly practicing ministers didn’t get that God could be found all around us in nature as well as in the soul of each individual.  I remember being amazed that these Harvard grads didn’t get it, but I did – a mere high school girl reading to write a paper for English.

Recently however,  I have started thinking about Emerson and his ideas again. Not on purpose.  It’s been happening unexpectedly, coming out of the blue. Several months ago, I was sitting in an adult Sunday School at Altamont Reformed Church listening to a segment from the DVD Living the Questions – “a curriculum designed to help people wrestle with the relevance of Christianity in the 21st century”.  The segment was entitled “Jesus for the Non Religious” with  John Shelby Spong.  I listened with great interest to the views and perspectives of Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossin, but it was the blunt, unpolished comments of John Shelby Spong that awakened a part of my head and heart that had been dormant for many, many years. I listened, and  the more Spong spoke, articulating his ideas, the more I kept thinking that I had heard this somewhere before. Then I had an “Aha” moment.  I realized that some of these ideas were also Emerson’s; the ones that he shared in his Dvinty School Address and his essays on Nature and the The Oversoul.  I was so completely and so wonderfully surprised by this realization that I could barely wait to share with the group that I thought that there was a connection between Spong and Emerson’s thinking.  The Pastor, the good man that he is, tolerated my comments about the link between these thinkers, as well as the radical opinions of John Shelby Spong. But I don’t think he really got the connection.

I also experienced another connection that lead me back to Emerson. I had been reading some of the works of Eckhart Tolle- The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment and  A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.   Tolle’s work had me thinking about eastern mysticism and what happens to us when we die. I guess I really haven’t been too happy with christianity’spopular conception of heaven.The idea that the energy that is a person returns to the larger whole upon death; that in physics speak, energy is neither created nor destroyed, really resonated with me. It made more sense to me than the current notion of heaven at a time when I was dealing with my mother’s death.  Fortunately, I had the opportunity to sit and talk with my good friend Ellen, who is a certified spiritiual counselor, about my thinking. She listend with great interst and with an open heart and then offered me a marvous book – The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zkav. Zukav talks about this notion that energy is neither created nor destroyed, but is returned to the greater whole. This author did it all  from the perspective of the new physics – quatum mechanics –  which really aren’t so new any more.

Quatum mechanics and Eckhart Tolle’s ideas with their connection to eastern mysticism, are all connected to Emerson’s notion of the oversoul –

 We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are shining parts, is the soul.        

I love these connections. They are, in part, what gave impetus to the creation of this blog. There have been others, But they will be saved for another day.

Seeking: Other 21st Century Transcendentalists

One of the things I like about the Transcentalists was that they had each other to talk with and write to and connect with. They were a very small group of radicals that actively shared their opinions about how the individual was being corrupted by an intellectualism that was pervasive in organized religion and political groups. Emerson, Thoreau, and Alcott worked hard at communicating their not-so-popular view of the world. The gave sermons and lectures and published essays in The Dial. They were independent souls; comfortable being alone. Yet they knew that there were others who thought as they did and they could get together in any venue and talk about their ideas or write to each other about their thinking. They were alone, but not lonely.

I wish for that; to know at least one other person I could have those kinds of conversations with. I have been looking for that small group all of my life. Every so often… maybe once a decade… I stumble upon another who thinks deeply about things –  like civil disobedience, social justice, education, or spirituality-  and whose actions, on their face, seem to demonstrate deep conviction and belief. When I discover this person, I am filled with joyful anticipation and I reach out. I am excited to have found another who believes that there are times when the individual must stand alone,  and sometimes against, the popular culture in order to do what is just.  Unfortunately, in every case, none of these individuals  reached back. There was too much to lose – membership in the popular culture.

So as a result, I am usually alone, often lonely and always hopeful to find at least one other 21st Century Transcendentalist.

Hello world!

I stare at the white space and wonder, do I really want to go public and think out loud? Do I want to share my musings and go in search of conversations about transcendental issues of individual conscience – the nature of God and the divinity, education, respect for all, self-reliance, and my all-time favorite, civil disobedience?

Yes.  I do want to think out loud and share my thoughts as “A 21st Century Transcendentalist”. I want to engage in conversations about topics that are meaningful to me, relevant today, and connected to the writings and thinking of  – Ralph Waldo  Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, A. Bronson Alcott, and Margaret Fuller. I want to be able to write about what I love to think about and have someone respond.

I want to experience what Emerson refers to as “a chief event of life …the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.”  I am looking to find those minds.