Accept. Adjust. Adorn.
I play a game when I’m scared. I silently say, “I love you,” instead of “fuck you,” to every person I see. I started doing this in airports when the fear of flying overtook me. I beamed love into the back of the head of each person in line in front of me. “I love you,” said I to the dandruff-specked head with white roots as well as the noggin styled to the nines. Soft little baby heads were easy to love unless they were crying, then I doused the parents as hard as I could. Fear hounded me one evening on my drive home from work while stuck in traffic on Alcatraz Street. I turned on my love-light and blasted the folks in oncoming traffic. A teenage girl in the backseat of a car inching past rolled down her window, and yelled, “What the hell are you looking at, bitch!” She startled me out of my do-gooder- trance and I laughed so hard I almost peed my pants.
I do these things not to impress anyone or earn Brownie points. I do these things because I want to feel better. I have wanted to change the channel playing in my head since I was a little girl with night terrors. Now I am a middle-aged lady with night terrors who politely thanks her husband after he gently nudges me awake after I’ve woken him with my garbled screams.
On a recent walk and talk, a friend of mine shared something a friend of her father’s said. When he had been a POW, the way he survived was by adopting the mantra: accept, adjust and adorn.
ACCEPT
I accept I have a lot of fear. I accept that it’s mostly about stuff that’s not real. I accept that it’s a part of being human, this fear, and that by becoming aware of it, I have choices in how I deal with it. I’m not a prisoner of war, I am a prisoner of unexamined thoughts.
ADJUST
Once I accept my circumstance, see it for what it is, I can adjust my attitude towards it. I’m standing in line at the airport and my stomach hurts and my face is hot because I’m afraid. I’m not sitting in a cage staring at an armed enemy. Even so, fear does not care about the fact that it’s safer to fly than drive. I consciously need to make the choice to lift my own spirits, take responsibility for my own well-being.
ADORN
Beaming goodwill does wonders for me. As does singing and making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the homeless. I do these things because they bring beauty into my realm. They adorn my shaky, lonely and quaking heart. I wonder how that POW elevated his experience? How did he shift his perspective?
A current circumstance for many folks is that we will be laying low and not visiting with family and friends over Christmas because of Omicron. I accept that Omicron is rampant, and not everyone is vaccinated. I can bend, be flexible, and no longer have to sit in a maladjusted funk where I need to find fault because things didn’t go as planned. And I will adorn my quiet holiday with whatever beautiful ideas my wild spirit comes up with.
I love you. We are in this together whether we like it or not. May we adorn our asses off in 2022.
