I’ve been
thinking about a sabbatical for a long time.
What does the word
really
mean? Sabbatical, from the Merriam-Webster on-line Dictionary, says, “ a
period of
time during which someone does not work at his or her regular job
and is
able to rest, travel, do research, etc.” A friend also told me that at her
school,
they believe a sabbatical is a, “gift of time.”
Isn’t
that nice, a gift of time? This sabbatical
is a gift of time for us sisters to know each other and learn how be with life
and death. We are so lucky to have this
time together as we are five years apart, and we really haven’t known each
other terribly well until our father died several years ago. I mean how well do you know someone who is in
eighth grade when you are a senior? Not
well, I believe. So here Brent was,
making a very quick decision about a sabbatical without knowing everything
about it. Me too, but it sounded great to me!
We didn’t
think about her family much, and what her husband would be doing for this
year. Her kids are both either in
college or out trying to make it in musical theatre, and that adds a lot of stress
to my big sister, as these are very tough jobs to get. Her son (23) and daughter (college senior)
are both astonishingly good, but I am told everyone else out there is too, and that
this is a particularly difficult road to hoe.
We didn’t think about my family, and how much or how little time we
would need as our insular selves; the 4 of us talking, thinking, reacting,
crying, needing each other, etc.
Brent and
I had thought we would have many months of going on bucket list trips to
Wyoming, Scotland, Carmel, San Francisco, Vermont, Maine, and Philly, among
others. But when she got here in May,
she and everyone else close to me thought I was dying with that first
medication error, and plans got sort of derailed. What about a sabbatical at home? We hadn’t really thought this way. We really hadn’t thought any way at all! We hadn’t thought about whether I’d be too
sick to travel; we hadn’t thought about how to pull our mother, who is almost
90, into the mix as she lives here in Cleveland and is having her own problems
with what’s happening in her family and her life.
Last
week, I had a reading by I guess I’d call her a psychic/artist, and with only knowing
Brent’s birthday, she suggested that Brent must be present with me now. According to her sign, Pisces, she is in a
place of, “love, peace, and family.” In
other words, she needs to be with me because there is a piece only she can
fill. We also didn’t think about how
wonderful it would be to see the kids and Chip realize what it was that Brent
was adding to our mix, and they moved a little sideways and upside down to
accommodate her, and there she was, an integral part of us all. She has been an insightful and wonderful
addition to our lives. Who knew?
No
really, when Brent got here she locked some inner key that closed the loop for
me and created a safe space amidst the storm.
I’m not even sure what exactly it is, but it is the little things that
neither my lovely husband (who has leaned into everything with a passion) or my
kids (who are doing the absolutely right thing with love and constant checking
in) can or should do. She is there
before I need her with the right thing in hand, an expedition when I have had
enough and the tiredness and pain are showing, etc, etc, etc. I hope and pray I would do the exact same
thing with her as she continues to do for me.
Again, how lucky could I be.
And to
make things more fun, we are keeping track of the ways we differ, because our
tastes are so similar, we could be the same person. Ok, she likes broccoli flowerets and I like
the stems. She hates brussel sprouts and I love them, and she thinks pumpkin pie is......slimy. There is just no answer to that.
Anyway,
we are learning to morph this sabbatical time into something we can do
relatively close to home and still learn and perhaps write that sci-fi book
we’ve been talking about but not doing for years. “Big sister, thank you for all your
doing. I am overwhelmed and so grateful,
but stems are sooo much better!”
How about
some poetry? Most of these have come to
me from across the internet as I am sitting in a beautiful room in a glorious
bed and breakfast in Amish country on my birthday!
Like You (Roque Dalton, translated by Jack Hirschman)
Like you I love love, life, the sweet smell of things, the
sky- blue landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up and I laugh through eyes that have
known the buds of tears. I believe the world is beautiful and that poetry, like
bread, is for everyone.
And that my veins
don’t end in me but in the unanimous blood of those who struggle for life,
love, little things, landscape and bread, the poetry of everyone.
The Task (Jane Hirshfield)
It is a simple garment, this slipped-on world.
We wake into it daily - open eyes, braid hair -
a robe unfurled
in rose-silk flowering, then laid bare.
And yes, it is a simple enough task
we've taken on,
though also vast:
from dusk to dawn,
from dawn to dusk, to praise, and not
be blinded by the praising.
To lie like a cat in hot
sun, fur fully blazing,
and dream the mouse;
and to keep too the mouse's patient, waking watch
within the deep rooms of the house,
where the leaf-flocked
sunlight never reaches, but the earth still blooms.
Fall Song (Mary Oliver)
Another year gone, leaving everywhere
its rich spiced residues: vines, leaves,
the uneaten fruits crumbling damply
in the shadows, unmattering back
from the particular island
of this summer, this NOW, that now is nowhere
except underfoot, moldering
in that black subterranean castle
of unobservable mysteries - roots and sealed seeds
and the wanderings of water. This
I try to remember when time's measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn
flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay - how everything lives, shifting
from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.
Cheers to all!
Lissa
