What if Problems are Rooted in Peace?

"How can people be at peace without perfection?"

I could feel the agitation in her voice that there were people out there with far less than her, who were far more satisfied with themselves and life.

Smiling on the other end of the phone line, softening into a state that won't offend her resistance I hope I find the right words, but this question is one that must answer itself in a person to truly be answered.

Peace unveils perfection. Not the other way around.

I think this later in the day watching my boys before me.

My three year old son is clunking along the mulch trail in boots unfit for the late summer weather pulling up his sagging pants from the back. Following his enthusiasm, my eighteen year old son allows him to lead.

Ever hear of a PawPaw?

It's a kind of Pennsylvanian fruit that has a two-weeks-a-year ripe season, but only lasts three days off the branch so it doesn't make people money. Which means, no one talks about it.

But it does make us, a tradition.

When nights get brisk and buses crowd the streets, pawpaws ripen which we know by shaking the tree. Those that fall off on a shake are ready to be eaten.

So we walk this path, to a sweet little pawpaw grove, and shake all the shady trees.

My youngest screams, "Come on Pawpaw, you can do it!" raising his arm in expressed belief as my oldest shakes their trunks.

I spy a bunch and motion to him to come nearer. I shake the tree and one drops only a few feet from his boots.

"Yay! I got my pawpaw Mommy! Thank you! You shook the tree!" he jumps up, ever present in gratitude, boots weighing him down, on repeat.

"Pawpaw!" he positioned our achievements, five ripe pawpaw perfectly into the front pocket of our family bag.

We walk by the river as we always do. My dog's favorite water park. We walk here together like this often.

But we prioritize it a few nights a week each year in this two week period of September.

We leave with the family bag full, and the fullness of our connection to nature, and to each other.

Sometimes we come here and command silence of our children, one of whom appears, will never comply. But she's not here, and my sons and I understand these woods in a similar way.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful. Like, explosively grateful in the quiet of natures soundscape beside my boys.

I inhale this overwhelm while opening my car door.

We take our foraging trophies home.

The screaming begins as soon as we walk in the door. Individually all of my children are quiet and cordial. Put them together and it's like fireworks of explosive shrieks in the name of fun, which inevitably at some point leads to an implosive quarrel.

They go through these motions when my never-quiet daughter screams through the house from the back porch, "Mom!" Her hand is cupping her mouth to project it even though I'm within ear shot. She wanted her friends to hear. "Can we have pancakes for dinner?"

I soaked the pawpaws in wash and prepped the raspberry pancakes and turkey bacon breakfast dinner we were about to have.

The air is cool and clear. The atmosphere in our home is warm and messy.

Feels like getting into the most perfect bedding on the perfect weathered night.

I feel overwhelmingly grateful. Like, explosively.

Then I think of her question because I wish with all my heart, that she could feel "this" that I feel.

There was a time in my life when I needed to conjure up what I was grateful for.

Afternoons like these, aren't rare occurrences in my life. They never have been.

What used to be rare was my ability to soak them in with all of my senses in a space of rest within myself.

I used to ruin sensational moments like this, experiencing it from a mind that was problem solving for something that was, or wasn't here, as if here, needed to be fixed, rather than felt.

And as if, here, wasn't as important as getting there. Though I was likely unsure of exactly where there, even was.

Basic example: When I was in graduate school, I had a full time job, and was a single mom of two living on my own.

It was my mid-20's & I wanted a normal 25ish life which included dance, lots and lots of dance, and bars, and boys I liked to chase.

But when I was in class, I'd be thinking about a silhouette with a drink in hand, dancing on a purple lit wall.

When I was at work, I thought about the paper I was writing for class.

When I was out, I guilted myself to death for not being with my kids.

When I was with my kids, I was thinking about how I was gonna cover that new heating system we need.

When I at home, I was thinking about everything I needed to do to keep up with it.

I never got to be where I was. Or I should say, I never got to "enjoy" it. I always got up to do something else, whether it was the dishes, or, in my own mind.

But I've tamed my mind otherwise.

The person asking "How can people be at peace without perfection?" has problems that most people wish they had.

More like "What vacation do I want to go on, and why did that girl look at me weird?" versus, "How am I gonna feed my family, and where do we beg for ample medical care tonight?" though in a lifespan she's experienced the contrast of both.

I don't have my acres of sustainable land right by the ocean but also in the mountains where I've built homes for all of my children, and a retreat center, and a flower field full of horses that is also a forrest.

I drive a minivan for Christ's sake. Literally, "I" personally wouldn't do it but...

There's student loan debt. Mortgage debt. Kids in college. Inflation. An elderly dog. Pretty pressing medical issues to tend to. There's decisions to be made about sticking points in my life.

There she is, she has it "all" I think, though she pays me to try to find it all despite it being right in front of her. It's just different than my all.

Then, I think of the problem tree our professor told us about. He said something like, if every single person in the world hung their problems on a tree, then got to walk away from it, but they had to pick problems, eventually, collectively left to their own devices, everyone would walk right to the tree their preferred problems were on and pick them over other people's problems.

Basically, we all have problems, but on a subconscious level, we all PICK our problems.

My mother always calls my children, my "problem."

I am aware, I have chosen my problems, and with each, is a gift of responsibility to it for the picking.

My children are an opportunity to love "through" together.

People who love, love "through" not because.

I know this now, and I want to teach them, and her this. But the truth is, my children have taught me that which I'd choose to teach.

We are the trees in which people hang their problems, we are not...the problems, and I want to remind them of this so that they do not mistake themselves the way my mother has mistaken them.

I wake up these days into a life and mind that is as joyful to face the day as my never-quiet-seven year old and my always eager-to-meet black lab.

I don't have everything I want, but I 100% want everything I have, and that didn't happen by accident.

I take sacred responsibility for my selections in life's "problems," knowing that in some way, they are likely my privilege.

And, for two decades, I have practiced gratitudes for these sacred selections.

When you tell yourself every single day, what you're grateful for, emotional priorities are easy to keep centered. That becomes your validating compass, not other people.

Gratitudes for us have been a tradition as stable as September pawpaws but 365 days a year.

Every single day I ask every one of my children two things. What they dreamed about that night, and what they're grateful for in that moment.

My three year old just walked in so I asked him. "What are you grateful for today buddy?" He looked up from the device he carried in and immediately said, "going to the woods."

He knows the whispers of my own heart while he effortlessly shares his breath in word.

What are you grateful for today?

The way to be at peace without perfection is to stop looking for perfection of every single thing in your life at every moment.

It'll never happen all at the same time. Doesn't mean it won't all happen with time. Stay open.

Give up the idea that perfection is the supreme authority to grant you peace. It's not. Only peace can do that. '

Things don't need to be perfect for you to get your feet in your moments. If you think they do, you'll never get on the ground.

Being drug around, literally, by perfectionism is unstable on the wind which means, it'll never actually grow into what it naturally is.

Peace is rooted, like the trees, the pawpaws, and my quiet connection with my sons. It doesn't need anything to be different other than us, opening to accepting what it is.

Tend to where you are not where you think you should be.

Where you are, no doubt, you'll realize soon enough, has always been tending to you back.