I tell wonder-filled stories about hope and healing
“Something will grow from all you are going through. And it will be you.” ~TobyMac
My medical emergency this week has offered me an opportunity for intense reflection time in every area of my life. I don’t have any answers or revelations yet. I’m still down in the weeds of it all. But I’m trying and healing. And right now, that’s enough.
I’m posting these embarrassing selfies for your benefit:
I got off a plane from vacation in Vancouver. It was a fantastic trip—more on that later. This post is about you. Well, it’s about you via a story about me. I’ll be brief. My eye started to hurt on the plane. Nothing big; just noticeable. I got home, picked up my dog from boarding, and decided to take a nap. I woke up with my eye crusted shut. My doctor, via video call, thought it was a case of pink eye and prescribed antibiotics. 24 hours later, the swelling, redness, and oozing got much worse, and then spread to my second eye. I got on a video call with my doctor again, and she was alarmed to see how much my condition had deteriorated. She sent me to the emergency room.
I didn’t have pink eye. I had a condition known as periorbital cellulitis. It’s an extremely dangerous infection if left untreated, and can be lethal by causing sepsis or meningitis. It’s usually caused by an insect bite or another similar kind of trauma. I’m immensely lucky that I have access to great, timely medical care. Again, my gut instinct to get help saved me, and I’m incredibly grateful for that.
Now the bit about you:
1.) If you’re sick, please, please, please get medical help quickly. Don’t worry that you’re being a hypochondriac. If you think something is wrong, it’s much better to get it checked.
2.) Do what you love. Please. What you’re passionate about, what lights you up, what makes you curious to learn more and more. Create beautiful art. Write. See your friends. Help people. Share what you have. Fall in love. Adopt a dog. Live. If you’re in a job or a relationship you don’t love, go. Quickly. Don’t waste your time. You never know how much of it you have. Your life can turn on a dime, from something as insignificant as an insect bite. So wear bug repellent and sunscreen because you might as well give yourself your best shot at your best life.
I’ve been using this piece of art as a focal point for my meditation since I found it about a week ago. I bought it immediately, and added it to my art collection. Balancing the head and the heart is the challenge of our lives. It’s a daily process, and one that I’m intently working on. Like a tightrope walker traveling among the stars, all I can do is put one foot in front of the other. I’m learning, one decision, one choice, at a time.
As I think about my own storytelling projects, I am reminded of my introduction to it when I was a young child.
I grew up in a rural area where Native American culture is still very much alive. We had a family friend who was a Mohawk chief, Chief Black Bear. We would often go to visit his trading post. He was a very tall, solid, regal man. I was fascinated by him. I remember the jewelry, items fashioned from animal skins, the art, and the tobacco pipes carved from natural items. I have no Native American heritage in my blood, but I somehow felt very much at home in his culture. I still do.
One year for Christmas, my mom bought me several books about Native American history. The way they live and what they believe makes complete sense to me. They take care of the planet and each other. They believe in the connectedness of the heavens above and the Earth below. And their storytelling—that’s what captivates me the most. They make deep wisdom palpable, even to a child.
Yesterday I learned about how some members of some tribes welcome people back from war. There is a recognition that they must have transition time. They go with the medicine man for a number of days to literally and figuratively have the blood washed away. The trauma of war is recognized and processed. They deal with this in the light so that it doesn’t get subsumed into the shadows. They grieve. They’re cleaned. They’re healed so that they can return whole.
Setting war aside, if we just look at our own grieving process today with any lens, we often don’t allow space or time for it. We are supposed to move on quickly and in earnest to sunny skies and smiles. We are told to let it go as quickly and cleanly as possible. Though truthfully we hang onto things inside of us. We don’t always give ourselves time to adequately mourn our losses and reflect on what we’ve learned. And so it piles up, and up and up and up until we literally collapse under it. We do ourselves a disservice all in an effort to get on with it. Except we haven’t gotten on with anything. We are playing a role, and eventually we will have to leave the stage and all of our grief will be there waiting in the wings. And we will feel alone and isolated and ashamed of it. And we will bear it until we can’t.
Our society is dealing with massive public issues now, issues that have been ignored and swept under the rug for too long by too many. Of course they now seem unwieldy. Look how much time they’ve had to grow unattended. We cannot and should not shrink away from dealing with them now, no matter how large they loom. If we don’t recognize and set ourselves on a course to solve them, that task will fall to the next generation and the generation after that. Bringing them into the light is painful, but it is the only way to create a better tomorrow. Have faith, and let’s get to work. We can do hard things, together.
A friend of was recently telling me that the time for his dream had passed. He’d missed his opportunity to do what he really wanted to do with his life. I told him about the Rose of Jericho, and what it can teach us about our lives through the process of biomimicry. I recently learned about this plant as I was doing research for Emerson’s second book. The plant hibernates, sometimes for years, when conditions are unfavorable. When drought passes and it has enough water again, it springs back to life. Our dreams are the same way. Sometimes what we want just doesn’t work out when we want it to, in the way that we want it to. The world is a generous place. When we keep a dream alive in our minds and in our hearts, we will get many chances to turn it into a reality. It’s only a matter of making sure that we recognize when that opportunity is in front of us, and that we do the best we can with what we’ve got when our opportunity comes around again.
“The wait’s going to be at least an hour.”
That’s what one of the guides said to me at the Met when I inquired about the insanely long line to see the exhibit Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer. I almost left without seeing it. Almost. But then I remembered my commitment to say yes more often in 2018 (even though it was still 2017.)
So I wound my way through multiple gallery spaces and parked myself at the very end of the line. I knew it would be crowded; I doubted I would be able to get up close to the pieces. And that was okay with me. I just wanted to be in the presence of the work. So I waited. For about 10 minutes, not even close to an hour, and then I was there. The first part of the exhibit was crowded but I was able to get up close to the work in many of the galleries. Very close to it.
“Yes, I’ll stay in line” was the right answer.
Toward the end of the exhibit, I came to this placard. It’s short story hit me right in the gut. I audibly gasped. To give the illusion of perfection, to hide his process and his struggle in his work, Michelangelo burned many of his sketches. He wanted people to think his talent was effortless and god-given even though it was far from it.
Think of all that lost work. Think of everything we could have learned if he hadn’t been so concerned about the illusion of perfection.
I sat there in the middle of the exhibition and thought about how afraid we all are to show our stumbles and missteps, how we savor the performance and cringe at the endless practice it took to get there.
When I left the museum, I turned and looked back at the building in the cold, dark night. I was so glad and grateful to be able to come to this museum any time I want, to live in a city that build castles to creativity. And as I looked at the Met, I thought about how much art has changed my life. And how much effort, how much beautiful effort, it takes to be an artist of any kind.
What if we could all commit to being a little more authentic, to sharing when we’re lost and confused and unsure of how to proceed, to asking for help? What if we could be okay with admitting failure and defeat because accepting them while not being discouraged by their existence gives us resilience and confidence? Imagine what we could learn, what we could inspire, and what we could teach others in the process. I say, yes. Let’s.
Yesterday, my life and career went full-circle. The company where I work now is a service and product provider for the Annie Russell Theatre at Rollins College. I worked at the Annie from 2003-2004. What’s more, our products and services are mainly used by the person who now has my former job. I spoke to her yesterday. She sits in the same office where I used to sit, and many of the same people are still at the theater. And to further bring it all around, I found my name and contact info at the Annie in my current company’s opportunities pipeline. (Apparently, I even got a cold email from my current CEO as he was prospecting for the business at the Annie and he sent me his first book on email marketing!)
This reminded me how often our circles cross and overlap, how timing really is everything. Every once in a while, an opportunity comes around a second time, perhaps in a different form, and it clicks in a way that it couldn’t the first time. A missed opportunity today always has the possibility to find its way back to us. I wonder what other opportunities will find me again.
If there is any lesson we can take from science history it’s this: the odds were never in our favor. It took an infinite number of circumstances to line up in a very specific way to make our existence possible. Pull out one of those evolutionary Jenga blocks and the very idea of humans comes crashing down. We survived by living in the now and adapting to constant change.
So how does this apply to our lives at this very moment? Somewhere deep within you there may be a dream you’re not pursuing for one simple reason: fear that the odds are against you. Stop thinking about the odds of success or failure, and just forge ahead. You’re already a true miracle; we all are. Don’t squander that gift. Give your very best in this and every moment. Stop trying to understand now and predict tomorrow. We can’t do either. We’re only able to understand life by looking backward.
History is and will always be our best teacher. Use its lessons. The sense in all of it will come later, with time and perspective. Your only job now is to live as well as you can. Stop trying to get it right, and just get it done.
“Pause, breathe, repair your universe, proceed.” ~Anonymous
Yesterday I had a moment when I felt overwhelmed. My new job has a lot of systems, passwords, procedures, opportunities, possibilities, and many people in many places. This is the vertical learning curve I was looking for.
On my way home, I went through my mental checklist of what I’d done in a day, what I’d do the next day, and how I’d get through the rest of it to fully get up-to-speed. (Pause.) It’s going to take some time and a lot of effort, and that’s all okay. (Breathe.) When I got home, I went into my Trello board and organized what I would do when, brought some sanity to my inbox, reconfigured the wiring in my apartment for my home workstation, and lassoed by calendar. (Repair my universe.) And today is a brand new day. I’ll proceed.
“Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can survive.” ~Josephine Hart
My friend, Tony, wrote this quote on his Facebook wall and it immediately brought a smile to my face. People who have been knocked down and rise up, again and again, can never be beaten. They will find a way up, out, over, and through any and every difficult situation. It will take time, courage, and a significant amount of effort but they will do it. They are the people I admire the most—the ones who persist against any and all odds, determined to live the life they imagine.
Christa Avampato 