“You can choose to be grateful or ungrateful… positive or negative… to forgive or not forgive. You can be grateful even for adversity because adversity in some ways forces you to grow… You choose beliefs and attitudes.
When you make a choice to be positive, positive things start to happen.
What you focus on expands your life. What you radiate, you attract.”
Philip H Friedman, Former Director of the Foundation for Well-Being, as quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer 1/8/89

Lately I’ve been making myself vastly more vulnerable by releasing my written word out into the world. At the same time, I’ve been living in a new community, encountering many new faces. It’s not like moving when you have a little person and fellow parents open their arms wide for new connection. There’s also the dimension of being divorced which in my experience deters many couples from electing to socialize.

Thus I have been sitting, so to speak, with “being uncomfortable.” I’m often reminded of Pema Chodron’s suggestion that we develop compassion through struggle. In loving through our discomfort we learn about a whole new level of love. I’m seeing this time as an opportunity to look at my journey and assess my past, present, and future. Recently I’ve heard a refrain similar to the one that came to me on bedrest: listen. Step away from the noise.

One of the things I decided to do is return some focus to photography. To get out of “auto” mode, learn more about lighting, and continue the lessons I began in seventh grade: aperture, shutter speed, exposure, ISO, etc. A lot has happened since the early 80s. The project ahead of me is finding subjects that are not my child, her friends, or our old treasured view of farm and cornfields. New view, new subjects. It’s harder, and as in all things it seems, I have to be more brave.

Nevertheless with my basic kit, I’m out and about learning, testing, doing a lot of deleting. I’ve added a few additional tools: tripod, soft-box for my flash, and reflector.

The 42” circular reflector offers several options in surface colors: black, white, silver, gold, and translucent. My Great Courses professor recommended the gold so I zip that one on and put it a few feet away from the shelf beneath my office window. It takes the light streaming in the window and bounces it back, removing the shadows and making the shelf’s contents glow.

Later on that day I reluctantly go to my first meditation class. I mention my reluctance only because I have a five star monkey mind. All day long monkeys climb on top of themselves to get my attention. Knowing this, I focus hard on the guided part, following the transmuting colors described, but after a bit about platinum and gold light the instructor says, “now you’re on your own.” A bit panicked, I want to do something to keep my monkeys in check so I advise myself to pray, and the gold light stays for a bit. Then one monkey speaks, “Hey, Cressey! Gold light reminds me of the cool new gold reflector for photography.”

Another monkey agrees. And another monkey adds, “That reminds ME of that old ‘radiate what you attract’ quote.” (My monkeys are nothing if not competitive.) A fourth monkey yells, “Use the reflector as a reminder!”

With that, meditation ends for me. A few minutes later class is over, too, and the monkeys resume their rightful roles driving me up a tree or providing helpful insight, as the case might be.

To explain, with the help of my friend and life coach, Nancy Barnes Seligson, I’ve started creating tangible representations of the life steps I wish to actualize. This has been a helpful and often fun creative exercise. It’s a way to build ritual, represent something abstract, or internalize a message I want to practice.

The golden reflector is the very thing I want to remember as I put myself out there in these new and varied worlds. Don’t be afraid; what you radiate, you attract. But when I think about this later, the delight of my insight fades considerably. Sure what you radiate you attract, yet some days are dreary and I am fairly good at being cynical. Sharing golden light or any light at all sometimes seems too much to ask. You don’t fall in love to get divorced. You don’t wake up in the morning saying, “Today I’m going to be the worst parent I possibly can be.”

It occurs to me that it’s children who are the ones with the pure golden light; that’s why it’s such a joy to be in their company. They radiate their light in order to attract the light from us that they need to learn, model, thrive. Part of what happens as a child grows up is her light slowly turns away to illuminate her greater world. She still radiates her light, but the beam is often not in her parents’ direction.

I wonder if I was wrong. Perhaps it is not that I grieve the loss of my child as I previously suggested. It is true that I champion her growth and ultimate departure; even if it’s scary, I’m proud of her attempts to gain life experience, unearthing her goals and dreams.

Perhaps it’s really all about losing the constancy of the light. That beautiful pure light that used to wash me with awe and tenderness even at the point of bone exhaustion. Little G’s light cultivated mine. Her steady positive regard for me, even when I was upset, invited me to bask in unconditional love. I was raised to smile and dole out positive energy to the world in the hope of reciprocity; back then I felt like a fire hydrant full of it.

These days, I find myself hoping—almost guiltily—to hit a mood or a moment in which G’s light turns my way. When I get bruised, my inner critic eagerly invites me in for shelter, but the truth of the truth is this: I want to retain, or better yet, keep building my own light source. G tuned me in to its frequency; now it is up to me. I want my next chapters to have as much value or purpose as raising a child did. This is the whisper I’ve been trying to hear. Keep your heart open, even when she’s not near.