I used to think about Memorial Day as the beginning of summer. The long weekend with the weather almost surely summer-like.
OK. That was before I moved to Oregon where I’ve grown accustomed to waiting longer for summer’s arrival. But, especially this year, my need for respite is not waiting for summer.
So many people that I know tell me they feel like they’ve been working non-stop. Working at jobs, some of them. Somehow working from home has made work more unavoidable. Working at child-rearing, for those with younger children, has been a marathon, with parents in the roles of teachers, on top of everything else. Or caring for parents or siblings. Working at justice-making, for the activists among us and activism has never been more necessary.
It is clear that some combination of those roles has had many of us working overtime.
But there has also been the work of keeping ourselves safe. The work of keeping distance that has tested even the most introverted among us. And now the work of figuring out our own personal risk level as we begin to emerge from Covid-time.
Many of you know the wisdom that “it is easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission.” I think it can apply to an internal dialogue as well as relationship to whatever authority figure we might recognize on any given day.
Forgiving ourselves is hard enough when we fall short of the standards we have set, or the standards we have internalized.
But giving ourselves permission to relax tops even forgiveness, I think, as a “mission almost impossible.” At least it does for me.
So this Memorial Day I hope you can negotiate with yourself to give yourself some time off. There are still so many urgent things to pay attention to. I know. So perhaps you can’t negotiate to give yourself a whole long weekend off. But be a tough negotiator. Get some time…for yourself and those you love most.
Give yourself permission to breathe.
Here is a poem that spoke to me this week, by Morgan Hope Nichols. It was the line that each exhale is an act of surrender that drew me in. I share this even though, for some, it may call up images of George Floyd’s murder, one year ago this Tuesday. Breath is too important to our lives to allow it to be colonized and owned by that murderer. We need to own breath and the affirmation of life that it makes possible and represents.
I Hope You Give Yourself Permission to Breathe
• Morgan Hope Nichols
For whatever today means for you. I
Hope you give yourself permission to
Breathe. I hope you remember that in
Their own small way, every inhale is an
Act of taking it all in. Every exhale is an
Act of surrender.
I hope you find room to just be.
For in a world that often rushes from
One thing to the next,
A moment of stillness is an act of
Courage all on its own.
Whether today is looking back, looking
Forward, or simply being present to the
Moment in the best way you know how,
There is room for you, on this very day
To be where you need to be.
If there is grief, let there be grief.
If there is joy, let there be joy.
If there is a mixture of feelings that
Have no name, there is no pressure to
Name them today.
Whether today is a day of,
Remembering,
Honoring,
Celebrating,
Creating,
Or waiting,
Nurturing,
Unearthing,
Practicing gratitude,
Or just making it through,
There is room, right here for you
To let today be what it needs to be,
Welcoming the grace
That gives you room
To breathe.
Blessings for this Memorial Day weekend. May summer arrive soon.
Bill