"It is a kind of love, is it not? How the cup holds the tea, How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare, How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes Or toes. How soles of feet know Where they’re supposed to be. I’ve been thinking about the patience Of ordinary things, how clothes Wait respectfully in closets And soap dries quietly in the dish, And towels drink the wet From the skin of the back. And the lovely repetition of stairs. And what is more generous than a window?"
~Pat Schneider~
This poem first came to me as a gift. A couple of years ago I was in inner turmoil. I was going through some huge life changes and had additionally just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was learning for the first time about "coping skills." Or, at least, I was learning about consciously-used coping skills.
I had, of course, developed ways of coping with stress throughout the years I'd spent in school, but most of the skills I had developed naturally involved pushing aside and compartmentalizing my emotions. I am a thinker. Always have been. And it felt much safer for me to be thinking through things than to feel my way through them. So when I experienced intense emotions, I tended put a box around them and hold them at a safe distance so that I could analyze them, name them, and eventually set them aside.
But for the first time in my life, when bipolar II raised its manic-depressive head, I started experiencing emotions with an intensity I couldn't ignore. I couldn't simply set aside the depression, I couldn't compartmentalize the anxiety, and I couldn't push down the mania. I felt erratic and out of sorts. Every way of coping that I had previously taught myself was coming up short of fixing the problem.
I found my way to the counseling center at my college, and after getting bounced around a couple of different students who were enrolled there, I decided to make the move to a licensed counselor in a practice. I lucked out in a short search. I asked around about affordable options for mental health providers and found my psychiatrist at a center that works to help those with little to no insurance find the care that they need. She started seeing me and made the diagnosis for bipolar disorder. Not long after that, on one particular visit, she brought in a young woman to the room with her. The woman had bright eyes and brown curls and smiled one of the more genuinely kind smiles I can remember seeing in my lifetime. My psychiatrist introduced us. The young woman's name was Meredith, and she had just come on staff as a case manager and therapist. I was hesitant, but even though we had just started seeing each other, I trusted my psychiatrist. She told me that she believed Meredith would be a good fit for me as a counselor. So soon after our short introduction, I agreed with my psychiatrist to start seeing Meredith.
We clicked instantly. Our senses of humor meshed so we shared laughs regularly in our sessions, but she was also quick to call me out when I used humor as a defense mechanism for uncomfortable subjects. That kind smile I remember from our first meeting stayed a constant. Those bright eyes would take me in with such understanding and patience even as I grew comfortable enough to let my own eyes fill with tears in front of her. Over time I learned how to share my feelings. She listened and helped me name the chaos inside me a little bit at a time until it started to feel manageable.
Meredith and I had been seeing each other for a while when I had a mood swing into a manic phase. I was experiencing increased anxiety, having panic attacks regularly and a mounting sense of existential dread the rest of the time. That is when Meredith gifted me with the poem above.
The poem is about simple, ordinary things. Nothing wild or even really creative. But it is also about taking note of those seemingly ordinary things so that they are no longer ordinary. They become something more, something to be appreciated more deeply, all because of the noticing. This was the new coping skill Meredith was teaching me. Mindfulness.
As I've come to view it, mindfulness is observation done nonjudgmentally. It is paying attention. We had practiced mindfulness before, Meredith and I, with what she calls "body scans." You start with noticing the feel of your toes, then move up to your ankles, then your calves, then so on and so forth until you reach the top of your head. All the while you breath deeply in and out. I got the point of doing that, and it helped if I actually practiced it. But for some reason mindfulness as a whole didn't click for me until Meredith gave me this poem.
Not for the first time, I mentally agreed with my psychiatrist. Meredith was a good fit for me as a counselor. She had sensed that the poem would mean something deep to me, and it did. Through it I began to see how mindfulness could help with my mania. I printed off copies of the poem and left them in places I knew I would encounter them. I printed extra copies to doodle on, practicing being mindful to the pencil and my hand and immersing myself in my creativity and imagination.
Over time [and by that I mean a LONG time], I have learned how to be mindful. I'm still not perfect at it and I sometimes forget using it as a coping skill all together. But there are still times that I come across this poem, tucked away in a journal or a box of old office supplies, and I remember. I pull it out and read it slowly. Throughout the years I've grown to be more observant of myself and my surroundings, and I have Meredith and her gift to thank for that.
I don't know what life would be like had I not met that bright-eyed, curly-haired, smiling woman. I can't imagine life without having known her. She has left the kind of impact on me that words really can't capture. She has left her fingerprints on my heart and mind, and I'm proud when I see them there. My own hard work in counseling has grown itself exponentially because of the hard work Meredith also puts into our sessions. She's on my side. I know she is rooting for me and cheering me on to accomplish everything in life that I could ever want. She supports me, calls me out, and shares her infectious laughter. Every single visit, I'm still greeted with that genuinely kind smile.
As the poem says, I've been thinking about the patience of ordinary things. Well, when you think long enough about it with a mindful perspective, those ordinary things are not so ordinary after all. I believe this is true for Meredith as well. She may appear to be just another young woman to you. But she has meant the world to me. I've been thinking about the patience of Meredith. The inner loveliness she shows. And the generous outpouring of strength and wisdom she gives me. I still agree with my psychiatrist. Meredith has been a good fit for me.