What do I do? Karen's crying.

Hello friend,

This letter has a new name. It's called Wisdom from the Circle now, and by the end of this one you'll know why.

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WHERE WE LEFT OFF

On Friday you met Miel. She's the one who shows up, who plans and fixes and sends the food before anyone thinks to ask. At fifty-one she found herself alone in a rented room with nothing left to manage. A question she'd been outrunning for forty years finally caught up with her. (If you haven't heard her yet, her story is here.)

When I heard it, I thought about my mother.

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THIS WEEK

My mother was a single mom back in the seventies, and a nurse. My dad was around for part of it, but he was an alcoholic and he didn't really take part in our lives. She was the breadwinner. All of it.

And she was strong. God, she was strong.

She worked nights and slept maybe three hours a day, and there was still a hot meal on the table every night. She hosted the wedding showers and baby showers for what felt like every nurse she ever worked with. She even made up her own shower game for them, wedding cake bingo. Then some mornings, out of nowhere, she'd say, let's take the day off school and go visit the family.

Being there for people in hard times was just who she was. She went to the funerals. She looked out for the boys who were in trouble.

She grew up at a time when men were considered superior, and she bent to the men in her life. They were served first. They got fed more. But she never lived her life needing one.

I don't remember her ever asking for help. Not once. If something needed doing and she couldn't do it herself, she paid someone. When people tried to give her something, she couldn't take it. I watched them try.

Then she got Epstein-Barr, and for a year she lay on the couch.

Listening to Miel, I went straight back to that couch. I know exactly what my mother would have done if one of her friends had spent a year lying there. There would have been meal after meal after meal going out our front door.

So who did that for her?

Nobody, really. Nobody she'd cry on. Nobody she'd let herself sink into.

She wasn't perfect, and nobody's mother is. But she spent her whole life teaching everyone around her that she didn't need anything, and they believed her.

I watched all of that. And then, without meaning to, I learned it.

In my twenties I was a single mom, and I got very, very good at doing everything myself. I waited tables, and I would be completely in the weeds before I'd ask anyone for a hand.

I have been a horrible receiver my whole life. That goes for compliments, money, ideas, and somebody offering to pitch in. I'd rather take my fair share, or more than my fair share, just to prove I could.

And then there were the times I actually wanted someone there, and they had no idea what to do with me.

When I was younger, most of my friends were guys. I remember driving home from Manitoulin Island with a car full of them. Something happened, I was upset, and I started to cry. One of them in the back seat said, "What do I do? Karen's crying."

I still go back to that moment. Most men know how to comfort a soft woman. He had no idea how to comfort a strong one.

For years I thought that was about him. It isn't. When you spend your life showing people you can carry everything, they believe you.

My mother comforted people with food. I'm the one with the shoulder. When something big happens, I'm there. How I show up for other people was never the problem. I just don't know how to receive.

I think somewhere between my mother's generation and mine, a lot of us lost the circle.

I come from Mennonite roots, and in my lineage the circle was the quilting bee. Women gathered around one frame and stitched the same quilt together. Nobody made that quilt alone, and nobody was expected to.

Many Indigenous cultures have always understood community as a circle too. Every person in it matters, and if one of us is missing, it isn't whole. She brings this, you bring that, and it keeps moving around.

Women before us fought hard for equality, and thank God they did. But somewhere in all that striving, a lot of us decided we had to do everything alone. We're different creatures than men, and our circle matters to us.

In a circle there's always a give and a take. The trouble is that when most of us hear the word take, we flinch. What we should be hearing is receive.

Imagine if we'd been taught as little girls that life was about giving and receiving. This woman can give that, and that woman can receive this. Call it a barter system if you like. It's really just community.

It's why the podcast is called The Crone Stories, and it's why this letter has its new name. There is so much wisdom in seeing each other and valuing each other.

And a circle doesn't work very well with one woman standing in the middle yelling "Don't worry, I've got it!" while she carries all twelve chairs.

We glorify strong way more than we should. We glorify busy too. We need to be allowed to be weak, to rest and to receive, and right now those words feel almost dirty.

My husband is my life's lesson in receiving. The other day we were coming home from Costco, and I grabbed an extra thing, hit the elevator button and had the key out before he'd set a single bag down.

He was so offended. I couldn't let him carry me, even for one elevator ride.

It's small when we do it. But those of us who've held on to being the strong one do it all day long. That's where the work is for me now, in the Costco moments. Can I leave the bag for him? Can I let a compliment land without batting it away?

There's a lot of talk at our age about not giving a damn, and I love that. But there's something just as important in this season, and it's accepting. Let someone make you dinner, and let them see you don't have it all together.

As I move into this part of my life, I'm learning to be softer. I'm learning to receive. You'll notice that isn't past tense.

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A QUESTION TO CARRY

Then this week, the next time someone offers you something, say thank you and let them. It might be the groceries, a compliment or the last piece of pie. Don't argue, and don't pay them back. Just receive it.

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You know a woman who carries all twelve chairs. Forward this to her. And if someone forwarded it to you, there's a seat here for you.

In love, light and laughter,

Karen