Sabbatical, sabbatical, and sabbatical

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