CAREGIVING'S DECLUTTERING, AND BACK

Writer and ecologist Susan J. Tweit's Walking Nature Home blog is subtitled "living a green and generous life," and those two "g words" describe it perfectly. (She is also the author of a memoir of the same name, published by the University of Texas Press in 2009, among other books and texts.) Browsing the blog's rich writings, I came across an older post that spoke directly to my heart, and I think may speak to you as well if you have walked the journey of a caregiver. One of the subjects treated in the blog is the journey of Tweit's husband, Richard Cabe, through treatment for brain cancer. On January 24 of this year, she wrote:

Since Richard and I moved home from our sojourn in the land of brain cancer radiation treatment—has it only been a week and a half?—I've been struggling to regain a healthy working rhythm. While we were away, life was simpler in some ways. My main focus was caring for Richard and helping him stay as healthy as possible—physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Beyond that, my energy went into taking care of me, which means doing yoga every day, taking walks, and writing the words of my heart and spirit. I had left the to-do list, the obligations, the everyday worries at home. It wasn't hard to stay grounded and steady.

In the transition back home though, I somehow lost that cancer-cloister serenity. My life is suddenly cluttered by worries and obligations and to-dos. I worry about money. (Back to the real world.) I'm overwhelmed by trying to balance work, house, husband, and community. My to-do list seems endless: writing assignments, consulting, workshops to plan, a keynote speech coming up, presentations, schedules, bills, the house, yard and garden, friends, family....

This morning though, as I purged and dusted and organized my work space, I felt myself settle. With the clutter cleared away, I could see anew the life and work I've built in the treasures I've surrounded myself with...[read the rest of the post here]

I, too, felt that paradox: that when I was most deeply engaged in the rich, demanding service of caring for and with a sick loved one, the convoluted triviality of everyday life seemed to recede almost entirely from my consciousness. On one level, cancer and chemo are so profoundly and painfully complex; in another sense, I realized during this time, they are completely stark and simple. In a cancer center or "sickroom," a hospice or hospital, our priorities are clear. And then we comes back to home ground, to the to-do list and complications and blur that Tweit writes about so gracefully. Like her, the only way I could get my focus back was to treat the house I returned to as somehow new, polishing and emptying it so that I could reconnect with it and myself. I even asked a dear friend if she'd help me create some kind of "returning home ritual"; she brought nurturing food and fragrant sage, and we smudged the house to help renew its spirit as well as my scattered, disoriented energy.

Let's not be surprised if we can't quite connect with what is familiar or ordinary when we return from the deep spaces of planning and coordinating and giving care. Those spaces are worlds of their own, and it makes sense that we'd need to do some literal and metaphorical housecleaning in order to feel at home once more.