Roads

If you grew up like I did, you have sayings and stories and isms from your family of origin. Both of my parents are no longer living.  I find myself quoting my mother, mostly in love and humor. I didn’t have as much time with my dad. I often heard these two lines while growing up: “you can be the bigger person” and “you can take the high road.” This was usually over some incident, dissatisfaction or hurt. I’m sure Billie learned some version of these herself. 

It’s not bad advice - until it is. It can lead to perfectionist tendencies, to only be a certain way - that that way is the only acceptable way. 

Growing up, when I heard this, I mostly got quiet and had no response. It was its own kind of purgatory because what do you do with that dissatisfaction and hurt? I think I was in my mid-30s when I finally had something to say. 

Although I don’t recall now what was upsetting, while talking with Billie about it, she rolled out the same- old-same-old higher-ground-bigger-person language. 

My anger deepened. I said “Mom! Right now I’m on the low road. I won’t  stay there, but let me be angry! Most days, the middle road is the goal because the only ones who get to stay on the high road are Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi in their current forms!” 

I’m pretty sure I was loud. 

When I took a breath, Billie said, “Okay.” Once I said all of that out loud, something shifted. Permission was given. Space was held. Release happened. 

Not unlike the moment in Ordinary People when Timothy Hutton tells Judd Hirsch loudly “I feel bad about this! Let me feel bad about it!” He repeats this a few times, and Judd Hirsch finally says, “Okay. I feel about this, too.” Timothy Hutton’s Conrad relaxes. Permission was given. Space was held. Release happened.

Iyanla Vanzant uses a house metaphor for healing while moving from the basement to the attic. It isn’t a linear process. I have attic moments - those spiritual, skin-tingling, grounded times. I also have low road, basement moments where my feelings get to just be. 

If I don’t travel the low road, those feelings get stuffed somewhere and then come out sideways later. I don’t stay there, but, for me, it is part of my healing. In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott has a great line about a moment in time about another person she says she felt “so much hatred for her in that moment that it would have made Jesus want to drink vodka from the dog bowl.” Within the same page, she moves to compassion for the other person and herself. What a low road moment that is allowed to be followed by grace.

Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground includes this wisdom: “Gonna keep on trying’ ‘til I reach my highest ground.” Where I live: trying. 

After our mothers died, my childhood friend Gary and I, without planning, gave one another something that belonged to them. Her mother, Lillian, wrote books. Gary found a copy of Portrait of Emma among her things with this inscription for me: “To Jean - Keep Trying!” She signed her full name which made me chuckle. She’s the only Lillian I have known. We wondered aloud what she meant. That message pops in unplanned, and then I get to remember her.

Those main floor, middle road times are good days including all of what a regular day chronicles. This is not the Snow White being dressed by birds while other woodland creatures help set the day version. This is the regular day of doing what we want to do and the stuff we don’t relish. I call this shooting for contentment. 

Try this:

What road are you traveling today? Include a lot of details. 

Describe a low road moment. 

Describe a time where permission was given, space held and release happened.. 

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at fsconsulting2013@gmail.com.