Ancestors and Self-Acceptance, Honor and Joy

Forested mountains

Then in my heart I wanted to embrace
the spirit of my mother. She was dead,
and I did not know how. Three times I tried,
longing to touch her. But three times her ghost
flew from my arms, like shadows or like dreams.

—Odysseus, The Odyssey trans. Emily Wilson, Book 11, lines 204-8

I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.

—Oprah paraphasing Dr. Maya Angelou

Joy is the happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens. And, usually, we have the idea, well, when something nice happens, then I’m happy, and when something bad happens, of course I’m unhappy. Well, you can be unhappy, and yet joyful. We don’t think of that. But there is a deep inner peace and joy in the midst of sadness. If we feel our way into it, we know that.

—Brother David Steindl-Rast (in this excellent episode of On Being)

Forested mountains

The other day, driving home from work, I was listening to our local public radio’s classical hour and thinking of my grandmother. It was a beautiful blue-sky day, and on my route, when the sky is clear, you can see the mountains both ways. Around the bend and the view revealed them, in their purple-blue relief, the road peeling behind me. My grandmother loved a view. Then, on the radio, something odd happened. Listening to this show on the way home was part of an old-pat routine: instrumental music, no lyrics (except occasionally opera, in languages I do not understand) to wind down, an occasional misplaced CD and the commentator trying to think fast in that way that makes local public radio even more enjoyable.

But as I moved in my hunk of metal toward the mountains, a chorus began singing “Morning Has Broken,” a song played at my grandmother’s funeral. (She wasn’t religious, but she did like Cat Stevens.) For almost a whole minute, I could swear to you she was there. We were there together. In that moment, I felt all-the-way-full—not overwhelmed but totally at peace and totally realizing joy.

Since my grandmother passed in April, something that has dawned on me is all the amazing places I’ve been able to take her. I don’t mean physically. I never took my grandmother on a vacation; I never even took her to dinner—when we ate together, she always made the food or footed the bill. Instead, I mean that once she passed, I realized that thing people say about someone living on in the hearts and memories of those they love isn’t just a saying. It’s a truth. She died practically a shut-in, but someone who loved views. Whenever I see a beautiful view, I think of her. I’ve felt so connected to her since she’s been gone—I’ve shown her rolling vineyards, embankments, and cliffs in a country she’d never been to, hills unfurling terra cottas against greens; to a fog-dense mountaintop where the deciduous trees stand, branchless, upright; to who knows where next. I truly believe she’s seeing it too. (Every person I’ve confided this to has said they also experience some version of this, and I don’t think they’re saying it just out of niceness.)

You see, in the words of Dr. Maya Angelou, “I come as one, but I stand as 10,000.”

The more time I spend with that sentence, the more I realize it is not a sentence but a blessing.

A gift of my grandmother’s passing has been a form of self-acceptance, acknowledgment of all the places I’ve taken and am taking her, and all the places I’ve taken and am taking my younger self—not to mention the women my grandmother loved and missed. It’s easy to dismiss accomplishments, shrug them off, belittle them or one’s self for not being enough. For years, I wished I were in a different profession, something that people got more excited about when I mentioned it at parties or that proved I was a hard worker or smart or caring, or a different kind of artist—a musician, or a different type of writer—a bestseller, or even a different sort of poet—Twitter famous yet award-winning, a professor or New Yorker, a homesteader or L.A. muse, the best homemaker or a single devil-may-care gal (which, just by writing that phrase, probably means I’m not built to suit).

But someone’s got hip New Yorker covered. And someone else has got single Nashville singer-songwriter covered. And yet another person has West Coast Instagram personality covered. Idol is covered (largely by pop icons and serial killers). “Famous poets” is covered: mostly by dead people. I’ve got to cover Whatever This Is, and, like an actor worthy of her salt, discover something new in the role every day that I can.

In accepting myself and my lot, I honor my grandmother and the places I take her. I would never demean her intentionally, or my younger self, and so I should not diminish myself because I carry them.

They see what I see. And art is an attention to, a way of seeing, and so they help me make my art.

I used to think honoring someone meant writing a poem about them, making something for them, dedicating something to them, or doing what they’d have me do. I’m beginning to realize (my grandmother is teaching me and I’m teaching myself) that honoring myself is honoring everyone I carry with me, everyone who carried me until I got here, where I could walk so far, so high, I could sit inside a cloud and remember.

Who do you choose to honor and how will you honor them today? Leave a comment below and let me know.

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In Memory of Roberta Sharp, My Grandmother (1945–2018)

This is my grandmother Roberta Sharp’s eulogy, given at her memorial service. A mother, grandmother, aunt, friend, wanderer, and free spirit, she is loved and missed.

Bobbi Sharp

Hi, I’m Lindsey and Roberta Sharp was my grandmother. One of my strongest memories of her is the smell of her house: potpourri and cigarettes. It might be an acquired taste, but my sister and I love it. I don’t know where I’ll find that smell again—her particular blend. Anyway, one of the things Grama taught me was that potpourri doesn’t cover up the smell of cigarettes.

And she taught me all sorts of things, much of which was practical: Save the bows from presents to re-use; buy those bows and bags at a dollar store. It’s easier to keep a pair of scissors in every room than to go on a hunt for one pair of scissors. Slice a bunch of cherry tomatoes in half at once by sandwiching them between two Tupperware lids with rims. Always have chips and dip for company. Get your mammograms. Wicker furniture does come back. HSN and QVC have good deals on beautiful jewelry. Post as much as you want to on social media—we’re all on there anyway. Keep a clean house, which is maybe one of the lessons I have the most trouble with. Have two or three meals you’re known for. Do your job. If you’re stunning, be casual. Laugh impishly, and if something’s funny, laugh. Silence is golden. Alone time is necessary. If your son-in-law moves in with you, he’s easier to handle if you serve him Kahlua in his coffee. If you get a riding mower stuck with its front half up a tree, call Clark. Family traditions are important. If someone marries into the family, tell them how much you like them. No fight is as important as family—if you can be right or get along, get along.

Grama grew to keep her life simple because often, life upended itself. Among its many changes, she survived single motherhood, a tornado, and the death of her best friend, her younger brother, Gary. She remembered her parents in many ways, including marking their birth and death days on her Thomas Kinkade calendar.

She taught me to be honest and to let people know that I love them. She said “Hi Sweetie” whenever I walked through the door and liked all of my Facebook posts. She always told me she was proud of me, and I know she was proud of Ssangie and Sara, that they were starting out in life and hard workers, that Sara got a job in a competitive field and Ssangie bought a house on her own. She was proud of and happy for Aaron, Nikki, and Sierra, too, and loved learning how their lives are unfolding. She really wanted to know us, which is even why she liked getting us gifts, knowing what someone likes is one way of knowing them. Some of my favorite times I spent with Grama were as an awkward teenager, trying on clothes when she took me shopping for my birthday. At a time when it felt like anything I put on would be ugly, she helped me have confidence by spending time with me and saying it was all cute.

One of the main things I think she taught many of us? The view is where it’s at, go and take it in. On a beautiful day, go for a drive. If you have a dream vacation, go. Grama loved a view—especially a shared one, like with Grama Baumle and my mom and dad in Jericho, Arizona, on the ledge of a skinny road with no shoulder, where they had a flat tire that had to be fixed; or tracing the upper rim of Lake Superior with Mom and Cheryl, where music played on the beach and the sun didn’t go down until almost midnight; Glacier and Seattle, places that Sara and I had gone that she’d gone before, she’d send us pictures on social media of those places all the time. She knew Seattle so well, she went to the first Starbucks before it was a chain, and said she knew it would be big. She could tell Sara a story about every picture she brought home from her trip. One of my favorite memories of her was just driving home from Thanksgivings on the scenic route, or watching her watch all the cows in the valley below our cabin. Many of her trips were to visit her women friends, who were dear to her. And on her trips, she’d go anywhere—fearless, sometimes into the mountains in the dark to blow off steam, sometimes into cities, where she’d also park anywhere, an embassy, a mansion’s driveway; and when she reached a roadside motel, she’d ask to see a room before she decided whether to stay. It didn’t have to be fancy, but it did need to be clean. One of the views she liked best was from her porch at home. Maybe her favorite trip was her one with Mom and Cheryl to Tofino to celebrate her 70th birthday, her favorite view not the water or the mountains, but seeing her two favorite people happy together.

She loved when our small family was happy and together. I know because I’ve seen it, but also because she told me. She loved that Mom and Cheryl are best friends. She loved that my dad and Clark are their best friends, too. That through all this time and all these miles, all the views we’ve taken in, we’ve all stayed together. One of her last dreams was that we all had houses in a row. (Cheryl reminded her she’d been watching HGTV.)

She was one of my favorite people on Earth; now she’s one of my favorite people somewhere else. I love her very much.

Her biggest lessons didn’t come from the biggest trip or the prettiest picture. They are in simple moments, non-stories: my mom coming home from kindergarten and eating soup with her while they watched Bewitched. Her feeding marshmallows to her dog. Just sitting quietly in the car together and watching the world blur out into greens, blues, and grays. She took a complicated life and made it simple and satisfying by filling it with love. As long as Sara, Cassandra, and I weren’t fidgeting, playing near something fragile (like the glass frog), or making weird noises, we were loved exactly as we are. Maybe this is the lesson all good grandparents impart, but I felt it especially from Grama. Maybe because she was exactly who she was, sometimes stubbornly; she did what she wanted to do. She didn’t moralize, kept her judgments to herself (and maybe our moms), and let things go. Forgiveness wasn’t something one asked for—we just got it. I remember apologizing a couple hours after snapping at her one Thanksgiving and she looked totally confused—she’d already forgotten whatever it was. The people in Bobbi Sharp’s life were loved. She let us know it. We were loved. We love her very much. Her legacy will be how much we love each other for as long as we have and how we show it.