tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31713058649892757062023-11-15T09:23:29.550-08:00Barefoot On the GroundMeandering explorations of whatever comes to mindGwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-35105901580247399392011-03-30T13:08:00.000-07:002011-03-30T13:08:09.285-07:00Namaste to a SnailEarly morning of a rainy Sunday as I slip out the front door, barefoot, making a slow dash for the newspaper. The air is rain fresh, richly damp, the small puddles softly gleam in the cloudy grey light, flickering in the light rain.<br />
<br />
I dodge to avoid a snail on the wet sidewalk, instinctively bow and say...something, <i>namaste, good morning, I greet you, how's it going? Hey, snail, nice day, huh?</i> I'm not sure which, but my hands palm-to-palm and I bow. It seems as much in the nature of things as peeing when I first get out of bed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The crow on the light pole gives me a raucous good morning and I return it. The one rose--a little brown and withered at the edges, bt nicely rain speckled and brave--we bow to each other. I'm not so brown but I am a bit withred and weathered at the edges and I hope to be brave and so we greet each other.<br />
<br />
I pick up the paper, double bagged in plastic. Water sheets off onto my bare toes splashing up onto my flannel pants, leaving the hems dripping and clinging to my ankles. The raindrops sparkle on John's metallic grey truck. Clutching the sopping plastic paper I realize, as more water sheets down my pants, that I have bowed good morning to the truck.<br />
<br />
It does not bow back.<br />
<br />
My feet are getting cold and the soggy clinging pants are uncomfortable. I'm moving as quickly as I can back up the sidewalk, but I pause to see how far my snail has made it this morning.<br />
<br />
He, she, it hasn't moved. Because the snail is actually a curved snip of a succulent, probably blown by the wind, balled up and turning brown.<br />
<br />
<br />
I laugh as the rain blesses my upturned face. Namaste to a snail which is really a twig, I bow to a truck, the crow calls, two withered but brave roses bow to one another....<br />
<br />
Maybe the truck bows back and twig becomes a snail? What difference does it make? It is. We are. Twig that might be a snail, snail that might be a twig, woman who might be...or not. Dazzlingly different, incredibly one.<br />
<br />
Nameste, good morning, bowing to snails and twigs and rain sparkled trucks. laughing as we bow.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-43586699407606818112011-03-10T11:13:00.000-08:002011-03-10T21:53:39.001-08:00I Delete, Therefore I'm SaneWell, semi-sane. But semi-sane did not play off of Descartes' <i>I think, therefore I am</i>, nearly so well.<br />
<br />
Precision is overrated.anyway.<br />
<br />
I'm not talking about the spam that sometimes eludes the filters--Viagra, penile length, weight loss, make a million, get my degree from (my all time favorite) a prestigious, non-accredited university. Spam, spam, spam. (Come on, you know you you want to sing along.)What the filters don't catch I happily delete. No prob.<br />
<br />
No, what I'm talking about are the emails that at one time or another--deliberately or inadvertently--I signed up for. Companies I love--Landsend, Hearthsong, LL Bean, Novica, etc. Companies that one way or another I've ended upon their email forever but I really can't afford them so I wonder why I'm too lazy to cancel them--thank you much, not a Nordstrom shopper. <br />
<br />
Delete, delete, delete. I used to enjoy looking through the online catalogs, but occasionally I bought something--good deals and good deals that on arrival got thrown in <i>the what was I thinking?</i> file.And I know that there's not a chance I'm going to send them back. (I will <i>think</i> about sending them back of course, but thinking won't get me as far as the post office.)<br />
<br />
Still and all not so bad. Dreaming of a fantasy life in which I really need outdoor gear or can walk in 4" stilettos--deleting those away is really no big loss. I live in SoCal, I have one knee replacement and one knee headed that way, which tends to eliminate both hiking in the hills and walking in stilettos. Besides I'm 64 years old and I own mirrors. Greed and envy are not god for the soul. Overspending is not good for the bank account,<br />
<br />
Of course all of this is tap dancing and tip-toeing around the real pain. (Who really cares if LL Bean has organic cotton sweaters at half price? ) It's the political news and the causes I believe in that are now getting hit with the delete key too.<br />
<br />
For one thing, they all want money. I have no money to give them even though I support the causes wholeheartedly. Gay marriage, in favor. Subsidies for oil company CEO's while teachers are laid off, against. Torture? Firmly opposed--horrified and sickened by what has been done in our names. Unions, yes, over paid executives, no<br />
<br />
I don't mean to sound mocking or poor mouthing. Place to live, food on the table, not headed for a cardboard box anytime soon. I'm one of the world's fortunate and I live in one of the richest countries the world has ever known (despite the recession that is over--so we are told).<br />
<br />
Why am I doing this? Good citizens stay informed. They act on their principles. The truth is that I can't stop the "we're so sorry" accidental bombing of children in Afghanistan. (Children of our allies. might I point out.) Outrage and grief are appropriate responses to most of what makes the news these days--and I'm not asking for happy talk instead.<br />
<br />
However, a continual state of anger is not good for the soul and mind either. Anger at "them" out there can lead me to ignore those closest to me. A constant state of feeling helpless can mean--for me--that I don't return a smile or offer one. I don't do the things that a peaceful and mindful person can do. Why pick up that aluminum can and put it in the recycle bin? One can or a hundred cans--so what? I mean, I'm helpless Or even encourage local recycling.? Buy produce from sustainably managed farms. Buy American made? <br />
<br />
Why should I listen to people I disagree with?. I'm always right. (Actually most of the time I am--insert grinning emoticon.)<br />
<br />
Even if some of these people and I disagree on nearly every issue in the world? Does it mean I lose myself or yell at them until they pretend to agree with me? <br />
<br />
I try to listen. Search for common ground. Avoid debates over issues that neither of us will agree over and over which we have no power. Sometimes I listen and say good-bye.<br />
<br />
I delete, therefore I'm saner than I would be if I didn't.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-60811231950172873592010-12-01T15:17:00.000-08:002010-12-01T19:16:14.130-08:00Every Kiss Begins with...A Girl's Best FriendIn the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I was born without the gene for jewelry. I'm not saying I'm immune; I love earrings when my ears are willing to cooperate and the funky and the folk art can win my heart. (I'm more likely to be sentimental over who gave it to me or wore it before me.)<br />
<br />
The point being that there's no moral high ground for my complete disinterest in diamonds and rubies and such. My heart is not going to melt over a diamond ring. Besides I'm careless and would probably lose it.<br />
<br />
I do that.<br />
<br />
But I really really <i>really</i> hate the love for sale commercials that proliferate around the holidays: A couple by the fireplace, at dinner in an elegant restaurant, or some other romantic scene, he produces the magic box, she opens it, gasps, looks teary-eyed and then throws herself in his arms. Voice over: <i>let her how much you love her, what she means to you</i>. Sometimes the giving happens with an audience--whispers of he's giving her "the ring," children watching in anticipation of mom's ecstasy over her gift and, of course, the inevitable kiss.<br />
<br />
I know I'm hardly the first person to rant about this. We live in a capitalist society and our economy pretty much depends on creating wants. But I hate hearing the cynical remarks of <i>see, you CAN buy love</i>, even if some of the comments come from women. Not only is it disgusting but it's also both sad and destructive.<br />
<br />
I used to teach classes for Planned Parenthood around subjects related to reproductive health, sex, relationships. Boys in the class--because many of the places I taught had a large number of students from poor--would sadly and bitterly remark on their chances of getting one of the fine women. No fancy car, no well-paying job. No woman.<br />
<br />
A lovely doubleheader. The girls they could get were quite explicitly NOT fine, the guys were losers without the money and the stuff money can buy. Hmm, McDonald's at nine bucks an hour or drug dealing...? And the girls better package their product (themselves) or theirs is a future of loserhood as well.<br />
<br />
Of course it all moves up the food chain--the guy with the good job knows that there's a guy up the road who provided a bigger rock and got the more prized spouse. She knows that the woman across the street has a bigger diamond and is consequently more prized.<br />
<br />
Exaggerated? Oh, Lord, yes and thank god for that. I think love, attraction, caring are still the reason most of us couple and we know enough from celeb relationships that great big diamonds may promise forever but surely don't buy it.<br />
<br />
And there is a certain evolutionary sense to it. The diamond (or ruby or gold) may be the equivalent of slapping an antelope down on the table to let the female know "I can provide" for you and our young. Of course if she doesn't produce said young and/or doesn't have the skills to contribute to survival he will probably start flinging antelopes at another woman's feet and as for her, if the supply of antelopes starts to get a little thin and infrequent...she'd probably be movin' on, too. (Unless of course that strange thing called love had shown up.)<br />
<br />
Of course the song does make sense "...we all lose our charms in the end, but square cut or pear shaped, these rocks don't lose their shap..." When you come right down to it the only real uses for a diamond are industrial, scratching class, or the fact they can be resold--an investment that you can wear. That makes a very practical kind of sense. Logical. Men may keep money until they die, but if a woman's salable commodities are looks and (maybe) fertility; well, those fade. Gonna need something too buy those antelopes.<br />
<br />
(This leaves aside the horrors of what many diamonds actually cost in terms of human suffering and environmental damage to acquire. More significant but irrelevent to fancy packages and gifts that end in kisses.)<br />
<br />
Nothing profound today. Just the rant of an old woman who doesn't give a rat's about expensive jewelry, but hates to hear <i>every kiss begins with...he went to...show her you would marry her all over again.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i><br />
</i>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-48192741886270228042010-11-27T11:44:00.000-08:002010-11-27T18:20:06.492-08:00Dreams, Spirits, and Talking to the Dead<i>He was running up the hill like when he was young</i> my aunt tells me. <i> I woke up crying and told Buck, Stu's dead.</i> I had called to tell her that my dad, her brother, Stu had passed in the night.<i> I could see my parents, daddy, my mother, my brother Clyde, and Momma was holding the little baby that died when she died--and they were all sitting on this hill and they were smiling. But they weren't looking at me. So I turned to look where they were looking and there was Stu, just running, flying up that hill, like he was a kid again and looking like when he was a kid. And he was smiling too and his arms were out and so were theirs and I woke up Buck, crying and saying Stu's gone.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
I cried then when she told me her dream. I'm tearing up as I type even though it's been over twenty-three years<i> </i>since that phone call. I still hold that dream close to me, a candle in the dark, a teddy bear,<i> </i>all the icons from every faith I've encountered, along with the special crocheted afghan from my friend that covers me with love.<i> </i><br />
<br />
The dream comforts me. The dead are so very gone, the body empty of...everything.<i> </i>And<i> </i>yet we talked to him<i>. </i>My brother took the oxygen tube dad hated out of his nose.<i> </i>We<i> </i>talked to him<i>. </i>It's very uncomplicated with<i> </i>the newly dead--no equivocation, no conflicting emotions:<i> I love you, I will miss you, thank you. </i><br />
<br />
0h, well, the tears, of course, the stunned <i>this can't be happening</i> disbelief, the gut-wrenching pain that makes you want to howl like a pack of heart-broken wolves in the dark of the moon. They say the first death is the hardest and maybe that's true. Certainly kittens and old dogs don't prepare you. But all the deaths that come after still tear your heart out, still stun you<i> </i>into a walking mannequin that apparently says and does all the appropriate things--to judge by peoples' faces--but really you don't know or care<i>. </i>You grieve, you cry.<br />
<br />
But you aren't surprised<i>. </i>Never again surprised.<i> </i>You have learned something of what life is capable of.<i><br />
</i><br />
<br />
Are these dreams a way of anticipating loss? Preparing for what is inevitable. We are born dying. A cousin dreamed of white things and granddaddy died. But he had already seen his mother so he know his time had come. The cousin told my aunt of the white things (had she just done her wash?), he told my aunt, his daughter, about his mother .<i> </i>He died within a few days.<br />
<br />
Not all dreams are of death--I've heard of dreams of lovers, babies, and long lost friends. But my family is dramatic and we dream of death and sorrow.<i> S</i>ometimes the dead return to say they miss us as well, to offer solace. But more likely they show up just to let us know we're going to join them soon. Which is usually not really a a message of solace.<br />
<br />
Do I believe in dreams? Of course I "believe" in dreams. They happen. The brain is sorting out events of the day, new information, deciding whether to file it or discard it. The mind makes it into story. Sometimes solutions to problems show up--mathematical and emotional. Conflicted feelings, buried memories...the psyche plays with all of that. Of course I believe that dreams are real, they happen, and while dreams themselves are not rational, one can understand them rationally.<br />
<br />
Do I believe in dreams? Of course I do. A dream of white things predicts a death. My aunt saw my father at the moment of his passing joining his family, young and free of pain. With all my heart of course I do. Granddaddy's mother--she was half Choctaw--came to him, Mamaw saw angels who carried her away. And in my dreams? Too many things to tell. So many I will not tell. But if I dream of death I might tell you but not of your own and not of mine.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><i>*****</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div>I don't think spirits like being called ghosts. Ghost is too Caspar, too sheet over the head <i>BOO!</i>, really too Scooby Doo. A spirit is ephemeral, elusive when it chooses to appear, but there is no sense that when it disappears it is gone.<br />
<br />
"Do you believe in spirits, in ghosts?" my psychiatrist asks. <i>No. Well, mas o menos.</i> <i>Maybe. I don't know.</i> I had told her of an experience I had had recently. She prescribes my meds, keeps a watch on my disordered moods. I thought maybe I was beginning to hallucinate, which is actually never a good sign, unless you've bought the experience from a street corner.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>I know I was awake, really awake, not dream within a dream awake</i>. When I saw it, I thought it was a trick of the light, an image conjured by my macular degeneration and non-focusing. And just like in the books, I closed my eyes, blinked, expecting it to be gone once I opened my eyes. Funny how writers sometimes get it right. You know?<br />
<br />
She --not it--was standing by bed. A little girl translucent, glowing green. She began to reach for me and I was terrified, though I'm not usually terrified of little girls. (There have been exceptions.) Her fingers were long and thin, splayed. She kept reaching, though I demanded, begged, pleaded for her to<i> stop, stop, please stop.</i><br />
<br />
<i> </i>I knew she wasn't there. I was terrified, turned my back on her, clung to John, and could not not look behind me to see if she was still there. I couldn't get out of bed, purely panicked, even when I had to pee so badly my back teeth were floating and my eyeballs were yellow.<br />
<br />
I mostly only talked to friends who firmly believed in ghosts, spirits, that other world. Meaning? All sorts. Who? Abundant guesses. But the fear subsided. After a few nights I didn't even think about her anymore.<br />
<br />
I told my doctor who asked if I didn't believe. Believe? She's a scientist, analytical and rational.<br />
<br />
She has her own experiences. "There are things we don't have explanations for. Yet."<br />
<br />
Guess I can go with that. And I never want to see the little girl with the long, thin, splayed fingers ever again. Dream, spirit, hallucination--I want her to stay away.<br />
<br />
Though it would be nice to see my mom and dad and even if they reached for me it would be okay. I think.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">******</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>He always finds a way to make me laugh</i>. My aunt--not the one who had the dream--but my dad's baby sister is going through one of those hellish times that validates the Buddha: Life is suffering. My uncle has a rare, very serious very godawful type of cancer. Waiting for a diagnosis, a treatment plan, radiation, chemo, he's sick, she is bone tired, no sleep, and beyond sad.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">My dad takes care of her. He was always the tease. always the one who could make everyone laugh, dig up a joke in the deepest shit. <i>No matter what</i>, she tells me,<i> Hermaw finds a laugh for me somewhere in the day</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I ask my dad to take care of her. Make her laugh. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">When my dad was dying I asked my grandmother, the grandmother I never met, his mother to comfort him and take care of him in the night when the pain was more intense, the drugs confused him, and if no one could be with him they tied his hands to the bed.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">The first time I asked Mamie to be there, the nurses told me he had the best night in the long time.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">She did good.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I ask my mother's advice. To look out for her grandchildren. and great-grandchildren.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">Ask her mother , Lula, to take care of her.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">The older you get the more dead you have to talk to. Do they listen? Do they do anything?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't know. I tell my parents I'm sorry--there are so many sorry's to be said. And thank you's.</div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;">Do they hear, do they answer. Yes, I can feel them. No, they are dead and dead is dead with or without an afterlife. They probably aren't swinging from a cloud watching earth and us like a long running reality show.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
<i> And yet...my dad had the best sleep he'd had in a long time</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-9598731478861981322010-10-19T13:16:00.000-07:002010-10-19T16:53:48.347-07:00"Beauty and the Beast" with ShoesI love this movie--the Disney version. The music, the characters, the animation. I like the message (as my grand daughter explained--I like the Beast best because he learns how to love and that's the most important thing).<br />
<br />
And we were cuddled together on the couch watching the movie which was great for two reasons: most important was the cuddling, but a close second was that it gave me a chance to rest from running up and down the slope in the backyard without admitting ...well, you know, granma not so good at the whole running up and down thing anymore.<br />
<br />
And yet, and yet, Belle misses her whole town as she walks through the morning bustle with her nose in book. Everything. No freshly baked baguettes, she doesn't see all the little kids clustered around their frazzled mother, sheep nuzzle her while she sits by the fountain and reads and she seems unaware of their soft noses, their lanolin greased wool.... (Though I guess missing out on the sheep aroma might be on the positive side of the ledger.)<br />
<br />
Belle is wearing shoes and doesn't touch the ground. She wants more than her little provincial town; she knows "there must be more than this."<br />
<br />
There is, of course, and she finds it: enchanted castle, a prince hidden inside the body of a beast, danger, courage, and true love.<br />
<br />
I still tear up at the ending, when all is lost and unexpected grace and the power of love bring that leap of joy, the fairy tale twist that breaks your heart. The Beast is brought back to life because he has learned to love and because Belle has learned to see beyond appearance (though he does turn into the rather boring handsome prince).<br />
<br />
So what? Why do I (over) analyze this beautifully animated, happy ending Disney movie? I think it's because I've spent so much of my life nose in a book, a head full of dreams, and feet that don't touch the ground. I love words, the play of them, the sounds, the elusiveness. Imagination: dragons that ride the wind, Frodo destroying the Ring, glittering unicorns glimpsed in the night. Remembering. My babies. The taste of grape Popsicles. My dad carrying me in from the car when I pretended to be asleep. My mother reading to me, on chapter of the Bible everynight (except of course the "begats." We skipped those.)<br />
<br />
But so much is lost. I read while nursing my babies. How many times was I so lost in a book, in writing, that I didn't see anything around me, didn't hear what was said?<br />
<br />
And yet--here I am. Writing <i>about</i> being barefoot on the ground. Imaging this piece finished. How to end it.<br />
<br />
Wondering what you will think.<br />
<br />
.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-81523706502813893302010-10-13T16:27:00.000-07:002010-10-19T16:23:16.498-07:00Small Things that Have No WordsThis is the 5th blog I've started since April. If you're reading it, well, I actually finished it. I hope you're reading it because I'm getting tired of me and my apparent inability to finish anything I start writing.<br />
<br />
I found my raggedy old Golden Book of Prayer's for Children the other day. It's missing the covers, some of the pages, and is well embellished with my five year old's artwork. (I loved to draw angels.)<br />
<br />
But I found the page with my favorite prayer, which is by that prolific writer anonymous.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Dear Father, hear and bless</div><div style="text-align: center;">Thy beasts and singing birds,</div><div style="text-align: center;">And guard with tenderness</div><div style="text-align: center;">Small things that have no words.</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br />
</i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Small things that have no words</i>. Even at five I knew the world overflowed with small things that had no words. Kittens, especially kittens in the rain, babies like my brother who could only cry which hardly counted as words, the mice no one wanted, stray dogs...the world was full even then.<br />
<br />
"Thy beasts and singing birds." Well, there was never a shortage of (ant covered) dead birds lying around and we killed animals for our dinners. The chickens that came from the store in those days looked like chickens and had eggs inside them. Pickled pigs feet were a dead giveaway on their origin.<br />
<br />
I didn't put it into words exactly, well-raised little Christian girl that I was, but I had the strong sense that Father was a bit behind in his work. It was with an aching hope but very little optimism I said my prayer.<br />
<br />
Time has passed. I'm 59 years over the age of five. I've learned enough to know that if the grass hurts when I walk on it, there's nothing I can do. Kittens die in the rain, at the hands of budding serial killers, and at the pound--and there's nothing I can do about it and I can't adopt them all. There's always a poet dying down the road and there's always a lovely young body having a pint of pus removed (J.D. Salinger). Someone's celebrating a victory and someone's child just got blown into a puzzle that can never be put back together again.<br />
<br />
There's love of course which puts our broken pieces back together again and again. Which gives us hope in this world which is so notably lacking in tenderness.<br />
<br />
But my prayer gave me another gift, one which has never tarnished and has given broken wings to grief and flamed this world with beauty.<br />
<br />
Words.<br />
<br />
The rhythm, the beat: <i>Dear father hear and bless</i>. Ta dum, ta dum, ta dum.<br />
<br />
<i>Thy beasts and singing birds</i>. Not animals, BEASTS. Beasts and singing birds.<br />
<br />
What words can do.<br />
<br />
<i>Guard with tenderness small things that have no words</i>. Small things that have no words....<br />
<br />
Small things without words are given a voice. There may be no tenderness for these small things but the prayer gives them a voice, gives the frail wishes of our hearts a shape and a being.<br />
<br />
Words can be powerful<br />
<br />
The world lacks tenderness and small things hurt and die. But with words we can hope, we can imagine, we can be entranced with beauty, seduce and be seduced by.<br />
<br />
Dream.<br />
<br />
We may fail words but words do not really fail us.<br />
<br />
Small things that have no words.<br />
<br />
But we do.<br />
<br />
Amen. Amen.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-31140105256776754422010-04-26T15:11:00.000-07:002010-04-26T16:25:32.122-07:00Who Am I?<i>"Who are you and what have you done with Gwen?"</i> John was watching me lay out my <span style="background-color: white;">c</span><span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">lothes</span> for the next day before I got into bed. The things I planned to take to work were by the front door, both lunch (leftovers packed right after dinner) and breakfast yogurt parked neatly on a shelf in the refrigerator waiting to be put in a sack in the morning. I found myself thinking <i>I really should get one of those insulated lunch bags</i>.<br />
<br />
In the morning I would know right where my car keys were, my glasses, and my cell phone. An Obama style no drama departure for work.<br />
<br />
Half joking, half serious I came back with, "No, the question is, what have <i>you </i>done to <i>me</i>?" A reasonable accusation, actually--he's an engineer (which means you can always find a pencil around the house) and ex-military. Which does not mean he doesn't lose things; it just means that wherever you find--wherever <i>I</i> find them--they will be in formation..<br />
<br />
Never, not really of my own free will, <i>never</i> have I been tidy or organized. Chaos has always been my natural state and you could track me through a house or office by a trail of forgotten coffee cups, misplaced glasses, and <span class="goog-spellcheck-word" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 255, 255);">los</span><span style="background-color: white;">t</span> keys. Fear, pressure, my mom, my ex, the prospect of company, and a kind of frail optimism have led to the short term wow clean up, but never long haul order.<br />
<br />
Please understand, I never did this deliberately and 99% of the time without any intention of pissing anyone off. It wasn't, I would try to explain, that I thought being organized, tidy, neat was beneath me; it was beyond me. I didn't just frustrate the people around me--I frustrated myself. <br />
<br />
A good survival strategy was cultivating a drifty artist, aging hippie persona. Not too far off--I'm a writer and I do live in my imagination a lot. And I was usually the third or fourth to point out my failings.<br />
<br />
Now I'm 63. Medicated with a mood stabilizer, an anti-depressant, and more than enough other meds for the various mental and physical issues I am blessed with. I'm in a good relationship with a funny, cantankerous, loving, nonjudgmental man. I mostly live at his house which isn't haunted like the home I've lived in since 1969.<br />
<br />
It isn't cluttered.<br />
<br />
My anxiety levels are down. I've learned that my fear of failing turned my brain into an untuned, static filled radio station. And, besides, it was easier to screw up and disappointment everybody earlier rather than later. Saved time for everyone.<br />
<br />
So what happened? An overdetermined result? Medication. The people in my life--including John but not exclusively him, who keep reminding me that they actually love me no matter what.<br />
<br />
Which is a wow all on its own.<br />
<br />
It's nice to know where my keys are,<br />
<br />
So why, why, why do I sometimes feel like screaming that I've been taken over by aliens? Possessed? My mind not my own?<br />
<br />
And that I don't know who I am.<br />
<br />
The woman who lays out her clothes, remembers the papers, CD, and such that I was asked to bring to LA the other day. Who gets up and plugs in the charger for the cell. Who does these things almost naturally.<br />
<br />
Who<i> is</i> she?<br />
<br />
The thought processes are alien. It isn't that I haven't done these things before; I have never done them with so little effort. Never done them before without almost complete confusion, frustration, and a kind of inner resistance.<br />
<br />
Is there a self? No self? What self?<br />
<br />
If I am not Gwen the *charmingly* drifty and disorganized, who am I?<br />
<br />
If my mind works in a way that feels completely alien and yet natural am I just a chemical soup modified by other chemicals and my self an illusion?<br />
<br />
Who am I?<br />
<br />
For that matter--who are you?Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-49077183760292706552010-04-03T00:56:00.000-07:002010-04-03T00:56:33.647-07:00Dialogue in Several Voices<i>You don't know everything</i>.<br />
<br />
Well, duh. Tell me something I don't know.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>You don't know everything</i>.<br />
<br />
That's not news.<br />
<br />
<i>You think you do</i>.<br />
<br />
(Pause.) I've never said that. I make mistakes. I know that. I do things I shouldn't do. I don't think I know everything.<br />
<br />
<i>You think you know how things </i>should<i> be</i>.<br />
<br />
How things <i>should</i> be? In a way, doesn't everyone? Peace and love and everyone getting along and being with a person they love and doing jobs they want to do and food and health care, well, all of that, sound trite but aren't they really the answer? To how things should be?<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>You think you know how to get there. What will make peopl</i>e<i> happy. How to make people happy</i>. <br />
<br />
Oh, come on. I've always been very proud of my humility.<br />
<br />
<i>And you love to help</i>. <br />
<br />
What's wrong with that? <span style="font-size: small;">Isn't helping good?</span><br />
<br />
<i>On the off chance you know what you're doing?</i><br />
<br />
I suppose, but....<br />
<br />
<i>Oh, humility.</i><br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time, half a lifetime ago to a human, eons to a fruit fly, and nothing to a rock, there was</span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> a young girl. Teens her own age described her as *different* and a little weird. For an adult--which you were supposed to be at the time--she seemed...disconnected. As though we were alien life forms that she visited, finding us *different* and a little weird. She lived in a Star Trek world, scored by the Beatles, and embraced--one way or another--by Spock.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">By the way and somewhat as an aside, speaking to "you" is tiring and a little confusing; remember this is a story and it's about you, but I am telling and it is also then about me. A first person P.O.V is easier. The pronouns become simpler. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Her younger sister was my oldest son's junior high girlfriend at the time. She encouraged--almost begged me--to ask her sister to sit for my four kids. Which of course I did.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">It was easy to bond over the Beatles and Star Trek. And it became evident very quickly that she was a broken winged bird with a sad sad story. The details are important, of course, for her life, but beside the point for the story.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I adopted her. Oh, not legally and she still lived at home with the little sister, the dad, and the alcoholic mother--who happened to be another broken winged bird with a sad sad story. They fed her, clothed her, paid the bills, and took the brunt of her intense mood swings and terrible silences.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">She was happy at our house. Not effervescent happy, but ...happy. In fact, she liked it so much that I just recently learned she told her little sister to stay away: "It's MY place now."</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">The church ladies (and, yes, I was one of them) took that sister under our wings.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Wait a minute--what was wrong with that? If anyone needed love and support, that poor child did.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No question, yep, she needed love and she needed support. Couldn't get even a late night infomercial attorney to argue against that. .But--well--OK, define love. Start with that.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></span><br />
<div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Caring for someone, delighting in them. Thinking of them before you think of yourself--you know, the whole love thy neighbor as thyself thing. <i>Caring</i>. Trying to do right by them. You know, love.</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Warm feelings? Needed? <i>Helping</i>.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yeah. Warm feelings. Caring. Trying to help. You know she didn't wear a bra because no one ever took her shopping for one. </span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Poor baby.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yeah, poor baby. I know you're being sarcastic, but she was a poor baby, and a poor child, and lonely, broken, confused, angry. She needed helping.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Did anything you did, collectively, individually, church ladies, you or me--did anything we ever did really help?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">She got a bra. </span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Now you're being sarcastic. Did she ever get what she needed? Oh, and by-the-by and just wondering--who ever got the younger sister a bra? Back to the older sister, though. Did <i>she</i> ever get what <i>she</i> needed?</span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I don't know--no, probably not, no. But we--I--tried . Really. Truly.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">(Speaking in a gentler tone.) I know. You, they, I, we--all tried very very hard to help, to give her what she needed. But--what did she need?</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">(Long silence.) I...don't...know...I guess. Love?</span></span> </span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">How can you give someone what they need if you don't know what they need? And, even if you do know, how do you know you can provide it? I mean I might know you need a heart transplant but that doesn't mean--</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Finish the story. I don't like the ending--never have--and I don't like the post script either, so you might as well get it over with.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">OK, we'll skip all the middle part, the mother dies, the getting married, moving away--all of that</span>. <span style="font-size: x-small;">Well and some pretty bizarre behavior.</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Skip to the phone call. I know that's where you're going, so just <i>go</i>.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The phone rings. After years, that voice, her voice. From the past, well, once the past, but now in thepresent, the right now.</span>. </span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I can hear it in her voice, something is terribly, terribly, horribly wrong.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">And she called you.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I'm here. At a hospital. They think I'm crazy. My therapist, my husband (she called him by name but I won't). They're trying to put me in the hospital. They think I'm crazy. Am I? Do you think I'm crazy? I'm not crazy am I? Not enough to have to be locked up, am I? Tell me what I should do, should I...? I'm scared, but I don't think I'm crazy...?</span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">She really didn't want to be crazy, did she? And she called you. When the chips were done and she needed someone--</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Shut up. I know what you're going to say.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Because you said it, which means that--</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I said it. You said it. We said it.She didn't want to be crazy, which is, you know, a pejorative word for mentally ill</span></span> </span></span> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">And she did not want to be that. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">So we told her--what?</span> </span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">That she wasn't. That of course she had issues and problems and needed help, but of course she wasn't crazy and didn't need to be locked up.</span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Which amazingly and exactly coincided with what she wanted to hear. You don't need to be locked up--you don't need, oh, what's that word? Oh, yeah, right--treatment. I think that's what they call it.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">How do you know? That's what my husband said. How do you know what she needs? You're not there, you have no idea what's going on. How can you say anything? Not your business.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">But I love her</span></span>. </span></span>I love her and I, I want to help.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">She didn't go in the hospital.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">No.</span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: small;">No. </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">She didn't</span>. <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">At least not that night, not then.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Nice to be needed, isn't it? And that used to be the end of the story didn't it? Well, barring the subsequent phones calls of love, reconciliation, gratitude--oh, and the threats to bring a gun and shoot the entire family.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">*****</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span> </span></span> </span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span> <span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">That used to be where the story ended. Kind of sad, but hopeful too because she did have a therapist and she wasn't all that crazy and...well, you could always figure that maybe someday and somehow it got all better.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">And the unicorns were dancing on the front lawn, sparkling in the silvery moonlight, gleaming in the sun. </span></span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hey. That's sarcasm.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">Yeah? We used to wonder, you and me, how it all turned out. Turns out nobody really knows, not around here anyway. All the letters come back to the family--</span></span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">No one here and not at this address.</span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></i></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span></i></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />
</span></div>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-40722114289070274482010-03-25T16:59:00.000-07:002010-04-05T10:59:37.624-07:00The Girl at the FrontAt the age of 63, I have been promoted to girlhood again. Or demoted--I'm not sure which. But I am now that girl at the front--the one who answers the phone, forwards calls, take messages, greets visitors and clients, offers the coffee....<br />
<br />
I'm not putting down the job. It's necessary and when we lost our receptionist I took over. It's an architectural firm; I do marketing. The work of the architects, project managers, and drafters can't be done at the front desk--at least not easily. And clients pay for their services, not mine.<br />
<br />
And it's been an education. Just learning to answer the phone--okay that was a no brainer--but answering the phone with multiple calls coming in, needing to check with the callee to see if they could/would take the call, transferring calls; I've always been afraid of tasks like that. There's a lot of jobs that I don't consider beneath me--I think they're beyond me. The thought of a headset, taking orders at a fast food window, AND filling the orders, or waiting tables, remembering orders, serving food, or check-out clerk, the list is very long. I raised four kids, so you would think that multitasking especially while serving food would be second nature, but not so much.<br />
<br />
I'm excited that I can now fax, overnight plans and packages, run letters through the postage meter, scan things on the big confusing copier. For me these are huge achievements, since I've usually been the type standing there staring helplessly at whatever I'm supposed to be operating, making whining noises, wringing my hands (whatever 'wringing' is) and looking around with pleading eyes and pathetic desperation, hoping for a rescuer.. Inept would have a kind description.<br />
<br />
But that's not the education I've gotten sitting up here. The education is--like most things--about people and, in particular, about the difference between being a function and a person. <br />
<br />
The Girl at the Front is, for many people, a pure function. You can be rude, impatient, and dismissive to her and (apparently) think nothing of it. I don't get the abuse of people who work in more lightning rod places--we're not repo folks, bill collectors, customer service for really bad products--and thank whatever gods may be that I'm not a telemarketer, but there's enough. It's apparently my fault if a someone hasn't returned a call or isn't available right now. Plans haven't been approves, permits not granted, and the new puppy pooped on the carpet.<br />
<br />
When people come into the lobby it becomes even more interesting. Many people are quite nice, especially when they don't know where they're going, or need me to call the person they plan to meet. Some are even shy. I like making people welcome, offering the coffee and water, chatting if they seem to need to talk. However, dismissive is the polite way of describing the behavior of some. No eye contact. No thank you. No hello, no goodbye.I've interacted more personally ordering a hamburger over the intercom.<br />
<br />
I'm guessing that for many reading this it's a big oh, well and so what. Goes with the territory, if I don't like it quit, and deal with it--it's human nature. And actually I do. It isn't personal and it sometimes gives me an excellent gauge of clients. I've always thought you could learn a lot about people by how they treat their "inferiors." And how often they don't realize the power of these supposed inferiors--how fast and untouched do you want your food, how quickly will you get that warm blanket at the hospital--and what might I say to the managers here?<br />
<br />
And therein lies the real lesson here. The firm is Lauterbach & Associates, Architects, My last name is Lauterbach--ex-wife of the founder--who still works here--mother of the CFO. I do what I do because it's needed and you pretty much need to put on the big girl panties and do what's needed these days.<br />
<br />
But I find it very interesting if I introduce myself. The Look crosses the person's face as I suddenly transform from function to person. Possibly even a Person of Some Importance. Big smile then. Effusive <i>pleased to meet you</i>.<br />
<br />
It's been, as I said, an education.<br />
<br />
Oh, and by the way, when you come into that irritatingly empty lobby--remind yourself that even The Girl at the Front has to pee occasionally.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-43944011465889980982010-02-25T22:07:00.000-08:002010-04-10T19:09:39.718-07:00Broken Hallelujah Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.<br />
<br />
It's been used in everything from Shrek to House and sung by everyone except my next door neighbor's niece's cousin-by-marriage's brother-in-law.<br />
<br />
At least I don't think he did.<br />
<br />
.Overused, cliche, cheap meme to suggest depth and poignancy? Maybe. But I think it's love.<br />
<br />
When you--when <i>I</i>--fall in love, anything, everything is an excuse to talk about the loved one. Air? Did I mention He breathes air? Milk? Too easy with a new baby. Shoes? My grandson takes his shoes off when he comes in the house. "Gotta hand it to you...." My grand daughter has two. Hands, I mean. Love is physical, visceral, the longing to taste a name on your lips, to bring them into every moment and space you occupy.<br />
<br />
Poetry, music, a voice, the line of a dancer, beauty in all its guises is the same. The song plays you, the words write you.<br />
<br />
Love You can love a piece of music with the same yearning to possess and be possessed as any other love..<br />
<br />
Jeff Beck's Hallelujah plays my heart, grieves and elates me. When Cohen sings, I whisper the words with my lips and in my mind:<i> it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah</i>...<i>And even though/It all went wrong/I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah.</i><br />
<br />
I hold my lover close, trace the curve of his cheek, the line of his shoulder, play my fingers down his spine, my body bends to his. <i>Love is not a victory march/It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah</i>. I know this. I listen to him breathe, listen as I listened to my children, standing by their beds. Breathe, breathing with them, one breath follow another.<br />
<br />
Please. <br />
<br />
All breath stops. It's a simple bare boned fact. They leave us, we leave them. Fact.<br />
<br />
You always disappoint the ones you love. Not every day, not all the time, but as inevitably as rain will come, you will hurt the ones you love. You can't unring the bell, if you rip your tongue out, the words can't be unsaid, 3:00 AM tears, and a thousand nights of kneeling on broken glass will not change one moment.<br />
<br />
And--why should I even bother to say it?--the ones you love will disappoint you, hurt you, rip your heart out and samba on it with a partner.<br />
<br />
The world itself <i>will</i> break your heart. <br />
<br />
The poem on paper will never be what you wrote in your mind and the music you play will never be what you heard<br />
<br />
And yet. And yet...there <i>is </i>the poem, a lover's touch, the baby's diaper may stink, but there is the intoxicating scent of baby, the soft gloriousness of a baby's skin. The sunrise over Haleakala flames with colors even if you're shivering in a jacket that isn't as warm as you thought and you the coffee's lukewarm and tastes like bad instant and the rock you're sitting on is cold--and besides rock is, well, hard as rock.<br />
<br />
The is-ness of it all. <br />
<br />
Pirouettes and pratfalls.<br />
<br />
And so <i> Hallelujah</i> with every breath.<br />
<br />
Imperfect and imperfectly. A song that sings me.<br />
<br />
Because <i>There's a blaze of light in every word/It doesn't matter which you heard/The holy or the broken Hallelujah</i>.<br />
<br />
I sleep next to my lover, hold a grandchild, my old dog slips away with one breath, then none all at the gift of the veterinarian's needle. <i>I'll stand before the Lord of Song/With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah</i>.<br />
<br />
<i>It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
What else is there?<i> Hallelujah.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Imperfect. Flawed and failed.<br />
<br />
<i>Hallelujah</i>.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-59490073321301563202010-02-03T19:24:00.000-08:002010-02-03T19:24:39.565-08:00Me and Oral RobertsHeal!! He laid on hands, this intense, florid man, sweating and teary eyed. The man, woman, or child kneeling at his feet--if they weren't on a stretcher or in a wheel chair--frequently were crying too. Their stories had been told, their need for healing proclaimed to the heavens and the congregation--along with us out in television land.<br />
Oral Roberts seemed to wrest miracles from Jesus; the physical effort was evident . Nothing gentle about this.<br />
<div class="block block-realmedia" id="block-realmedia-5"><script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/me-and-oral-roberts@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left%21Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched">
<!-- --> <a HREF="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/blogher.org/Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1"><img SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/me-and-oral-roberts@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></a>
</script><br />
<script language="JavaScript">
<!--
_version=10; //-->
</script> <script language="JavaScript1.1">
<!--
_version=11; // -->
</script> <script language="JavaScript">
<!--
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 3') != -1){
document.write('<iframe WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/me-and-oral-roberts@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></iframe>');
} else if (_version < 11) {
document.write ('<A HREF="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/me-and-oral-roberts@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"><img SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/me-and-oral-roberts@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></a>');
}
// -->
</script> </div>And nothing quiet about the healings either. Rejoicing swept the congregation, the newly healed and Oral Roberts praised Jesus--and cried. Faith healings take place in in an ocean surge of waves, and spray, and salt.<br />
I was eight and this was the 50's in North Carolina. We weren't always regular churchgoers but my mother was raised Baptist, Jesus was always watching us, and she read a chapter from the Bible to me every night.<br />
I also lived in a world where grownups never lied and people were to be trusted.<br />
My mother's health was fragile. She had bronchiectisis (a lung condition somewhat like cystic fibrosis) which regularly put her in the hospital about once a year.She nearly died having me and "was never the same." When my dad was gone--he was a Marine--I would slip into her room at night to check to be sure she was breathing.<br />
So I wrote to Oral Roberts to ask him to pray for my mother to be healed. As far as I could tell, he never failed on TV and his prayers had to be just as effective at a distance. As I mailed the letter, I imagined my family's surprise and joy. I didn't want thanks--I just wanted my mom to live and figured that the Reverend Robert's prayers seemed to have a power my night time <i>Our father who art's</i> and <i>God blesses</i> didn't.<br />
My theology was weak and so was my critical thinking--but I was eight. Not stupid, just ignorant and a bit naive.<br />
I did get a letter back. There was a generic paragraph promising prayers for me and my loved one. They would lift us up to the Lord or something like that.<br />
The rest of the letter was a two paragraph plea for money. I don't think it was explicitly said but my eight year old self found it pretty implicit that this money would make the prayers much, much, much more effective.<br />
I was disappointed but not devastated. More like the dawning of Santa is your mom and dad, that growing awareness of the limitations of sleighs and realities of life.<br />
I wish I'd written to thank him.<br />
Some facts, like chicken pox, are best taught/caught young.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-68571577498111754302010-02-03T16:43:00.000-08:002010-02-03T16:43:41.845-08:00Help! I'm Addicted to K CupsI like to think I'm a good person and at least a pale shade of green. My recycling trash container is always much fuller than than the one that contains, well, trash. I buy recyled, local, organic, advocate for sustainable solutions at the architectural office I work at. I know what Cradle to Cradle is, unplug electrical things when I can and when they aren't needed....<br />
<br />
I really <em>really</em> try to be a good person.<br />
<br />
But my partner's daughter gave him a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas.<br />
<br />
<div class="block block-realmedia" id="block-realmedia-5"><!-- Here is the beginning of the Open AdStream JX Code for the Right1 position --> <script language="JavaScript1.1" src="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/help-im-addicted-k-cups@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left%21Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched">
<!-- --> <a HREF="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/blogher.org/Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1"><img SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/help-im-addicted-k-cups@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></a>
</script> <script language="JavaScript">
<!--
_version=10; //-->
</script> <script language="JavaScript1.1">
<!--
_version=11; // -->
</script> <script language="JavaScript">
<!--
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf('MSIE 3') != -1){
document.write('<iframe WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR="#000000" SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/help-im-addicted-k-cups@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></iframe>');
} else if (_version < 11) {
document.write ('<A HREF="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/help-im-addicted-k-cups@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"><img SRC="http://oascentral.blogher.org/RealMedia/ads/adstream_jx.ads/blogher.org/help-im-addicted-k-cups@Position1,Position2,Middle,Position3,Position4,Middle1,Middle2,Top3,Top,Left!Middle1?alcohol&animal&processedfood&gluten&diet&cosmeticsurgery&reproductivehealth&pharma&parenting&formula&politics&military&tvfilms&rrated&finance&oilauto&dating&lingerie&safecount&antibreastfeeding&walmart&disney&nestle&democrats&religious&republicans&psa&richmedia&synched"></a>');
}
// -->
</script> <!-- Here is the end of the Open AdStream JX Code for the Right1 position -->Now, you first have to understand--we really enjoy coffee and drink it morning, noon, and night. When we first got together I did have to teach him that grocery store brand ground coffee made into pale brown water is NOT coffee. I introduced him to the coffee grinder and Trader Joe's Organic, Shade-Grown, Fair Traded Coffee. (It's the way I salvage my guilt over what I know can be an exploitive, environment destroying, high pesticide product.)</div><div class="block block-realmedia" id="block-realmedia-5"> </div>And then the Keurig showed up. And I mocked it--who know what kind of coffee really was in those little <em>plastic</em> K cups? I mean--PLASTIC? And they don't recycle.<br />
<br />
Then we had the first cup of dark roast.<br />
<br />
"OK," we agreed, "Not bad for when you just want a cup. Or for company." Quick, easy, flavorful, and kinda fun--all the buttons, the hissing noise, and the pretty blue lights.<br />
<br />
Nice on occasion , we agreed.<br />
<br />
The first hit was just experimental. Why would we abandon our old coffee maker which held so many cups and could be programed to have a full pot ready before we got out of bed?<br />
In the next few days we blew through the samples that had come with the Keurig like a politician grabbing face time on TV. No limits.<br />
<br />
Then--the supply was running low. Panic set in. Where do you go to get more--who's your connection?<br />
Turns out Costco carries a big box of 80 of Newman's Own for $33.00.<br />
<br />
I brought it home. John added up the cost and gave me THE LOOK. "Do you realize how much this costs a cup?" No. He told me. I just could not keep the number in mind; it always drifted away.<br />
<br />
Besides, while not cheaper that making a pot, well, you know, sometimes we didn't actually drink the whole pot and then we wastefully poured it out. And the Keurig brew is certainly cheaper than Starbucks and their ilk.<br />
<br />
I try not to look at the old coffee maker which seems to be lonely and saddened, asking <i>what did I do wrong</i>? It doesn't seem to be buying, "It's not you, it's me."<br />
<br />
I don't even tell myself I can quit anytime. Turns out we ALWAYS want only one cup.<br />
Really.<br />
<br />
We pretend that pile of little plastic cups in the trash does not exist. And--after all--it is Newman's Own: organic and fair traded. The Newmans are very environmentally aware you know.<br />
<br />
Now I'm wishing we had a Keurig at work.<br />
<br />
I know I need help.<br />
<br />
Is there a support group out there for me?<br />
<br />
We could have coffee.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-28719747218918089342009-12-23T13:53:00.000-08:002009-12-23T13:58:48.457-08:00A Secular Christian?Secular Jew is an accepted description of a person who identifies as being Jewish but is Jewish in a cultural, nonreligious way. OK, I do understand that being Jewish is different than being "Christian", since there's a whole tribal identification and--like being mixed race--in a sense you are what the world will name you.<br />
<br />
Christians aren't quite the same, though shared experience can create a tribal feeling for sure: church suppers (just listen to Garrison Keillor), nuns with rulers, bathrobe Christmas pageants, Midnight Mass--. And, since many of the US's immigrants are traditionally Christian, you have the whole food and whatever connected to the holidays. Tamales, stollen, a German pickle, clam chowder, or Taco Bell so mom doesn't have to cook, whatever it is, it is, and hallelujah.<br />
<br />
My parents were both from the South though my dad was very evasive about what he actually believed and we weren't constant church goers, I was raised a Protestant Christian. Jesus watched every minute of my day and was <i>very</i> sad when I did anything wrong. My mother read a chapter of the Bible to me every night; I said the Lord's Prayer and long list of God blesses kneeling by bed, hands porperly folded, before I went to sleep.<br />
<br />
Christmas was magic. Mary and Joseph, shepherds, Wisemen, and all the friendly beasts clustered around a baby while the angels sang. Every Christmas Eve I searched for the Star as I also watched for Santa and listened for the reindeers' jingling bells.<br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>Peace on Earth and a Charlie Brown Christmas tree</i>. I won't give up my claim on them.<br />
<br />
That I don't believe in Christian tenets anymore in any orthodox or even unorthodox way, I believe deosn't matter--I cling to my right to my heritage. I collect nativity sets, sing Christmas carols when no one can hear (do unto others), remind myself that each person carries a spark of the divine and when I feed the hungry, clothe those without clothes, I serve whatever is holy in all of us. I should judge not and should remember that if I have two coats I <i>ought </i>to give one away.<br />
<br />
For those who believe I still say I will pray for you. "To whatever is at the heart of all this and cares" may not be much of an address but I don't think it's the dead letter office and prayer is as good a name as any.<br />
<br />
Tradition is good, love is even better, and stories that encourage children to believe that hope shows up in surprising ways, the angels sing of peace, and the scraggliest Christmas tree can shine like a star are, I believe, mine to claim.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-46113641053812128742009-12-09T16:14:00.000-08:002009-12-10T09:27:52.931-08:00Reading Confucius<div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">OK, there's no question that the email surprised me. Actually I assumed that the writer had somehow gotten the wrong address because a) she wanted to send me a review copy of a book and b) she was doing so because she liked my website. I did my best mental Scooby Doo <i>huh?</i> and promptly emailed back that while I never objected to getting a free book she obviously had the wrong person.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">But then she used the secret words: Barefoot on the Ground.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">And that's how I got to read Confucius from the Heart by Professor Yu Dan, translated by Esther Tyldesley. (Translators should be recognized and applauded.) Published by Atria in October, 2009.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">I'm very glad I did. And not just because of a certain implicit flattery in the whole exchange. (Just the thought that somebody else might be reading this besides those of you who love me and maybe do pity reads...wow.)<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">The back story on Confucius from the Heart is fascinating in itself--I had thought Confucianism in China had been pretty thoroughly relegated to the past and the bad old days before the Revolution. However, the Analects were/are still being studied in the universities, at least as literature and history, and in 2006 Professor Yu Dan of Beijing Normal University gave a week long series of televised lectures on Confucius for the modern world.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">To nearly everyone's surprise, apparently including Professor Yu Dan's, it was a hit. (I'm not sure what would be comparable here--Socrates as an Oprah's Book Club selection?) Over ten million copies were sold in a short time.<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;">Now it's been translated and brought to the English speaking/reading world.<br />
<br />
I described to someone as the kind of book you keep reading long after youve closed the covers. And it is.<br />
<br />
At first it seems not so much simple as it does simplistic. Follow your internal moral compass. Choose your friends wisely. Govern yourself before governimg others. Show respect to all. Don't compromise your principles for public honors and material rewards. Nothing new.<br />
<br />
However, as you continue to read, the point of the simplicity becomes clear: becoming a junzi, the person who has found balance, equanamity, right thinking, and right action, should be attainable by all. The translator chose to use the Chinese word "junzi" throughout because, she writes, the concept has no satisfactory English equivalent. The simplicity of the writing does not suggest that becoming a junzi is easy, something that can be put on a poster and then absorbed. Rather it is that becoming a junzi is a process that does not require an advanced degree or esoteric learning.<br />
<br />
But that isn't what I mean by continuing to read the book long after it's been read. When I started this review/essay I was sure I would be done over the weekend. which was two weekends ago. Looking back I should have listened to Confucius's statement that it is best to talk about one's achievements <i>after</i> they have been achieved.<br />
<br />
Um, yes.<br />
<br />
Recetntly I had the bad experience of finding out that someone I had referred a friend to, a person I thought was honorable, to be trusted, turned out to be not honorable, not trustworthy--in fact someone who tried to take advantage of my friend.<br />
<br />
I woke in the night reading the lines that warn against those who are charming and say what you like to hear. Choose a friend who tells you the truth, Confucius says. And you can tell this person because the words won't drip with honey and will not always be exactly what you want to hear.<br />
<br />
May not make a funny fortune cookie, but I wish I'd listened sooner.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><br />
</div>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-9677671051444804062009-11-19T16:34:00.000-08:002009-12-03T22:53:55.887-08:00Riding the Invisible DragonOnce upon a time there was a princess who set at her desk most of the day and wept. She tried to hide her face from others because weeping at her desk was not in her job description. There were times she wept because something sad had happened, but sometimes she wept because the dragon she was riding dove for the ground.<br />
<br />
Some days, some nights this fiercely beautiful, wildly untamable creature arches her neck, spreads her shimmering wings , as they soar to the high upper reaches where the stars are always bright and the moon always full. The dragon's flames light up the sky, the princess shrieks her joy. Poised precariously on her dragon's back, she dances until she falls, still laughing as the moon and stars spin past her.<br />
<br />
Sometimes the dragon catches her.<br />
<br />
Sometimes she keeps falling.<br />
<br />
And sometimes they soar too high and the dragon twists, plunging down into deep water, into caverns where there is no light, until the princess begins to believe that light is an illusion and all there is, all there ever will be is darkness.<br />
<br />
The princess, though, is the only one who can see the dragon. To everyone else she is gyrating frantically through the skies, shooting up, diving for the ground, and all of her own volition.<br />
<br />
This is, of course, metaphor and an oddly mixed one at that, unless the princess's office is somewhere between Middle Earth and Hogwarts. Obviously, too, (or at least I think it is) the princess is me.<br />
<br />
I'm bipolar.<br />
<br />
When I was crying at work--I cry, only princesses get to weep--I was in the midst of the break that finally sent me to the psychiatrist who named the dragon. I had been treated for depression for years because who sees the therapist when you're flying high in a mania? However, this final break was triggered by a medication that works great on depression--not so much on bipolarity.<br />
<br />
Crying at work. Certain that not only did no one like me, but sure that they were talking behind my back and telling everyone how damned incompetent I was. (They probably were but I wasn't being singled out--it was just the way things are sometimes.)<br />
<br />
The 3:00 AM awakenings were especially fun. I would wake up crying. The dogs that slept with me would looked baffled and one even--how maudlin--would actually try to lick away my tears. (Shit--he probably just needed more salt in his diet.) All my sins and failures, especially as a mother, would come and sit on my chest, going over a detailed laundry list of my crimes against everyone. There was no washing away these sins, either. I knew I was unlovable and that the people who said, who thought, they loved me were either deluded or loved me out of pity.<br />
<br />
Did I always cry? No. Anger and hysterical rage are also a part of mania. I could go from trembling lips and barely held back tears after being told I'd misspelled a word, to shaking anger and ice dagger words.<br />
<br />
I had a sticky note on my computer with a list:. d. t., d. t.. d. e., l. p.--which stood for don't talk, don't think, don't eat, look pleasant. <br />
<br />
Being carried by the dragon was no joy ride for me, but being anywhere near me was certainly no pleasure either. I wasn't always angry, I wasn't always tearful. I could still laugh--my family tends to have a pretty dark sense of humor--but I wasn't just fragile, I was brittle and ready to shatter at the slightest touch.<br />
<br />
People (wisely) avoid being around you if they can and when they are--they tiptoe.<br />
<br />
Or they try to help you. Usually they're rational and reassuring. People don't really hate you. Your kids--or "we" when it was one of the kids talking--have turned out fine, so you didn't ruin them.<br />
<br />
Cheer up. Snap out of it. Let's go do something fun.<br />
<br />
I tried my own drugs of choice: buying stuff and things for other people, trying to help my friends and family with their lives (I think it's actually called interfering), refusing to open any mail that looked remotely like a bill--because if you don't open them you don't have to pay them--spending the time I wasn't working curled in my recliner with a book and the computer on my lap and the TV on. Nothing could hold my attention for very long. Oh, and by the way, if you're ever shopping in this aisle, the, uh, "admiration" of men can be quite an excellent drug too. And you might be surprised at what can seem like a good idea at the time.<br />
<br />
Humans tell stories and want to frame life and make order, or at least some kind of sense out of the chaos. When the dragon is taking you for a ride, you sometimes try to figure out why. Because there has to be a why, doesn't there? My ex-husband caught of lot flack on this one--blame for how I was feeling, blame for leaving me, blame for not understanding now, for being mean to me. Now we aren't divorced for nothing and there are people, including our own children, who are amazed the marriage lasted so long. We're both battered and scared, but the dragon didn't walk in the door he opened to walk out. I brought her with me and I got full custody.<br />
<br />
There is also the explanation of simply being unlovable, unworthy, and a burden to everybody whose orbit touches yours. That's when people start watching you closely and don't like to leave you alone.<br />
<br />
Most of the time though you're just too busy trying to hang on, flailing around for something to grab hold of. What's hard to explain--to others and even to yourself--is that you didn't choose to get on the dragon and you didn't choose this emotional crack the whip. To other people, the people around you, you're doing the crazy dance, but the assumption is that at some level you WANT to dance and you'd get off the dance floor if you really wanted to. (Do I have to remind you that the dragon is invisible to everyone else? It's the best I can do metaphorically, so please keep it in mind.) <br />
<br />
But the hard thing for you, the rider--meaning of course me--is to admit that while you didn't choose to get on this dragon, there's really no one to blame for the wild ride, not circumstances, not other people, and not even your own unlovable and horrible self.<br />
<br />
It's an illness. A mental illness.<br />
<br />
Frankly I hated the term. When the psychiatrist first suggested it (her statement was, "I will not give you a diagnosis this quickly but if I were teaching a class to med students on bipolar--you would be a classic example to take to the class."), I went into a kind of disassociated mental fugue. Depressed was depressed but bipolar was really mentally ill. <i>Mentally ill</i>. Which really means crazy. It takes awhile to wrap your crazy head around that, and a little longer to tell people what your doctor said. You walk the road to acceptance in fits and starts and the dragon doesn't stop the ride any time soon.<br />
<br />
The meds help amazingly. The clinical sounding words "mood stabilizer" don't convey the tremendous, rainbow-hued relief they can be. The clouds begin to lift and the reign of tears begins to end.<br />
<br />
You learn that you can't cure this yet, but you can manage it. You can feed the dragon or learn to keep her in her stall. Take your meds. Keep a routine, which is hard when chaos has been the only life you've known. Take your meds. Talk to yourself (usually better in private and maybe just on paper or in your own head) when the dragon starts sidling up to you. Carrie Fisher (who talks about her own diagnosis) says, "The facts of my life don't change; the fiction does." That's when you have to remind yourself that feelings are only feelings and do a reality check.<br />
<br />
I've learned to be aware of the signs that the dragon is creeping up and I'm putting on my riding boots. When tears are right behind my eyes, when fears of a rejection that hasn't happened knots my stomach, some of the time I can step back and repeat the mantra of "feelings are only feelings. They aren't reality."<br />
<br />
I told my therapist on my first visit that my goal was to sort out what was fucked up brain chemistry and what was real in my life. I'm still sorting. It's like having diabetes, a good day yesterday doesn't mean you can be careless today. <br />
<br />
Mindfulness. Self-awareness. These are the gifts of managing this illness, this whatever it is, because these are the tools that help to gentle the dragon.<br />
<br />
I'm learning to embrace the dragon rather than fight her. Which is a fancy lame attempt at a poetic way of saying that while this illness doesn't define me, it is a part of me, and that acceptance is the only way to stay grounded.<br />
<br />
And it wasn't all bad; I can still remember the glitter of the stars and a full moon rising, poems pouring out like honey in summer, love so intense it was like lightning, rolled like thunder, and lit up the sky.<br />
<br />
But I live now where light is not a illusion and the ground is under my feet.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-30719892282623306062009-11-10T15:53:00.000-08:002009-11-10T16:58:20.472-08:00I THINK I Believe in Being Positive. MaybeOh, Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief" used to be one of my favorite prayers--along with "Send my roots rain," and "please, please, <i>please</i> let there be enough money in my account to cover that last check." (I don't know if it's true there are no atheists in foxholes, but I'm pretty damn sure there aren't too many the day before payday when you really needed that check two days earlier.)<br />
A good friend pointed out that in my previous blahblah blog (I Am Like SO Sure) there's more than a smidgen of negativity. I think my point was the strength of my conviction--or yours, or anyone's for that matter--has nothing to do with being right, whether it's about a baseball game or the meaning of life.<br />
<br />
<br />
Still hold with that and she didn't disagree.<br />
<br />
However, her point is that <i>believing</i> does make a difference. And, on reflection, I think she's right. Within the limits of rationality. (And I'm a lover of Lord of the Rings and a universe of infinite possibility and all the weird things light and subatomic particles do--but I don't think I'm going to play for the NBA no matter what I believe.) <br />
<br />
On the other hand--which is where I frequently go without ever having gone to the one hand--belief shapes behavior. That's an easy postulate. We don't have the time or resources to check everything in the world and sometimes we have to act on faith--faith that the waitress at Carrow's isn't out to poison us, that space aliens aren't sending messages through our fillings, all that. Paranoid schizophrenia is an incredibly debilitating illness. And whatever the opposite might be--trusting everyone and everything?-- is, in my opinion, equally lethal. Believing that everyone has a soul and is a child of god should not lead to going home with the guy with chainsaw unless he's your tree surgeon. There are people who do not wish us well and situations that do not end happily.<br />
<br />
Beyond that, I think MM is right in that if you think you can do something, you are far more likely to do it. And if you believe you can't--well, that's pretty likely too. If I <i>believe</i> I can go to college, I'm far more likely to look for possibilities for colleges, financial aid, majors I would like.<br />
<br />
That's elementary duhness.<br />
<br />
Attitude is important too. If I expect good things to happen I'm going to act in ways that have a chance of attracting good things. By and large people like to be around positive types unless they're good looking dark and brooding types with an ironic twist of bitter phrase that makes you laugh.<br />
<br />
Of course, for a lot of us that might still fall into the category of expecting good things.<br />
<br />
Be that as it may....<br />
<br />
<br />
But where is the point that belief and denial converge and should divide, or--? I read a story once about the actor Richard Dreyfuss who said that he almost literally never heard negative comments on his acting and his chances. He was so focused and so sure that he would be a successful actor that no alternative ever entered his thoughts.<br />
<br />
<br />
Wow. Straight ahead tunnel vision maybe <i>can</i> move mountains, one more kick will churn the butter (an Irish saying about the frog in a jug of cream), refusing to listen to the people who tell you "why try?" can pay off.<br />
<br />
<br />
However, and there's always one of those, at least when I'm writing, when I worked as a chaplain's assistant at a hospital I worked on the oncology floor--I worked with cancer patients. This was at the height of the attitude determines prognosis movement. There were patients who wore smiles always, except--perhaps--in their sleep. Nothing was painful, nothing was difficult, and there was no possibility of anything but victory over the disease.<br />
<br />
<br />
So, what was wrong with that? Well, for one I don't think denying that having cancer is an absolute bitch is realistic or healthy.<br />
<br />
<br />
I could be wrong.<br />
<br />
<br />
What I do recall is the self-flagellation I would see if a negative thought was permitted to cross patients' lips or minds. And if the cure didn't happen, if they were dying, the fault was theirs because they didn't try hard enough, weren't positive enough. If the family shared this belief, the person died because she didn't want to live.<br />
<br />
As Americans (in general) we love fighters. We're right there raging against the dying of the light. Passive acceptance is not our way/<br />
<br />
<br />
But life happens and death happens (a nurse once reminded me that death is the one appointment no one is ever late for). It's happening now, as my fingers hit the keyboard and the microwave beeps and I remind myself I need to do my timesheet. A pretzel stick is soothing my soul and the slightly old and somewhat bitter coffee is hot. Now.<br />
<br />
<br />
My bare feet are planted on holy ground. Wherever I stand, holy ground. I'm not sure what this means and where believing in my dreams fits in to this.<br />
<br />
<br />
Do I even know what those dreams are worth, what could be, what should be? At one time I would have ripped my right arm off with my teeth to have our family be the living avatars of the Brady Bunch.Turns out that instead we are us. Broken marriage but unbroken family--although a lot patched, glued and mended--events happened that couldn't be resolved in 30 minutes or 30 years, just endured and survived. Are their things I would change if I could? Good Lord, yes! But I don't know if I would, if it meant losing what <i>is</i>. A situation that almost anyone would describe as disastrous resulted in a grandson who is the light of so many lives, who, his mother says, saved her life.<br />
<br />
<br />
I'm not a person who believes that everything happens for good or is part of god's plan. If there's a deity that planned Rwanda, I'm not lighting any candles. But I do believe in quilts and mosaics. Take what is torn and broken and try to piece it together into something that, if not beautiful, might be useful.<br />
<br />
It's holy ground. There's no point in standing in shit and calling it roses--but I can, you can try to plant roses or at least some onions in it and hope they grow,.<br />
<br />
<br />
So, I guess I do believe. In believing.<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>Help thou my unbelief.</i>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-23009745238095462802009-11-09T12:11:00.000-08:002009-11-10T19:31:20.088-08:00I Am Like SO SureIt started with a yada yada conversation about week-end plans with JE. In the world of baseball and post-season play, everything is scheduled around The Game(s). He began with, "When do the Angels and Yankees play?"<br />
<br />
I took another swig of my Corona.(in the tradition of Seniors Citizens--which is my new club--we were at a Happy Hour when drinks are cheaper and occasionally there are free snacks.)<br />
<br />
Sometimes I worry about him. "<i>What</i> game?" The Angels had lost a fourth game, American League playoffs were over and it was time to move on. Hoping for the Yankees to get their pinstriped butts kicked, but nonetheless time to get to "acceptance" already.<br />
<br />
"The fifth game."<br />
<br />
"There is no fifth game--the Angels lost." I could see their stiff upper lipped I'm too big a boy to cry faces headed toward the clubhouse.<br />
<br />
Another thing I've learned in this new Senior Club is that anxious looks from people around you are not uncommon. Lose your keys. Misplace a coffee cup or the date, forget a kid's name when the kid is yours--forget your own name--and people look...worried.<br />
<br />
We were giving each other The Look. JE is older than I am and a little hard of hearing, while my hearing is adequate and it's the vision going. (Now Bush the Elder just showed up in my head which is not an unusual event--not Bush but the whole pinball thought process --nd he's going on about the vision thing. Never mind, though. Really.) Being as JE sometimes misses things, occasionally I have to set him straight--gently and with great respect for his feelings.<br />
<br />
"Bet you five bucks, " I said.<br />
<br />
He raised. We'll skip the details but it was the kind of stake where no matter who loses both people win. <br />
<br />
A handshake and we went back to our beers. Nibbling veggie spring rolls and barbecued ribs--which were NOT free but were (in theory) at a reduced price. I kept looking sideways at him--frankly a little worried. <i>How could he be so confused?</i><br />
<br />
Of course he was giving me the same looks and asked me several times: "You really are sure about this, aren't you.?"<br />
<br />
"Wouldn't bet the rent money, but, yeah, I am." Wondering how he would take the inevitable news that he was wrong.<br />
<br />
Naturally, you know what happened--or otherwise I wouldn't be writing this, now would I? He was right I had commingled the defeat of <i>my</i> team--the Dodgers--at the bats and gloves of the Phillies with the hard fought Angels' win over the Yankees in game four. I had ended up with two sad stories when the second one hadn't happened yet. (It did.) Right about the saddened faces, wrong about the team.<br />
<br />
We watched the game and the Angels lost. But the whole incident "gave me furiously to think," as Hercule Poirot would say. (I have to drop these things here because most of the time nobody I'm talking to would get the reference and I don't have to worry if you get it or not. Or even if I've misquoted it.) <br />
<br />
I had had absolutely no doubt that I was right. Not a speck, not a scintilla, not a crumb. None.<br />
<br />
With the kind of certainty I had had , I might have risked the gallows. Or at least mockery on the Drudge Report. <br />
<br />
And I was wrong. Completely, no excuse, and no shading wrong. The only thing I had right were the names of the teams and there's no prize for that.<br />
<br />
My point? The strength of your conviction has nothing to do with being right. And this brilliant insight is applicable in all kinds of ways. Really.<br />
<br />
First of all, I find my certainty unnerving. I SAW the Angels win. True, just on television, but I saw it and then managed to flush it completely out of my mind. I was almost literally blind--there was something I couldn't "see,," no matter how clear and plain it was.<br />
<br />
That kind of scary wrong certainty makes me wonder about other things I'm damn sure about.<br />
<br />
One of the arguments I've heard from both pulpits to religious books of varying academic weight actually rests on the whole strength of conviction argument. Why would the disciples been fired with evangelical zeal, if they didn't know that Jesus was the resurrected, living Messiah? Early Christians faced the lions (who just about always won), torture, stoning, crucifixion--only a crazy person would endure that if they weren't absolutely, heart and soul deep convinced.<br />
<br />
I have no argument with this assumption until it's taken to the next step which is to claim that this passionate belief proves that the tenets of Christianity are fact, well, fact. <br />
<br />
The one has nothing to do with the other, any more than a suicide bomber's willingness to die proves anything about the "facts" of his/her belief.in whatever religion or ideology the dying is for.<br />
<br />
I was so very sure about what I KNEW I knew that not one bit of doubt crept in--not one. I was only "concerned" over JE's feelings when the poor darling found out he was wrong.<br />
<br />
These days in self-help lit and in political arguments, religious arguments, and on and on and on, doubt is of the devil. You shouldn't ever doubt yourself, your abilities, and the in reachness of your dreams. Don't waver or wobble in your faith, your ideas, your solutions. Don't even waver on what you say you said--even if those damn lying words are on video--because strength of conviction is all.<br />
<br />
One of my favorite sayings--going back to the days when I wrote advice for parents of teens--is "choose the hill you're going to die on." Not every issue is the apocalypse and if you treat it as such--well, by the time the real thing shows up all your ammo and your credibility will be gone.<br />
<br />
The trouble is that I think the real issue is becoming not what hill will you die on--but the various hills you will kill for. Lord knows we've all seen more than enough of that--the World Trade Center is an obvious one, along with the Pentagon, suicide bombers, Oklahoma City, and acceptable "collateral damage" nearly everywhere. <i>Woops, my bad's</i> are everywhere. Didn't know that was a school, hospital, wedding party. Sorry for the babies blown to pieces in daycare in Oklahoma, but they probably shouldn't have been in a government building anyway. I could--and usually do--go on and on. Health care, stalled budgets, hating your neighbor and sending your dog to poop in the middle of his/her lawn....<br />
<br />
However, my daughter, KM, pointed out to me that most people want to read something short in a blog. If they wanted a book, they'd buy one.<br />
<br />
She has a point.<br />
<br />
But I want to bring this around to my barefoot on the ground and mindful moments--even if that epiphany at Happy Hour and home is old, cliche, and hardly even new to me. I mean, like wow: <i>I can be wrong</i>. Facts can be not only discounted and ignored, but erased. My mind--your mind, anyone's mind--can try to reinvent reality to suit our desires and never register a conscious thought.<br />
<br />
Believing really, really hard doesn't make anything so. Wishing doesn't make it so. Saying "make it so" isn't a guarantee either, unless, perhaps, you <i>are</i> a deity. And, if you are, why are you reading this?<br />
<br />
Mindfulness is being present, present in the world as it is, not as I want it to be. (That's another blog entirely.) If I am present in the moment, PAYING ATTENTION, I might be less likely to delude myself.<br />
<br />
If I am trying to be aware, I might be able to perceive the desires that I am focusing on that are simply that: desires. Acknowledge them and let them pass. I wanted the Dodgers to win. I'm not actually that fond of the Angels even though I <i>want</i> to be.<br />
<br />
I can check my facts.<br />
<br />
And, in matters of faith and belief where facts as we know them do not exist, humility would seem to be in orderGwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-18477950073717818422009-10-15T13:34:00.000-07:002009-10-21T11:04:04.050-07:00Love Is All You Need?<i>Love is all you need, love is all you need….</i> Stuck in my head from a commercial for something I can’t recall and will not bother to look up. Cool kids though and, well, fun to watch. I think they all find themselves by the last frame too and that’s always a good thing.<br />
<br />
Love is all you need. When I was 18, back in the early 60’s, I think I might well have said yes and then, maybe, added books. Peace and freedom and full stomachs would have grown naturally, organically, from that one strong root, the original blessing of love. Even at 18 I didn’t think love was as simple as a song, but it was music and as natural as a sigh. And if I could have, I would have put my arms around the world and everyone in it and held them close,<br />
<br />
Life changes. We change our circumstances and our circumstances change us. Shit happens. Children and bills come and the years when love is action and quite often as much fun as dragging an eight year old or yourself to the dentist. I love you still rolls off the tongue but sometimes as one more item on the endless To Do list. A question, a wish, a promissory note, sometimes spit like a curse, or pounded like a club up side the head: thud, thud, thud.: I-Love-You.<br />
<br />
Oh, the drama of it. Of course those years weren’t endless drudgery and the bills to pay. They were a jungle, thick and rich and surprising, one swing of the machete and you turn to heartbreaking beauty, you pratfall into the mud, a wasp stings you, the piranhas needle your feet to the bone and your friend pulls you out of the slough and you laugh and drink coffee in a clearing.<br />
<br />
But if you had hummed Love is all you need I might have laughed, spewing my coffee; I might have turned my head away so you wouldn’t see and let the tears flow. But I wouldn’t have been able to say yes. I would have told you that love is complicated, easy to say, hard to live, a choice—something willed and worked at. Oh, I still wanted to put my arms around the world and hold everyone close, but I knew how little good it would do in a world of stick thin kids with swollen bellies, people armed with guns and money, a world where four kids (well fed and, thankfully, unarmed) couldn’t ride in a car for two hours without nearly killing each other and giving my peace loving tie-dyed mind serious thoughts of child/teenicide.<br />
<br />
It’s a broken world and love comes in many flavors, as the Greeks told us with their four words for whatever it is, that crazy little thing called loved...<br />
<br />
Of course at a certain point, it gets simpler again.<br />
<br />
Love is what you lose.<br />
<br />
My father died in ’83, my mother in ’96. Children leave even though (if you’re lucky and the stars are right) they don’t die. They discard soccer uniforms, prom dresses, baby shoes and boots—the Barbies stay behind with the Legos and leave them behind to gather dust along with all the things you were going to do and never did and all the things you did or said or thought and wish you hadn’t—they slip away from their childhood like a snake sheds its skin.<br />
<br />
Friends become acquaintances, acquaintances become memories, husbands and wives leave, brothers turn gray….<br />
<br />
That’s when you learn that loving is the bravest thing you ever do. That anyone ever does. Because the last word that love ever says is always good-bye. <br />
<br />
Now I’m in my early sixties rather than living in the Western world’s 60’s. More drugs but less fun. (Unless of course you consider staying alive and nominally sane fun. Which I do.) And love is all you need is a Blackberry commercial. (OK, I bothered to look it up.)<br />
<br />
So?<br />
<br />
I know I don’t need a Blackberry and at the moment don’t even want one. The commercial’s catchy though and if I weren’t a klutz and regular destroyer of cell phones I’d have an iPhone. (Instead I carry one that’s popular with construction workers and park rangers.)<br />
<br />
So, don’t need a Blackberry, but what about love?<br />
<br />
I have fallen in love so many times, the physical and emotional symptoms poets and scientists describe—and certainly not always with a potential sexual partner. A new baby floods body, heart and soul with oxytocin and the ability to go without sleep and not abandon the creature whose needs keep you from sleeping. I’ve been drawn by a glance from across the room, giggled and cried with friends, held a child with so much emotion that I laughed and cried.<br />
<br />
So back to the 60’s in my sixties and peace and love and crunchy granola? Well, I can’t paint you a rainbow or tie dye a meadow, but here, in my sixties I think I can say, love is all I need. I’m not trying to say that a starving child in the Sudan just needs a big hug or that loving Ted Bundy would have saved his victims’ lives. This is a complicated, messy, and cruel world. Smart bombs kill stupidly. Unspeakable horrors never even make a small paragraph on the back pages of a newspaper.<br />
<br />
A great, wide, wonderful world in which everything works for good and the all endings are happy? Well, as Papa Hemingway would say, “wouldn’t it be pretty to think so?” <br />
<br />
But the world is. It exists and in itself that’s amazing. I am here, you are here. We try to understand what the hell or heaven is going on and what in the world or out of the world we are doing here? Or are supposed to be doing here?<br />
<br />
And we love—write songs, change diapers, hug, kiss, make birthday cakes…. <br />
<br />
My mother was a shy woman, didn’t want to say boo to a goose. When my dad was dying, there wasn’t a doctor safe from her questions. She would hunt them down, notebook in hand, relentlessly asking questions and writing down every answer. Did he need something he didn’t get or get something he didn’t need? Someone would hear and hear and hear until the situation was resolved to her satisfaction.<br />
<br />
This wasn’t being “in love.” (I love you but I’m not in love with you.) This was love as a fierce and active verb. No happy ending of course, just a miserable, painful death from cancer—regrets, sorrow, grief—grief and relief that the pain was gone and you didn’t have to watch him suffer and didn’t have to feel guilty or even a little bored when he was drugged and slept and you read magazines by his bed.<br />
<br />
Love is an act of faith—at every wedding, every birth—maybe even at every divorce—there’s an act of faith that love is possible, that it can last—hang on through thick and thin, good and bad—make the long run or leave to try another track because love is possible.<br />
<br />
Love is all you need. I think I finally learned about love when I learned to make tea the way my mother liked it. A tea bag steeped for exactly five minutes, two spoons of sugar to make it sweet, a squeeze of lemon or spoonful of bottle juice to make it sour. Five minutes made it too strong I thought and even slightly bitter. <br />
<br />
So I would cheat and make the tea the way I thought she should like it. Until one morning something—might have been love—clubbed me over the head and said make the damn tea the way she likes it. Because that’s her tea and you let the words I love you roll so easy but you make her tea the way she doesn’t want it.<br />
<br />
Love is all you need? From the vast distance of 63 years, I say yeah. Love is all you need.<br />
<br />
Not love that hands you flowers or even sticky kisses.<br />
<br />
The love you need is the ability, the grace, the gift of being able to love. Because when you do, when you love you make the tea the way she likes it. <br />
<br />
Maybe you even figure out how to get some food to the child starving in the Sudan.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-15011456057712706512009-09-21T12:06:00.000-07:002009-09-24T22:23:11.189-07:00We Have to Talk<span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-style: italic;">Should I give you my car keys now?</span><br /><br />There are things no one expects besides the Spanish Inquisition. Being served with divorce papers right after your spouse kissed you good-bye to go to work. Unfriendly <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">rottweilers</span> running <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">amok</span> in your backyard, snarling and snapping at the windows,on what was supposed to be a quiet Sunday morning. </span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" >And you don't even own a dog. </span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" >(Let's not go into what brought these particular illustrations to mind.)<br /><br />Then there are the things you expect like taxes and laundry. Hardly ever disappointed there.<br /><br />Oh and by the way you may have already picked up the theme that this is about UNPLEASANT things. No surprise parties, sticky kisses from doe-eyed toddlers, not a rainbow in sight and the unicorns have left the building.<br /><br />But then there are the events and conversations that you know are coming someday--but you always hope someday is tomorrow and not today. Car repairs. The overflowing toilet five minutes before the guests arrive. Having to put your old and sick dog to sleep.<br /><br />And then there's <span style="font-style: italic;">We have to talk, I've been meaning to talk to you about that </span><span>conversations</span>. </span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" >They're never <span style="font-style: italic;">you're getting promoted, I'm taking you to Paris, your kid just got a full ride scholarship to Very Impressive Ivy School, the tests came back negative</span>.</span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><br /><br />No. The only question is which shoe, where, and how hard.</span><br /><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><br />I'm 63 years old. Lord knows, I've had my share of all those events and the conversations. Whether your role on the conversation is as the verb or the object.your stomach is pretty well guaranteed to hurt.<br /><br />So when my oldest son (the one who ALWAYS gets deputized to do the face-to-face on the subjects everyone is worrying about and no one wants to talk about) brought up a <span style="font-style: italic;">been meaning to talk to you</span> subject while we were sitting in a hospital waiting room--I gave him props.<br /><br />You gotta shoot the ducks when they're flying (although actually we never shoot anything) and the subject of driving came up.<br /><br />"You know, I'm getting more uncomfortable with driving at night," I remarked. An apropos comment since the surgery we were waiting on had been pushed back and pushed back until it was now after 9:00. At night.<br /><br />Carpe noctem and he did.<br /><br />"I've been meaning to bring that up. Your driving. People are worried...." He hesitated, looking to me for my reaction.<br /><br />Two things you need to know about me before this cliche conversation goes any farther. !). I have macular degeneration, primarily in my left eye. It was identified before I was fifty and--see "degenerative"--it has been doing so at a slow and steady pace over the years. 2). I try to be a decent person. I also quite frequently pitch my tent on the moral high ground.<br /><br />I've always said that when my kids came to me about my driving, I would hand over my keys without question. Risk lives just because I wanted to maintain my "independence"? Never. No, I would hand over the keys and give the car to someone who needed it.<br /><br />I lied like a rug<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Not now</span>. This conversation was supposed to happen when I was like <span style="font-style: italic;">eighty.</span><br /><br />I had a LOT of questions.<br /><br />And I didn't really ask if he wanted my car keys although I don't think I would have <span style="font-style: italic;">actually</span> fought him for them. The questions tumbled out--after all, if "people" were mainly his dad, my ex-husband, I was prepared to discount them by 50%. The ex worries. He gets anxious. He thinks my vision is worse than it is.<br /><br />The look was kind, sympathetic, but he was very direct. "Practically everybody."<br /><br />"<span style="font-size:85%;">Oh</span>."<br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />"Mostly about the night driving? And that time with Elizabeth?" (Elizabeth is my niece. I drove her to the airport a few weeks ago. " "But that was meds--I didn't know they would make me sleepy. And I pulled off and let her drive."<br /><br />"No." A head shake. "Night's a bigger worry, yeah. But even the day time...."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Shit</span>.<br /><br />Before I could ask, he told me. ( I really think he was afraid I would start crying. Not good in the surgery waiting room.) "Drifting in the lane. Getting too close to other cars on the side. Missing turns. Things like that. It's a little...scary sometimes."<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Double shit</span>.<br /><br />"How am I going to get to work?" I'm sure Iwas wailing. Maybe that's when I asked, "Do you mean--do you think I should quit now?" My mind was scrambling for Plan B and I realized I didn't have one.<br /><br />"Probably not yet. But you knew this day was coming."<br /><br />"I know. I know." But not yet. And I was going to be the first to notice. That's how I'd planned it.<br /><br />I was </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">embarrassed. </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Ashamed. </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Humiliated. . People had been coming to Scott worrying over me? I'd scared people when I was driving?<br /><br />In my head I apologized to every person I had judged for clinging to their keys and that trip to the grocery store. Children and the elderly get driven places. At least here in California, the land of No Real Public Transportation, <span style="font-style: italic;">adults</span> drive. I. Am. An. Adult.<br /><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Being a grown-up sucks. </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Mortality sucks even more. A grown-up knows that however you may feel, you can't risk other people's lives if you're a danger on the road. Even risking your own life is thoughtless. And takes you back to that whole mortality thing.<br /><br />I'm not sure if I'm afraid to die. Of course I want to live, to live long and prosper, if possible. Watch the grandchildren grow up, maybe even know a great-grandchild. See how (or if) the world keeps turning.<br /><br />I also know I don't want to be the brain-damaged body lying in a bed, incontinent and without thought or volition. Knowing no one. Just...there. Sort of like that ugly silver vase Aunt Sally gave you and you feel obligated to keep dusting and polishing.<br /><br />A car wreck is a helluva good way to get there.<br /><br />We agreed that I would curtail my driving NOW--at night and in unfamiliar places. I'm looking at "Refresher Classes" for seniors. </span></span><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-family:times new roman;" ><span style="font-size:100%;">Oh, god, I'm a <span style="font-style: italic;">senior</span>. Not near as cool as being a senior in high school. </span></span><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><span style="font-family: times new roman;font-size:100%;" >I promised to be extra careful and very, very mindful when I drive.<br /><br />Mindfulness again.<br /><br />Originally there was a Plan B. I live with my vision. I knew the give up the car keys day was coming even if I didn't really believe it. My mantra was that I didn't want to be either a danger to everyone on the road OR a burden to my kids and friends. So, before that day arrived, I had planned to be living in a New Urban/Old Brooklyn type environment. A place I could walk to everything I needed, maybe even to public transportation. (Hey, it could happen--even in Southern California.)<br /><br />Instead, I fell in love with a man whose house is near the top of a hill and within walking distance of nothing. I suppose, if I knew the neighbors and they were amenable, I could borrow the occasional egg or cup of milk. Maybe even coffee.<br /><br />But I don't know the neighbors and they really can't be my convenience store anyway.<br /><br />Hitchhiking is probably not the best option either.<br /><br />I practice saying, "Could you take me to the grocery store? I need to pick up a few things. My prescriptions are ready--would you mind stopping by...?"<br /><br />Mortality sucks. Big time.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-28610929622970309542009-08-27T20:30:00.000-07:002009-09-16T15:12:41.307-07:00Human Being: A Tough GigBlah, blah, blah, holy ground, blah, blah, mindfully barefoot in the now.<br /><br />Do you ever wish you could take yourself off like an itchy sweater, hang your self up somewhere, and come back when you're ready to wear yourself again?<br /><br />I'm trying to think of analogies, metaphors, images that describe the sheer weariness of dealing with my own repetitive crap. Whack-a-mole? Dusting in a sandstorm? Carrying water home in a sieve?<br /><br />Or just not realizing the laptop was unplugged and the battery ready to die--thereby losing most of what I'd written here. Talk about living in the now--.<br /><br />I've misplaced my debit card AGAIN. For a while now, I've been mostly careful. Mindfully putting the card back into my wallet and my wallet into my purse. (This is a major improvement over the whole drop it in my purse, pocket, car seat--or the bag of whatever stuff I've just bought--routine that I've kept for years. ) However, now not only will I be inconvenienced but I will have the opportunity to impose on others. Hey, if I give you a check, could you deposit in your account and then give me the cash back? Or, god forbid, I will have to actually walk into the bank and talk to a human person. Makes me wonder--am I distracted, human, or do I like to impose on other people and mess with myself at the same time?<br /><br />You can't pretty up your shit either--it's like lighting a stick of incense in a locker room piled to the ceiling with week-old unwashed gym socks.It won't make any difference, no one will notice, and the place will still stink.<br /><br />Worse are the stupid, self-centered, hurtful things I say and do while I keep trying to be this serenely loving person who embraces all of humankind, and dances barefoot on the holy blessed ground.With all those other holy blessed creatures.<br /><br />Bullshit.<br /><br />Like all god's children I have feelings. Nice ones, exaggerated ones, hurt, lonely, peaceful, angry, anxious, fearful, jealous. All kinds.<br /><br />Like everyone else.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Oh, look a bear</span> inspires action--scared inspires doing something. Something seems to be wrong with a loved one--anxiety can inspire action.<br /><br />Being pedantic, aren't I? <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Intellectualizing</span> feelings, distanced and detached. But it IS true that feelings are...well, feelings. Emotions. The only reality they sometimes indicate in the weather in my head, the pinging in my brain.<br /><br />Which avoids the whole reason for wishing I could shed myself and wondering, as I write, why I'm writing about it. Therapy, confession, or self-<span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">flagellation</span>, the fingers keep hitting the keyboard.<br /><br />The other day I pitched a fit. Not just a snit, a pout, but a true angry fit.<br /><br />The kind nobody wants to talk about afterward--not the objects, the collateral damage, or the perpetrator.<br /><br />One of those actions for which the phrase "and we will never speak of it again" was created.<br /><br />The details of what triggered this outburst really aren't <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">relevant</span>. Some one did something that hurt me. I like that phrasing. It's very close to "see what you made me do." which can be used to excuse just about anything from spilled milk to genocide.<br /><br />The point is I felt some crazy, conflicted, jealous emotions. Very, very real--that sick hollow feeling in my stomach. Tears that feel like a river at flood stage, ready to spill over the levee--that hit by a truck, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">panicked</span> gut response.<br /><br />Which is fine in that whole not fine way. An honest, instructive response.<br /><br />Worth a discussion later. Much later.<br /><br />But, oh, I discussed it then. First in that tightly pitched, everyone has done something rotten tone but with the superior edge that says I will rise above it. Next step, in my <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">repertoire</span>, is the cool, controlled,<span style="font-style: italic;"> rational</span> explanation of my point of view and the reasons I am most justifiably hurt and upset.<br /><br />The feelings I have and the physiological response ARE unpleasant. I have every right to those feelings.<br /><br />The horrible thing is knowing that abusing the other person--and verbal abuse IS abuse--is effective in reducing my tensions. The cycle of I'm hurt, I am a victim here, a victim I tell you, excuses the relentless pounding of <span style="font-style: italic;">how could you do this, you are so selfish, so thoughtless, so mean to me--see how I'm hurting.</span><br /><br />Worse than that is the finale. I feel better. The tension in my body has lessened. The powerless child has regained some power, and the screaming tantrum throwing two year old has "shown them."<br /><br />Now is the time for apologies. The fact that these apologies are sincere, the regrets deep--the equivalent of the abusive spouse's flowers--doesn't change the fact that hurting someone else has been used as therapy to ease my own pain.<br /><br />The itchy sweater doesn't come off, not even sleep is enough to rid one--me--of my self. It's more like housework than anything. If you cook, if you eat, pots, pans, dishes get dirty and one way or another have to be washed. If you walk, the floors get dirty. Toilets have to be scrubbed because our bodies do what bodies do into the toilet--every day you get up to chores that never stay done because there is no done, not really.<br /><br />And the bigger mess you made the day before, the more work today. I could stretch the analogy like silly putty of course--<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">sheesh</span>, you can throw the dishes, walk on the shards of the glass that can't be unbroken, choose to make pies of the shit and pretend it's blue ribbon....<br /><br />Doesn't matter.<br /><br />Human. You feel--I feel. Sometimes I--you too if you want to join the party--feel like crap, are treated like crap--and like any good primate, starting flinging the crap, and rarely only at the one who threw it.<br /><br />Human.<br /><br /><br />It's a tough gig.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Do you ever wish you could take your self off...?</span>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-72772895690734786802009-08-19T14:50:00.000-07:002009-08-25T09:29:53.475-07:00Mindful--Oh, look...a bird!--nessMindfulness: not just for Buddhists anymore. Or Jedi, for that matter. It's therapeutic, healthy, calming, spiritual and prescribed for everyone, from nursery schools to nursing homes.<br /><br />I have a hard time with it. With being present in the moment. My mind skitters, thoughts ping around like a well flipped pinball, the monkey mind break dances, and I can't find my keys.<br /><br />So what?<br /><br />Except for the keys, does it really matter?<br /><br />Well, first of all, I really WOULD like to know where my damn keys are.<br /><br />Second, though not really second, except for coming after the first, but actually first in importance, is that I don't want to leave--<span style="font-style: italic;">die</span>--without having actually been here.<br /><br />Maybe I should have listed it first without trying to be funny about the keys? (I do worry about you getting bored, deciding to check your email one more time, or clicking up Solitaire.)<br /><br />The Dodgers are playing and J.E. and I are watching. James <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Loney</span> is up. Bottom of the 9<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">th</span>, 2 out 3-2 in favor of the Cardinals. If you follow baseball you already know what happened. Before I type very many more letters I will too. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Loney</span> steps back, it all rests on him. The fans are clapping to a beat, now the cheers are rising.<br /><br /><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Loney</span> swings, connects--fly ball, caught.<br /><br />Game over.<br /><br />J. E. and I say it together--shit!! Or did we? Maybe we each just thought it or I thought it or said it and imagine that he said it,too. But if I write we said "shit!" at the exact same time, that will be what happened, the remember when story. Because the moment itself is gone and the only recording is in my neurons or whatever it is that stores memories in the brain and what my fingers type.<br /><br />The now is this breath, not the next breath or the last breath. I guess there is really no then and really no will be. Just the now. I know you can't step into the same river twice. Some days I'm not sure about once. And sometimes I think it's all one, the rivers, my foot, the stones under my foot, all that flows and all the appears to be still. Transitory and transcendent, separate and woven tightly together. (And, yes, I do know--thank you very much--that this is the 14 year level of<span style="font-style: italic;"> man, that's deep</span>.)<br /><br />Which means that particular moment passed and I was in an imagined river not here at all . The monkey tosses words in the air, watches them fall, and, and, oh, man, that's <span style="font-style: italic;">deep</span>.<br /><br />Sometimes in the moment I think about lunch and wonder whether anyone has made coffee.<br /><br />What is actually around me?<br /><br />There's a computer screen in front of me and pixels form at the command of my fingers on a keyboard and the pixels shape letter that my mind, and yours, process into words.<br /><br />On my left there's a coffee travel mug, stainless steel on the bottom, with reflections of the lights overhead. Vertical lines that seem to float inside the metal, not on it. The lid is maybe two and a half inches of black plastic. When I remember to push the button thing on top I can turn it upside down without a drop of coffee spilling. I don't always remember to do that but the amount of coffee spilled is still much less than dumping over an entire cup.<br /><br />A brown prescription bottle with a label around it and a "push down & turn" message on top. It's a medication that I won't take--offered by my cardiologist when he thought my heart condition was an anxiety attack. Well, I was pretty damned anxious when the various docs first thought I might be having a heart attack and then thought I was an overly anxious middle-aged woman. Don't know how they thought middle aged female anxiety could fake an EKG, but what do I know? (Lots actually but it's the sort of phrase used in those kinds of sentences.) The pills sit there because the color of the pills inside the bottle is different than what the label says it should be. A big <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">hmmm</span>. So of course I've been Googling with no resolution and then figured out I could call my daughter-in-law the pharmacist and she would know.<br /><br />Now my mind just tripped back to Maui where she and my son live. I haven't met the new pup that keeps Kai company there....<br /><br />Just took off the bracelet that's been protecting my tendinitis plagued left wrist. Didn't even think about it--the right hand just reached over, pulled it, off the alternating brown and white pieces on stretchy string which makes the bracelet a kind of brace--my ex brought it to me from Africa. The bracelet, of course, not the wrist.<br /><br />Yes, <span style="font-style: italic;">he</span> went on safari with his girlfriend. I was wildly envious because I always imagined going on safari, though not so much as a tourist, on a bought and paid for excursion. Maybe as a journalist, a writer, I dunno--as <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Isek</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Dineson</span>?<br /><br />Time to get the coffee I just heated out of the microwave. And I didn't even mentioned I had left my desk.<br /><br />Funny. I think the medication I take for the bipolar thing slows my brain down enough to think more carefully. Take more care. Instead of just dumping the coffee into the travel mug (for it's long journey from the kitchen to my desk in the lobby) then wiping up the dribbles on the counter--if I noticed them--I poured it over the sink where dribbles don't matter.<br /><br />There's actually nothing here that I just <span style="font-style: italic;">see</span>. Photos, of course, are heavy with meaning. To my right is a picture of my parents--had to be taken before 1983 cause my dad went into the hospital on January 19<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">th</span> and never left until he died on April 2<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">nd</span>. And then it was only his body they transported out of there. My brother took the nose clip oxygen thing --still hissing air--from under his nose, carefully removing the thin plastic tubing from around dad's ears. The nose plugs and tubes had irritated his skin (and him). When the morphine was heavy in him, he'd try to brush it away like an annoying bug, then tear at, even, at times, succeeding.<br /><br />"At least we can get rid of this damn thing now."<br /><br />I look at his picture and see where my slightly crooked features come from, I see my brothers' faces. My mother looks--slightly anxious? annoyed?--maybe just uncomfortable because she always disliked her picture being taken She died in 1996--March 24<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">th</span>. My dad's sister says "Springtime's not a good time for us."<br /><br />It's true, most of the family deaths happen in spring. I wonder if I'll die in the spring.<br /><br />Of course what I'm actually seeing is a flat paper covered with an emulsion that through some sort of magic of light and chemistry is turned into paper with colors that my brain, through information provided by the rods and cones of my eyes, perceives as my parents.<br /><br />You, of course, would perceive something different, but it's unlikely you could look at the 4 x6 paper and see only colors. Nana and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Granpopper</span>? Mom and Dad. An older man and woman? You might just see that. Two people, man and woman, standing next to one another, giving little other information. You might not even be sure of the relationship. Just two people next to each other looking straight ahead at the photographer.<br /><br />Who might have been me.<br /><br />My picture dad's probably around the same age I am now--he died when he was 64--so my mother is five or six years younger in the picture than I am now.<br /><br />Next to the picture on my desk, a roll of Scotch tape, a square of ceramic tile to put coffee cups on, and. a foot away from that--a coffee cup.<br /><br />I can see my keys from here.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-56206865177511580582009-08-18T13:10:00.000-07:002009-09-16T14:38:42.057-07:00Madeleines & GI JoeProust had his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">madeleines</span></span>, me, child of pop culture that I am, got GI Joe. Went to see it yesterday evening (<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">JE</span></span> surprised me with popcorn and a movie and it <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> Monday, which is senior night.)<br /><br />Did I like it? It was fine, the movie that hopes to be a franchise. Kind of like those Saturday matinee serials that I actually only saw once. (I haven't read Proust either. Actually I'm rather pretentious.)<br /><br />Lots of explosions. Bad people on the side of evil. Good soldiers on the side of, well, good. The GI <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Joes</span></span> (name of this top secret force) is multinational and integrated by gender and race as well.<br /><br />Esprit <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">d'corps</span></span> up a gum stump. WE leave no one behind even if we have to bend the rules until they break. Amazing number of explosions, all of which the good guys can outrun. Collateral damage everywhere but no children or pets were every harmed.<br /><br />But I'm not going to do in depth analysis or view it through any sort of lens, feminist, philosophical, or political. (I <span style="font-style: italic;">told</span> you I'm pretentious.)<br /><br />Instead I'm going to walk barefoot through the past. A big duh about the barefoot because that's the name of this thing and besides the only way to bring back the past is barefoot rather than with velvet shoes and rose colored glasses.<br /><br />GI <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Joes</span></span>. I think my dad and/or my brothers started the boys on them. Or maybe it was their own dad or their constant, insistent pleading. I had been adamant that MY children never going to play with guns or war toys of any kind. Somehow the big GI Joe action figure with the scar, fuzzy stuff for hair, and lots of uniforms and accessories (just like Ken, but MANLY) showed anyway. This GI was maybe six inches tall, his body was stiffly articulated so he could turn his head to look for enemies, bend his arms to fire his weapons, kneel, look like he was striding--or dancing when I got hold of him, creating an awkward arabesque. <span style="font-style: italic;">Not</span> the wimpy mini ones that were the next gen, these stood tall and ready for action, like a good action figure should. (My brother just informed me that GI Joe was probably more like 12 inches tall and they now make them as expensive collectors' items. I wonder if there's a market for original actual child abused <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">Joes</span>?)<br /><br />My finger tips remember the feel of that flocked head covering that was supposed to be a military brush cut. I knew how fake it was. I had run my hands over my dad's quarter inch stubble all my life.<br /><br />Of course, like Barbie and Ken, Joe had been neutered. I can't recall if he even had butt cleavage, though I'm pretty sure Hasbro was stamped on his backside.<br /><br />Nice Gwen, you're probably thinking, but what's the point and where is the barefoot path?<br /><br />Watching the movie, I was back in the then. Boys in the backyard. which handily always seemed to have bare dirt somewhere. (A fondness for gardening does not necessarily equate with plants actually surviving.)<br /><br />I think they had a tank that fired real little projectiles and other weaponry that actually did stuff. But what I remember and what I can see almost as clearly as this screen was a big yellow vehicle that could play both offense and defense. It was <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">blocky</span></span>, rectangular--can't recall if it had wheels or treads, but it was always sitting in the backyard. Once it arrived it became an outdoor toy and never got cleaned up to be brought in the house. Dusty, muddy, eventually battered, inevitably pieces broke off, went missing.<br /><br />None of that seemed to affect its usefulness. (So at least they grasped the destructive capability of war and acceptable losses.)<br /><br />G.I. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Joes</span></span>--of course the boys had many--sometimes surrounded it, sometimes the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Joes</span></span> were off on missions elsewhere and it sat, abandoned.<br /><br />Hovering over that image is my <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">dad's delighted</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">aren't I a bad boy</span> grin. He loved it, the boys loved it when <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Granpopper</span></span> defied his <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">peacenik</span> daughter and bought the war toys that his grandsons delighted in far more than books I bought them. I minded less than I showed, but it was a dance where we all knew our parts, a game enjoyed by everyone in it. Marine Corps brat that I am, I cut my teeth on a pearl handled 45. I know that war toys don't inevitably make for warriors.<br /><br />Then there's that familiar stomach twist of grief. Although my dad died in 1983, loss doesn't have an expiration date and you always miss someone and who you were to them, with them. And the other part is regret and those things you wished you done and wish you hadn't done.<br /><br />I think the sins of omission stab more than than the ones of commission, though both <span style="font-style: italic;">why didn't I</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">why did I</span> are almost as good as a hungry baby for waking you up at 3:00 AM.<br /><br />That's part of the barefoot walk. I want to remember cozy Christmas mornings, everyone smiling, delighted with each gift, the surprises that Santa brought exactly what each child dreamed of, the stockings fill with the most loved sweets and the most fun and funniest small thingies, the family gifts all evoking actual and sincere <span style="font-style: italic;">just what I </span><span style="font-style: italic;" class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">wanted's</span></span>.<br /><br />On the screen, Duke, the GI Joe to be, is watching the woman he loved, as she strides in to the secret base, wearing the black leathers that have been requisite since Diana Riggs. He flashes back to the night he proposed to her, she was a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">blonde</span>, and they danced. The music is lovely and so are they. The past, in movies, is always a little blurred. Good idea--most everything, including memories, look better when softened.<br /><br />The actual Christmases? There were starry eyed children, and the <span style="font-style: italic;">just what I wanted's. </span>But the plates didn't match and none of them had Christmas trees on them. The fire spit sparks and I wasn't wearing that long plaid velvet skirt I didn't own.<br /><br />The tensions--the house is messy and dirty, George is embarrassed, wishes I hadn't invited so many people to celebrate. The dog shits on the floor and someone steps in it. Dinner is complicated when my mother-in-law Ethel is there. She is The Cook and the kitchen is her domain. My mother and I bow out and chop, stir, and mix at her direction. And wash up. But this means my family doesn't get some of the old familiar dishes like cornbread dressing.<br /><br />Which was my dad's domain on the Christmases he was at home. I can see him now, at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">countertop</span> of my kitchen the way it was before we remodeled, next to the refrigerator, the big brown mixing bowl (I wonder what ever happened to that bowl) at hand. "Here, taste it, doll. What do you think it needs? " He didn't have to offer a taste, of course. All of us, walking by, would steal a pinch. It didn't matter what you answered either because he really wouldn't listen.The cornbread itself was my mother's responsibility; she made it the day before so it could dry out a bit. And biscuits. but there always biscuits so no special effort was required for those. I make the cornbread now but of course it doesn't taste like my mother's just as <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">hers</span> never tasted like <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">Mamaw's</span>. Somewhere in a far distant past all food was ambrosia and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">mana</span> and tasted exactly as it should taste and the memory haunts the human race.<br /><br />Regret. Remorse. Our Town playing on my mind's stage.<br /><br />Why didn't I spend every moment just watching the boys play? Appreciating the awkward love and good intentions done so badly that we all tried to give. however it was said or shown?<br /><br />Hair shirts and deliberately chosen paths of rocks and broken, blistering asphalt aren't any more true than velvet slippers, of course. It simply was and the real pain is that it passes. Nothing stays.<br /><br />Eventually the boys abandoned their GI <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Joes</span></span>, though I suspect some are still around, stuffed in the boxes I keep in the garage. Battered, missing hands, feet, limbs--casualties of the wars.<br /><br />The yellow thing is gone.<br /><br />I don't remember when. Or how.<br /><br />GI Joe ends with that iconic Star Wars march of the heroes side-by-side to a swelling <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">triumphant</span> theme and a quick, ominous glimpse of the villain in place for the sequel.<br /><br /><br />The lights come up; the movie's over. J.E. and I hold hands as we walk down the steps more carefully than we might have years past.<br /><br />I don't remember when steps became something take with a certain amount of care.Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3171305864989275706.post-28164173962876442352009-08-15T12:11:00.000-07:002009-08-18T10:35:23.562-07:00<span style="font-family:times new roman;">Just picked my font--the first major decision on the whole blog. Well, other than picking the format that took me several minutes of deep concentration. Times, a serif font, is supposed to be easy on the eyes and I love the word serif. This format looked plain and I figure fancy I can add later.<br /><br />"Barefoot on the ground"? Silly name--where else would you call it barefoot? Bed, bath, shower, pool--that's not barefoot, that's normal. In the trees might be a judgment call on whether barefoot has any significance. When I was a kid bare feet were what you mostly wore in the summer.<br /><br />Not any more. "Where are your shoes?" is the question I get asked if anyone notices my bare feet outside the door sill--and sometimes even in the house. "Put your shoes on, Sally," is what J. E. says and he should know better, having grown up in he South and gone barefoot as a boy, but he doesn't.<br /><br />When Moses met the burning bush on the mountainside, the bush that burned without being consumed, the bush from which he heard the voice of God, the voice that named itself I AM THAT I AM, he was commanded to take off his. "For where you stand is holy ground."<br /><br />Why barefoot? Maybe because nothing comes between you and where you stand, no protection from rocks and thorns, the grit of sand, cool, sweet soil, thick mud that oozes up between your toes, shit you may not have seen--what is, is. Seems like what I AM THAT I AM would go with that.<br /><br />So, touching the ground is the way to experience the holy?<br /><br />Wow, that's <span style="font-style: italic;">deep.</span> And probably only the millionth preacher type to say some thing like that. The verses come around in the lectionary and you have to find something to say. There's ten to twenty minutes to fill on Sunday morning and mostly the congregation expects you to fill it even if chances are they doze a little or they work on the week's To Do list--or just drift to that bird outside th window.<br /><br />Somewhere I read and I wish I could be accurate enough to Google the quote, that Jesus came to teach us that everywhere we stand is holy ground.<br /><br />Now I'm not sure about the God or Jesus thing--though I like the poetry of I AM THAT I AM--and it sounds more like the Buddha to me, but I do believe that everywhere we stand is holy ground.<br /><br />So that's what the hell this is, or will be--my attempt to be barefoot on the ground. Meandering, distracted, wondering, and wandering, tripping over rocks and bones, stepping in the shit and oh so endlessly writing about it. Join in if you like--it might be nice to walk along together or bump into each other.<br /><br />Or not.<br /><br />The really good thing about this is it's not required reading, I don't expect a paper on it--and I'd really prefer that you don't grade me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Gwenniehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16607818285209631368noreply@blogger.com3