I figure I ought to say a word once in a while about why a person might write through something they call a crisis. I don’t really know why I write, and I don’t know exactly why I stop when I stop. I don’t stop very often. That’s a clue, I guess, to the crisis heating up.
But I know why I read people who write through crises. I read them for the company. It’s a lot like visiting a field a geese. You listen to them talk. You don’t know what they’re saying, but you feel as if they’re speaking your language. You feel as if you’re visiting. You feel as if you’ve pulled to the side of the road with them and that you’re waiting, along with them, for repair, and that it’s going to come. You know it’s coming because you’re hearing the voice of the one who lived through it to tell the tale. Doesn’t matter if the crisis is inner or outer or both, if it’s the same as your own in any detail. It matters that the feelings are the same though.
The words of crisis matter more than the conclusion. In fact, you’re kind of relieved if the crisis doesn’t get summed up and solved, although you can’t say why. You get a sense of the on-going nature of living with change, and of the way it feels, and an appreciation of the days, here and there, that it doesn’t feel front and center, when you rest.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Thanksgiving
It’s a month till Christmas Eve. Saw my first Christmas tree lot yesterday. I am just like my mother – don’t buy me anything – take care of yourself/your family.
But I’m in the cabn wth the "i" sticking terribly. Minor annoyance when you can be n your cabin in the low light of a Tuesday morning at 7:10 two days before Thanksgiving when you were ready to sit insde and decided at the last moment to see what it’s lke outside and find that even though you thought you turned the heater off, expecting the cold to come like the weather people said it would, it’s not here yet and you must have hit “low” instead of “off” so that it’s 49 degrees and balmy.
I was reading The Dialogues yesterday – the end. I’d brought it along when I left for work, and I parked on the side of the road across from a field full of geese. It was drizzling again but I rolled the window down and listened to the geese talk as I read and let it fill me with a sort of hope about myself. Forget hope for the world. I needed that hope for myself.
I’ve noticed the geese in this particular field for about a week. It’s a plowed field but all kinds of stalks stick up from it so that it’s got this pattern and texture and if you weren’t looking with observant eyes, you wouldn’t see the geese dotted throughout the field like so much more texture or so many more reeds. There had to be a hundred of them. One day they were there and another flock – one of the biggest I’ve ever seen – was flying over head, taking so long to come together that I never saw them enter formation. There was so much to look at that it was dizzying.
I walked at the park the other day and the cat tails at the side of the lake were so thick and there was something about them, their multiplicity, the things they hide, the sheer visual impact of their tall standing number and muted colors that I wanted a camera for Christmas, just like I have as I visit the fields. They’re speaking to me as much as The Dialogues are, and if it’s not about hope, it’s about home in some way. I relax with the fields and geese I visit. I breathe. I stop. I pull to the side of the road.
I thought of changing my pubjournal blog’s theme from writing a book with a non-traditional publisher to writing a book in crisis. The first line would be: the crisis rules.
Then last night, cleaning my office, I found this piece I’d written last Thanksgiving when I was doing PalTalk. It was about Ed (my father-in-law) and the fried chicken breakfast he liked to have on Thanksgiving, and then it morphed into being about the beauty that you see in hard times. I thought of reading it to the family Thanksgiving morning.
I was working so hard, just then, to be in crisis, to be honest about it, and to find ways to relate it to A Course of Love. I’d forgotten completely that I was doing that at this time last year. Which means I did it for at least three months. Probably four or more. That is so bizarre to me. It feels like a lifetime ago. Makes me realize how long I’ve been in crisis. In change with no let up. And how a course about life and love and heart has to get you through the rough times or otherwise you might as well call it a crock. Yeah, you want instant relief, but if you get the strength to endure, and to not close your heart and get bitter, that’s a lot. A lot to be thankful for.
But I’m in the cabn wth the "i" sticking terribly. Minor annoyance when you can be n your cabin in the low light of a Tuesday morning at 7:10 two days before Thanksgiving when you were ready to sit insde and decided at the last moment to see what it’s lke outside and find that even though you thought you turned the heater off, expecting the cold to come like the weather people said it would, it’s not here yet and you must have hit “low” instead of “off” so that it’s 49 degrees and balmy.
I was reading The Dialogues yesterday – the end. I’d brought it along when I left for work, and I parked on the side of the road across from a field full of geese. It was drizzling again but I rolled the window down and listened to the geese talk as I read and let it fill me with a sort of hope about myself. Forget hope for the world. I needed that hope for myself.
I’ve noticed the geese in this particular field for about a week. It’s a plowed field but all kinds of stalks stick up from it so that it’s got this pattern and texture and if you weren’t looking with observant eyes, you wouldn’t see the geese dotted throughout the field like so much more texture or so many more reeds. There had to be a hundred of them. One day they were there and another flock – one of the biggest I’ve ever seen – was flying over head, taking so long to come together that I never saw them enter formation. There was so much to look at that it was dizzying.
I walked at the park the other day and the cat tails at the side of the lake were so thick and there was something about them, their multiplicity, the things they hide, the sheer visual impact of their tall standing number and muted colors that I wanted a camera for Christmas, just like I have as I visit the fields. They’re speaking to me as much as The Dialogues are, and if it’s not about hope, it’s about home in some way. I relax with the fields and geese I visit. I breathe. I stop. I pull to the side of the road.
I thought of changing my pubjournal blog’s theme from writing a book with a non-traditional publisher to writing a book in crisis. The first line would be: the crisis rules.
Then last night, cleaning my office, I found this piece I’d written last Thanksgiving when I was doing PalTalk. It was about Ed (my father-in-law) and the fried chicken breakfast he liked to have on Thanksgiving, and then it morphed into being about the beauty that you see in hard times. I thought of reading it to the family Thanksgiving morning.
I was working so hard, just then, to be in crisis, to be honest about it, and to find ways to relate it to A Course of Love. I’d forgotten completely that I was doing that at this time last year. Which means I did it for at least three months. Probably four or more. That is so bizarre to me. It feels like a lifetime ago. Makes me realize how long I’ve been in crisis. In change with no let up. And how a course about life and love and heart has to get you through the rough times or otherwise you might as well call it a crock. Yeah, you want instant relief, but if you get the strength to endure, and to not close your heart and get bitter, that’s a lot. A lot to be thankful for.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Down
What a glorious day. I started out the door in my down coat once again – but the front door – not the back. It’s garbage day. I don’t mean to brag. In the household division of chores, I get the recycling and garbage ready, Donny brings it out. Even though I’m up earlier, I’ll often let it sit in the front hall and not take it to the curb. But he was hunting yesterday and I wondered when he’d wake up, so I made a few trips. It’s enchanting. A frost covers the lawn like a glazed donut.
In my down coat, I am not cold for one minute. I highly recommend, if you live in North country, that you have – not a sweater – but a down coat on the nearest hook. If you don’t walk out and get chilled, you don’t rush. This is worth the price of down, but there is surely last year’s down or ten years ago down hanging somewhere. You don’t have to leave it hanging over a chair or one of those decorative hooks. Mine’s on a hook leading down to the basement. A hall closet hook will work. The point is, have it handy. Just grab it. Just go outside. Be so warm you don’t fear to breathe deeply. It’s really been an amazing discovery…this wearing of down to write in a cold cabin…or to take out the recycling in a November that’s breaking records for warmth.
In my down coat, I am not cold for one minute. I highly recommend, if you live in North country, that you have – not a sweater – but a down coat on the nearest hook. If you don’t walk out and get chilled, you don’t rush. This is worth the price of down, but there is surely last year’s down or ten years ago down hanging somewhere. You don’t have to leave it hanging over a chair or one of those decorative hooks. Mine’s on a hook leading down to the basement. A hall closet hook will work. The point is, have it handy. Just grab it. Just go outside. Be so warm you don’t fear to breathe deeply. It’s really been an amazing discovery…this wearing of down to write in a cold cabin…or to take out the recycling in a November that’s breaking records for warmth.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Is that smile on your face real?
Read the most wonderful book page interview. Here’s the headline:
"Wipe that smile off your face!"
The title of the book is: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a play on the phrase blind-sided. Must be. Silly to think anything else.
This is so cool. It mirrors my idea of how “the relentless promotion of positive thinking” has undermined spirituality. Undermined is a great word. In this context, it means to subvert or weaken.
Why subverted or weakened? Because it’s not honest.
Ehrenreich traces this trend to the 1980’s business world when it was used as a way of “calming people down during layoffs.” Then it became the ideology. “You could not raise criticisms or doubts because there were policies to fire negative people, those who brought other people down with their skeptical thoughts.” She speaks of Lehman Brothers and of “feel good” mega-churches too.
Why subverted or weakened? Because when it becomes an ideology, it becomes one of those ways you’re “supposed to” feel, and if you feel otherwise, you might not dare say it. It’s subversive and weakening because it’s deceptive. It hides things that need to come to light.
Asked, “What’s the worst thing about all this forced optimism?” she responds, “It silences people and quells dissent.” Gosh, I love this woman. She talks as well of being told to have a good attitude through disease. She says, “I should write a book called, “I Snarled My Way Through Breast Cancer.” Another great word. “Snarled.”
I don’t mean to get so gleeful when I see this kind of thing, I really don’t. I have a friend who has the most graceful attitude toward a life-threatening illness that I’ve ever seen. It’s not fake. If you can come by that honestly, more power to you. If you feel like snarling your way through though, I’m still with you. I figure it’s your right. I figure it’s our right to not be silenced.
I saw the tail-end of a Deepak Chopra interview on Oprah one time, years ago, and all I remember from it was him saying that positive thinking was about the worst thing you could do to yourself. I only have two of his multitude of books but I wouldn’t have expected him to say that from the content I recall. I read an editorial once by a European who said he felt oppressed by the drive to happiness. I thought, “He’s a European – he can say that.” In America, we must cling to our inalienable right to happiness.
It is insidious, although I’ve never thought of it in regard to the business world before. Businesses being positive thinking icons? Really? Yet my daughter wonders if she might have lost a job once because of responding honestly to a company questionnaire asking for employee opinions of their way of doing business.
I still receive emails almost daily that are full of positive thinking. “This and this and this bad thing is happening…but hey…I’m fine…it’s all a blessing in disguise.” I fall that way myself on occasion (rare, but occasionally). You get to know, as you mature, that the “bad things” often turn out all right or bring about a change that needs to happen. It’s the way many of us are feeling about the world situation: Okay, it’s lousy, but things have to change, and if this is the way the change is going to come, then it’s not all bad.
“It’s not all bad,” and seeing the bigger picture, is different than putting a happy face on during the worst of times. That’s more like denial.
In America, we must cling to our inalienable right to happiness. In too many spiritual circles, we must cling to our highest thoughts, our positive intentions, our attitudes of being blessed. We must not subscribe, for even five minutes, to feeling sorry for ourselves, or feeling wronged, or considering ourselves to be swamped by challenges.
I told a therapist once that I was feeling sorry for myself and she said, “That’s okay.” Man. I could have kissed her. “Far better,” she said, “to feel sorry for yourself than to feel responsible.” Isn’t that interesting?
The thing is, if we don’t complain or say what we feel, we never get to hear someone say it’s okay. We never get to hear that feeling sorry for ourselves is a step up from self-blame, criticism, guilt. If we never admit how we feel, we can keep beating ourselves up in private and spending a great deal of our time concealing the black eyes and bruises we give ourselves. Just get out the whip and apply a few more lashes. That’ll keep us in line. Stiffen the upper lip.
Okay. I’m a champion at complaint; not so good at claiming blessings. I admit it. My faith, my trust, says there’s a reason for everything. I accept that, even when the reason doesn’t have much to do with me having a gay old time. I usually feel like the hard times show me something I haven’t been seeing. Sometimes they call me to new actions; sometimes to greater surrender. Right now, I feel like I'm "in it" with everyone else. But I believe that a person can rail about these things. You can even argue with God. You can question. You can engage in dissent.
This can become a complicated spiritual issue if you think about it too hard. But if you don’t think about it, it’s pretty simple. You feel what you feel.
It’s a hell of an issue in business too, and in politics, in economics, in environmental issues. Who can afford to complain? Who can afford not to?
Quotes from Zinta Lundborg interview of Barbara Ehrenreich, courtesy of Bloomberg, in St. Paul Pioneer Press, 6E, 11/15/09.
"Wipe that smile off your face!"
The title of the book is: Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, by Barbara Ehrenreich. I can’t help but wonder if it’s a play on the phrase blind-sided. Must be. Silly to think anything else.
This is so cool. It mirrors my idea of how “the relentless promotion of positive thinking” has undermined spirituality. Undermined is a great word. In this context, it means to subvert or weaken.
Why subverted or weakened? Because it’s not honest.
Ehrenreich traces this trend to the 1980’s business world when it was used as a way of “calming people down during layoffs.” Then it became the ideology. “You could not raise criticisms or doubts because there were policies to fire negative people, those who brought other people down with their skeptical thoughts.” She speaks of Lehman Brothers and of “feel good” mega-churches too.
Why subverted or weakened? Because when it becomes an ideology, it becomes one of those ways you’re “supposed to” feel, and if you feel otherwise, you might not dare say it. It’s subversive and weakening because it’s deceptive. It hides things that need to come to light.
Asked, “What’s the worst thing about all this forced optimism?” she responds, “It silences people and quells dissent.” Gosh, I love this woman. She talks as well of being told to have a good attitude through disease. She says, “I should write a book called, “I Snarled My Way Through Breast Cancer.” Another great word. “Snarled.”
I don’t mean to get so gleeful when I see this kind of thing, I really don’t. I have a friend who has the most graceful attitude toward a life-threatening illness that I’ve ever seen. It’s not fake. If you can come by that honestly, more power to you. If you feel like snarling your way through though, I’m still with you. I figure it’s your right. I figure it’s our right to not be silenced.
I saw the tail-end of a Deepak Chopra interview on Oprah one time, years ago, and all I remember from it was him saying that positive thinking was about the worst thing you could do to yourself. I only have two of his multitude of books but I wouldn’t have expected him to say that from the content I recall. I read an editorial once by a European who said he felt oppressed by the drive to happiness. I thought, “He’s a European – he can say that.” In America, we must cling to our inalienable right to happiness.
It is insidious, although I’ve never thought of it in regard to the business world before. Businesses being positive thinking icons? Really? Yet my daughter wonders if she might have lost a job once because of responding honestly to a company questionnaire asking for employee opinions of their way of doing business.
I still receive emails almost daily that are full of positive thinking. “This and this and this bad thing is happening…but hey…I’m fine…it’s all a blessing in disguise.” I fall that way myself on occasion (rare, but occasionally). You get to know, as you mature, that the “bad things” often turn out all right or bring about a change that needs to happen. It’s the way many of us are feeling about the world situation: Okay, it’s lousy, but things have to change, and if this is the way the change is going to come, then it’s not all bad.
“It’s not all bad,” and seeing the bigger picture, is different than putting a happy face on during the worst of times. That’s more like denial.
In America, we must cling to our inalienable right to happiness. In too many spiritual circles, we must cling to our highest thoughts, our positive intentions, our attitudes of being blessed. We must not subscribe, for even five minutes, to feeling sorry for ourselves, or feeling wronged, or considering ourselves to be swamped by challenges.
I told a therapist once that I was feeling sorry for myself and she said, “That’s okay.” Man. I could have kissed her. “Far better,” she said, “to feel sorry for yourself than to feel responsible.” Isn’t that interesting?
The thing is, if we don’t complain or say what we feel, we never get to hear someone say it’s okay. We never get to hear that feeling sorry for ourselves is a step up from self-blame, criticism, guilt. If we never admit how we feel, we can keep beating ourselves up in private and spending a great deal of our time concealing the black eyes and bruises we give ourselves. Just get out the whip and apply a few more lashes. That’ll keep us in line. Stiffen the upper lip.
Okay. I’m a champion at complaint; not so good at claiming blessings. I admit it. My faith, my trust, says there’s a reason for everything. I accept that, even when the reason doesn’t have much to do with me having a gay old time. I usually feel like the hard times show me something I haven’t been seeing. Sometimes they call me to new actions; sometimes to greater surrender. Right now, I feel like I'm "in it" with everyone else. But I believe that a person can rail about these things. You can even argue with God. You can question. You can engage in dissent.
This can become a complicated spiritual issue if you think about it too hard. But if you don’t think about it, it’s pretty simple. You feel what you feel.
It’s a hell of an issue in business too, and in politics, in economics, in environmental issues. Who can afford to complain? Who can afford not to?
Quotes from Zinta Lundborg interview of Barbara Ehrenreich, courtesy of Bloomberg, in St. Paul Pioneer Press, 6E, 11/15/09.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Redemption
The smell out in the woods is amazing this morning. It’s damp and just beginning (on my second cup of coffee) to mist real softly. You couldn’t get better conditions for the smell of fall…in the woods…where no rake has ever been. It seems to be the wet leafs that make for the best pungency of this smell. It permeates – like when you’ve got a pumpkin pie in the oven.
I’m so sorry if you’re living in one of those states where the seasons don’t change – just about as sorry as I will be jealous a month from now. Even today, I’m sitting in my down jacket. It’s red and has a hood with black fur. It is not called for. It’s just that I’ve had this cold, and the worst symptom of it has been that I can’t get warm. I walk around feeling chilled to the bone all day. So I haven’t been here in the cabin for a while. I miss it. I know my time (before it is truly too cold to be here) is limited. It’s Saturday morning. How can I resist?
Yesterday, I had the down jacket sitting out so that I could wash it before I really need it (yeah, I know, it’s one of those chores you’re supposed to do in the spring). I wore it out to test the weather in the yard. Today, it’s made it possible to be out here. You feel so dumb about stuff like this. Dumb to wear your down jacket in the cabin so that you can write. Dumb to think it matters. Dumb that you didn’t think of it sooner.
I was in a shop yesterday – one of those convenience store kind of places. I was stopping on my way home from work and as I sat in the car checking my cash, realized I’d left it in the pocket of the last coat I’d worn (a hazard of this time of year – one day you’re in down and the next in a hoodie). After debating going home and coming back, I entered the store. I asked the guy behind the counter, “Do you take charge cards?”
He leaned over the counter, a big Arab guy, and asked quietly, “Why are you whispering? Yes. We take credit cards. It isn’t a big secret.”
I hadn’t realized I was whispering. We both laughed (real quietly). I said, “I left my cash in my other jacket.”
He says, “Everybody uses charge cards.”
I say, “Well, yeah, I know, but I don’t usually use my charge card for this kind of thing. I guess I’m feeling guilty.”
He says, “That’s good. If you don’t feel guilty you’re a perfectionist. If you feel guilty, you’re open for redemption.”
So I guess I’m open for redemption.
It was such a gentle, personal, exchange in an unexpected place that it kind of made my day. Sometimes it seems to me that it doesn’t matter what your philosophy is if you deliver it in a gentle way, in the time and place where the opportunity arises. I thought of it because it’s like feeling dumb for wearing my down coat. These mornings are when I have the gentle exchanges with myself: “You do what you’ve got to do. There’s nothing dumb about it. You’re here. Relax. Savor. Enjoy.”
I’m so sorry if you’re living in one of those states where the seasons don’t change – just about as sorry as I will be jealous a month from now. Even today, I’m sitting in my down jacket. It’s red and has a hood with black fur. It is not called for. It’s just that I’ve had this cold, and the worst symptom of it has been that I can’t get warm. I walk around feeling chilled to the bone all day. So I haven’t been here in the cabin for a while. I miss it. I know my time (before it is truly too cold to be here) is limited. It’s Saturday morning. How can I resist?
Yesterday, I had the down jacket sitting out so that I could wash it before I really need it (yeah, I know, it’s one of those chores you’re supposed to do in the spring). I wore it out to test the weather in the yard. Today, it’s made it possible to be out here. You feel so dumb about stuff like this. Dumb to wear your down jacket in the cabin so that you can write. Dumb to think it matters. Dumb that you didn’t think of it sooner.
I was in a shop yesterday – one of those convenience store kind of places. I was stopping on my way home from work and as I sat in the car checking my cash, realized I’d left it in the pocket of the last coat I’d worn (a hazard of this time of year – one day you’re in down and the next in a hoodie). After debating going home and coming back, I entered the store. I asked the guy behind the counter, “Do you take charge cards?”
He leaned over the counter, a big Arab guy, and asked quietly, “Why are you whispering? Yes. We take credit cards. It isn’t a big secret.”
I hadn’t realized I was whispering. We both laughed (real quietly). I said, “I left my cash in my other jacket.”
He says, “Everybody uses charge cards.”
I say, “Well, yeah, I know, but I don’t usually use my charge card for this kind of thing. I guess I’m feeling guilty.”
He says, “That’s good. If you don’t feel guilty you’re a perfectionist. If you feel guilty, you’re open for redemption.”
So I guess I’m open for redemption.
It was such a gentle, personal, exchange in an unexpected place that it kind of made my day. Sometimes it seems to me that it doesn’t matter what your philosophy is if you deliver it in a gentle way, in the time and place where the opportunity arises. I thought of it because it’s like feeling dumb for wearing my down coat. These mornings are when I have the gentle exchanges with myself: “You do what you’ve got to do. There’s nothing dumb about it. You’re here. Relax. Savor. Enjoy.”
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Mix Up at the Berln Wall
I’m sitting at the table taking the heads off of a dozen bunches of green onions (Donny’s cooking again), when a news story comes on about the fall of the Berlin Wall and the anniversary celebrations. I don’t usually get tears over green onions, so I think it was the story. The PBS news program didn’t say anything about the accidental nature of this occurrence, but that’s what I read in the paper this morning: that it was an accident. The evening news showed the routine press conference where Guenter Schabowski announced the opening. The Associated Press article said this, “Years later, Schabowski told a TV interviewer that he had gotten mixed up. It was not a decision but a draft law that the Politburo was set to discuss. He thought it was a decision that had been approved.”
It would have happened eventually anyway, but Schabowski got mixed up, and it happened that day. If you ever need hope in what comes out of getting mixed up (or your vision getting blurred, or the accidental nature of things), remember his. Whenever you find yourself getting fixated on your plan, remember this mix up.
There was probably somebody out there, on one or another side of the wall, who couldn’t have waited one more day.
It would have happened eventually anyway, but Schabowski got mixed up, and it happened that day. If you ever need hope in what comes out of getting mixed up (or your vision getting blurred, or the accidental nature of things), remember his. Whenever you find yourself getting fixated on your plan, remember this mix up.
There was probably somebody out there, on one or another side of the wall, who couldn’t have waited one more day.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
As if it is morning all day
Photo used under Creative Commons by Algo
It’s Sunday morning. I was walking out to get my laptop so I could use it inside when I saw the Edgar Allen Poe sky: clouds forming a light V shape in the dark sky directly over the cabin, the moon sitting inside of it, the clouds moving through it, trees waving over it so their black branches hung and swayed in the glow. Very haunting. I opened the door and saw I’d left the heater on. I still debated. I’d been imagining myself curled up on the loveseat of the sunroom. But I went in the house, got my coffee, and came back. I swear, all you’ve got to do most days is get out the door.
The sky is mottled. Mainly midnight blue with poke-throughs of indigo and slate and powder and gunmetal -- all in one spot where the sun’s about to rise and the glow of the sun is floating up, so that a thin strip beneath the blue is golden. The sound of a barge horn carries from the river.
The good days and the bad days don’t feel any different out here in the morning. I can’t dredge up a thought of worry. I wonder…someday…will we all live as if it is morning all day? Face the day with wonder? And stillness? Watch the light come but not be afraid of the dark?
Do our passions – those hours/people/trees we love – restore us? Lend us sympathy? Let us see past the reflection to the actual lone leaf falling?
A train whistle blows three times. The blue sky has grown flat and uniform. The sun’s glow is pink.
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Blurred Vision
Falling Through Twilight
I’m sitting before my cabin window looking out, thinking of what it would take to paint what I see. I started close in, realizing I see my glasses. My thumb was beneath my chin and my curled fingers in view of my eyes too. Then I looked out and thought how to paint it, you’d have to start at the freeway fence and work your way back in layers: The sky would be the first layer, then the fence, then the trees that are growing toward the morning light so that they literally hang over the fence, as if they’re drunk and need support. Then back up ten feet or so to the two tall, straight trees. One has a buffalo skull on it. The other a hanging copper owl. Below one is a bushel basket. Below the other the leaning frame of a birdhouse. Then the path. Then the half moon of chairs I can see gathered around the fire pit, along with the edge of the rocks and branches. Then the few greens in the window box. Then the window, the table with its lamp, the computer, my coffee mug. Then me.
I got started thinking of it because it struck me funny how I was seeing parts of myself as I looked out. “I” was part of the picture. How seldom that happens.
I paint a self-portrait once a year. That’s different. The portraits are always a little weird. Last year’s was called Falling through Twilight. This year’s After the Storm (haven’t taken a picture of it yet). They’re abstract because I have no idea how to do realism. Which reminds me of another memory I had when I was remembering the clarity of my vision after my first pair of contact lenses a few posts back. Because I thought, even while I was writing about it, that there’s something to be said for blurred vision too.
My first “vision” if you want to call it that, occurred in church on Holy Thursday. There’s this tradition where you keep vigil with the Blessed Sacrament on the evening of Holy Thursday, generally after the reenactment of the washing of the feet. I always think of it as sitting outside the jail cell where Jesus is held before he goes to that day’s version of trial and punishment. I discovered this tradition about the time my spiritual journey was heating up, and it floored me to get to sit in a quiet dark church and just “be” with Jesus. Some emotion came over me that first time, and I had tears streaming down my face. I took my glasses off. Half a church away were the votive candle rows that sit on the side altars. While I was looking at them through the blur of the tears, a face formed. I felt that the face was telling me I was not alone. It was the first of many such small occurrences that told me, basically, the same thing. They often came out of blurry times if not always blurred vision.
I got bad news today. “Bad news days” might as well be called blurry vision days. It was moderately bad news when I started writing this, which is one reason why I was pensive. You get moderately bad news and you go into a pause mode. There’s a certain “looking out the window” time you spend when you get the “warnings.” It’s like you know something’s on the horizon but it hasn’t come into view yet. It’s not even blurry. You know so little that you can still escape into other lines of thought or memory. I often feel, in such times, that if I can get into my creative zone, it’ll be the best thing for me. I don’t want to sit and wait for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes I rake or wash dishes. “Warnings” often bring on a restless energy that doesn’t allow you to sit. But today, I sat.
Then the second part of the news came.
When it comes, you feel like you’ve got a bigger picture, and in some ways you do, but in another, you’re more shocked or startled in that way that doesn’t allow you to think of anything else. The news fills your mind and heart; takes up every bit of room. Being unable to think of anything else, being in that churning, anxious place, is like a signal that you’ve got all the information now, but not the whole picture. The main fog is an internal fog. You’re just beginning to discover how you feel about the news you just got.
No, I don’t have cancer. My kids are fine. It's news about someone I love but not my immediate family.
Yet it's something that concerns me and that I must give attention to. This is just the way it is. The actuality of the thing. In my day of not doing anything, I’ll be open to all the guidance that I can get – the internal flow – the kind that takes all these feelings I’ve got going and does something with them. It works somewhat under the same guidelines I have about writing. If you write long enough, you might discover what you have to say.
So I can’t help but notice how funny it is that I started the morning with the idea of writing about blurred vision and in remembering how the idea was birthed alongside the clear vision of a beautiful fall day less than a week ago. As if something was saying to me…don’t get too enamored by clear vision. Remember…blurred vision has something to tell you too.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Where's wisdom coming from?
The heater pushes air in blasts that feel like opening the oven door when it is set at about 400 degrees. Open it and that blast feels so good in a cold house. Close the door and the blast is over. A second later you’re just as cold as you started out to be. That’s my heater. It turns on and off. It’s called (quite cleverly) a Fahrenheat. I hear that they’ve invented new heaters and new names for them. They are quiet. They say the heat is even. Some look like little radiators and are on wheels. I may ask for one for Christmas.
The cumulative effect of the Fahrenheat is a warm room, though. I can’t deny it. And I like the blast of heat.
My other heater is not so cleverly named. Tall and black, it sits out in the cabin. I’ll turn it on before I leave for work. It’s supposed to be warmer today than yesterday. Yesterday it got in the high fifties. I was driving my client on a spate of errands when I noticed this. His car has a dashboard that makes that announcement – like the black heater in the cabin. I don’t know why this isn’t welcome news.
A box at the side of my computer says that it’s 57 degrees and partly cloudy. I do not believe it. Is this the average from yesterday? The notice sits below an ever-changing box that has pictures in it. A grassy hill, the tail of a whale. Below it, there’s this record of what I did 20, 21, and 22 hours ago on the internet. Below that there is a “To Do” box that I can enter things into and above the whole line-up a place where I can type notes that looks like a little notebook. I don’t know how it got there or how to get rid of it.
I do appreciate the read-out of the time. It’s 6:04 and the sky has just lightened enough that I can see my trees against it.
As evidence that the room has warmed up to an acceptable temperature, the little white Fahrenheat is quiet. When it is on, it churns and chugs. It rattles. The heating coils glow orange.
I dream about the new and cling to the familiar. Makes you wonder where the new comes from.
Read about some research the other day. It was about jam. How would the sales of jam differ if you had six choices or two dozen. I was gratified to know that far more people bought jam when there were only six choices. As soon as six grew to twenty four, the choice was overwhelming.
Read about Minnesota writer and poet Bill Holm the other day too. He died what is called “an untimely death” over the winter, and was about to be celebrated.
Milkweed Editions publisher Daniel Slager said, Bill thought the “best of literature was for anyone who could read.”
“I think of that as something fundamentally Minnesotan, democratic with a small ‘d,’ this understanding of people. It’s a very decent, humane legacy…”
“Holm never had a television set or computer in his home, and Slager thinks that “wirelessness” gave depth to Holm’s writing. “Bill was really hostile to wiring. That’s all over his work. There’s a fine line between being misanthropic and being critically intelligent. More often than not, Bill was on the right side of that line.
“That’s where his wisdom was, coming from a long tradition that goes back to Thoreau, Emerson, Thomas Paine, Whitman, wonderful artists with language but profoundly critical of mainstream thinking and values. To me, it feels like Bill might be the last of the line.”
Where’s wisdom coming from?
A bright light blinks behind the trees. I watch it several minutes to determine if it is a plane or a star. Determining star, I smile. The sky is a light slate blue above and a coral wash below.
Quotes on Bill Holm from ‘Chain’ Reaction, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Mary Anne Grossmann, 11/1/09, 6E.
The cumulative effect of the Fahrenheat is a warm room, though. I can’t deny it. And I like the blast of heat.
My other heater is not so cleverly named. Tall and black, it sits out in the cabin. I’ll turn it on before I leave for work. It’s supposed to be warmer today than yesterday. Yesterday it got in the high fifties. I was driving my client on a spate of errands when I noticed this. His car has a dashboard that makes that announcement – like the black heater in the cabin. I don’t know why this isn’t welcome news.
A box at the side of my computer says that it’s 57 degrees and partly cloudy. I do not believe it. Is this the average from yesterday? The notice sits below an ever-changing box that has pictures in it. A grassy hill, the tail of a whale. Below it, there’s this record of what I did 20, 21, and 22 hours ago on the internet. Below that there is a “To Do” box that I can enter things into and above the whole line-up a place where I can type notes that looks like a little notebook. I don’t know how it got there or how to get rid of it.
I do appreciate the read-out of the time. It’s 6:04 and the sky has just lightened enough that I can see my trees against it.
As evidence that the room has warmed up to an acceptable temperature, the little white Fahrenheat is quiet. When it is on, it churns and chugs. It rattles. The heating coils glow orange.
I dream about the new and cling to the familiar. Makes you wonder where the new comes from.
Read about some research the other day. It was about jam. How would the sales of jam differ if you had six choices or two dozen. I was gratified to know that far more people bought jam when there were only six choices. As soon as six grew to twenty four, the choice was overwhelming.
Read about Minnesota writer and poet Bill Holm the other day too. He died what is called “an untimely death” over the winter, and was about to be celebrated.
Milkweed Editions publisher Daniel Slager said, Bill thought the “best of literature was for anyone who could read.”
“I think of that as something fundamentally Minnesotan, democratic with a small ‘d,’ this understanding of people. It’s a very decent, humane legacy…”
“Holm never had a television set or computer in his home, and Slager thinks that “wirelessness” gave depth to Holm’s writing. “Bill was really hostile to wiring. That’s all over his work. There’s a fine line between being misanthropic and being critically intelligent. More often than not, Bill was on the right side of that line.
“That’s where his wisdom was, coming from a long tradition that goes back to Thoreau, Emerson, Thomas Paine, Whitman, wonderful artists with language but profoundly critical of mainstream thinking and values. To me, it feels like Bill might be the last of the line.”
Where’s wisdom coming from?
A bright light blinks behind the trees. I watch it several minutes to determine if it is a plane or a star. Determining star, I smile. The sky is a light slate blue above and a coral wash below.
Quotes on Bill Holm from ‘Chain’ Reaction, St. Paul Pioneer Press, Mary Anne Grossmann, 11/1/09, 6E.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
And then you awaken...
A friend and I were both at our wits ends the other day over individual and group conversations that weren’t inclusive. “You and I exchange,” she said, doing this circular movement with her hands. We were sharing our recent situations with that glee you get of knowing you’ll be understood.
Then she told me about an article she’d seen called, “If you feel like you’re going crazy, maybe you’re awakening!” We nodded our heads knowingly. We got the “going crazy” part at least.
I told her how Donny got crabby the night before and then asked me in the morning if I was still crabby.
I said, “I’m not the one. It was you.”
He said, “You didn’t have the day I had.
My heart melted with that and I said, “You didn’t even get a chance to talk about your day, did you?” He’d picked Henry up, and as soon as he got home we were in the throws of dinner with his mom and getting ready to can turnips. Turns out he basically had the same problem, or nearly: too much talk, too little said, too little listening.
So I rubbed his shoulders and neck for a minute and then went about my business. Don’t need a lot of words to explain how too many drive you bonkers.
What is it that makes for the exchange, the dialogue, the conversations that aren’t endless monologues with no connections?
A friend of mine is teaching English in Vietnam. He told me this story about an exercise the children were doing:
"I noticed that question number one remained blank on every workbook. All the pairs had bypassed it and had begun working from question two. The first question was:
While you are standing in line at the checkout do you, (a) get nervous and impatient or, (b) wait patiently. Eventually everyone completed the questionnaire, except for this first question. Finally one of the students raised a hand. "Excuse me teacher, what does this mean?". What had stumped everyone was the phrase "standing in line"! It's a concept that is completely unknown here. I tried to explain that in Western countries we stand in an orderly line at checkouts etc., but they could only shake their heads in wonder at this strange way of doing things."
So maybe “awakening” is like shaking your head in wonder. You didn’t before see the strangeness of this way of doing things. You didn’t notice when the best of your daily conversations became like standing in line: you take your turn; I’ll take mine. The awareness builds slowly. Then it starts to make you feel crazy. And then….
And then it’s morning again, and the sun’s coming up, and the sky is golden along the horizon, and you’re not sure any of it matters.
It’s like the carpet. Got cleaned last Friday. Two days later, Henry walks through the living room shaking his sippy cup of purple juice. We scurry like mad to get up all the miniscule spots before they dry. In the general commotion, Henry stares from his space on the floor between chair and couch, aware that he’s done something wrong (maybe for the first time ever “aware” of it). After the cleanup he follows me to my bedroom doing the toddler version of small talk. I know he needs assurance that I’m not mad at him. I love him up. His mom takes him for a quick walk. When she gets home Donny plays with him.
If you could have seen the look on his face. That “Oh, oh, what’s all the panic about, what did I do, I’m in trouble” look. It makes you think, “What does it matter? Who cares about the carpet? This is crazy.” But you care. We didn’t scream and yell (except for Donny’s initial “Stop!”) but our actions conveyed that we cared. It was just one of those crazy things – after nearly three years of no sippy cup shaking of purple juice in the living room, it happens right after the carpet’s cleaned. What are the chances of that! I said something along those lines to Donny as we cleaned.
He said, “It always happens.”
It does (although usually it’s the dog or cats). It just seems like you can have a hard time sometimes (or I can), sustaining the level of caring. Something is always happening. You think you’re going crazy. Then you awaken (at least to a new day).
Then she told me about an article she’d seen called, “If you feel like you’re going crazy, maybe you’re awakening!” We nodded our heads knowingly. We got the “going crazy” part at least.
I told her how Donny got crabby the night before and then asked me in the morning if I was still crabby.
I said, “I’m not the one. It was you.”
He said, “You didn’t have the day I had.
My heart melted with that and I said, “You didn’t even get a chance to talk about your day, did you?” He’d picked Henry up, and as soon as he got home we were in the throws of dinner with his mom and getting ready to can turnips. Turns out he basically had the same problem, or nearly: too much talk, too little said, too little listening.
So I rubbed his shoulders and neck for a minute and then went about my business. Don’t need a lot of words to explain how too many drive you bonkers.
What is it that makes for the exchange, the dialogue, the conversations that aren’t endless monologues with no connections?
A friend of mine is teaching English in Vietnam. He told me this story about an exercise the children were doing:
"I noticed that question number one remained blank on every workbook. All the pairs had bypassed it and had begun working from question two. The first question was:
While you are standing in line at the checkout do you, (a) get nervous and impatient or, (b) wait patiently. Eventually everyone completed the questionnaire, except for this first question. Finally one of the students raised a hand. "Excuse me teacher, what does this mean?". What had stumped everyone was the phrase "standing in line"! It's a concept that is completely unknown here. I tried to explain that in Western countries we stand in an orderly line at checkouts etc., but they could only shake their heads in wonder at this strange way of doing things."
So maybe “awakening” is like shaking your head in wonder. You didn’t before see the strangeness of this way of doing things. You didn’t notice when the best of your daily conversations became like standing in line: you take your turn; I’ll take mine. The awareness builds slowly. Then it starts to make you feel crazy. And then….
And then it’s morning again, and the sun’s coming up, and the sky is golden along the horizon, and you’re not sure any of it matters.
It’s like the carpet. Got cleaned last Friday. Two days later, Henry walks through the living room shaking his sippy cup of purple juice. We scurry like mad to get up all the miniscule spots before they dry. In the general commotion, Henry stares from his space on the floor between chair and couch, aware that he’s done something wrong (maybe for the first time ever “aware” of it). After the cleanup he follows me to my bedroom doing the toddler version of small talk. I know he needs assurance that I’m not mad at him. I love him up. His mom takes him for a quick walk. When she gets home Donny plays with him.
If you could have seen the look on his face. That “Oh, oh, what’s all the panic about, what did I do, I’m in trouble” look. It makes you think, “What does it matter? Who cares about the carpet? This is crazy.” But you care. We didn’t scream and yell (except for Donny’s initial “Stop!”) but our actions conveyed that we cared. It was just one of those crazy things – after nearly three years of no sippy cup shaking of purple juice in the living room, it happens right after the carpet’s cleaned. What are the chances of that! I said something along those lines to Donny as we cleaned.
He said, “It always happens.”
It does (although usually it’s the dog or cats). It just seems like you can have a hard time sometimes (or I can), sustaining the level of caring. Something is always happening. You think you’re going crazy. Then you awaken (at least to a new day).
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