September Boundaries and The Loneliness of Grief; Plus a Book Update & Book Giveaway
Boundaries we walk and the first taste of Autumn
Welcome to Belonging and the Human Experience! I write about belonging, identity, loneliness, culture, migration, faith, race, and community. I’m glad you’re here and please join the conversation! (Please make sure you move these to your inbox if you’re viewing via email).
In this month’s issue:
· Boundaries We Walk
· Grief - Inseparable
· August/September Highlights
· Book Update
· Book Giveaway
· Quotes and Poetry
Boundaries We Walk
Imagine a wilderness with approximately 1,000,000 acres, 1200 miles of canoe routes, 12 hiking trails, and 2,000 campsites. Glaciers have sculpted the land into the landforms, rocks, and thousands of lakes and streams. Folks who come to this protected wilderness must have entry permits, and travel by canoe through the interconnected waterways from one place to the next. In some spots, where canoes can’t cross, folks must hoist their canoes and carry them to the next waterway. It’s one of the most visited wilderness areas in the United States.
The area is called the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, and it’s located 200 miles north of Minneapolis, along the U.S. and Canada border.
Most folks visit between May and September—after that, temperatures drop and winters are pretty harsh. But from what I’ve heard (I’ve never been), it’s a true wilderness. You take in what you need and take it all out with you—and to get through it, you’ll have to canoe it.
The Boundary Waters.
Most of my life I had never heard of this place. But isn’t that just like life? We’re always learning, and each new bend in the road ushers us into a new place, new scenery, a new season of the soul: A Month of Joy. The Season of Grief. The Year of Questions. A Week of Wonder.
In last month’s newsletter, I spoke of August being a boundary month, and here we are, dipping our toes beyond the border of summer, and enjoying our first taste of another autumn (for those in the Northern Hemisphere and U.S.).
How does this new season find you? Is it a season of joy, sorrow, questions, waiting, grief, or something else?
I’m not sure what season you find yourself in (drop me a note or comment?), but here’s a piece I wrote about grief. The nostalgia and memories of summer, the cooling breezes of autumn, and the death and dormancy of plants and flowers make me wistful and aware of the passage of time. If you happen to be walking in the lonely season of grief right now, I hope these words help you feel you are not alone on these wilderness waterways of life.
Grief – Inseparable
She knocks on the front door, but she really didn’t have to. I saw her crouching there a few days ago. I can feel her presence before she announces herself. I didn’t invite her; she simply comes.
She isn’t a respecter of persons; she visits you, too. She visits us all.
Her name is Grief.
And I don’t mean simply any kind of grief, as griefs are born through death, through suffering, through illness, through broken relationships, through poverty, and hopelessness, multiple forms of trauma, and countless other ways. I mean that she is born daily, in small ways and big ways.
She is everywhere and anywhere. I can’t escape her; none of us can.
Sometimes, I feel she wants to own me, to swallow me. She’s cut grooves on my skin. I can trace the journeys from one loss to another.
I ask myself, is this how I want to define my days? By the distance between one grief and another?
She wants me to think she’ll stay with me forever. It can often appear she will. Sometimes she takes over, tossing objects this way and that. She eats my food, and sometimes, I think she wants to eat me.
On other occasions, she is quiet and calm, sitting peacefully, staring, thinking, or humming. In those moments, I leave her alone. I move about my day unfettered, knowing she’s there, and I can forget for a while she exists.
She’s turned me into a master of pretending. She pours over me like a wave, but I show the world she is not attached to me, like a jacket I can unzip and remove. At times, I can put her aside, and meet my societal expectations. I show up. But she and I, we both know the secret, that she’s still hiding behind the curtains.
She’s a companion to many, known in varying degrees. She lives on every street, in every house, in every mind. She’s part of the world’s DNA.
I don’t say that to sound pessimistic; as if simply because she whispers in our ears every day and leaves her handprint on our walls that she’s determined our fate, that she has the last word. But I do mean to say that she has and she hasn’t. She does and she doesn’t. She is and she isn’t.
In a sense she inhabits every space and no one knows her coming or her going.
Grief coexists with her siblings. In this world Grief, Loneliness, and Sorrow comingle with Joy, Hope, and Love. They hold hands, circle around us, singing their songs into our lives. They weave in and out of our lives, always coming and going.
During a temporary respite from Grief’s presence, we can be jolted back into her company in an instant, with a scent, a place, or a melody. She is always near, like a trustworthy friend.
I can’t offer a formula or a plan of how to unpeel her from our skin. But I do know that she does, at times, fade into the background.
She doesn’t insert herself into the place of eternal permanence. She has a lifespan, just as we do.
For now, she’s tucked away in the dark recesses of my closet. But she can grow in the darkness, expanding without the need for sun, without care and tending, like some sort of alien life form.
I don’t know her termination date. Her presence lingers for varying times. We mend as individually as we are.
But the truth and irony is that her presence, in a strange way, is a sure sign there once was Joy. Grief is a reminder of something good that once existed.
I don’t want Grief in my life; I’d rather she stay forever gone. But that is not a choice I can control. She’s in the air, in the soil—she’s part of the ache of all that is alive. Perhaps that is why she is here. Perhaps that is why when Grief has interwoven her threads into our being that our Joy is that much more immense.
“When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.” - Kahlil Gibran
(original post published in The Mudroom here)
August and September Highlights
This past August and September have been full! Here are a few highlights (mostly in photo form).
It was a joy to read an original spoken word poem at The Honor Summit in early August
Kayaking
Hiking (spotted a crane on the river)
Homemade fig cake (made by my daughter)
And - a dinner for international students -we host students new to the city almost every year.
Book update
I turned in copy edits for my book last week! And somehow, I even turned them in a few days ahead of my deadline, which took a concerted focused effort, but hooray! I’m so excited to be at this stage. I can’t wait to share more. And drum roll….I have a book release date! It’s APRIL 16!!!
What? I have a book releasing April 16?! YES. Yes, I do. And I can’t imagine doing this without you!!! THANK YOU for being a faithful reader!! <3 (If you click the photo below, it should take you directly to a 5 second video : )
Book Giveaway
This is a giveaway JUST for subscribers! Last month, I gave away a copy of Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul by Dorcas Cheng-Tozun. Thank you to everyone who entered! The random lucky winner drawn was Persis L.!! I mailed her book to her and she has it in her hands! Who will it be this month?
This month, I’m giving away Never Too Broken written by my friend Jill Ng. I have to tell you something about her and this book! We started our writing journeys together with a small local group of women who loved to write some years ago. Some of us wanted to write nonfiction, some poetry, some were songwriters. We had to quit meeting during the pandemic, and since then, two members have published their own books, and I have one releasing next year.
My friend Jill Ng is an amazing human and writer. I want to celebrate this book because I know this book has been years in the making and I know her heart. Jill and her husband Ben have adopted five children and have much wisdom to share when it comes to parenting and adopting and fostering. But she also has another story to share: one that reminds us how to be transparent again, how not to hide, but be our truest selves so we can help others in the world, and to remind us our brokenness is a way to create authentic relationship. We are not defined by our brokenness. We are defined by God.
I’m giving away a signed copy of her book to one winner! If you’d like to join the random drawing, just reply to this email and let me know. I’ll draw a winner on Monday, October 2, notify you by email, and announce the winner in the next newsletter. (Only U.S. addresses eligible.)
September Quotes and Poetry
"It was a lovely afternoon—such an afternoon as only September can produce when summer has stolen back for one more day of dream and glamour." -L.M. Montgomery
Porch Swing in September by Ted Kooser:
Have a beautiful beginning of Autumn, and I’ll see you in the dazzling month of October.
Make it a lovely one my friends,
