Back home in my native state of South Dakota, just outside the city limits, sits a big old two story wood frame house. It holds the energy and memories of sixty years of my family’s life. We moved to that house when I was one and a half. It still echoes with the sound of toddler feet, birthday parties, Easter egg hunts, teenage discussions about boyfriends and grades, huge family reunions, laughing grandchildren, and even the last words my mother spoke before she died five years ago. My sister and I regularly rode our horses into that yard to get cookies from her. We built snow forts in winter with all the neighborhood kids. I’ve gone back to visit every summer of my life.
Since my dad died a year ago, it’s been sitting empty. I haven’t been able to bear the thought of selling it; it has felt like selling my past.
However, I have a present day life with my own family in California; my sister has made hers in Massachusetts. It has become clear that no one in the family is going to move back to the family homestead in South Dakota.
My sister brought things into focus recently when I was dragging my feet about selling by saying, “So what exactly is your thought, Susan, that we just keep it as a museum to mother and dad?”
I had to think about that. What is my thought? I realize it’s irrational, really; I just don’t want to let it go. It’s been part of the bedrock of my life for sixty years.
So it seems obvious that the first of Grandma’s wisdom recipes I need to try is about impermanence. Grandma knew that impermanence is the natural order of things. Her impermanence wisdom soup would be very simple, with three roots: expect it, accept it, and embrace it with an attitude of, “That’s good.”
Here’s a sneak preview of a passage from my upcoming book, Mudras, Mantras and Chemo:
By accepting impermanence we can more fully embrace and value our life as it is at this moment.
Knowing that even the most wonderful things in our life are impermanent, we are motivated to stay present, and fully appreciate them while we can. When they naturally pass, we can more easily let them go and embrace what comes next. Knowing that the unpleasant things in life are also impermanent, we can resist less and find what there is to learn from them, knowing that they, too, will pass. The challenge is to meet life as it is with no attachment, no aversion. An inability to embrace impermanence separates us from the pulse of life and the life force of the universe.
It is the nature of energy to keep moving: form arises, form dissolves, over and over in a beautiful, rhythmic dance. When we are one with that dance we are healthy and vibrant, when we are out of step we experience suffering in many ways, emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually.
So, I will be getting on a United Airlines jet this Saturday, winging my way to my past. My challenge will be to know that it’s good to embrace impermanence and let the house go. There will be new life and new energy to fill the rooms. I can dance on, more fully connected to my present life in California, knowing that in a blink of an eye this form will also be dissolving. I wouldn’t want to miss it while I am clinging to my past.
Check in to my next blog to hear how it goes. I’ll be posting on location in Yankton, South Dakota.
April 22, 2010 at 8:09 pm |
Good luck Susan! We love you.
Liz and Kent
April 22, 2010 at 8:46 pm |
I will be thinking of you as you place your faith in memories and in life’s universal pulse over the nostalgia of your childhood and letting it go in physical space only. I know your tears will flow; may they be joyful too. Love, Jude
April 23, 2010 at 2:23 am |
Dear Susan,
I would love to mark your site and come and visit your blog. Isn’t this blogworld a funny one (we call it bloglandia”). I am so excited about your book! That is such great news and I hope you will let us know when it is published.
I love “Grandma’s Soup” and the wisdom you have shared with us. I sat with seven neighbor women this week and we all have someone in our family with a serious illness. Growing older is a lesson is impermanence!
Looking at your house makes me sad. So many memories but, as you say, we must come to acceptance and say, “that’s good.” I am grateful for sixty years of wonderful friends and wonderful memories and so grateful you are among them!
Love,
Sue
April 23, 2010 at 10:10 pm |
Dear Susan,
Thank you for inviting me to your website and blog. I look forward to your upcoming book.
I am in a very similar place in my life, my manuscript is almost agent ready, and believe it or not, I’m also blogging on my website to create a platform for my upcoming book!
Another similarity, is that this weekend I went to Reno Nevada and drove by my mother’s house. She died in July of 2008. As Al, my husband and I drove nearer, I realized I was anxious. I was afraid it would look worn, or uncared for. However, I was relieved to see that it looked exactly the same. The dry river bed had all it’s rocks in place, the bridge was in the same place, the trees were beginning to bloom.
It seems mystical that her house could look exactly the same on the outside, and yet, a new woman has made the inside her own. This new owner will create her own stories and memories in that house, and that is how it should be.
Life goes on whether I want to let go of old memories or not. So… I choose to keep the memories of my mother in that house in my heart.
Thanks for the opportunity to reflect.
Blessings,
Michelle
May 3, 2010 at 7:37 pm |
Dear Aunt Susan,
What beautiful words you have shared–thank you. I look forward to reading more and, of course, I loved opening your blog to this beloved picture! Can’t wait to read your upcoming book and to learn from your reflections! Thanks for teaching us/introducing us all to some great mindfulness exercises, like Qigong; you are a wonderful teacher!
Lots of love!
Meredith
May 6, 2010 at 7:41 pm |
I have shared this experience and recently heard Tom Ashbrook, WBUR public radio, refer in looking toward mother’s day to the death of his mother a year ago (he grew up on a farm in Iowa) and how he recalls picking wildflowers along the windbreaks for her on mother’s day. Clearly he shares that sense of place imbued with a long and important relationship. Your thoughts are lovely and strike a cord with me.
May 18, 2010 at 10:28 pm |
First of all, welcome home. I sat down this morning at the computer to read your blog. Yes, I was feeling guilty that I had not done it earlier. It’s quite wonderful. You are such a good writer. You have hit on a universal theme: impermanence. I am particularly thoughtful today about that because I saw a very interesting documentary about Marie Antoinette last night.
But more specifically to the Sattler house I totally understand your attachment to it and your difficulty in letting go. Just looking at the picture (I had never seen it before) tugged at my heart. There is something about looking at a beautiful old house that takes my breath away. A nostalgia, a melancholy. Does it change your life experience when someone else occupies the space?
I love you, Susan. Growing up in that place, in the midwest with a loving family and community has in large part made you the special person you are. Kind of like Garrison Keillor and Lake Wobegone.
Naomi
May 19, 2010 at 7:26 pm |
Hi Naomi,
Thank you for your beautiful comments.
Yes, I know what you mean about the nostalgia of old houses-so many life experiences lived in them. Our human lives pass by in the blink of an eye, but a house can span so many generations- holding the energy of all those lives. An old house knows a lot of secrets…. I guess old houses are ultimate reminders of impermanence and that is what generates that sense of melancholy.
I don’t know yet if it will change my experience when someone else occupies the space. I like Michelle’s image of the “house in my heart.” If there are others of you out there reading this, I would love to hear your thoughts about this.
Garrison Keillor…..yes, he definitely had his finger on the pulse of small town life, even when he was gently poking fun at it!
You and I grew up in such different ways, but somehow we’ve always had a deep connection- something that transcends time and place. That “something” is so important as I release the time and place of my past.
I love you too,
Susan