A life of Independence

 

 I remember my first glimpse of independence, which was when Mom and Dad drove me to freshman year at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts.  I don’t remember a word they said, as Polonius-like, they cautioned me on how to behave in my first independent setting.  They said I looked at everything wide-eyed, and I was lost to them.  It may have been so.  I had sisters for the first time—in roommates and lunch lines, study, and play. 

And then there was dating and marriage and divorce—all of which depended on freedom to be and to chose.  All choices of which were radical departures from the paths my parents had chosen for me. 

But the next major event in independence that was a revelation to me was getting my driver’s license and buying my first car.  To move from passenger seat into the driver’s seat was indescribable independence, containing both freedom and control.  I was in control of a private space for the first time, and I could go wherever I wanted to go. 

And, as it turned out, that private space on wheels was a step toward what I really needed in order to feel independent and to pursue the career I wanted to excel in.  Though I had relationships and friendships enough, I moved alone into a room of my own for the first time.  And that is how I lived the rest of my life, in control of my own place and space.  These days I find I hold a little envy for those who have children and grandchildren, but despite a certain amount of loneliness, the freedom—the complete independence—is what nurtured my soul.  It’s as if my brain and spirit expanded into domestic space, leaving my heart free to love freely, and especially let the love of God pour through me toward others.  I think of this when I think of my mother’s motto, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

When my father died and Mom lived alone for the first time ever, lived alone after 72 years of marriage, I offered to help her with the things that come up for a woman alone.  But she took to it like a hummingbird to sugar water.  Her mourning continued in the evenings especially, in the hours after dinner when she missed the companionship of her husband.  During the day, she thrived in her art.  She rearranged the furniture and made a studio space in every room.  She had guests for lunch, she tutored and led small classes in drawing, etching, pastel, and acrylic.  And she lived alone—with aides for mornings and late evenings—up until  three weeks before her death.

 A year before she died, in July 2023, I was staying at my mother’s house during one of Mom's hospital visits.  When she returned home she accepted about 5 days of round-the-clock-care before asking us to leave, by 10 days of round-the-clock care, she demanded that we leave.  Her freedom and independence had become that important to her.  On reflection, I wrote this poem:

I watched her house and she
reach for each other, I felt her cat’s cold
shoulder, and heard sharper questions about
who moved what and why.  I returned home,
humbled, sure again that her nest was hers
and my nest was mine.  At what age do we
stop wanting independence?  In my own
home, cat leaning on my legs, repainting
them with her scent, I know the answer is
never.  Someday, I may have to insist
on assisting, or help her to move.  Someday
I will need someone to do that for me.
Until those days come, I’ll love the nests
we build for our adult selves, neither nestling 

nor child, but ones at home within ourselves.

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© 2024 Susan L. Chast

My spiritual journey

          

Source

          I am restless these days, and less able to create the sustained attention in silence that we liberal Quakers enter for worship--that is, waiting on God in a silent meeting, drawing close in community focus.  Occasionally there is a message for me or through me to others, and faithfully, I stand to deliver it.

          I am restless these days, and find it easier to focus in small groups than in the large weekly meetings.  I'm in two small groups: Experiment with Light and Building Beloved Community.  Experiment with Light was created by Rex Ambler, a British Quaker.  In the experiment, worship is guided so that we each isolate a concern to focus on amid the many we carry; we focus on it and interrogate it in stages; then find a phrase or image that helps us each move forward with solutions or with more clarity.  Those of us who wish to, share what came to us during the guided worship.  

          Building Beloved Community was first a group called Dismantling Systemic Racism.  We function as a support group rather than a worship group, though silence is one of our tools.  Early on we realized that all our verbs and terms were negative, and so we changed our name from Dismantling to Building, Building Beloved Community.  We want to see how positive framing adds to our understanding and ability to change.  We come with our stories and experiences of moments when we are racist or witness racism (with or without intervening).  We discuss both to understand and to find appropriate and positive follow up if any is possible.  

          I am a Jewish Pagan Christian Quaker, a fluid identity that grew over time. As a child I was at home in the woods of the Northeastern USA where I felt the friendship of trees, plants and small animals.  In the woods, I felt protected, and I made sense of many nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and myths.  Next, I lived my father's Judaism for a while, in love with the language and the holidays.  My family celebrated Easter, Passover, Channukah, and Christmas, and I absorbed the stories. Eco-feminist circles of belonging to Gaia and planet earth followed.  I participated in circles of drumming and ritual that some call Wicca. 

          When one day I felt the guidance of God through Jesus, it grew in these rich fields of experience.  I experienced it first at the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice back in the early 1980s.  I had met Quakers there for the first time, and came to admire their steadiness  in the face of controversy.  Controversies included whether or not, and how, to accommodate men and boys, whether to hang the American flag of military fame, and how to stop the erasure of each others' beliefs when it came to pentacles and crosses.  The challenge was to learn how to accept each others beliefs.  I started attending Quaker Meeting and took workshops in Alternatives to Violence.   It became clear to me that the Quaker peace testimony comes from the belief that God is in every human being, a truth implied in all the religions I've experienced. I recognized that my studies and life work were based on true leadings from God, and I began to seek this clarity in decision making and meeting for worship.

           Since the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice, my vision of Beloved Community has grown to include most peoples of the earth.  I often ask myself "What would Jesus do?"  This practice helps to stop my racing brain from impulsive responses stemming from old learned patterns.  To me, the church is not a place, but a people.  The doors are open. 

Open Door Vignettes

Love Thyself
Love Thy Neighbor
Shells, the sand, the sea
Gifts of the earth
Butterflies and birds
4-leaf clovers
Nectar of purple-flowered clover
Dogwood trees and flowers
Pine pitch on the climbing tree
Stories
Bible
Fairy tales
Animal tales
Novels
Teenage love poetry
The feel of a hand on skin
The feel of heart beats together
Ram Das and Be Here Now
Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way
Shalom Aleichem
Civil rights
Respect and Rehabilitation

The eyes of a dog
The eyes of a cow
Wicca
Candles, fires, and sweet grass
Gods and Goddesses
Justice
Peace
Love
Jesus says:
"Do not be jealous.  We're all made of the same material, all children of God and earth.  We're made differently so we'll live our own callings in the world.  As I do."

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My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

Who is not our neighbor?

I might have learned this language from Valarie Kaur's See No Stranger (2021), but the foundation was set in my mother's home where we grew up with her practices and her hooked rug.  This is a tribute poem I wrote for my mother in 2019, and revised in 2024 after her death:

Who is not our neighbor?

My mom spelled this out in her large hooked rug that hung over our couch for four decades: Love thy neighbor as thyself.

We drank in this faith while waiting for her to finish conversations with passersby, while watching her draw animals, trees, and buildings.

We watched love emerge in landscapes and still lifes, and hung them on the walls until what was white space became much like a forest.

Who is not our neighbor?  Her smiles and kindness created neighbors along with homemade cookies and recycled and repurposed clothing.

We were surrounded by piles of what could not be simply tossed--magazines, egg cartons, coffee grounds, eggshells, and glass bottles.

Who is not our neighbor? Mom asked by cutting plastics before disposing of them, by thinking into the future of her children's children.

She and dad shared the faith of birds, providing food until their safety depended on guarding nests and feeders from rescued kitties.

Mom has never had much use for distant gods or  godhead except for how it shows up in trees, neighbors, and neighborhoods she loves.

And she draws, gathers and assembles this vision into art--images whose humility surpasses that of altars in some churches I've known.  

These are the sermons I attend to. We were surrounded by the faith of our mother.  Her art surrounds us still.  Who is not our neighbor?

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My blog poems are rough drafts.

Please respect my copyright. 

© 2019 Susan L. Chast

Published in Grieving Into Love (2020), p. 65.

Revised 2024 as a tribute poem.

Mom Died 1 May 2024

 

          I cried in the hospital when the nurse said she was “concerned that Dot might not last the night.”  With our consent, she removed Mom’s intravenous bags and brought me a comfortable recliner to stay by Mom’s side. 

          Tears softened me into sleep before the moment Mom took her last breath. I remember seeing her sleeping gently with small gasps, then I woke to her silence, her not breathing, her peacefully passed to another world.  

          I cried again for a hot minute of sudden loneliness.  But how calm she looked with the stress and pain gone from her face, how youthful and free. She “wanted to live like a normal person,” she told me only a week before, frustrated at being bed-ridden and all the indignities that accompanied it.  Only 2 weeks ago, she had been walking and independent. The turn around had been swift, but she was prepared.

          A few months before Mom had drawn me into "the talk," trying to prepare me for her death.  "I'm not going to live forever," she said, "though I'd like to see 100.  I love you--always have and always will.  And I know you love me, too.  It's good.  I want you to know I know, so there will be no regrets."  
          I cried then, too, but didn't let her see the tears.  "I'm expecting you'll live 'til 108," I replied.  She smiled, I smiled, and there were some more words but those were the important ones.  

          Mom would have been 100 years old in two months, on July 7, 2024.

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Obituary

Dorothy Anna Berner Chast “Dot Chast”, 99 of West Coxsackie died May 1, 2024.

Born in Queens, Dot Chast lived in Coxsackie and Athens, NY for most of her 99 years. Since her High School years as an art major, she had a sketchbook in hand. Her artwork crosses all media, especially oil and acrylic painting, pastel, pen, and ink, watercolor and printmaking. In addition, she has been a sculptor, a fabric artist, and a wood carver.

She was a member of Greene County Council of the Arts, Columbia County Council of the Arts, The Woodstock Art Association and Museum (WAAM), Tivoli Artists Gallery, and the Athens Cultural Center. She was a member of the Greene County Arts and Crafts Guild, Inc. for almost 40 years. She frequently exhibited in juried shows throughout the Hudson valley and was honored to have fifteen different solo shows through the Greene County Council on the Arts, Prattsville Museum, Columbia Greene Community College, Congregation Anshe Emeth, Tivoli Artists Gallery, and the Cornell Cooperative Extension Center. She facilitated drawing classes at Columbia Greene Community College (Yes, You Can Draw) and many classes for Senior Citizens in Pencil, Pastel, and Oils.  

In addition to participating in arts organizations, Dot was a member of the West Athens Lime Street Fire Auxiliary for decades. The volunteer fire company was very important to her, as was mutual assistance neighbor to neighbor.

Her husband Joseph died May 11, 2019. Mother of George Chast (Sheila), Peter Chast, and Susan Chast, grandmother of Stephen (Tina), Mark (Jennifer), Eric (Tricia), and Craig (Noelle), great grandmother of Abigail, Natalie, and Cohn, aunt of Donald (Sheila) and Michael (Laura) and their families.

Calling hours will be held on Sunday, May 5th from 12:00 – 2:00 pm at Millspaugh Camerato Funeral Home, 139 Jefferson Hgts., Catskill. The burial will be private.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a local art or service organization.

Messages of condolence may be made to www.MillspaughCamerato.com.

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Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast

Topics: Forgiveness/Spring/Change*

 

Note: *I cut the financial considerations out of this essay for a reading in the Simpson House writing group.

 

As spring gallops forward with green bursting forth full tilt, I note again the change this winter wrought in my life, and ask myself for forgiveness, gratitude, and joy.

Moving into Simpson House this winter was a good choice, (but a choice that brought with it a great deal of change.)  The first change has to do with money.  I used to donate to a variety of causes, but now I have to divert my earnings to pay the monthly fee.  The second, and in many ways larger, change is how I spend my time.  Moving itself was essential as my house needed multiple repairs, and my tenant gave notice that she was moving to LA on March 4^th.   I am not a landlord.  Trying to find a single new tenant who was both a reliable friend and a cat sitter seemed daunting to me.  My body could no longer take the challenges of a second floor and taking out the garbage and caring for the yard.   I didn’t have the money to move to the first floor, and renovate the second so it could take a new tenant—even if I wanted to search for a new tenant.

And so I moved.  I had been exploring the choices for retirement communities for two years, but still, I knew I could get a modern apartment for half the cost--$1800 a month.  I could save over $1000 a month and be ready for a move, say, in ten years’ time.  That would have been a savings of $120,000.  But what would be the cost of retirement housing in 10 years, I asked myself?  And the effort to shop for food and cook meals weighed on me.  I have a book to write, I told myself.  What if my care for housing and for myself was minimized?  

I thought I could bring everything I do to Simpson House: I could remain a hermit in an apartment of my own, work on my unfinished book undisturbed, and venture out to socialize at dinner time.  The last time I made progress on my book, in 2016, I had room and board as Artist in Residence at Pendle Hill Quaker Retreat and Study Center.   I have yet to make closure on the promise of those days.  I thought taking up residence in a retirement community would help me with that.  And maybe someday it will.  But right now what has been happening instead is that I have read the books of the Reading Group, attended and written to the prompts of the Writing Group, joined the card making and neighbors group, attended art classes of Zen tangle for fun and of acrylic painting to try to capture the strength of the two trees I loved from the backyard I have left behind.   Also, I’m playing scrabble on Saturday mornings, and checking out music and documentaries in early evening.  All of this is in addition to continuing physical therapy, on-going engagement with my Quaker meeting, and participating in my previous book group in Yeadon, PA.  I've been enjoying the activities, but mostly the people of Simpson House.

I think: This is the curse of my horoscope.  I’m a cancer, and find it hard to focus on my own work when other activities are going on.  I am reminded of moving to a college campus back in 1969, when I discovered theatre and anti-war work, and earned 2 incompletes every semester.

I need to release myself from the guilt I feel for spending almost all my earnings on myself, and for playing almost full time! I am spending my income on myself and planning for my own future instead of continuing to fund anti-war slash humanitarian work.  I am not participating in reparations.  Yes, I feel guilty for cutting back on my donations to causes I believe in.  That’s the money part.  I often feel full of light and blessing instead of struggle these days.  This seems a luxury.  Have I done enough in life to have earned such lightness of spirit and lengths of time that I forget what is going on in the world?  That I forget the work I've been led to do?  My cause has always been about children’s lives, education, and release from trauma.  My writing is fiction about aging, creativity, and feminist theatre, a lost history of the 1980s and a semi-autobiography.  Is this truly time to cut back on that?

Maybe it is.  I am finding it easier and easier to feel joy, and when I stop paying attention to war news, forgiveness does not even come up as a question.  This writing itself is doing a lot to acknowledge loss and to relieve guilt.  I, too, have a traumatized child inside who wants attention.  How many people in the world rue their good fortune when a burden has been lifted?  I think only those of us who have tried to convince others that they have a part to play in making this a world where children can have both a present and a future.

As a partial solution, I have lately turned the guilt I carry into meditation and prayer, mostly centered on gratitude.  Gratitude for the challenges I’ve faced in my own life that have made me strong, aware, creative, and friendly.  Gratitude for the lessons I still learn.  Gratitude for the time to write and the blessing of groups to share writing with.  Gratitude for family and friends.  Gratitude that I have gifted this time to myself, time when stress slides away and creativity, as a result, soars.

Gratitude outweighs the guilt.  The practice of forgiveness—the practice of loving and supporting myself—is healing.  I can’t believe I wrote that sentence.  Healing.  I am grateful that it is true.  Imagine that!  As spring continues to awaken the world around me, I surround myself with it.  I am emerging from a long winter in my life, and if, at this point, aging feels like spring instead of winter, I am blessed.  To forgiveness and joy and gratitude, I say yes. 

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Please respect my copyright.

© 2024 Susan L. Chast