Gwynn Raimondi, MA

Here and now: Finding True North, Right Where I Am

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I am sitting at my very messy dining table. It’s been over a week since I cleaned it off and it is piled high with art supplies and materials for the Being & Becoming Circle (self)care packages.  There is a stack of mail in the corner, a bottle of wine in the center and my son’s bumbo chair (yes, I know) at one end. My kitchen is close to needing to be condemned and I have dinner cooking in the slow cooker. Last night after work (!!!) I cleaned off a small corner of our counter.

I look in to our living room that has legos and wooden blocks all over the floor, right next to the baby’s floor mat (yes, I know). His jumper seat, that was his sister’s such a short time ago, takes up a large amount of space, sitting next to the cradle that he is about to outgrow. The bouncy/vibrating seat thingy is sitting in there too, taking space, but now too small for our boy, ready to be passed on to one of my best friends as she awaits the arrival of her next son. Only one of the chairs is empty to be sat in, the others filled with bags and random stuff that needs to be put away.

I breathe in this chaos, this proof of our lived life. I feel both frustration and calm as I sit here in the midst of it, writing these words, sipping my coffee. I have opened our dining room window and can hear the birds and squirrels, our creek and the quiet movement of our neighbors. As I opened the window I caught a glimpse of the abandoned kiddy pool, water now black and filled with leaves, waiting to be cleaned and put away until next year. I am reminded of the art supplies that are on our lower deck, waiting to come back inside. Reminded of how the days seem to slip by without these seemingly simple tasks being accomplished.

I am sitting with sadness that sprung up from work yesterday, my own sadness about a future that probably will, though may not, come to be. I have allowed some tears to fall for this yet to be seen future and am breathing deeply in the truth that that future is not today, not here yet. I release as much of this sadness as I can right now, being grateful for the life I have, the life my husband and I have created together, the life our beautiful children bring to us every day.

I am sitting with calm and peace and humble gratitude as I think of the women who have come forward already to do this work of being and becoming with me this fall. Some of whom started with me this past spring, others coming forward to start now. All of them trusting me and allowing me to be a part of their journey.

There are days when I can’t believe how blessed I am. Days when I think back to my younger selves and wonder how they got through, how we got to now. I smile at how 15 or 25 or even 35 year old me would have reacted to being told who she would become at almost 43. Would those past mes believe that it would all turn out so lovely? Would they believe I could find this deep peace in my life? Would they shake their heads and laugh or would they breathe a deep sigh of relief?

I wonder about the women I am yet to become. Me at 45, 55, 75, 95. What wisdom will I have earned then? How much deeper will this quiet knowing I am only beginning to feel at almost 43 run? What stories will she share? What kind of grandmother, great-aunt, long-time friend, wife will she be? And more importantly, who do I want her to be right now, even knowing that too will change as the years flow.

Right now, my daughter has come upstairs and is sitting in the chaos of our lived in living room, playing with those legos she had abandoned yesterday; wanting to share space with me and giving me space to write, to express, to observe.

Tonight I will hold space for families who have lost a parent, a spouse. It is work I am called to do and am grateful for. This weekend I will begin holding space for the women who are ready for their being and becoming work and play, keeping that space safe throughout our fall season together. Right now, and always, I am holding space for my family: giving love and gratitude, taking in the beauty and truth and reality of our life together.

And I hold space for myself. Allowing my own sadness to ebb and flow, letting its lesson of gratitude for the now be heard and internalized. Grieving the yesterdays lost and celebrating the tomorrows to come.  Finding my own true north, right where I am.

A close up of a section of my Being & Becoming vision board. Won't you come join us as we each find our own true north right where we are?

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Dissonance

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There is a dissonance that comes as we move from a highly distracted and non-present life into a life of connection and presence in the now. A shifting as we release old habits and create new ones. There is an ebb and flow to the process as we uncover the fears that are buried in our reasons for the distractions: the fears of true deep connection, the fears of being loved, the fears of being rejected, the fears of being seen as we are.

Stepping into the present moment is stepping into our vulnerability. It is a release of defenses that built the armor to distract us in the first place. By letting go of the long to-do lists and “have-tos” and “shoulds”; by letting go of expectations and worries; by letting go of distractions and numbing, we are allowing ourselves, our true selves, to be present and to shine through now.

This is some scary shit.

The dissonance comes into play as the space between—the space where we have started to release the old disconnecting habits and haven’t yet fully integrated the new connecting ones—comes into being. Our anxiety can actually increase in this in-between place: we know where we were and that it is not where we want to be, yet we aren’t quite fully living as we wish to live; neither space (distraction or connection) feels like home in this in-between place. This in-between place is a very uncomfortable place to be.

I’ve been feeling this dissonance lately as I shed even more distracting habits and focus in on deepening my connections with my world. I have been focused on releasing lately: releasing anger, frustration, fear, old stories, distractions. This release is creating some amazing amounts of space both inside me and in my daily life. As I’m releasing and this space is opening the dissonance comes: I feel off, odd, strange. I’m not used to having this space opened within me or in my days and I’m not quite sure what to do with it nor have I grown accustomed to having it. I am practicing breathing, meditation and of course, body-centered mindfulness to help me settle into this new open space, to find my comfort within it.

I honestly am a bit nervous about this process. I understand that releasing happens in layers and I am apprehensively curious how much more dissonance and discomfort I will feel as the layers continue to shed. I look at some of my old habits of isolation and distraction and on the rare moments I try to turn to them now, they don’t feel right, they only add to my “off” feeling. Yet as I practice settling deeper into connection (to myself, to my loved ones, to my world) some of those newly forming habits don’t feel quite like home yet either: while they feel new and strange they also feel like they could be home, once I allow myself the space to settle in.

So I continue this journey. I sit in this uncomfortable place as I give my body, mind and soul time to settle in, to find that “sweet spot” of being. I allow the discomfort to be and while practicing soothing exercises like deep breathing, repeating mantras, meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and play, I am being very mindful of not numbing and to allow myself to be where I am.

Being in this place of dissonance isn’t an easy place to be. It’s understandable to want to hurry up the process and get to the other side already. Yet this in-between place is important. Giving it space to be, giving yourself space to be, is vital to continuing on the path of savoring the present moment and finding those deep connections we all crave and need to thrive in this life.

Here’s to the dissonance. Here’s to this beautiful reminder that we are actively stepping out of our numbing habits and moving towards becoming even more fully present and finding those deep connections. I offer a prayer of gratitude to this dissonance, to its presence as I embrace it and where I am in this moment, knowing that this too shall pass, in its own time.

A Love Affair

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I’ve been clearing out our garage and in this process have been sorting through boxes of family memorabilia: photos, diplomas, report cards, letters, greeting cards. My grandmother, and then my mom, saved every single card she was ever given and after she and my grandfather were married saved every card he was ever given. I inherited these stacks and stacks of greeting cards and have been sorting through them, finding love notes and letters and viewing the love affair of Thomas Warren Goulette and Reta Fern Inman Goulette that extended over five decades.

There’s a depth to these Hallmark cards, a beauty of a love I witnessed as a child and young adult. My grandparents, while imperfect, were madly, deeply and truly in-love with each other their whole lives. They set the standard for me for what a marriage should be. My grandmother loved my grandfather, she cared for him and tended to him during his long battle with lung cancer and emphysema. She doted on him and the look in her eyes when she talked of him and to him was breath-taking. My grandfather loved my grandmother with a passion that can best be related by the story of his death: My grandfather had been dying, fighting cancer for over a year. The doctors had been saying that whole year that he only had a few months left and every time he lived past their prognosis they gave him another month, max. What the doctor’s didn’t know is that my grandfather had promised my grandmother he would live long enough for them to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. It was so important to my grandma to have that 50th anniversary, my grandfather knew this. He fought to stay alive and they celebrated it with him in a hospice bed in their living room. Two months later he passed away.

My grandfather did everything he could, always, to give my grandmother what she wanted. This came through in material things of course, and also in non-material things: how he lovingly collected walnuts from the walnut tree and cracked them (hundreds of them!) by hand every fall and set them out to dry so Grandma could use them in her baking; how he stood by her, holding and supporting her while she watched her daughter and granddaughter’s relationship fall to pieces; making sure that she took care of herself instead of always taking care of others.

My grandparents set the standard for romantic love. I wanted a love affair like theirs, one that would last the test of time. I wanted a partner who would be as devoted to me as my grandfather was to my grandmother, fighting back Death himself, to give her her heart’s desire.  I wanted to have a love that flowed so deep from my heart that people knew by the look on my face when I spoke of my husband how deep that love was. I wanted what they had.

I didn’t see their hard times, except in the last years when Death came knocking. I didn’t see them fight or argue. I didn’t see how hard it was for them to be parents or know of their struggles, financial and otherwise. I only knew they loved each other with a passion that couldn’t be measured or described.

And that in the end is what matters. Not the details of day to day living, but the eternal love we have for those we share those days with.

I’m blessed to share my life with a man who makes my heart sing, who makes me want to be a better person, who I enjoy staying up all night talking to and who I miss desperately when we are apart, even after our nearly two decades together. I am blessed that we have an amazing little girl together and that we have our daily struggles, as all families do, and at the end of the day we know that we love each other with a passion beyond measure.

I’m not reliving my grandparent’s love affair, theirs was in another time and place. Their love for each other was uniquely theirs and theirs alone.

I do have what they had though. Realizing this as I read birthday and anniversary cards from a time before I was born has been a beautiful, awesome, centering and humbling experience.

For all their flaws, and there were many, they showed me how to live passionately and deeply in-love. And in the end, I believe that maybe, that is all that matters: that we live each day passionately and deeply in love.

The mistakes we make, our flaws and  imperfections, at the end of lifetime or the end of a day, can be forgiven if we lived passionately and deeply in love, every moment. The details of their daily foibles don’t seem to matter or to make these people I knew and love, what I remember is their love: their love for each other, their love for our family. This love is what has guided me even when I didn’t know it, it has defined me in ways I have been unaware of or unable to fully comprehend.

It all boils down to love. Our love of those close to us. Our love of our lives. Of love for the world. Expressing our love for all to see, stepping into that vulnerability and not caring what the world thinks, because our love is so strong, so robust and beautiful, the world can’t truly hurt us.

Acknowledging this love has been a powerful gift over the past few days. I’ve wept, missing my mama and grandparents. Having questions and wanting to know the stories behind certain photos or letters and knowing these questions won’t be answered in this life. Coming to a place of acceptance that those details don’t really matter has been deeply personally profound. Releasing and opening, breathing in deeply the lessons they offer me over a decade after their deaths, has shown me how eternal love truly is. And that is a beautiful lesson to receive.

My grandparents on their 42nd wedding anniversary (February 14, 1990)
My grandparents on their 42nd wedding anniversary (February 14, 1990)

A prayer

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To my ancestral mamas,

I forgive you.

I forgive you for being human. I forgive you for clinging to your own hurt, terrified and lonely little girls inside your souls. I forgive you for not being able to pass on the love, the acceptance, the connection, the beauty that you wanted for your daughters, for yourselves.

I forgive you all for thinking you were terrible mothers. I forgive you all for being terrible mothers at times. I forgive you the hurt, the pain, the loneliness that you all passed down, generation after generation, all the way to me.

I send you love. I release the heavy burden you passed down to your daughters because you didn’t know what else to do with it. I’m setting it down for us all. 

I send you freedom. All of you I carry not only in my DNA, in my blood, I carry you in soul. As I repair and grow and transform and heal, you do too.

I give to us all a beautiful relationship with my daughter. The pain, the fear, the loneliness no longer serve us. It is time to connect, to bask in the joy and beauty of motherhood, to release the fear of fucking it all up. 

I soak in your strength. I bask in your love. Together, we will start to enjoy today, to enjoy our beautiful children, one moment at a time.