This Will Be Deep...

I am reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and found this:

"This is what rituals are for. We do spiritual cermonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you're craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a cermony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotionals systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will provide the grace. And that is why we need God."

Wow.
Anytime I "endure" a holiday or special occasion, it's all about rituals...and broken rituals...and having to create new rituals to fix the conditions that broke the old ones. Through the years, I've had to do this several times. It's hard, at first, but gets easier over time. The reasons for the change fade as the new rituals begin to feel more comfortable.

My sister and I have had several conversations about this over the past few years. Her husband sometimes complains, for example, about all of the work and fuss over having the family Thanksgiving feast at their house. "Next year, we're just going to go out to eat." "Nooo..." my sister replies. "We'll do it here because that's what we've always done," (and that's what she wants. She figures that, as long as she is still able, there is merit in the tradition. I agree!

Over the past 18 months or so, in the absence of my daughter and grandchildren who have been in my life forever, I have to adjust to the feelings and situations of trying to make something good out of occasions when we USED to be together. I used to look forward to the summer when I could take the grandchildren to Plainfield's Splash Island or to my sister's in IL during their pool season, or let them play in the sprinkler, or go to the local park for fireworks on the Fourth of July. Now, I am in competition with my daughter because summer is her visitation time with them...and she's in California! Either I can be out there with them, or I can be home alone. But what's the fun in planting flowers and trying to make the yard nice if no one will be here to see/enjoy it? I'm still thinking about that one...

Okay...so we just celebrated Easter. I got lucky in that my grandchildren were allowed to come here for the weekend, to visit with me and their paternal grandparents. We planned our rituals. The grandchildren have already declared that they know the Easter Bunny isn't real, but we colored eggs and had an egg hunt anyway. Why? Because that's our ritual! Never mind that the kids had already colored eggs at home and had a hunt there. We did it again! I fixed the usual foods that I have when the children are here because I know that they like them. (I probably should try some other things, though, because Robin commented about it.) I always have their favorite little water bottles, their favorite chocolates in the candy dish, their favorite meat sticks...in the same way that Grandma McNary always had Megan's favorite peanut butter fudge in the pantry when we visited. It's a Grandma thing...a tradition...a ritual...and I'm doing it as much for me as for the grandchildren because it's a "specific ritual that [I'm] craving." And that's why we need God--to grace the little things we do because we do them!

After the grandchildren left, I found Cocoa-Puffs crushed on the living room carpet, a still-unopened-but-liquid Fudgsicle on the fireplace mantel, a rubber lizard on the air conditioner compressor unit outside, and candy wrappers everywhere. Would I change any of that? No. Well...maybe the Fudgsicle and Cocoa-Puffs part, but otherwise, no. They serve to remind me that there is still life in me and this little house. I hope it never ends!