Greetings Dear Ones!

“A pinch and a punch for the first of the month! White rabbit! No returns!” and all that lovely nonsense. Something silver is fluttering down from the sky so softly and slowly I can’t quite make out what it is—Regrets? Discarded prayers? River Mist tightens its fists. Dear God… it’s SNOW. It’s Snow-vember in Vermont. It’s so faint—it’s more like cascading frost—Winter’s calling card. She’ll be back any minute. It’s time to gather in the pots of herbs and drain the garden hoses—not one of which I actually used during the rainiest summer Vermont has seen in seventy-five years.

Last night was Halloween—All Hallow’s Eve. As a grownup (most of the time, anyway) who reads the news, I can tell you that the Dark is not what we need to fear; the scariest things are happening in broad daylight. I sat by my fireside, peacefully working my way through a basket full of Sheltand roving on the spinning wheel and a nearby bowl of milk duds—you know, for all those trick-or-treaters who might wander up and down several dirt roads to my darkened dwelling in the forest. The solitude was as sweet as the milk duds.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” asks Prudence when she sees this.

“I’m finding myself,” I mutter through teeth glued together with toffee. “This is what self-care looks like to me tonight.”

“Humph… It looks to me like you are losing yourself,” she huffs, “and when you return, you are going to find a whole lot more of yourself that nobody asked for.”

I awake this morning with the ancient stoic Marcus Arelius standing beside the bed again. Prudence, the inner critic, is beside him, looking smug. She summoned him. He looks irritated.

“Get up,” he says curtly. “I’m here to remind you to be Noble. You are going to die. Everyone you know is going to die. Life is grossly unfair and you need to make the Best of this as if, simultaneously, None of it matters and All of it matters.” Behind Prudence, lurking in the shadows is a hot guy, gently flaring his nostrils and gazing into the distance in a bored way. I have seen him before, albeit only from a distance. I’ve been desperate to get his number for years.

“Get up!” announces Marcus. “Accept the things to which Fate binds you, and love the people with whom Fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.”

“Who’s your hot friend?” I whisper out of the side of mouth as I quickly stuff my feet into slippers and don a sweatshirt. I take a sideways glance at Hot Guy’s rippling physique and hastily shuck the sweatshirt and grab for a pretty robe instead, trying to look as alluring as one who’s hair looks like a mass of cobwebs dumped out of a shop-Vac can possibly look.

“Him? Oh, that’s Self Discipline. Everyone is always lusting after Self-Discipline. You might as well put that barn sweatshirt back on,” says Marcus. “You’re not his type. He’s got a partner already.”

“Who???” I ask breathlessly.

“Self-Love.”

Even Prudence looks disappointed.

“What?!” I say in disbelief. “Self-Love? Yikes. I hear Self Love is pretty ugly. Why is a hot guy like that going out with Self Love?”

“Self Love is not about looks—she’s all about Feels. Trust me, no one can make you feel quite like Self-Love,” says Marcus. “No one. Self Love offers a Sweetness, a Kindness, an Acceptance of All Things with Grace and Humor that can hook any partner for life. No one in a relationship with true Self Love will ever leave to seek another. She makes Self Discipline willing to do anything for her.”

“Our friend here doesn’t need Self-Love,” says Prudence eyeing me balefully. “She’s already eaten every last Milk dud in the house. She needs Self-Discipline.”

“It’s true,” I admit boldly. “I’ve been longing to make his acquaintance for years! I have an attic to clean, a book to write, cattle to train, people to please…. I’m overwhelmed and I know he could help me. If nothing else, he could help my jeans fit again. Please, introduce me.”

“He doesn’t go anywhere without his partner, Self-Love. You will have to meet both together or not at all.”

I peer into the shadows, searching, but Self Discipline is gone.

So I get up, watch a bunch of crap on YouTube, Avoidantly knit half a skein of homespun yarn into a shawl, do NOT go for a run, or clean anything, or practice anything, or improve anything, or write anything. I briefly consider brushing the parts of my body that need it most, starting with hair and teeth, but can’t be bothered. No amount of shameful glaring from Prudence makes my arse any less comfy so I don’t get off it.

Halloween is over but most of the people I know will keep wearing costumes, including me. Briefly, I wonder what kind of costume Self Love wears when she goes out. And Why am I searching after Self Love and her hot boyfriend anyway, when I cannot even find my self these days. I feel splatted—shattered into a thousand pieces lately—by news, by loss, by disgust with myself over how I have been showing up with those I care for and about. Parts of me are stuck inside my own head in the coils of disparaging thought loops. I am shaming myself for Failing, then for apologizing way too much until the other people involved have no responsibility to share in the mistakes we make together. Poor attempts to smooth a situation over, to gulp down all the blame before others can taste their share, creates a very bad taste in my mouth over time—a taste NOT enhanced by Milk Duds.

I’ve decided to live as a hermit. I’m just not good at People.

When I am around people “on the outside,” I tend to get lost—to absorb their energies, thoughts, feelings and forgo my own. I lose sight of where someone else stops and where I begin. It all gets mixed up. I know…it’s from wearing my costume too often. I’m like that five-year-old who wants to be Buzz Lightyear all year long.

What is my costume, you ask? Simple. It’s a mirror--A perfect metaphor for a seamstress, don’t you think? My costume has always been a mirror—showing others what they want to see. I learned early in life, long before I could sew, that “My Best Self” is not really myself at all. It’s definitely Someone Else. I suspect that most of us “Menders” masquerade as mirrors more often than we like to admit. We use the mirrors elders and peers hold up around us so that we can be accepted, so that we can figure out what we hold to be true. As children, we have absolutely no idea what we believe or think. We try other peoples’ thoughts, dreams and values on for size like bargain thrift store finds—we look in their mirrors to see if WE fit, not the clothes. I left home at seventeen not knowing exactly who I was, other than an actress who could wear the costumes, play the roles, recite the lines. (It turns out I can play almost any role except that of a decent Math student.)

Over time, as we grow, we become mirrors ourselves as people seek us out to give them comfort and Presence and a view of themselves that they can see is loveable, acceptable, worthy. I wanted that so much for myself, that I dedicated my life’s efforts to being that for others. When I was younger, I wasn’t even sure there was anything behind the mirror I was holding up to the world. I just wanted everyone to smile more.

But mirrors are Heavy.

Once, a very Good fellow mirror described her situation: “It’s a lonely gift. No one listens to you. No one cares who you are. No one checks in with you to see how you feel about things. Those who spend their days helping others discover a deep loneliness. People don’t come to you to see YOU, they come to see themselves. There are days I feel I do not exist, because I don’t. I need to cease existing in order to help others. The minute they see me, I lose my effectiveness in showing them themselves. That’s how we get lost.”

Ooof.

I put my mirror down, lean it against the wall, and peer into it. There is something Ugly there. I don’t want to see it. I squint my eyes. I see a six-year-old, sitting outside the principal’s office at school. She is picking at a hangnail on her thumb as if, if she can just find the right start, she’ll be able to unravel herself like some bad knitting and just disappear. Her teacher has told everyone she is a liar. She has no idea that in six months, this teacher will be in a mental institution for her abuse of children. By then, the little girl will have been sent to Catholic School in the hopes that Good Discipline will help her stop “lying.” There is another little girl who is new at school for the fifth time in eight years. She is confused because a crowd has gathered to watch her drink her milk at lunch time. Unbeknownst to her, a “popular” girl has put garlic powder in it and summoned all the popular kids so that they can laugh at her as she takes a sip. The little girl doesn’t know why they are laughing, why they are being mean, why she has no friends. She refuses to cry, saving her tears for later. She makes it her job to study People, to figure out their needs before they even know what those needs might be, so that maybe she can earn a place in their vicious tribe. She knows she will never truly Belong and that “being of service” will be the best she can do.

Out they come, one by one, these shy, tiny, sensitive, sensitive girls. The ones with haircuts so bad strangers sent them to the men’s room to pee. The ones not chosen for dodgeball. The one who spent a whole summer training a horse and winning its trust only to have its owner sell it for meat. Over and over they have been told to “toughen up,” but they can’t. A priest who has been molesting her classmates tells a young girl she just has to “have Faith.”

These misfits form a line, standing behind each other in a row of ascending size, eyes clicked together at the same spot. One set of eyes, staring up at me through the glass. So much ugliness. So much shame. A tear drops onto the glass… a droplet that appears to be shared on both sides races itself to the bottom. The eyes look more beautiful now. They smile. Behind them, I see Her.

She wraps her arms around them all, all those lost and frightened little girls, and holds them until they melt into her and disappear. She looks steadily back at me through their eyes—a grown-up with chin hairs, scars and wildly unmanageable hair. In her, the eyes of the children shine brightly. She is fiercely Kind. She smiles at me in a way that feels like Summertime, when school’s out. I am stunned by her Beauty.

“They are all Loveable, Worthy, and Enough. And so are you,” she says. “Ok, so you fail occasionally. WE ALL DO. Sometimes we fail catastrophically. Stand by these failures in order to recognize your successes. You’ve been looking to reclaim yourself in the barn, in the fiddle, the thimble, the spinning wheel—through the Embodiment of Being in treasured tasks… As you collect yourself like a bunch of wild flowers, don’t forget to search amongst your failures. The prettiest roses are amongst the thorns.”

“You can learn to trust,” she said. “Not everybody wants to love you. And that’s ok. Those who DO will want to do the work of understanding you. To love, you must be vulnerable; you must agree to be seen. You must look IN the Mirror, not out from behind it. That is a terrifying and exhilarating proposition. There is nothing quite like the feeling of being SEEN. To have someone come back for more because they love what they see is among the peak experiences of human existence. Halloween is Over. It’s time to drop the costume.”

“Hey there,” says Self Discipline, sneaking up behind me, tapping me on the shoulder and handing me a glass of water, “What do you say, you and me hit the gym today?”

Self Love winks at me and blows us both a kiss.

Keep Mending Dear Ones!

With Sew Much Love,

Yours Aye,

Nancy