Grace

There are two kinds of blogposts that I don't normally do. The first is the "gratitude post." You know: tea, sunlight, morning sex. The second is the "journal post." You know: Here's what I've been doing lately and some random thoughts.

There's nothing wrong with those posts; some folks write amazing blogs full of little else. They're just not my style. But, what's itching my fingers to be written today is a combination of those two posts, so, if you're not a fan of them, either, I won't feel at all offended if you just skip this and come back tomorrow.

There's a song in The Sound of Music that says, "Somewhere in my wicked youth or childhood, I must have done something good," as a way of explaining extraordinary good luck. I use that phrase as a shorthand, but, honestly, I don't believe it. I don't think I did very many good things at all in my own wicked youth and childhood. But I do believe in complete, extraordinary, totally unearned Grace. And that happens to me all the damn time.

I have an amazing doctor. She's a down-to-Earth, unpretentious, good old girl, who talks with me about politics, Arts and Crafts architecture, kids, living in DC, and gardens. She does something most doctors simply cannot do: she listens. And, then, she talks to me, adult-to-adult. She saved my life more than a decade ago when she sent me for a baseline mammogram. Seeing her is more like seeing an old friend who has a needed area of expertise than like seeing a doctor. Especially in our broken health care system, I'm lucky to have found her. Grace.

I have the world's best pharmacist. A guy who will walk out from behind the counter, tip his head, pull his own ear, and show me how to put in the ear drops and then say, "Here, now you show me that you know how to do it." And there we stand, in the middle of the nation's capital, heads tipped and ears pulled, not at all self-conscious. He's been in my corner ever since he was filling my chemo prescriptions and used to give me little slips of paper saying, "Laughter," because he wanted me to take some every day along with the other medicine. I would, and do, trust him with my life. He's just an honestly good person and I'm lucky to have found him. Grace.

I have the best Landscape Guy in the world. Ever since I read The Secret Garden as a little girl, I've longed for my own secret garden. I was in my fifties before I could afford it, and I spent a long, long time looking for the perfect ally. And, then, as soon as I found Landscape Guy, I knew. Over the years, he's helped me to realize a vision that I only kinda-sorta-vaguely knew that I even had. A good xian boy, he completely groks how my garden is a part of my spirituality and he is really expert in local flora. I value his advice as much for the things he talks me out of as for the things he talks me into. I'm lucky to have found him. Grace.

Nothing that I ever did, nothing, could have ever entitled me to my magical women. It's pure Grace that deposited me in this circle. There's a small group of women who are really pieces of my heart, out, walking around. A piece of my heart is on the West Coast, knocking people's socks off, shining as bright as a star in the Milky Way. A piece of my heart is heading bravely into an unexpected challenge. A piece of my heart is starting life with a new-born piece of her own heart, sending pictures to her magical sisters for us to ooohhhhh and awwww over. A piece of my heart is working overtime serving the country at a big federal office. A piece of my heart is preparing for an intense spiritual retreat. A piece of my heart is cleaning out decades of stuff, preparing to move. I was born to live in a community of women and, through no fault of my own, I do. Grace.

This full Moon has been so powerful and, as is often true on full Moons, I've found myself unable to sleep as the amazing silvery light of mystery and ecstacy floods each of my cells and all of the spaces in between. I go out in the moonlight to weed the front cottage garden and, old woman that I am, I weed sitting, and often laying, on the ground. And, Goddess, I can hear it thrum. Feel it thrum. Feel the intense activity of roots, rocks, water, moles, gophers, rabbits, bugs. I've never heard the Earth so ALIVE. Grace. Complete Grace, that the Mother and the Moon would give this gift to someone who drives a car, eats food in packages, runs the air conditioner, pays taxes that support war, prints out cases off Lexis because it's easier for me to read them that way, uses electrons to blog, pees drugs from the amazing pharmacist into the ground water, and, in general, transgresses in a million unjustified ways.

So, there you are. Gratitude and journal all in one; I live flooded with Grace and amazed at what I've received and made solemn when I consider how little I manage to give back.

May it be so for you.