Reflections from an Oasis Novice

After reading gardening magazines, I knew our outdoor space needed elevation. "Cement blocks," I said. "If the planters are at varying heights, that will add to the appearance." No boring one level stuff for me anymore!

My husband said, "Okay," and went to the local home improvement store. He not only came home with cement blocks for my plants, but wooden beams, and a plan. You have to love a husband with a plan. Curious, I listened as my simple wish for elevation blossomed into much more. He built a raised flower bed with three tiers. He ordered topsoil. We could expand the region and not just have a few planters, but a larger place of respite and beauty which needed a short fence to define the space. And we'd need bark mulch to cover the ground. Of course, my husband ordered mulch.

He constructed a bench and off to the store we went---together this time---to purchase cushions for it. He converted a cooler into a wooden drink stand. He christened the location with a sign: Alice's Little Oasis. When we found pillows with Oasis stitched on them, we knew they were meant for us.

In the tiered bed, I planted coneflowers, daisies, and dianthus and watched them grow and bloom. The following spring I planted arugula, red lettuce, and Swiss chard. I bought more to plant---coreopis and candy tuft. The garden grew in content as well as space.

But one afternoon the arugula and red lettuce were chewed. The coneflowers had been gnarled to their roots. Rabbits! I'd seen one scamper. I yelled at the hoppy creature the next day as he darted away from the raised bed into the neighbor's yard. I understood Mr. McGregor in the Peter Rabbit tales in a new way.

On an August morning, I noted that the leaves from taller plants were gone. The bee balm, which had been flourishing, had one leaf. Who was able to get to the tops of these stalks? It must be deer. I could no longer blame only the rabbits. "Get mint and rosemary," were some suggestions from social media friends. "Deer and rabbits hate those." We had rosemary. We had mint. The hosta leaves were devoured and they sat right beside a large planter of mint. Even the leaves of peacock orchids had been tampered with.

I felt defeated. I didn't want to spend any more money on flowers. Although the Swiss chard was next to the lettuce, it had not been eaten. Perhaps the wildlife doesn’t like Swiss chard. I transplanted it to a higher bed. Weeks later I saw it was thriving.

The peacock orchids had bloomed; but not all 50 from the bulbs I'd planted in the early spring. There were plenty of stalks, green and long. But only one of them had produced flowers. I kept hoping more delicate white flowers would arrive because I'd imagined the Oasis flourishing with them.

As I've entered this world of determined gardening, I think of the obvious notion to give up. Forget this illusion that I'll get flowers and plants to provide the sanctuary I desire. What else does this all tell me? Read more books on how to be successful? Don't let the critters get me down? Keep going? Better luck next year? Or perhaps, get a large hoe like Farmer McGregor and chase those four-legged nibblers?

When I think about how we expect things to go as we think they should or as we think they do for others, the Oasis comes to mind. We want to have our gardens, as well as our lives, turn out the way we want or the way we imagined they should go. I've had to take the time to ponder the other lessons, perhaps the more important lessons, along the way. Can I look at life in a new way? Can I discover beauty in the midst of uncertainty? I tell myself to focus on that which has grown (and has not been destroyed) and that which makes the Oasis pretty, even if it is not as robust as I had hoped. See the glass half full. I plant and try to protect, but so much of what happens in a garden is not up to me. Just like in day-to-day living. I'm not as much in control as I'd like to believe I am.

And that is my two-cents as an Oasis Novice.

One Word Can Set You in Motion

Getting started can be the problem. This can be when gearing up to clean a closet or paint a room or sweep out the garage. It's especially true with writing. In our minds, we craft monumental things we want to express. But making time to sit down to write from our thoughts can be an act of avoidance. Just like with a chore we push aside, we make excuses.

I often say gearing up to write doesn't have to be difficult because it only takes putting two words together. Beautiful day. I'm sad. Life's hard. Let's eat. After two words have been scribbled before us, we feel relief. We've made a start. The two words invoke us to add more to our note page and soon we've included why we're joyful or sad and why life is hard and what we want to eat. We've primed the pump, we're ready to continue. Two words.

However, lately I've realized there is an easier way to dive into a time of expressive writing and it comes with realizing the power in just one word---one single word. From one word, a word that acts as a theme for the rest of our prose, we can create pages of sentences.

Go on a field trip to collect this one word. Perhaps when you open your eyes and ears as you attend to your daily routine, you’ll hear a word that inspires you or ignites your mind. Maybe it's a word that has come up in your recent conversations. Sit with the word. One word. Write the word at the top of your notebook page. And then, let your mind flow. For example, if your word is rebuild you would ask yourself what that word means to you. Rebuild. Let the meanings flow---Starting over, getting my thoughts organized, gaining confidence after my loss, finding a new purpose, letting go of some of my past in order to focus on my future, etc. From there look over your words or phrases that come underneath your main word rebuild. Where do these additional words take your thoughts? Keep thinking and writing. Don't worry about grammar or punctuation, the goal is to get words on the paper. Soon you'll wonder why you had trouble starting this exercise because you will have pages and pages written by you!

From the compilation of your pages you can find other themes to tackle. You never know where starting to write will lead you.

Writing is good and cheap therapy! Bask in it.

Larger Than Pocket Faith

Pockets are for car keys,

mints and tissues—the kind my grandmother used to store

Wider pockets for a letter, a wallet, a grocery list

Carrying, containing, safe-keeping



How many times I have looked

Wanting to find God inside my pocket

To fit my plans, my thoughts, my ways, my desires.



Creator of the Magnolia tree, the worker bee,

God of miracles, the Red Sea parting,

God of the stars and moon and depth of valley



Why do I insist that my pocket could contain your magnitude,

harbor your excellence and reduce your glory to fit me?

Weary, I come to you to beg



Living Word, Sovereign, Faithful, Almighty God

Gift me larger than pocket faith

Save me from myself.



~Alice J. Wisler (First published in Foreshadow on 6-16-24)

Unburden

We all have stories to tell. Small, silly, surprising, large, sad. Sometimes we write the encounters in our journals. There are nights we unleash onto the pages to help us understand what transpired during the day. We include our emotions, our sorrow, and our joy. We write to help us handle the bumps in life. We write to gain insight into this world and our reactions to what occurs.

We tell our stories to one another. What are we saying as we say our words? Hear me. Acknowledge my situation. Listen. Once we've shared our stories, we often feel we've been heard and acknowledged. The story is out and no longer just living in our heads. Of course, there are times when we feel no better after having shared. The person or people did not hear us as we needed to be heard. There are times instead of being understood, we feel we have been misunderstood.

The big story (for me) that I wanted to tell was about my son Daniel. When I knew I not only wanted, but needed to write a book-length story about him, I set about doing that. Ever since his death, I'd written in journals, and then I wrote numerous articles and poems. Many of these were published in magazines. They didn't tell the whole story of what happened to Daniel and our family after his death. I needed to tell more.

As the pieces of Daniel's story came to me, I wrote them. For twenty-six years I wrote, trying new angles. I had files and files of various manuscripts but couldn't figure out the best way to present the story.

"Unfinished projects take up a lot of space in our heads and hearts, particularly when it's something we feel 'called' to do and it defies logical sense," writes Louisa Deasey, author of A Letter From Paris.

During a visit to Daniel's Place (what my children named the cemetery), the premise for my book became evident. Finding solace at the cemetery was what had emerged over the years. The first time I saw my son's grave marker I hated the grassy resting place, I despised what had happened to our family. I felt shame, guilt, and despair. As time progressed, the cemetery became a family outing, a place to lift helium balloons, and a haven for spiritual growth. Why had it taken so long to realize this was the angle to use to construct my story? I wrote, hired two editors, and decided to publish on my own. At last, when my memoir, Life at Daniel's Place, was completed, I felt at peace. After years of hoping to get the story out, now it was out!

Not all stories need to be put into book form. But if you harbor this desire to thread your story together and publish it, don't give up!

Even on a Deserted Island . . .

Have you ever wondered why grief catches you offguard?

Recently, my husband and I watched one of Celine Dion's concerts on TV, and after the last song, I felt this tinge of sorrow. No stranger to sorrow, I was aware of the tinge. Because I'm the type that labels my tears and emotions, I asked myself why I felt sorrowful. What was this sudden onset of an ache in my heart? Was it due to the song Celine Dion sang at the end, My Heart Will Go On?

Perhaps that was it, I concluded. I smiled at the two photos on the mantel of Daniel, my four-year-old who died from cancer treatments in 1997. The song, along with the movie that made it famous (Titanic) came out shortly after Daniel's death. My eldest daughter and her friends sang it at a family and friends event the first Christmas without Daniel. I recalled how I had listened to every word and couldn't hold back tears.

It must be that song, I decided after my husband turned off the TV. After all, no signifcant date like Daniel's birth or death date was approaching. Christmas was over six months away.

It was days later when I stood in the upstairs hallway that I found the reason why I had been sad. There on one of the walls hangs the bear and quilt painting I had purchased at the Raleigh flea market days before Daniel's birth. When a vendor asked when I was due, I'd said, "Yesterday." Daniel was late arriving and sat on my sciatic nerve, making it painful to walk. I placed the watercolor in the room we had decorated while waiting for his arrival.

Across from the painting is a curio cabinet I bought after Daniel died. In it are some of his favorite toys---airplanes, Matchbox cars, and a collection of tiny books we read to him in the hospital. Next to the wooden cabinet is the plaque a cancer organization gave us after donations were made in Daniel's memory. In the nearly twenty years that we have lived in this house, I never realized the significance of the wall sharing an item I bought before my son was born and one I bought after he died.

While that was one of those aha-moments, the real aha came when it hit me why this was a tough week. Sunday was Mother's Day! We'd be celebrating with family and my three children. And, once again, Daniel would not be with us. Why had I not connected the dots? The first Mother's Days since his death, I had been keenly aware of how bittersweet the special day would be. Now twenty-seven years later, I was surprised the days before Mother's Day could cause a pang of sadness.

I've often said that a mother could be on a deserted island without a calendar and yet still know that a significant day surrounding her deceased child was approaching. You cannot hide from it. That's how tightly looped mamas and the holes in their hearts are.

This is grief. And we grieve because we love.

Express yourself! Pick up your pen!

If you see someone with an opened notebook and pen in deep thought, you might think he or she is writing the next great novel. But the truth could be, the person is writing for health.

Writing for health? What does that mean?

When we suffer a loss --- either the death of a loved one, a broken relationship, a firing from a job, a financial crisis, or a diagnosis that is difficult --- our minds and bodies are affected. We often cry and want comfort.

As the situation continues, we look for ways to help us cope with the magnitude of our loss. We can feel isolated because no one understands the full picture of what we are going through. There are times we don't understand it all either. Our grief is unique and we are new to it. We know we have to manuever through, but how is this done? Our days feel sad and desperate.

This is when writing enters the scene.

Writing is a healthy way to unleash pent-up angry, sadness, and other emotions friends, family, and coworkers might not care to hear. The emotions have to go somewhere, and putting them onto paper is a lot healthier than yelling, slamming the door, or kicking the cat.

When we write about the heartaches, the pain flows from our hearts onto paper. This eases the anguish, even if only for a while. We've shared our emotions and ponderings with paper. The paper carries a portion of our sorrow for us.

Studies have shown the beneftis of writing for health. Dr. James Pennebaker conducted a study among students at the University of Texas that proved expressive writing lowers blood pressure, pulse rates, and provides better health all around.

So the next time you have to deal with a major---or even minor---sorrow in your life, get a good notebook and pick up your pen and write! You will be suprised at what your heart wants to convey and encouraged as clarity and calm spring forth through your written words. If you're smart, you'll spend ten to fifteen minutes each day writing. The important factors are to not worry about spelling, penmanship, or whether you will be judged by your emotions. No one has to see your words. The notebook is for you only. Discover how picking up your pen leads to a healhier life as you journey through your anguish.

~*~*~*~ Join us for the Weep Boldly; Write Bravely Writing Workshop, Saturday, April 27th at the Hampton Inn in Raleigh, NC.

And Then I Met James

The older we grow as we travel this journey called Life, the more we realize we don't walk alone; many have influenced us. Friends, family, clergy, and others have provided guidance over the years.

After my son died, I filled journals with emotions, questions, woes----basically, lots of pain. Most of the pages were not ones I wished to share with anyone. Even though I felt I was losing my mind, fading from who I used to be, and finding the future scary, writing gave me comfort. Journaing brought clarity, and sometimes even solace. To help me on my rocky journey, I also devoured books about grief from memoirs to tomes on writing. It was in Louise DeSalvo's book that I met James Pennebaker.

Who is James? In a nutshell, he's a professor at the University of Texas at Austin whose studies have shown the value of expressive writing when dealing with turmoil. James' work piqued my interest.

In one six-week study, he had half his class write about trivial things and the other half write about wounds and the more sorrowful parts of life. At the end of the study, those who had written deeply were healthier. Pulse rates, heart rates, etc., were checked before and after the study to prove this.

James writes: “If keeping a secret about a trauma was unhealthy, it made sense that having people reveal the secret should improve health. As a social psychologist, I was concerned with having people talk about their secrets to another person because of the complicated social dynamics that would likely result. Consequently, I decided to have participants write about the most traumatic experience of their lives or, for those in a control condition, write about superficial topics.”

I knew writing worked, but because of James' studies, the value of writing as a tool for healing has become more "scientific" for me. The findings from his work are evidence I can use when I advocate for writing as a means of healing. It's not just me telling others writing works because it worked for me (and continues to do so), but there is research that validates how effective what I call "grief and loss writing" is.

My "After Daniel" journals were safe places to unleash all the feelings bottled in my heart. These tear-stained epistles now sit in my closet in a large canvas bag given to me by Sascha, a twice-bereaved mom, poet, and friend. These journals represent my journey of healing, and are one of the reasons, like James, I believe in the writing-health connection.

Writing through life's traumas is good therapy!