It's Time to Stop and Smell the Roses

Whew, just a month and a half ago, I was celebrating a new job and spring and music and life . . . then, like for so many others, everything went awry.

The loss of America’s largest and most productive wetlands and the devastating impact of the deepwater oil rig explosion on thousands of workers, residents, and families have become a palpable weight on my heart, my brain, my spirit. It’s hard to think or feel outside of this box.

But, in truth, I am relatively unscathed by this event. I may be inconvenienced, but my life hasn’t really changed. My anger and frustration are symptoms of “the caregiver syndrome” – not having answers and solutions, not being able to “make things better.” So, for me, it should be a predictable cost of doing business. I say this to convince myself. I can’t implode. If there’s a possibility of helping someone with real problems, I can’t get mired in my own sorry self.

So, this weekend, I took a fresh look at my world (while I was cutting the grass that hadn’t been tamed for two weeks). My neighbor cut my front lawn. My roses are still blooming. The grass feels good under my bare feet. My husband, my heart, listened to me for hours and sent me an email message – quoting The Little Prince. My grandson has 6 teeth and is still the most delightful gift in my lifetime. My dumb little Lhasa still makes me laugh out loud.

As shallow or mundane as this may seem, it helped me regain some semblance of perspective so that I can – maybe – fulfill my mission, or at least continue on the path.

Life could be vastly improved if we could count our blessings as self-actualizing people can and do, and if we could retain their constant sense of good fortune and gratitude for it.

- Abraham Maslow

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

- Rollo May

PARADISE LOST

It’s only beginning. I know this. I don’t know (no one knows) how to deal with the long-term – the likelihood that a substantial part of Louisiana will physically disappear, and with it, the culture, industry, wildlife . . . no, I can’t deal with this.

But, daily, I “deal” with people who are immediately impacted – the real victims in this awful disaster. The people who won’t be able to come back or rebuild because the land and waters they live and work on have been taken away. I watch CNN and MSNBC, but rarely do their reports provide more than an underwater view of the oil “spill” – the rest is redundancy.

And, in our frenetic response to the oil, we’ve all but forgotten about the individuals who were on the rig, and their families. The dead and permanently damaged humans who were on the front line - the first tier of those impacted by this “incident.”

Tonight my husband (of 30 years) and I spoke briefly about the need for mental health/grief counseling – including counseling for the counselors. My beloved observed that, since the Deepwater Horizon BP Oil Disaster, "you've been drinking more, and you've been angry." My response was “I haven’t had time to drink more, but I sure as hell am angry.”

Finding the center of strength within ourselves is, in the long run, the best contribution we can make to our fellow men.

- Rollo May