Last January 28th, on my birthday to be exact, my mom and I had breakfast in the local Honey Bear Bakery across the street from my cottage.
That late day in January almost seven months ago, we decided to take a walk in my neighborhood in the bright mid-day winter.
It was a little bit sunny, I remember. Not Raining is a thing at that time of year.
The air was fresh, cool. Soothing.
The night before I had texted my son, now living very close by in the house his father had owned before he died of cancer 18 months earlier.
My son had replied “Sure, breakfast with you and grandma sounds fun! See you there!”
He hadn’t shown up, so we ate without him.
No big deal, my mom and I said to each other. He’s so forgetful. If his head wasn’t attached by the neck to his body, he’d leave it somewhere.
We decided, as we put on our January rain jackets, to walk over to his place, knock on the door and see if he wanted to come walk with us.
We showed up at his basement apartment door.
Apologies, laughter, more apologies. There was a young woman in his apartment. We had heard about her, but not met her yet. She didn’t want to come out to meet us.
(I watched a few thoughts run through about that–she should want to meet us, if they’ve been dating for 3 months now….is it true?)
My son pulled on his tall black Hansen rubber boots to his 6 foot 4 inch tall frame.
Little did I know as we three stepped out into the lush, wet, northwest late morning that our walk would reveal a massively unexpected bit of information.
Like. Insanely unexpected.
Never, ever before imagined or wondered about.
Well, certainly not imagined for me.
During the conversation as we trod down the very center of the wide paved quiet road lined with huge tall evergreens, my mother started prodding my son with questions about his girlfriend.
My mom commented on how shy the young woman seemed. She also asked about the girlfriend’s change of pronouns to them/they/theirs.
“What’s her motivation….I mean, what’s ‘their’ motivation?” asks my mom.
“And are you thinking of changing your own pronouns?” says my mom after some discourse.
I almost want to say “don’t ask him so many personal questions–especially that one mom. Leave him alone, jeez.”
My mom has always been caring, interested, and has no hesitation asking whatever comes to her mind.
It’s been a really, really good thing, to be honest.
Even if incredibly uncomfortable sometimes growing up.
My son paused, stopped walking with tall cattails waving slowly behind him and the creek singing loudly just past the path we had turned on, both hands deep in his pants pockets….
….and said….
….”why yes, yes actually. I AM changing my pronouns. To they/them. No longer he/him. Consider the pronouns changed. I prefer they/them”.
Holy Sh*t.
I felt a rush of adrenaline.
That was the first spotlight of awareness getting revealed to me. The first piece of information that didn’t fit my expected story.
Like in a very dark black theater, I’m in the audience way back in the seats farthest away from the stage, and the show is about to begin.
BAM. You know that turn-on-the-huge-theater-spotlight sound?
All the light suddenly in a bright column on stage.
Blackness surrounding this column.
That one spotlight turns on and we see everything inside only that beam of light.
They/Them pronouns.
What does this mean?
I had not known there was a whole stage, a whole unknown world surrounding and behind the light beam of new information.
An entire world, a whole enormous set.
A set with furniture, color, atmosphere, clues, history, people, genders, anger, passion.
With one spotlight, it’s all still basically in the dark, but the audience now knows the set is there.
We know now.
I knew now.
I had seen none of it.
I hadn’t even been invited into the theater before. It almost seems I had accidentally entered this theater, pulled in by my mother and her curiosity.
A world of gender questioning and challenging in ways different from what I’ve pondered myself. Maybe.
BAM. Another spotlight turns on two weeks later when I have a further discussion with my oldest child, this being who is now they/them, and find out ‘they’ have been taking hormones to increase estrogen and decrease testosterone since October.
I almost gasp inside.
WHAT?!
The mind starts fitting puzzle pieces together from the past year. I think about how weird last Thanksgiving had been, for example. Last November. I felt like something wasn’t being said.
I had wondered on that November journey if it was just my own sentimentality since I had been to our destination many times over the years: Cannon Beach, Oregon.
It’s where I had spent a honeymoon with my children’s father, right after our November wedding in 1990.
I had wanted to talk about their dad and remember him, but something was just….off.
After the second evening together on that trip, just before dozing off to sleep, I had said to my now husband, my two children’s step father (he’s been around since the kids were 8 and 11) “Something’s off, like we aren’t talking about something. It feels weird. I can’t put my finger on it.”
BAM. Three more spotlights turn on a few more weeks later when we have a five hour conversation about gender, society, culture, depression, conditioning, suicide, rage.
Wow.
“I don’t know why, mom, it just seems right. I can’t present as a male right now in my life.”
Me in my head only [Why the hell not? You’re one of the good ones, we need you! Don’t abandon your role as man, oh please, let this not be happening. Why do all the good men leave? (Um, they don’t, let’s not get carried away).]
“No I have not consulted or told anyone at all. It seemed necessary to do this on my own and not get influenced by other people.”
[You didn’t want ME to influence you. I mean nothing to you? Mothers have no power after all. My heart is breaking. You shouldn’t care about whatever your gender is so much. You’re throwing away a great life. Sob. (Um, hello, remember “is it true?” Heh heh.)]
“No I am not interested in surgery”.
[Thank God, maybe there’s hope. Stop! Don’t! How could I have not seen this? What’s wrong with me? Is this because your dad died? Please never, ever want to get expensive surgery that will make you look confusing and weird. (Um, this doesn’t have anything to do with you? Hello?)].
“Sure I do like girls or women, yes, and you could say that makes me a non-binary lesbian, mom.”
[A lesbian with a penis? Stop the insanity! (Remember how much you like challenges to ‘normal’ and the joy of change?)].
“Quit asking me questions, do your own research! I don’t have time for five hour conversations every week.”
[My son has died. He never asked me one thing about this predicament, this concern. What is this agony? Remember how fun and comfortable you find the LGBTQ+ world–even though you don’t identify there? Why so upset?? (You sure are having a hissy fit, interesting!)]
After tossing and turning one night for hours, I knew what to do.
Write it down.
Catch the thoughts–manifest them on paper. Stop them moving so fast by writing them.
Take your own medicine, Grace.
Ask four questions on one thought at a time.
Turn it around.
Funny that I would even let a few days go by without doing The Work.
Thank goodness I facilitate The Work. It is for me, once again.
What’s that, Grace? Who’s it for?
(The court fool in the corner is holding their hand to their ear with a smile. “Who is The Work for, Ms. Bell?)
Me. Mind.
This mind, having it’s thoughts that are very dramatic, catastrophic, wail-inducing.
I do The Work. I find a crack in my story, just by watching the stress and disappointment arise and asking “who would I be without this story?”
For the next weeks, every person’s inquiry I work with, every group where someone brings pain to the surface, I see this “son” saying they aren’t my “son”.
I listen, I plug in my child’s face, I hear those who have come to be clients giving their wisdom; the lovely and thoughtful year of inquiry group, the sincere and passionate eating peace group….everyone in these groups so brilliant in their own way, here to speak their answers.
I write.
One day, I have people in one of the groups write down what they have lost, in an important situation where LOSS is the caption of the story.
I do the exercise, too.
What have I lost, when it comes to this oldest child of mine? What does it mean for me?
LOSS EXERCISE:
I’ve lost my fairy tale ending with a son
I’ve lost my SON, a boy.
And it means that…..
People will be frightened of him, and of me
I did something wrong
He’s reject-able
That beautiful version of him is dead
He is throwing his opportunity away
People will hurt him
Being the good king, being president, being in charge, being leader, being the man, being Jon Snow, being the biggest-boss-there-ever-was….is not possible.
I begin to do The Work.
I am stunned. I see how in the card deck, the King is higher than the Queen. It was always that way. I never questioned it.
Fascinating.
What if that’s not true?
I write several Judge Your Neighbor worksheets for different situations, answering the six questions to identify more of what I’m thinking. I spend time contemplating, wondering about my story.
I’m listening.
My first sentence? The crime, the offense, the thing I hate that’s happened?
“My son is killing my son”.
How bizarre. It’s like “he” should keep being THAT IMAGE.
The handsome, beautiful man I see. The one I adore. The one I delight in listening to, in talking to for hours.
I had no idea I was so set in my mind about what I saw, how I saw it, who else should see it, how it needed to be maintained and seen long-term, and what I expected to see in the future.
Wow.
Left turn.
Pivot, (as they say during pandemics).
Universe showing up for me to learn.
Pandemic thinking, catastrophic thinking, grandiose thinking. A lot of killing going on.
Do I want to fight and crush my own heart into pieces with my disappointment, or broken heart, or diseased visions for the future that could use a little upgrade, or peace?
Or do I want to be open to whatever’s unfolding?
I get to choose.
“Argue with reality, and you lose, but only 100% of the time.” ~ Byron Katie
And so the light continues to turn on, sometimes a strobe light, sometimes way too bright–until my eyes adjust.
Sometimes I wish for a blindfold, or those little delicate sandbags someone placed over my closed eyes once in a spa.
Do I really have to look? Do I have to see how much I dreamed the story to go one certain way, instead of remembering the universe is the one in charge?
Who am I without my nightmare story? Is it even “my” story?
Without this story, I’d be hearing my mother, the grandmother of my changing child, say to me on the phone last night after this child moved in with her; “This is going to be amazing. Their life could be better this way than the way it might have been without this change. This kid is fascinating….it’s going to be amazing, fabulous, wonderful. I am sooooo excited!”
These words from my mother who turned 83 two days ago.
An open mind, an unconditionally loving mind, has nothing to do with age.
Who would I be without my story?
Aware of the incredible support.
Aware of the question arising in me “that’s MY son, “my” child–is that even true?”
Aware of how much I love a future without limits, without definition.
Aware that I can also be thrilled, just like my loving mother who I adore.
I can also be full of wonder, surviving despite all the experiences and stories about pain and suffering, rejection and failure, gender and privilege.
Steady on into questioning my beliefs.
Are they even “my” beliefs?
LOL.
And so….the page-turner continues.
Life is the teacher, the guru.
All of life, everything I meet, every person I encounter.
Without my stories of what should be: son, child, dream, future, health, enlightenment, success, safety, right, money, wrong, even God….
….without “my” stories about any of this….
….something rises inside that’s like a laugh.
A joy.
Nothing serious going on here.
So Year of Inquiry is preparing for a new group of inquirers ready to journey together in The Work for a whole year.
Apparently, doing The Work is of phenomenal benefit for me, personally.
The group is part of my spiritual practice.
I love sharing The Work.
Which makes me extremely happy to know people will be coming on board and helping me stay on the peace train and discover the possibilities for whole new worlds.
The Work, especially with other people, is the one thing I can apparently do with all these wild stories careening around creating fear, agony, stress, anxiety, anger, rage, sadness and heartbreak.
I wouldn’t have the stories go any other way.
(They are rather exciting, no?)
I am so grateful I have four questions I can ask, and turnarounds I can fall into.
Like little mental wake-up slaps when I’m dozing off during a concussion. Er, I mean gentle dawning of the light.
Turned around: My thinking is killing my son, my thinking is killing me, my son is creating and giving birth to someone new.
Human being.
Thinking.
Seeing nightmares.
Human being.
Thinking.
Seeing possibilities, joy, love.
Human being.
Thinking.
Laughing at the thinking.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead
Our world-changing citizen groups start September 15th, 2020 and we work together through June 17th, 2021…followed by Summer Camp for The Mind which is always included for Year of Inquiry folks.
Our schedule?
Tuesdays 9am Pacific Time (Noon ET/ 6pm Europe or South Africa), and/or,
Thursdays 5pm Pacific Time (8pm ET/ 9am Japan Friday/ 10am Sydney Friday)
Saturdays 8:30am Pacific Time (11:30am ET/ 4:30pm UK)
Having a weekend day is by popular request for those working and busy all the time Monday-Friday.
I don’t mind.
“Mind”–LOL.
Read more about our group, the schedule, and the program right HERE: www.workwithgrace.com
I can’t wait to see what happens next.
That’s the best kind of way to live a life.
Thanks for joining me on the journey.
Much love,
Grace