been thinking about...

Beauty

2009-10-27T22:42:00.001-07:00

I am a woman. What don't I know about beauty? I have breathed in its instruction since I was a little girl, twirling in my mother's favorite dancing dress, hearing, "Oh, so sweet." I have absorbed the guidelines for beauty from my culture to include painting black around my eyes, and red on my cheeks and lips, but not the reverse. My ears are full of the praises and ridicules of those who abide by our group guidelines, and the faults of the unfortunates who weren't born with some measure of beauty. As if that were possible.

Martin Luther talked about the alien dignity of people, the automatic value a person holds simply by existing. We seem to understand the intrinsic value of someone who has had a tragic accident and loses mobility. But a person with a quirky or awkward gait, we allow no mercy. Our culture sees beauty in conformity, and anything that does not conform is deformity.

What are these group guidelines to beauty? They tend to be conflicting. To be beautiful, we must disallow hair to grow where it will. However, we also need to make sure that hair will grow where it has decided it won't. A few years ago, a pierced ear disaster was when the holes enlarged. Now, we try to enlarge the holes by inserting larger and larger grommets, like the people we used to gawk at in pictures from the National Geographic. While we don't (yet) see a spatula-shaped lower lip as luscious, or a neck distended by stacked rings as elegant, great wind-whistling holes in our ears are to be desired.

To be considered attractive, we slather ourselves either with stuff to make our skin darker, or with stuff to keep us from getting darker. We cut our hair to help it grow out. For cosmetic reasons, we try to eat less than we need, while much of the world is trying to get just enough, for non-cosmetic reasons. Conflicting as our rules are, no one wins. If our group guidelines were made to define beauty, they only serve now to shame us. Shame is an ugly thing.

I have spent many years being confused by our ideas of beauty. But now that I am an aging woman, I can see where beauty rests. Those who are fully themselves, unapologetic and laughing, these are the beautiful people. The person who lives in confidence of his or her own value, alien dignity, is as lovely as the trees and the stars. The simple beauty of enthusiasm is a universal cosmetic, lighting all shades of skin and levels of income with a rightness that makes our ideas sing like a sympathetic violin.

The reason that everyone says "Aah" when the girl from Ipanema goes walking is because she is herself.

Sleep

2009-10-07T06:14:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about sleep, since about 2 a.m. tonight, and sometimes before that hour on other nights, and sometimes as late as 4 a.m. The thoughts are all relatively the same, and that is what I want to change.

The old thoughts run along the lines of "I should be asleep. I won't be able to function tomorrow if I don't get sleep."

Since I have been thinking this for a couple of years now, the evidence seems to be in. I am able to function without 8 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Perhaps I should define function better, but I am able to drive machinery, enter data, and converse. Maybe I get a little punchy in the conversation. I might enter some wrong numbers or information. And I did recently scare my husband when I was driving...

I would be more clear about my definition of function if I could just get some sleep!

Which is really the sum of my complaint: without good rest, I seem to travel in a fog, just on the edge of experiences without being able to touch reality. Maybe insomnia is my protective mechanism for going through life's changes?

A year ago, or was it two?, I said I was sleep-depriving myself for a vision quest. All that happened, though, was my vision got worse with fatigue.

I remember an uncle and aunt out on the farm in Nebraska talking about being up since 5 a.m. and how they would just watch tv, smoke, and wait for the dawn. I thought they were talking about farm life. Now, I think maybe they were talking about sleep patterns as we age.

Since just about everyone I know near my age is talking about not sleeping, I will conclude that this is just the way things are for this time in life. What do I want to do with that information? Complain? Chill?

One help I have found, by accident, is a remedy from the health food store called "L-Ornithine." It says nothing on the bottle about sleep aid. It does, however, help me to sleep through the night. I ran out last night.

Life is giving me the lemon of sleeplessness. I think I'll make a lemonade of catching up on my reading.

Beach

2009-06-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

“Sh” said the water on the sand.

My frustration feeds the fishes, I tried to tell myself. Like a plant giving off oxygen as its waste product, I was hoping that my emotional sludge and needling concerns would be soul food for a sea cucumber or needle fish. Instead, all I could picture were fingers of electricity zipping out from my supercharged skin and zapping the chilly creatures in the saline water. I should see bodies floating up.

I stopped the negative visualization and tried again to focus on draining my stress, my fears, and my anger into the sandy bottom of the sea.

The horizon, the strata of vog and clouds, sundown and water’s edge, sea break and tide pool looked like a slice of grey lasagne. There was beauty in the grundginess of the scene, a tropical austerity.

For the fishes, I crumbled my sorrow and unrelenting grief. I served up all the self pity I could find, but I forgot where I tucked away much of it. I laid out more fear and let confusion flake from me into the drink.

I sigh, my shoulders relax, and some sharpness around my ideas starts to soften in the water. What if my expectations are creating this distress? My life in this moment, right now, is beautiful. Remember?

The heavy liquid of warm sea water presses in on my calves, licks behind my knees. I step out of the water back onto the sand, feeling the viscous liquid reluctantly release me. Warm breezes chill past my wet legs. The top of the sand is evening cool, but as I burrow my feet into the gritty velvet, stored heat from the day kisses my toes. Of course. I remember. I am loved! I am not thinking specifically of my beloved or pets or friends but of something that loves me, for which I have no name. I’ll call it me. Why not? Or it can be you, if you prefer. Calling it The Nameless sounds silly because, well, it is nameless.

Perhaps it was time to head home. This was the end of my work day, a transition and decompression at the beach to let the dog run. I still had things to do.

“Sh” said the water on the sand.

I wiggle my feet out from their sandy nest and wade back into the water. The dog, glad to see that I am still at it, barrels in after me. He sits down in the tide pool, his tail and body slightly rocking with each surge, and looks out on the horizon.

I let him be. He lets me be. At the beach, we be.

beliefs

2009-06-01T00:41:00.000-07:00

Do you know what you believe?

I have spent some time trying to find what I believe to be true about various things ranging from germs to deities, from weather patterns to plastic containers. So far, I have come to one conclusion: what we choose to believe becomes true for us.

Is this too simple an approach to testing beliefs? I don't like the new age idea that we create our own reality, as I may have argued before. It's just not logical. But the idea that our beliefs shape our perception of our reality is becoming clear to me. This is both empowering and frightening to think about.

more about suffering

2009-01-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

I read in my new O magazine about a woman who had her face taken off by a bear. Before that, her house burned down. Before that, she fell from her horse and broke her back.

She said that over time you just get existential about suffering and say, "This happened."

There is profound power in her simple two words. Not, "because I did such-and such, or because they did such-and-such, or because..." No because anything. It just happened.

I think the most difficult part about suffering at the hands of another human is that we are innately made to love. When someone hurts us, it interferes with our ability to love, and the block and frustration are worse than the insult. We want to love each other. Eventually, over time we regain our ability to love those who have hurt us, but the in-between time is very distressing. The frustration of our willingness to love is the greatest part of any insult.

Maybe there's a way to "let time take its course" faster, but I haven't found any shortcuts that work yet. Forgiveness comes naturally, in its own time.

Suffering

2009-01-06T18:33:00.001-08:00

I've been reading books by Toni Morrison this holiday season. I guess I wasn't in the need for cheer. Her books paint a very clear picture of how people have suffered. We have hurt and maimed others, and then we each turn on "our own" and cause pain. When that is over, we turn on ourselves.

There really isn't a way to measure suffering. Bullying comes in a rainbow. My kids have suffered. My husband and I have suffered. Ours has been big enough suffering. I don't know how the slaves managed to bear up and keep on. I don't know how Ghandi's followers kept their strength. I don't know how people manage to heal from deep damage done by those who would dominate over them.

More than anything, how do we let go of the pain? It's clear that if we don't let it go, we will pass it on. I say that talking about it, writing about it, is a powerful way to let it go, let it be, but not have to relive it inside of us. In teaching us to read and write, our earliest teachers were helping us to know how to heal ourselves from the inevitable suffering.

alienation v. dignity

2008-12-29T11:25:00.000-08:00

I owe this contrast to one of our former psychological writers of note, but I cannot find it on Google, so I must have made it up. The idea of alienation vs. dignity relates to the process of aging, and the stages that we go through in our development as we mature. This stage is ideally saved for our later years, when we have some internal choices to make.

Alienation. I think this means that things such as the following spew from our mouths of their own volition:

kids these days...
...we knew how to act back then
how strange
growing old isn't for wimps
where did I put that? did someone take/move it?

Dignity. This seems to take a little more work, or at least conscious attention. But I suppose that over time it would make many things easier, especially letting go of the body when the time comes:

I remember those struggles
the rules seem to be different now, I wonder what they are?
how wondrous; or, interesting, but not for me
growing old gives me permission to let things go
I can't find it, so I'll figure out something else

I had a recent opportunity to observe closely some elderly people struggling with the ideas of letting go; accepting others more and doing with less; gracefully moving into the position of active observers and thinkers. The key word, to me, became grace. If we let go by having our fingers pried open, is that letting go? How do we learn to grow into our dignity? How do we cause ourselves less pain since aging can bring enough pain of its own?

Opinions, in my opinion, are the greatest affliction we nurture within ourselves. Next, and related, is a need to understand before extending love. If we haven't the foggiest, and don't feel a need to assess others by our standards, then while it may seem like Alzheimer's to some, it looks a lot like bliss to me.

mortality

2008-12-21T11:27:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd be dramatic with the title...

Since a week ago Friday, I've been to two hospitals, three doctors' offices, run through three cardiac tests, punctured a total of seven times in my two arms... and here's the conclusion:

I do have a heart!

So, all you nay sayers, be informed. Last year we found out that I have a spine, this year a heart. Let's just save the question on everyone's mind for next year: marbles or air?

Here's what we know so far from my heart attack scare: it wasn't a heart attack. There is a blockage of blood flow to the lower part of the back of my heart. The blockage doesn't show up on an angiogram. The cardiologist's answer to the chest pains and blockage revealed on other tests? "It's a mystery."

Boy, let me tell you, that flip answer made me mad. Good thing I was mildly sedated and he had a wire in my heart at the moment or I might have slapped him. Because he didn't find what he was looking for, he was done looking for what he might find. In fact, he had greeted me two hours earlier on our first meeting with, "You don't look like you should be here." I assumed it was my fitness level (amazing) and age (supremely young). But it was revealed in his next sentence that my error in taking the hospital bed was due to my gender. "You don't fit the usual profile of my patients, but then the ladies DO have heart disease... I suppose." I should have said to call off the search right then, but no, I thought he was being chatty.

So, what to do with all of this information? Well, I vented with David. Then I came up with A Plan. Since the nitroglycerin pills help the pain, I'll get a standing prescription for nitro. I will carry on with my life as usual, curbing the things that may exacerbate the situation (caffeine, albuterol?, cardiologists being stupid.) I will follow up with my regular doctor and consider a second opinion in the event of another extreme episode like this one.

David suggested that the blockage was in the vessels too small to be seen on an angiogram. I called the first doc I'd called when this started, to let him know the progress. He said exactly what David said, and then said for me to get a nitro prescription, because it's a time bomb. This fellow, and my regular doctor, have been advocating for me for a week now. When the E.R. doc said it was just anxiety and gave me Xanax, they requested further testing and found the blockage.

I feel like I'm in good hands right here at home.

Part of The Plan is to accord with the way things are. I have had chest pain for over 21 years, just never this severe. I've been told it was arthritis. This isn't as scary for me as it might be. I'm more hopeful with a medicine that helps the pain, and the awareness that I'm not going to be mended by anyone... I am going to learn to live with this.

As to pursuing further opinions and tests and surgeries, I'm ambivalent. I intend to exercise (with nitro nearby) and live fully. I refuse to die before I die just to stay alive.

-ism is the second half of schism

2008-11-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

Is anyone tired of the discussion of racism since Obama won? I mean, come on, we've had white presidents all these years, what is one more? We can deal with it.

Are you arguing with me? Are you trying to figure out what I mean?

Here's another one:

A young man is rushed to the hospital on the west side of town. His father is an ER doctor at the hospital on the east side of town. The ER doc sees the boy and says, "I can't operate on him, he's my son!" How is this possible?

Until we are able to rise above either/or thinking, we will be divided.

angry about abortion

2008-10-28T15:08:00.001-07:00

I received an email forward from a cousin with a pro-life video attached. The video finished with biblical support of its gist that life is sacred.

"A fate worse than death" has become a common expression. However, the origin of the expression is from experiences that are less common. I feel that my childhood, even with all its inherent beauty and my survival of it, was a fate worse than death. I have spent many years feeling angry with my mother for not aborting me rather than bringing me into the world she knew I would face.

Mostly I am angry that the abortion issue is an issue...again. I thought we had this one figured out. Do we really need to revisit old issues to create a political platform? How about focusing on issues that are life-enhancing, like finding ways to end using children for pornography, prostitution, slavery, multi-generational incest, and finding ways to end poverty?

I say, let's revisit the question of abortion when we get our other shit together. In the meantime, I'll use the same source as pro-lifers to make my case:

"Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!" Ps. 137:9

See? Scripture can be used to back any argument. In fact, one of the prophets saw such horrible times coming that he told people to do this to their own children. We simply cannot judge for another what the circumstances require of them. And to legislate choices is just as bizarre as smashing babies.

Enough

2008-10-02T17:09:00.000-07:00

My sister attributes this to Mary Poppins, "Enough is as good as a feast."

As a retailer in weird economic times, several questions have recurred in my thinking:

- what is essential?
- what is enough?
- when does more become a problem?
- how do you know when to change something?

All the other adages I've talked about (if it ain't broke, don't fix it; begun is half done; etc.) don't answer these questions sufficiently.

How do we know anything? I used to have a daughter-in-law who worried for recreation. She never could tell if her worries were real or imagined. I finally told her, "If the worry is real, you won't have to ask."

I think a variation of my answer works for the above questions. When I get to the essential and enough, I won't have to ask. When more becomes a problem, I will know it, as I will know when it is time to change something.

Shopkeeping by intuition isn't a popular subject in the literature, but it's how we have done it so far, and being as it's the horse we rode in on, I suppose we'll use the same vehicle for the tour.

geriatric fonts

2008-08-28T12:09:00.000-07:00

Last night D and I went out to one of the nearby resorts to remember being tourists for a bit. It was lovely: the bongos from the luau almost drowned out the piped audio track in the lounge, and the stage lights across the water from another resort luau almost reminded me of Christmas spotlights.

Once the luau's finished, things settled in to a more human visual/auditory experience (as opposed to less humane = Vegas). We relaxed and I thought about ordering something to eat. Upon looking at the Pupu menu, however, I decided I'd have cereal at home. I couldn't read the menu. David, with his visual acuity improved, could read several key words if I held the menu at the end of my arms. He picked out "luau, smoked, flattened, poof" and I saw "sharky, lipstopper, hum, slimed".

As retailers, we are often told that we need to think of our aging population and the effects this has on all aspects of shopping. As a result of this information, we try to plant magnifying reading glasses throughout our store for people to be able to read the paint and glue labels, the product instructions, or even the books there.

Somebody needs to tell the graphic designers that menus are used in dimly lit places by old people. Cute fonts that look like they're carved out of lava by tiny menehune will not increase sales.

In honor of our not eating anything there last night, I revamped my blogs to "large" and "x-large" fonts wherever possible. Why didn't I do that before my experience?

Writing

2008-08-19T07:56:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a new story. It's a murder mystery set in Hawaii, with the Ms. Marple being a big Hawaiian-mix fellow who is a portrait painter. So far, so good. I'm into chapter 4 and I wonder what's going to happen next.

Writing has taught me many things.

Book One: This took me about ten years to write, and about that long for friends to read it. GIGO.

Book Two: This took me two weeks to write. I was on fire. I was inspired. The publisher said it was a nice caper. I thought it was Science Fiction Fantasy. Oy.

Book Three: The sequel to book two. Forget it. I didn't finish it.

Books 2&3 taught me that when my characters get into a bind, there are several ways to work through the situation. Somehow, in getting to practice problem solving through my characters, I started to see more options for my own real life. Problems seemed smaller too, through the lens of authorship. Just find the way to plot around it.

So this is Book 4. I'm learning about being the author. With a story, that authority is obvious. With our lives, it seems much more complicated. I suppose the fact that we cannot actually move other people around conveniently does make life different from writing. But the essence remains: We are the authors of our life stories, and we are the ones in charge of how we view the plot as well as how we make choices in relation to what has happened thus far.

my day

2008-08-14T20:03:00.000-07:00

Here's a day in the life of an average gal living in Hawaii on her day off from work.

I started a load of laundry, and set water on the lawn. Then I followed an exercise DVD, showered, and went back to bed. After that, I got up and cooked myself french toast and started supper for the kids (they are having friends over while D and I escape to the movies). I started another load of laundry, made out a grocery list, did my daily quota of writing, and set off for errands with the dog.

We filled the hybrid with petrol, stopped at the used bookstore (got a yoga DVD and some cookbooks), and then went to see D at the shop. While my beloved rested, I transferred music to our repaired computer (yeah, mr. tioli!) and checked in a few items from a new shipment that arrived. When D was ready to be back on duty, I went to Costco to see if I could get out of there for under $200. Almost, but not quite.

Then the dog and I decided to head home on the high road, which is usually less congested than the highway. Wrong again. But since it's at a higher elevation, we were sure to be able to sit on battery power with the windows down. Many other vehicles gave up and turned around. I wonder, were they going to go around the island to get where they wanted rather than sit in non-moving traffic? There are only a handful of roads here...

I checked out my nused cookbooks while not-driving, and Jack snoozed beside the laundry detergent, sneezing on occasion. One place we passed had drums pounding like a halau was practicing, but it hit me at a primeval level, sounding so serious and intense.

When we got home, I unloaded the car, checked on supper, turned on the a/c in our bedroom where D's computer is, and fired up the computer to write about my day.

Supper is mulligan stew. I made one for the kids with all the cholesterol left in, and one modified kettle for Ma and Pa that I named "Where Sheep May Safely Graze Hunter's Stew."

Now that I've written about my day, I suppose I'd do well to get on with it. Maybe a nap is in order, again. It is my day off, after all...

Aha!

2008-07-22T20:29:00.001-07:00

I've been compulsively reading the biography of Gerald Durrell, written by Douglas Botting.

So many nuggets of life are in that book, not the least of which is Botting's ability to tell about a human being in all his fullness (faults in full view) with love enough to make room for errors.

Writing skill aside, Durrell's story reads like a warning, as well as a call to arms for anyone with grand ideas. First of all, don't turn to drink to comfort you in your solitude, exhaustion, and humiliation. Second, the establishment is going to make fun of you. Do what you know you need to do anyway.

Durrell certainly didn't mean the above to be my lessons drawn from his life. He wanted me to focus on ecological concerns and conservation. But instead, I saw how a man used the fame he gained from what he would consider mindless sheep (humans) to save numerous varieties of mindless sheep (ugly and uninteresting animals).

Another pebble in my thought-shoe is the idea that Durrell's first wife nagged him into writing (delightful books) and he continued writing, For Forty Years, as a means to earn money for his real work. No wonder he drank, and what if his drinking actually held him back? Boggling, puzzling, and compelling is the story of a chemically dependent hero.

Today

2008-07-15T12:35:00.000-07:00

If you could do anything today, what would it be?

I was painting yesterday with a visitor to the island and she had taken a "Point Zero" painting workshop from a woman whose book I'd read and was trying to apply to my own painting.

http://www.pointzeropainting.com/index.html

The bottom line in Cassou's approach is internal direction. By asking ourselves open questions for our next steps, we steer by an internal compass that no one else can give to us. This morning, I wondered how that might apply to the creation of our daily living.

If you could do anything today, what would you do?

I'm thinking of a chicken picnic at the beach. Or...

And you?

beauty

2008-07-10T16:03:00.000-07:00

I am attempting to write an article on beauty with the hopes of submitting it to O magazine. One recent issue of the publication stated boldly on the front that they are starting a beauty revolution. Articles were silken in their praise of us just as we are, nestled in a hefty surrounding dose of plastic surgery ads. We are downright schizophrenic in our ideas about beauty, and the number one enemy for all seems to be age (time + gravity).

I don't really have anything to say about beauty in my article. I am as confused and conflicted as the next beauty-wanna-be.

In my teens, I wrestled with two ideas about being gorgeous:

1. A woman is beautiful in proportion to the amount of cosmetics she can afford to leave alone. (A twist on Thoreau's definition of a man's wealth.)
2. If the house needs painting, paint it.

Which door would I choose: number one or number two?

I stepped through each one at different times and was sorely disappointed by both. If I left myself au naturel, my mother thought I was ill, and people pretty much ignored me. If I put on makeup, I got unwanted stares and acne.

I talked with a friend about my debate, and he sagely advised that the ideas number one and two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Oh.

Well, I suppose, there you have it.

A Little Slort of Sheep

2008-07-08T15:15:00.000-07:00

Shawn has suggested that I'm on a vision quest with my sleep deprivation. I suspect that it has shallower roots, running somewhere along the streams of small business ownership and "being at that age."

Whatever the reason, I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days. As you read this, keep in mind that I'm not drunk as thinkle peep. I'm just a little slort of sheep.

Last night I was tired beyond description. I sacked out around nine, and woke up completely at midnight. Since there is no compromising with insomnia, I got out of bed and went to work at the shop. I completed one task I've been working on for two weeks; hopefully avoiding anything that required real logic. Then I came home and went back to bed just as the teens were waking.

I've started doing a little obsessive/compulsive routine at bedtime to increase my Z mojo. The voodoo I do worked pretty well for the first three nights, but now I forget to do it. I'm not obsessive enough about my compulsions, it would seem.

So, here's my next plan.

I'm going to set up the laptop on standby. If I can't get to sleep within the half hour of waking, I'm getting up and writing on my new story. It may be a Dali-esque mystery. I may read it and later wonder what the heck I'm writing about, but I'll get done the writing that I want to do and I won't sweat laying awake.

I think this plan will work, because of all my little routines, avoiding real work is the one I have most refined. When I was a child and couldn't sleep, I would think up just one little task that I told myself I must do before going to sleep (like "put lotion on my hands", or "put a ribbon on the bear"). I would drift off to sleep easily with the idea that by doing so I was avoiding work.

Clearly, I have work and sleep issues. As a kid, sleep meant danger. I am far along enough in my healing to be free of that, I think. As a kid, work meant kudos. Maybe I'm not over that one yet.

Or maybe I've gotten in the habit of worrying (as I suspect) and I'm letting that dominate my rest hours.

Maybe my next plan should be research on how not to worry?

friends

2008-06-19T17:03:00.001-07:00

I have many friends. Many of them I lost "in the fire" (what I call my escape from Maxwell after being scared by a handgun-wielding ex-). Those friends had to choose life with him. I understand that these things happen. They're still my friends, only indirectly now.

I have good new friends as well, and those friendships are growing. Some old friendships I was glad to let go of. I'm in that sort of relationship right now.

Hostage-taking friends have me. These friends are the ones who start with not just accepting me, but seeing me as perfect. The next step is gifts. I get really uncomfortable when friendships start this way, because inevitably I'll show a flaw and there's an end to the honeymoon. I try to end the honeymoon early by messing up regularly and announcing it, but bedazzled friends see that as cute and quirky. Finally, I disappoint these friends because I haven't agreed to their ironclad rules of how things should be. If they give me a gift, I owe them something. If they do something for me, I need to be at the ready.

Problem is, I don't have a good memory. So, I let go of what someone else might think they owe me, for whatever reason, and I assume that others do the same unless we've agreed otherwise. I don't much like the idea of owing, unless we're talking about a signed legal agreement.

Right now I have a friend who is acting like I owe her. I want to tell her a few things, none of which is Thank You. She has been very friendly and gifty and self-sacrificing. And all of that behavior has given me the creeps. I keep wondering what she wants from me. And I'm starting to learn that she wants all the friendly, gifty, self-sacrifices from me that she has given. At this point, I'm not sure I even want to be friends with her.

What I want is for the bedazzled to start thinking about herself in this friendship. I want her to look at what she needs from me and ask me for it. I can respond to direct requests. If I can, I will. If I can't, I'll say no. And I might not even apologize for not being able to do what she asks, because I don't feel like friendship entitles us to each other.

I'm probably the worst friend on the planet, but I'm an easy friend too because I'm pretty laid back about any shoulds.

The Power of Now

2008-06-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Eckhart Tolle's cornerstone book and thinking about why we don't just stay in the present moment, since it's so great.

So far, I've come up with the following reasons we get out of Now:

we entertain ourselves by going into future worries and past regrets
we forget and remember and then forget the present moment
being in the present makes us feel less substantial and therefore threatened by the idea of ceasing to exist
we think that we can't accomplish anything unless we think

Tolle says that we don't stay in the now because, "The mind, to ensure that it remains in control, seeks continuously to cover up the present moment with past and future..." This seems too simple an answer, a conspiracy theory of me against myself ...which is probably just my mind's way of ensuring that it stays in control. I'm not so sure about that, since my mind seems to be very much in agreement with what Tolle is saying, and I am comfortable with shutting down thinking (just ask my friends).

There must be some reward for getting out of the Now, something that we perceive as more valuable than peace and well-being, or we would stay there (here.)

a cool one

2008-06-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

what if money flow issues will be a thing of the past for all of us one day?

continuing the what-if saga

2008-05-29T17:21:00.000-07:00

What if I'm not tired, just lazy?

antidote what-if

2008-05-20T13:21:00.000-07:00

What if everything is unfolding exactly on its course?

violence and its seeds

2008-05-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about war, use of force, and any form of coercion or manipulation I might exert on another.

I wonder, is it ever reasonable, useful, or long-term profitable to influence another person?

I wonder, is it ever justifiable to retaliate?

I wonder, is it possible to just let things go (where does the anger go? where do we put it?) and move on?

Where do we move on to?

There is a higher view here somewhere, I just can't see it yet.

What if tomorrow never comes?

2008-05-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some stupid what-if's I have caught myself thinking either in the past or lately:

what if, now that I can walk again, I can't walk again?
what if we can't afford the water for the lawn?
what if I can't finish the novel that I'm writing for my own entertainment?

being, becoming, and done been

2008-05-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

David and I talked last night about the Power of Now. I apologized to him for how hard things are right now for us, and he answered, "Things aren't hard right now." Since we were walking to the movies, knowing we'd head home to rest after that, I had to agree. My "right now" was including pretty much the last year. But right now, this moment, is manageable.

What was a year ago is gone. I'm still trying to think of the seventies as a long time ago, and the eighties were yesterday. Time isn't linear, it's a chunk. Either I look at the big chunk of My Life, which overall is about one of the grandest adventures ever, or the little chunk of right now which is downright lovely, or the middle chunk of these days.

The chunk of These Days is the tricky one. Just a few years from now, these will be the good ole days. Right now these are the hard years. Maybe the change in perspective is the result of the nature of the process of life.

Maybe, like any masterpiece trapped in marble, we are slowly released from more and more of not-us and become more ourselves. But we are also growing, not cold stone things. So maybe we're more like wood, green wood... like a bonsai. We are shaped and sculpted by the winds and moisture (or lack thereof), the location of our living and direction of our life whizzing past us.

Just an idea.

I know that I am feeling a greater capacity in me. I can hold opposite ideas without them chasing each other around in my head. I can do tasks that were very difficult for me a few years ago. (In a former marriage, changing the bed linens was a psychological Mount Everest; now it's a breeze.) I can be loved and hated by my children without needing to help them decide to love me. I can learn to spin yarn and let go of activities that no longer give me a charge.

Used to, I thought I had to do everything and do it well (perfectly.) Now I think I want to do what I want to do to the best of my ability and everything will fall into place.

I sure hope it all falls into place. And I'm sure that it all already has.

money

2008-05-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

I opened our accounting program "Quickbooks Premier Accountant Edition" and read the word accountant as abundant! I like that... I'm ready to hear the whoosh of flowing abundance through our business, and the resulting upkeep of things we've had to put on hold in our personal lives. I'm ready for the recession and rumors of recession to ease up. I think that if our economy weren't choking, our business would be growing. As it is, it's holding steady on. So, I really can't complain.

I'll get to work on our abundant edition and keep doing my best. I can't help but think these are the times people tell about when they have "made it" and others think it came easy. I like to think that because it makes me think we'll make it.

And either way, with or without a future in Tioli's, we'll make it. We already have. There is a constant stream of joy in doing our business that pays far more than monetary gains. I just looked over to the wall of colored pencils, and someone has set up our wooden lizard manikin to do a back flip hand stand. Our shop gives us reasons to smile, to be happy, to work on maintaining relationships in our community and to go ahead with our dreams.

Tioli's put me on so many learning curves, I realize now that I'm always going to be a beginner. And I'm okay with that.

mother's day

2008-05-11T18:44:00.000-07:00

... and yet more grieving. I have a mother, but she didn't raise me. My oldest sister by 10 years raised me, so when she went off to college, I lost my mother. The other woman who gave birth to me has always been a little demented and disconnected, so I lost her a long time ago, probably years before I was born. No matter that I lived with her and she fed me and all that; she was not a mother to me.

I have raised or am raising a total of six kids. I didn't raise two kids. Out of the eight, I have no relationship with my kids; the first three because their dad would threaten my life if I had contact with them, and the second three because they are undecided about their love/hate for me. We're in the hate or near-hate phase right now, being the teen years.

These are not easy times for me. I wish that I had an extended family and people who understood without needing explanation. Instead, I am surrounded by a family of christians.

All of my siblings seem to indicate that my grief and sorrows are a result of not living a christian life. Nevermind that it was life-threatening when I lived for Christ (I could have been a fantastic martyr but I fucked up that opportunity to demonstrate WWJD.)

I wish that I could grieve all of this with honesty in the relationships themselves. But instead, I'm trying to figure it out with the help of David and my sorrow-sodden brain. There is no repair I can make with the kids. They'll have to decide whether to have relationship with me or not. There is no repair to be made with my parents, especially my mother, because the lights are on, but no one's home. Never has been.

So, mother's day for me smacks of homelessness, isolation, not belonging.

I am so thankful for David's love for me. Otherwise I would despair.

Burgled

2008-05-09T13:48:00.001-07:00

We went to Maui and got burgled twice. Here is a link to the narrative of events:

http://realhawaii.blogspot.com/ under this date

and here are some poems about how I feel with all of this:

Pursesnatcher

You forgot
that you also took
a boomerang
of grief with my cash
so watch out
it will return

meantime
may the Mother of All Regrets
suckle you
at her bitter teets
and instill the losses in you
which you'd hoped
to pass on to me

and I accepted for a day

Now you can have it back
and I'd like
a return of my
sense of peace
decency
clean actions

I wish you no ill
but the hobbling
of your haste
to self destruct
which caused you
to try to take me
with you

Thanks
but I'll stay here
at center.

I Did Not Invite The Fool

Never, you say, do that
I should know
better
and my fault
that others prey
but I say
I did not invite the fool
to take mine from me
any more than you
will invite death

It happens
whether we are wise
or not
and lock our doors
or not

losses will amass
as do possessions
and both come to nothing
soon enough.

The other way, I've learned,
is to choose
the flow
where it will go
just before
it would have been taken

...a little trick
to outwit the fools
and send my kind
of invitations.

Sentimental Value

Hey You,
with my wallet
from a friend from Japan made in Italy
with a small card full of Engrish
(which still makes me smile
though you stole it
from my reading)

I cannot share with you
more than cash
the friendship
of such value
because you cannot grasp
cannot grasp
the unbreakable treasure
and thus
must settle for shards
of your broken life
a violent void
empty of the emotions required by
friendship
humor
generosity
compassion

All obliterated
by your ethic of addiction
My invisible wealth
remains untouchable
to your clenched
sticky
blind
fingers

Oppressors and the oppressed

2008-05-03T10:24:00.001-07:00

It seems like there will always be people who take advantage of other people. I see oppression and abuse and simple mis-use of power in various levels throughout the world. It makes me feel hopeless.

Yelling at oppressors usually gets more oppression. So does fighting back. There is escape. But once uprooted, there are new oppressors to be found. How do people live free of oppression?

So many people I know think that I'm talking about issues in the past, in war zones, in other countries; that no one gets treated poorly any more. It simply isn't so. The statistics on child sexual abuse are staggering. Spousal abuse, the same. And that's just in America, and just the reported cases.

What will it take for us to stop bullying, excluding, abusing, deriding, and retaliating?

well-being

2008-05-01T18:40:00.000-07:00

Today was my day off... and I had a swath of open time that I set aside to try and do as little as possible. I did a fine job of it, for the most part. Sure, I slipped in a little creative putzing and random knitting. But I did not tackle any large projects or chores, or even start something useful other than supper. (I started knitting some socks for David, but they don't count as I'm not getting any hopes about their usefulness.)

At about 11 a.m., I was totally frustrated by my lack of internal creative freedom. I want to write a book, but I can't seem to find a character that I care about. I started to think that maybe I need a highball to let loose. And that's when I realized that what I was thinking is how writers get the rep. It was shocking to realize that by a small course adjustment in my steering, I could possibly set up a downward spiral that would take much more effort to correct than a slight nudge.

While not every decision in life has such steering potential (brand of toothpaste, wearing blue or brown...), most do have a trail-blazing effect. I was duly convicted by myself and sat down to knit to think about all this.

I haven't exercised intensely since my back surgery last autumn, having tried shortly after the surgery and ending up making things bad again. I wondered, is it time to steer in that direction? If I don't want to go down Heming Way, which way do I want to go?

So, I popped in a yoga workout video, found a portion called "fully modified" and found that I was able to do all that they asked of me. Tomorrow will tell me if I overdid it, since my back has a long latency period before it expresses itself. But my mind likes my choice, and the rest of my body feels the better for it.

I still haven't found my character, however. I may take the intoxicating idea of spirited disinhibition to heart and pretend for a while that I've had a toddy and so I can write anything. Because, with or without the drink, I can in fact write anything.

You, Me, and Us

2008-04-30T12:14:00.000-07:00

I wanted to say
something today
about our Us and our Now
and how
I cannot find words
that wrap around
this wild circle of living
we've given

the fullness
pregnant with possibility
that these leaps have taken with us
the madness
of living as if our dreams were reasonable
and reasons to live

the finding
we're safe with our hearts
and each others'
the risks of trust turned good sense
and following
that most fickle of human organs

such life!
in our freedom
with each other

The Ocean

2008-04-28T12:27:00.000-07:00

The sea is heavy water. So salted that it feels more like a mix of fresh water and mercury, the ocean slides over and around my feet in a dance. It feels like I should be able to walk on it, with or without faith. I should be able to carry a handful of it with minimal leakage. It is substantial.

The sea is also an ocean of metaphors. The waves and depths could be emotions. The tides, the shorelines, the doldrums, the hidden flora and fauna, the creatures of the deep... what fertile substance for the imagination and ideas.

But mostly, the sea is a container. It's full of salt water, but it contains history, aeons of grief and hopes and motivations. It contains possibility. It is indomitable power contained in a lulling shush. It contains secrets and you could die of exposure on it. It contains water and salt, the consumption of both so necessary to our living, but unconsumable.

Like Africa, the ocean is a place where everything eats everything. I am consumed by the idea of it.

...and more vog

2008-04-27T22:23:00.001-07:00

I talked with a person today who has lived on the island since the seventies. He thinks that the vog is due to drilling to tap into geothermal energy. Ooooh, a conspiracy theory. How do we believe these things?

Today by 3 pm people were driving with headlights on. It's getting darkish earlierish. Weird.

And D can't breathe. And I've got a headache. And we're all grumpy.

Paradise!!

grief

2008-04-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

I am in another grieving cycle. Beats the heck out of me what it's about, but I'll just talk about it and maybe I'll know what I'm thinking when I read what I wrote.

Last year I had back troubles. After a diagnosis of a herniated disc, and repeated prescriptions for pain medication and muscle relaxants (both addictive, but David said we'll deal with that when it's time for it), I became unable to walk.

Sitting in wheel chairs and watching others saunter brought on a pity party and jealousy of the likes I never hope to see in myself again. Eventually, I was able to grieve the loss of my ability to walk and to get to some acceptance that this was what is next.

When the pain got so bad that I couldn't sleep without propping myself in strange foetal knots, I knew that I couldn't live this way. A trip to the emergency room, three days immobilized in the hospital, and a spinal surgery led to my walking onto a plane two days post-op and going home: walking and pain free. I had avoided surgery because of all the friends I have who were worse for it. For me, it was miraculous.

From this experience, I learned that I can survive sudden grief and loss, can move on, can deal with what life gives us.

The grief that is eating me up is a grief of regret. I feel like I have failed my husband and my kids.

When David and I got together, I was sure that our love was the answer to all the questions. Didn't the kids' mother need the freedom to come to terms with accepting herself as gay? Didn't the kids want a mother who wanted to be domestic for them? Didn't David need help with the weights of parenting? Oilah! Let's fix this thing.

I don't know if my regret is over my naivete, hubris, or just the way things didn't work out as we saw they could have. The kids immediately took a hate to me. They also loved me. Which made the hate worse. I immediately went into disciplinarian mode, which fueled more hate and I felt was the only way to give stability in their volatile, changing lives.

Oh the things I would do differently. One of them would be to stop trying so hard. I wanted to help, sure, but there was an effort in controlling the course of a river that was already well past the fork. What did I think we could do with that?

So, now we're here, with things as they are, and I keep making myself remember not to try so hard. And we're fine. We're just not where we pictured, as far as bringing peace to the kids' lives and helping them find their ways without additional pain.

And that makes us different from any other family... how?

I just wish that I knew then what I know now. Don't we all!? I would have loved the kids in a much better way for them than I was able to understand at the time. And so I grieve the lost opportunities and the damages I've done in doing my best.

And now? Now I'll just remember to love and let go. That's where we are now in parenting. It's time for us to focus on our Kuleanas (responsibilities, business) and let the kids find focus on theirs.

Paralysis by Overanalysis

2008-04-25T23:24:00.000-07:00

I'm waiting for spaghetti squash to cool so that I can scoop it out and save it for lunch tomorrow, as spaghetti.

While I while away the time, I am thinking about thinking. Today I was reminded that the mind can go on and on. In fact, there are times that I think I'd do well to join On And On Anon. When, or if, I can get my mind to shift into neutral, such a peace overwhelms me that it is nirvhana. Or however you spell it...

Knitting puts my mind into neutral, also sometimes called the zone. I wonder what is the purpose, then, of all this thinking, if it's so much bliss to stop it. To what use shall I put the analysis?

I like to ask questions. I like to chat and toss around ideas. I like silence. But when we start talking about versions of reality and perceptions, I feel like I've stepped off of solid ground onto a precariously swaying vessel. Maybe this is why and how we get rigid in our beliefs and perceptions: because the motion sickness of changing perspectives can be quite uncomfortable.

But in all of this I wonder, is there a higher way. By higher way I mean a both/and approach to ideas rather than either/or. So, is there a higher view of thinking vs. cruising? Is there a zone where analysis also operates and timelessness informs us?

I like to ask questions.

Metaphors

2008-04-25T11:01:00.000-07:00

Recently I had an interaction with a couple that left me questioning my skills with language. Over dinner and a discussion of exciting ideas, I enthused and barely contained my excitement. Everything I said was presented in glistening metaphors (of which I was unaware at the time.) In the time between the start of dinner and the end, I became increasingly aware that the man didn't understand what I was saying, and perhaps just didn't like me very well.

I did two things in response to my perception: I tried to communicate better, i.e. make better metaphors. Then I read him intuitively, sensing that on some level I reminded him of his mother, and sensing that this was not a positive thing. Eventually, I gave up, lost my enthusiasm, and tried to be quiet.

The most interesting part of all of this comes in the lunch I had with the wife a day or two later. She took the time and trouble to explain to me what went on. Because we potentially may be friends for a long time, this revelation was a real gift.

She said that metaphors are a signal for danger to him. (I know about psychological triggers, so she was speaking my language right from the start.) As a teen, he had been given some devasting news by his mother ...in the form of a metaphor. So when he hears or senses an apt comparison, he shuts down.

From this I was able to determine:

anything can be a trigger
we each have a responsibility to remove the fuse from our personal triggers
I am in the habit of using metaphors to excess
I was right-on about the mom association, just in a different form
metaphors can be used for many functions (more in a moment on that one)
this friendship would be my opportunity to consciously use or not use metaphor, to be more aware of my own communication style (a good thing)

In conversing with myself about this strange verbal wreckage, I found that I was unable to think about it all without giving myself a metaphor. I would think, "Maybe for him it is like... No, wait. Well, it's as if I were... No, no, wait. It could seem that..." And so on. Until I realized the context in which metaphor is necessary: for the unnameable and formless in our lives, we must resort to metaphor. We can give these "things" names (insight, enlightenment, awareness, relationship) but abstract nouns fly about as far as lead birds. Metaphors take wing and carry meaning all over the place, dropping seeds of potential and fertilizing ideas. See? Case in point.

I also tried practicing communication without metaphor, and found it to be revealing. As in naked. Talking free of metaphor is an embarrassing way (for me) to speak. Language without metaphor is direct, unsoftened, mono-tentional. There's no escape to, "Yes, I mean that, but also this." Using metaphor is a way to avoid blasting others with difficult truths or difficult concepts. Hence this man's mother used metaphor to break life-changing news to him in a way he might understand. I had to admit that I have often used metaphor to hide. It was as if I was saying, "Figure out what all I might mean, if you can."

It makes sense that I would communicate in such a way, being as I lived forty years with secrets of abuse and didn't reveal them to anyone. But maybe while this guy works on allowing metaphor to his ears I can take it as an opportunity to regulate the flow of metaphor out of my mouth. Maybe it's time for me to be direct and reveal my self to others. I may not become a verbal flasher (yet), but at least I can take off my down coat of ideas in a warm room.

See? It just comes to me.

Family

2008-04-24T10:45:00.000-07:00

Is there a police force more compelling than that of family? Long after we've outgrown our childhood cohort and the authority of our parents, that culture still reigns in our thinking and our choices. The upside (per Christians) to the family culture is "raise a child in the way he should go and he will return to it." Or not stray from it, or whatever version you prefer. I strayed. I tried to return to it and strayed again.

Now I'm trying to burn the bridges to The Way so that I can't go back to it any more. But just yesterday I caught myself in my journal talking in the passive voice. I was talking about difficult times in the past and the relatively gentle stress of my days now, "I always wondered if I wasn’t being stretched to be able to handle less, rather than more." Well, it's an interesting idea: being made a larger vessel so that we can contain more without strain, but let's not miss the real point here. Who is making the vessels?

You see? I have in my mind, still, a Maker. A Stress Coordinator. Thankfully, I seem to have internalized this One as benevolent and intelligent. Ungratefully, I reject the idea of a maker. I can hear the family-police outcries at that statement. No maker? Good God!

In fact, the pressure is so great from my family to lie and say that I believe, whether I do or not, that if it came down to it, I would lie to keep the peace. See what I mean about effective police force?

That leaves me without a maker and without a family, however. The pressure is great to buy into what the family believes. Do Islams go through this? Certainly. (But they're mistaken about their religion, my father would add.) Buddhists don't seem to have this struggle. They seem to say, "Believe or not, whatever, but wash your dishes." I am partial to them just for that practicality. But I'm not an -ist or -ian or -im. I'm just an am.

vog and beliefs

2008-04-22T13:11:00.000-07:00

More about vog.

We had a customer in the shop who told D that his fireman friends did air testing of the masses hanging over Kona and they are moisture, not vog. D had the presence to ask a most reasonable question, "If that's not vog, then why am I so grumpy?"

D got a resonable answer, too, "You're right, it must be vog."

But really, if it's not vog, what are these miserable physical symptoms about? What is the darkish haze we see right before our eyes? I like to think that the message got altered in being carried, and the air testers said, "It's mostly moisture." That I can understand to be true.

Who cares? Well, the volcanic gasses are not healthy. If a person can simply fall asleep and die in their car from gas fumes (don't worry, I understand that there are different gasses at work here), then at what point do we all just fall asleep on the island and never wake up? In fact, today is my day off and I'm thinking of just going back to sleep...

The "is it vog" question seems pretty silly to me. But I keep relating this back to some historic events that had people questioning what is real. The first is from a trip to Zimbabwe.

I was sitting at the camp with our camp manager, a woman, and I asked her how people felt about the AIDS problem and so many people dying from it. Her answer was, "They don't believe in it." Her friend dying in the hospital as we spoke went there with a really bad flu. What's to believe or not about AIDS? But it makes change unnecessary if we simply don't believe it.

The second is from my introspection regarding Nazi Germany. I was shocked to realize that many people had pre-indicators that they needed to get out of there. Some did. This begged the question of why others did not leave. I heard in my head all the reasons, "We can't afford to move; to where?; this is our home and all we own for generations is here; no one should be able to chase others away; something will change." and the most befuddling, "This isn't really happening."

Reports are greatly exaggerated. Sometimes. In Nazi Germany, they were not. With AIDS in Africa, they are not. With vog? Well, today is clear. No one is sounding sirens or planning evacuations here (that I know of). But other places on the island have already been evacuated and then repopulated, because, ultimately, we just don't know.

Voggy Daze

2008-04-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

We're still dealing with a vog bank that makes it dusk from about noon until dark. Rains haven't cleared it for more than a couple of hours in the morning. Winds today are stirring the vog cover around. It's up there, hanging around, and making for an interesting mix of physical and emotional symptoms in me.

Physically:

my eyes are producing pumice. I would do well to be resourceful and use it as a microscrub for my face, except that my skin has turned tender with the times.
my lungs are coughing up pumice and acid. It's a chemical peel for bronchial youthfulness.
my sinuses are being weather chiseled into remains of brain-supporting stalagmites and jaw-hinging stalactites. If the abrasion continues, I won't be able to chew or think about how bad that might be.
my body is swollen with anti-allergen stuff in an attempt to take the foreign bodies out to sea.

Emotionally:

I feel like a sack of cement is sitting across my chest and I am a slug for not doing my usual activities anyway.
My swollen body and tingling surfaces lead me to feel alien, not at home in my own body.
I feel misunderstood since no one is going to read this and believe that I'm a pumice producing chemical filter.
I question my own sanity: if it's this bad, why aren't I getting the heck out of here. (Because it's paradise, doggonit.)

Back in the day, I read a book about a jungle adventure with a volcano and they encountered vog in the story and I thought "how cool." Actually, I thought that the author had made up the word and pretty much the idea. Let me assure you: vog is real. It is not cool.

And the poor folks who paid big bucks for a tropical vacation here. I think that I have something to complain about?!

For a satellite image of the vog go to:
http://www.redorbit.com/images/images-of-the-day/img/19601/vog_from_the_kilauea_volcano_in_hawaii/index.html

bookkeeping

2008-04-14T14:06:00.000-07:00

I'm paying homage to the date, being as taxes are due tomorrow. I've been in a flurry of bookkeeping this week. I almost typed beekeeping for book... which is a fine summary of how I feel about the job: stung.

I hate beekeeping. It makes me hurt all over. I try so hard to do a good job with it, but I'm so creative that the math gets really, well, creative. I say that our books are a Monet. From a distance they're a beautiful thing. Up close, they're a mess.

I think what I really mean is that I need to keep my distance from our books.

nothing

2008-04-10T18:38:00.000-07:00

blah blah blah

blah blah

blah blah blah blah

blah

blah blah blah

Politics

2008-04-08T12:31:00.001-07:00

I just read the recent Rolling Stones summaries of Obama's campaign.

Random thoughts:

maybe we can outgrow herd instincts and prejudices. Someone named Osama drops us to our knees but we can vote for someone named Obama to lead us (I got lots of early emails full of ignorance about the name issue...)
bipartisan politics seem like a way to divide a country. Now I'm thinking that narrowing it down to only a few parties, out of our possible millions, is genius.
The election system is ill. If Obama can win using grass-roots organization, I like that idea alone. I don't feel like I've had a vote for years because I couldn't just say "no" to the choices. If I could have voted No all around, would they have had to come up with better options?
If Obama wins by getting people organized and pulling together, he's got a chance as president.
Hilary is scary as a person. It's really too bad she's a woman because she gives us a bad name. A woman has as much a chance to win as anyone. I don't think that gender and race have anything to do with potential. I am only concerned with the spirit of the person running.
If our nation makes note of voting for a black man, we are commenting on how we are still stuck in our prejudices about race and gender.
I am afraid that someone will feel a need to kill Obama ASAP if he wins just because of stuckness. But then, the herd instinct is cureable...
I haven't talked about the other candidate because just looking at the family speaks volumes about their spirits. Sorry I'm judging the books by their covers, but their covers are transparent and I'm judging what I see as shallow, privileged, and entrenched.

I may vote in this election, for a change. I wonder how many of us will be coming out of the woodwork to shake up the establishment?

life in the shadow of a volcano

2008-03-30T12:12:00.000-07:00

Vog

Blowfish lungs spiked inside

hurting to exhale a volcano
blowing glass and ash

lava tubes for anatomy

blowing Pele's hair into eyes

No Vesuvius days
just a tinted haze
over life as usual

wasn't that
what some Etruscans would say?
if they'd had
descendants to repeat it...

but I'm dawdling

writing a poem
about annihilation
instead of going to work

New Age and Old Age

2008-03-18T16:06:00.001-07:00

My New Age friends have been saying the idea that "we create our own reality."

I ask them if that goes for rape, congenital problems, airplane crashes, gifts... and most of these folks say, yes, we create those too. They look puzzled by themselves for saying this, but are determined to see this truth in life.

I didn't really know how to argue with all of this. My sense is that there is a powerful grain of truth in the idea, but the catch phrase "we create our own reality" is dangerous. At best, it is an attempt to feel in control of life. At worst, it is a blame game for suffering.

What if "our beliefs create our truths" is a more accurate statement? Anyone see land mines in this one?

books

2008-03-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

I love to read. I keep several books in my headboard, and try to pick one at bedtime that will inform my dreams. If I don't have such fodder, I just find a good novel or series and devour them instead. Right now my selection in the headboard is as follows:

Energy Addict by Jon Gordon (from Jamba Juice)
A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
The Tibetan art of Serenity by Christopher Hansard
Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner
Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Lusser Rico

and the next in the Scott Westerfield series assigned to me by my daughter: Extras (I'll have to sneak the one before that out of her room since I pretended to read it and now I really want to.)

The book in the headboard that I'm avoiding reading is titled the Sexual Healing Journey by Wendy Maltz. It's so salty that I have to take it in very small bites. It's also not the greatest for reading just before sleep because I have so many nightmares anyway, I don't need to trigger them.

Yesterday I ate up Janet Evanovich's Plum Lucky; and tried to look into Sue Grafton for how to write mystery. But after reading A is for Alibi I'm going to let the alphabet rest, even though I bought a used hardbound all the way to C.

There is a small stack of books on the shelf that I gathered from the used book store and I'll whittle at them as I finish some of my present titles. I want to learn how to write mysteries. I want to write them with a glaze of the romance genre. Is there already the romance mystery genre (a "who's gonna do it?" like Romancing the Stone)?

Death, again

2008-03-05T18:14:00.000-08:00

Being tax season and all, I inevitably think about death.

Okay, so it's a stretch of a reason, but I'm preoccupied lately with the idea that we all die. It's not news. It's not happening to anyone near or dear to me at the moment. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the idea.

Dave Matthew's song "Pig" is going through my head. Here are the lyrics:

pig

By: Dave Matthews Band

Isn't it strange
How we move our lives for another day
Like skipping a beat
What if a great wave should wash us all away
Just thinking out loud
Don't mean to dwell on this dying thing
But looking at blood
It's alive right now
Deep and sweet within
Pouring through our veins
Intoxicate moving wine to tears
Drinking it deep
Then an evening spent dancing
It's you and me
This love will open our world
From the dark side we can see the glow of something bright
There's much more than we see here
Don't burn the day away
Don't burn the day
Don't burn the day away

Is this not enough?
This blessed sip of life, is it not enough?
Staring down at the ground
Oh, then complain and pray for more from above,
You greedy little pig,
Stop, just watch your world trickle away
Oh, it's your problem now
It'll all be dead and gone in a few short years

Oh, just love will open our eyes
Just love will put the hope back in our minds
Much more than we could ever know
Oh, so don't burn the day away
Don't burn the day away

Oh, come sisters, my brothers,
Shake up your bones, shake up your feet,
I'm saying, open up and let the rain come pouring in
Wash out this tired notion
Oh, that the best is yet to come
But oh, while you're dancing on the ground,
Don't think of, oh, when you're gone
Love, love, love, what more is there?
'Cause we need the light of love in here
Don't beat your head, dry your eyes, let the love in there,
There's bad times but that's okay, just look for love in there

And don't burn the day away
Look, here are we,
On this starry night, staring into space
And I must say, I feel as small as dust lying down here

Oh, what point could there be troubling
Head down, wondering, "what will become of me?"
Why concern? We cannot see but no reason to abandon it
The time is short, time, that's all right
Maybe I'll go out in the middle of the night,
And take your hand, look in your eyes, my love
All good things must come to an end sometime

Oh, but don't burn the day away
Don't burn the day away

Oh, come sisters, my brothers,
Shake up your bones, shake up your feet,
I'm saying open up and let the rain come flooding in
Wash out this tired notion
That the best is yet to come
But, oh, while you're dancing on the ground
Don't think of when you're gone
Love, love, love, what more is there?
'Cause we need the light of love in here
Don't beat your head, and dry your eyes, let the love in there
The bad times, well that's okay,
Let's just look for love in here, yeah

Just let the love in there,
Oh love, light up

____________

Okay, I'm not going to light up. But there's some wisdom in what he's saying. My mantra is to shake out this tired notion that the best is yet to come. So, why am I preparing myself for loss? Why am I dealing with the idea of death before it is a reality in my life? Maybe I'm trying to keep from being surprised by it. Or maybe I'm finally outgrowing my teen years and the idea of invincibility? Who knows. Just been thinking about death lately, is all.

ramblings

2008-01-31T23:19:00.000-08:00

I drove to see the folks today. It felt psychologically like Frodo's trip to the volcano to toss in the ring. I love my folks and I hate what happened under their care, both. But they're eighty plus now, and what happened is over thirty years ago. Time for an old lady to get over what a really old man and his old wife did to her. Don't ya think? But, I wonder, what does it mean to "get over"?

I know that my dad raped me. I know that on some level my mom knew what happened, even though I also believe her when she says that she didn't Know. She knows now, and believes me, but thinks that staying with dad will bring him to Christ. Maybe "thinks" is too strong a word for my mom.

You see, my folks are highly polished nice people. They are pleasant to be around, even when they are arguing with each other (constantly). They work hard at being easy to get along with. It's the sheen of them that is so disconcerting to me. Doesn't anyone know it's a lie except me?

For me, to get over it all means that I am able to hold the shiny people and the scratched up truth in my mind together. To get over it means I am able to believe that really nice people do some very f****ed up things. How do I wrap my mind around that?!

I guess I need cognitive stretches to get there, to get to peace with the what is and what was in my life, both.

So, today I enjoyed the folks. I stayed safely numb for most of the time, and so it was cozy in my little private cocoon. It gave me a story idea.

When will I be big enough to contain the opposites without them going rounds inside of me?

Rocks

2008-01-21T20:15:00.000-08:00

Do rocks bathe in the sun? Stretching and expanding with the heat, envying those who get splashed (and battered) by cooling waters? Storing the sun's warmth to ward off night's cold silvers?

Do rocks bathe in the sun? Tickled by insects, crabs, and animals like people walking across, aching where plants split them?

Do rocks need the sun? To fuel the movement of water and air that carve them, to eventually get to move themselves if only slowly, like glaciers. Do rocks know what to do, or worry about what's next?

Do rocks celebrate being chosen for walls, gathered from their field ramblings to join in a semblance of their original forming? Or is cement like a prison for a rock? Do rocks volunteer, or try to make themselves heavier when people pick them to move around? Is it an honor to be called stone? Do rocks fear magma and jackhammers?

Are underwater rocks a different creature from under air rocks like they are from space rocks? Do rocks wish that they could float or fly? Is being thrown addictive and what every rock hopes for when it gets old and small enough? Are rocks that skip on water the magical ones, the shamans of the mineral world?

Do they think that balancing is invigorating? Do rocks feel the inevitability of down?

Death

2007-11-06T14:45:00.001-08:00

The kids' grandpa died, and they went to the funeral. They came back sobered somehow, less fluffy.

A friend came into the shop yesterday, and closed with, "My girlfriend died. Three weeks ago. She was climbing into bed, had a massive brain hemmorhage and died right there in front of me."

I don't know what I believe about life after death. I have a pretty clear picture of us up to that point: we are born and start dying from that moment, while we have a life. Or maybe mid-life is the point where we start the trajectory more toward death than toward life? See, even that I don't really know as a certainty. It's pretty certain, however, that at some point, our bodies end. Their existence in the form we know it ceases and these bodies become a form of dirt.

I don't mind this body becoming dirt. It'll be weird to do it all of a sudden. I'm accustomed to taking in cows and plants, and exchanging accidental dirt, eliminating dirt; I'm accustomed to exchanging molecules with the air. But who is the I in all these exchanges? Is it more than my body that is I?

Shadows

2007-09-04T14:01:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about shadows.

What if crossing over to the dark side means sitting in the shade? What if crossing over means only that you have your feet on the ground and connected to those feet are a cartoon replica of your body shooting along the ground to your side?

Actually, don't we all have two shadows? The shady side of our bodies is one dark side, and the cast shadow is another. If you look carefully, the same happens on the light side (the painter's eye sees this): the illuminated side casts a bright "reflection" on the ground. So, there's the body of us, the shady side, and the shadow, along with our bright side and the glow.

Finding the good and bad is never really so easy as black and white, is it? Which leads me to the question: if transcending duality means integrating opposites, what is the higher view of having a light and a dark side? What is the transcendent view of good vs. evil?

So far, I've come up with one answer: change. Change means that we transition, from night to day to night, from shade to light to shadow, turning, moving, changing.

How about that?

ambivalent maxims

2007-06-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

I've listed my favorites, so now I'll list a couple of sayings that I'm confused about. The confusion comes from the double-edged nature of these ideas, as well as my ambivalence as to whether I've seen them in action in life.

"this too shall pass" While this can be a comforting idea when going through a difficult time, the idea is dangerous for several reasons. It can always get worse. And, even the good times don't last. I don't know that it's much of a comfort to know we will soon be done with something. I'm leaning more these days to finding the life in moments as they come, pain and all (shake out this tired notion that the best is yet to come - per Dave Matthews).
"what goes around comes around" Really, how do we know? I've seen more grace and good turns than any of us deserve, and I've seen some pretty lousy things happen to people who were clearly not on anything like a deserving end. Maybe this one is supposed to mean across lifetimes, in the plural opportunities for justice of reincarnation. Even that explanation is a stretch for a saying that's supposed to be about fairness and balance. I think that we do get what we put out there more often than not. I also think we catch some that has nothing to do with us.

I believe that we make sayings like the two listed above to feel like we can predict and control our life events. It is as if we are telling life when it's been bad, then we're due for good (and vice versa). And if we've done bad, we're in for bad. I just haven't seen life making deals like that. What I've seen so far is that there is a definite imbalance in life. Most of the time it's good. It's so good that we expect it to always be good and are surprised by anything bad. When the bad happens, we think we caused it because it's safer to think that we're still in control than to think that bad things just happen here and there.

The deepest counter-quip I can find to these is the old "shit happens". I'm sure that puts me squarely in a school of philosophy named "defeatest" or mysansopht or kluless. It's just what I've seen so far, is all.

More Sayings

2007-06-01T20:05:00.001-07:00

Life's a beach.

Life can be a beach, but lucky we live in Hawaii...

more random notes about random knitting

2007-06-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

More about free form knitting...

Like stream-of-consciousness writing, I work with two sticks and a ball of string to make a piece of cloth. If I lose my way, so what? If I drop a stitch or start working backwards or try a new way to knit right in the middle of it all, so what?

Oh that life could be more like this. I'd like to change horses mid-stream as often as necessary. I'd like to eat half of dessert first, and then decide if I even want a meal. I'd like to try ideas on for size and see if I can let them go a little later.

But what a mess that would all make. I think it's supposed to be neat, this living thing. The dying gets messy, albeit unavoidable. But to make a mess in my life, when I could control it to tidiness... well, that's an odd idea.

Probably the closest comparison activity to free form knitting that I know of is prayer. Not rote prayer, but the "okay, now I'm stymied" kind of prayer. You just let it all hang out, gather it all together, and try to make something of the pieces. You talk about it along the way, work with it, find new bits of information, search for the missing parts, and tell yourself this is actually fun (because it is.)

Random knitting, as opposed to using a pattern, is akin to taking a 4-wheel drive vehicle off road. There are no maps. Some boulders are too big to tackle. Some washes turn you back. It tests your nerves, your determination, your curiosity, your skills... Sometimes you're sure it's going to be a wreck. But it's all new terrain and there's a silence here because so few are around. And there's wildlife just near if you pause and listen.

Why Freeform Knitting is Bliss

2007-05-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

Here it is. The exhaustive list of how to find your way by landing on something so ideal for you to do that no one can tear you away from it. For me, this week, The Thing is freeform knitting. This list explains why I love it:

it's all about relationships
each piece can be a small "to go" bag with a project for the spaces in-between in life
constant variety and change are good for both the mind and body
it is a way to do product research and development with a wider variety of fibers and tools
swatches, false starts, attempts at new stitches and yarns all become part of the design
eliminate waste: remnants combine to produce a useful end result
there is no "are we there yet?" because the Journey at long last really is the destination
it's painting -- with yarn!
it's knitting and crocheting, weaving and designing
I can use my other arts with it (silver clay formed into buttons...)

maxims

2007-05-21T23:28:00.000-07:00

These are some of my favorite sayings, in order of relevance to my present life:

begun is half done
life is what you make of it
nature wins over nurture every time
never put off until tomorrow what you can do today, which can lead to:

There's too much to get done in one lifetime. Screw it, I'm going to go knit, OR
Enjoli syndrome (I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never never let you forget you're a man, 'cause I'm a [wonder] woman) = lower back pain and a disgust with the rest of the sloths that call themselves human

Number One: "Begun is half done" This is a magical phrase, that when put to use causes all sorts of insurmountable projects to melt into manageable mounds of mush. Unless, of course, I use it when knitting, in which case it is a rationalization for buying more yarn for yet another just-begun project that will possibly be finished in the time it would take me to conceive, give birth to, and graduate a human being (from graduate school.) Ah but the conception part is such a pleasure...

Number Two: Life is what you make of it. This is a brand new one for me. I am considering it for qualification in my quiver of quips. It verges on dangerous in that it smacks of the new age idea that we create our own reality, aka, blame game says you lose if your life includes any suffering whatsoever. There's something to the idea contained in this expression, however, so I'm mulling it over.

Number Three: Nature wins over nurture every time. I threw this one in the list because I pressed enter after number two above and a three popped up to replace the former #3 (now #4). I felt obligated to fill the space. Maybe this one would be more reasonably labeled, "I am highly suggestable", but I came up with the nature/nurture one after asking David to tell me my favorite quotes and he drew a blank.

Number Four: Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. This one prompted the list. I was bathing and debating whether to wait until tomorrow to shave. I was relieved not to assign myself yet another to-do to the coming day.

My list of favorite adages shows that at present, I have made a very busy life for myself. I'd say that I've just proven #3 (nature wins over nurture). Even if I won a lottery for which I've never bought a ticket, I would get myself over-busy with managing or shuffling funds or volunteering, or more likely: sunbathing, beverage preparations, and event planning.

We are who we are. (Number three, but more to the point.)

freeform knitting

2007-05-21T20:17:00.000-07:00

I read a silly little knitting novel and caught a chance comment about freeform knitting.

Then I googled freeform knitting and landed on Prudence Mapstone's website.

If I am to find my way by following my bliss, I think I just stumbled on a big road sign. Freeform knitting (and crochet) is a blast. I am knitting myself silly. My teenage son has his driving permit, and I'm not watching the road because I'm busy creating. I have a tiny project tucked into every corner of my life: in the car, in my bag, in the restroom(s), at my desk, and near the bed (with lighted needles and hooks). In the yarn room I have the mother ship: my first scrumble.

A scrumble is a collection of freeforms put together. I was aiming for leaves and sticks in browns. I ended up with pelts and hides. Oh well! I'm having too much fun to worry over my intended outcome. I am absolutely and completely absorbed by the process.

Look up nirvhana in my dictionary and you'll see a picture of freeform knitting. (well, I'll post one there someday when I get it done.) I love yarn! I love using sticks and strings to make stuff. I love abstraction. This creative vein covers it all.

I'd tell you more about it, but I gotta go knit.

what have I been thinking about?

2007-04-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Capturing thoughts is like catching butterflies.

I have all sorts of wonderful insights and mullings. Most of them occur on the road. I have a small recording device to use when my hands aren't free enough to jot a note. The recorder is in the catacombs of my tote. If I dig for it while driving, I'm risking a coma. My note-jotting books are all in the bag, circling the recorder, bullying it and hiding it from me when I fish for it. If I choose a notebook to jot in while driving, the idea ends up illegible. When I do manage to record an idea, I blurb something like, "Oranges and how peels get under my nails." This surely held perfect, deep meaning when I recorded it, but darn if I know what it's about. Even awake, notes to myself are like taking notes on a dream. When I write the thing out completely, I'm still unsure just what I meant at the time.

No, my ideas must be captured fresh, on the fly. Who would carry a butterfly net in the car and scoop some of the beauties out of the air at a high speed? The odds are against getting anything wholesome, or anything at all. No, catching ideas requires slowing down, making space for them to settle and drink. I really hate that. I want to go go go and have a mind that takes multiple images on the move and makes them clear capturings of events and ideas. I want to hurry up and get it all down.

What is that about, this rush? I'm afraid. I'm afraid that good ideas, or even ideas that hold moisture, will evaporate from me if I slow down. I'm afraid that I'll ultimately have nothing at all to say. And if I have no substance in my writing, who will chew on my ideas long enough to consider them?

And under that fear is the real concern: that without sharing my ideas as they evolve and without getting confirmation that these are indeed ideas worth pondering that I have somehow wasted my life and not done my homework.

How bizarre a way to live. I'd rather play with ideas. I like to take three or so, better if they're conflicting, and toss them into the air. It's fun to do that in front of people. Some folks know how to juggle, so they take the ideas and make them fly in formation. That makes ideas seem less conflicting, less self-contradictory. But the ideas that I toss around are like magnets polarized to oppose. My ideas mix like oil and water. My ideas are that everything both is and is not something else.

How about that?

Was it worth writing down?

Generations and Ideas

2007-01-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

The Greatest Generation is one of my favorite groups of people. It is my parents' generation, which is to say that my folks had me late in life, and I'll be an early senior generation at some point. Their generation, out of all the groups I've met (other than aborigines whom I haven't met), have had more preconceptions to dispel and ideas to challenge than any other group of which I am aware.

I had lunch with a friend from this generation, now in her mid-eighties, to find out her key, her secret to youthfulness in old age. She plays tennis daily, skis, and generally gets around. Her mind is sharp, and her heart is clearly glad. How is this possible?

Over lunch, we all talked about a whole lot of nothing. I waited, and listened. She'd tell me, I knew it, by accident or by my design. I was having a bit of trouble forming the question, however. How do you ask someone, "How did you get to be so old and vital at the same time?" Or, "What's the secret to growing old gracefully?" So, until I had it phrased right, I'd see if the answer just presented itself. It did.

In the midst of conversation, she said, "You know, I love being old." My mother nodded in polite agreement, but I could see that she wondered where this Pollyanna was going. My friend added, "People are so nice to you when you get old."

I had recently come to the conclusion that relationships are what it's all about. Maybe relationships aren't the meaning of life, but they are a good slice of living fully. So, it's tempting to see the "people are nicer" aspect of aging as the secret, but I wasn't fooled. The secret, as told by this friend, to aging youthfully is to love being old!

How very here-now of her. If we are constantly trying to be other than what we are, we drain all of the energy from our present selves. We so easily devalue who we are, really are, wrinkles and all. If we embrace who we are at each moment and enjoy it, we regain the vitality of each age.

So, the fountain of youth is simply a sentence away: I love being old.

What is so wonderful about books?

2006-10-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

It’s the wee hours of the morning. I cannot call even my closest friend; even if someone died. Not only would it be a strain on the friendship, but it goes against my severely reserved nature to reach out in such a way, no matter what.

Books, however, are my constant companion. If I lose my vision, I will have lost a very important part of my life. Books can speak both ways; being a writer has taught me that. I can converse with my chosen friends (authors) from anywhere on the world, from any time period that has been recorded faithfully, at any time of my choosing: because of books! That alone is amazing. I can also write to generations of which I have no idea. Granted, my writing may have to run a gauntlet of testing and censorship and beat some wild odds to make it to print and posterity, but it is still in the realm of the possible. I’ve needed to argue with some of these friends, yes. Some of their writings have seemed so disagreeable to my tightly held opinions that I’ve wanted to throw their work across the room. I did once, and felt very foolish, but the material was so silly that I became angry at having my time wasted. So, I can lose my temper with these friends, and they will still speak with me, steady on. Okay, speak to me, not with... But I can answer, and leave a message for the next reader to come along at any hour, in any country, and have the pleasure of my company. That’s how it works, and it does work. I can also end the conversation at any point, and resume it at any point, or never.

If the writer has captured me, and usually this is with the more imaginative works, then I am apt to neglect the relationships with the moving and breathing people around me for a while in order to give my undivided attention to the person behind the marks on the page. Amazing. I want to be able to write like that. I want my writing to be something that people seek out for comfort and companionship. If not comfort, then clarity and consideration.

So, when next I write, I hope to remember this desire: to be a friend to the one who is on the other side of my keystrokes. To say, “This is the way that I see it. Here’s what I’ve found so far. Let the next ones know what you learn from here on, please...” And even if I am my only audience, my own ideal reader, to have written something worth revisiting. Even if only to entertain myself, I would hope that I am entertained, in both of the processes of reading and writing.

Perhaps I have explained how a love of books is born. A loneliness, many might say. But the fact is that I have a crowd of friends on my bookshelf. Some have passed on, yes, and I have met none of them in person. But they have been true to their hearts, and that is why we are friends. I like the person who struggles long enough to get to the level of honesty required to put some things down on the page. That’s a special kind of character. It’s very hard to lie to yourself in writing; so even the books I wish to throw are witnesses to hard-won truths for the author’s moment in time.

Books are worthy of attention, of consideration, and yes, even of throwing if that seems appropriate. The authors and I are friends out my admiration for their craft. Turning to look at the row of books on the shelf, I think about the number of souls involved in the print found there, and find myself reconnecting with the idea of the oneness of us all. Books are the world-wide web of ideas across the seeming limits of time and probability. That is, what is the likelihood that a Russian from the 1800's would upon demand sit in my living room at 2:15 in the morning and tell me a story when I cannot sleep? There’s just too low of a probability of that happening to say that it’s possible. But with books, it’s not only possible, but commonplace. What a wonder!

Our children have been derided for being the generation of instant gratification due to microwaves, tv, video games, etc. But, I think that the fault lies in the invention of the printing press. From that point on, we became accustomed to a level of access to information and ideas that was previously unheard-of. We cannot lay our blame on each new generation and say, “They don’t know how to wait.” I fully accept and admit that my own generation and many before were masters at practicing the immediate simply by having access to so many books. And what a grand acceptance it is! I revel in it!! My heart overflows with gratitude for the invention of the press, for the authors, for the industry of the printed word, for libraries and bookstores, for my teachers. I cannot wait to read my next good book.

My daughter is interested recently in vampires. It seems that the movies of interest on the subject are limited, so she has been driven to books for more stories. She is losing sleep, staying up reading. My husband told her last night, "All you do is read! Go watch TV for a while."

bipartisan politics

2006-10-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

Black and white. Good or bad. Yin, yang, high, low, republican, democrat, male, female, yadda yadda yadda. Human beings are pattern seekers, and as such we find a means to categorize in order to wrap our minds around ideas. But our hearts don’t think categorically. I believe that politics are a matter of the heart, that they touch our lives where relationships meet. Political decisions affect how I choose to live with myself, how I stretch and grow with my family, and how I reach into or withdraw from my community. The trick is to get harmony into our categorical divisions.

I was asked recently where I stand on a political issue, and was unable to respond intelligently. I didn’t know the latest reports of who said what and what research was showing to be true. I was able to give a gut-level response as to how I feel about the issue in question, but I couldn’t recite dates and people. My questioner sat, mouth agape, flattened by the idea that I dared to be so ignorant. I maintained a calm exterior, but within myself I was more conflicted than I let on.

The other person started laying out his position with clarity and well-formed sequences of events. It was clear that he wished me to be the judge for myself, which was very gracious. My conflict, however, came from my understanding that the words and ideas he presented for me to judge came from somewhere else, someone else. I would not like to be represented by someone else, and yet we do that to people in decision-making positions without realizing that it’s basically a form of gossip. I still don’t know what the speaker felt, intuitively, about all of it.

I have listened to many versions of the communication style that utilizes second-hand reports (he said that she said, or, the paper said that he said), but am continually amazed that people rely on this method to form their opinions. Though a highly cumbersome method, I would rather interact directly with a person before I form an opinion about him or her, including anyone for whom I rally in politics.

Only, there is a big problem with that idea. I think that if we were able to speak one on one or have a day with our law-makers, we’d find that it becomes increasingly difficult to label them as all one thing and not another. I fear that we might find many to be both republican and democrat in their ideas. We might see our hero’s bad side, and the bad guy’s good side. It would get very confusing, and come election time, we wouldn’t know with whom to side. Unless, of course, we remember that even hearing a position statement from the person’s mouth doesn’t assure us of her or his true position. How is a person to be informed? Enter my metaphysical position that we can know intuitively the direction our country, laws, and decisions are taking. Then what do we do with that knowledge? Another radical idea might be that we make subsequent personal decisions with our knowledge in mind. I’m thinking of Nazi Germany. Many people “sensed” or somehow knew that things were going awry. Others, many benefitting from the twists or at least not losing anything by facing a hard truth, refused to listen to their gut. While that’s an extreme example, my point is that we might do well to stretch our gut-muscles and take them for a walk before we need them on a survival level.

So, maybe our problem is inherent in the system of bipartisan politics. By choosing up sides, we create a social schizophrenia that catalyzes differences rather than helps people to pull alongside one another. Take, for example, a benign event such as moving a fallen log from the road. It doesn’t matter what each person believes to be true about forests, roads, or other people for them to be able to lift together, move the log, and be on their individual ways. Of course, one of them would surely need to call the planning office and see why the trees hadn’t been maintained appropriately along the roadside, and another might think that they all should have carpooled in the first place.

The answer, of course, is another political party. It would be the one party under which we can all unify: mine. We can call ourselves the Schmoozers. We’ll make it a policy to not take a clear stand on one thing over another and wait a long time to make a decision. If you’re thinking, “That’s not me!” you can bet there’s someone else out there saying, “Yes, I’d join that party.”

beliefs

2006-10-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

Beliefs are one of the hardest things for us to examine for ourselves. Like faults, beliefs show up in bright colors on another, but appear muted and faint on ourselves. Examining our own beliefs is much like attempting to study our own noses, without aid of a mirror.

This morning I stumbled on a belief system that I have held, and am glad to reconsider. I was thinking that if someone believes that eating something will kill them, maybe hamburgers, that it just might. I went into that thinking because of drinking a healthy juice that tastes nasty... and realizing that I was putting up with the taste in the belief that the juice would keep me healthy. I tend to be pretty skeptical about so-called healthy eating and diets. My particular belief stems from the old idea that it was all called good in the beginning, so it’s all good, in moderation. In my thoughts, I was attributing truth to the idea that belief in something deemed negative (hamburgers) leads to negative results, while I was labeling as bunk the belief that something deemed positive (juices) leads to positive results. That’s a negative belief system I have set up for myself that limits the good in my life and creates a labyrinth of negativity.

But, how do I change my beliefs? It’s my understanding that we develop beliefs out of experiences. It might behoove me to do some experimenting. In fact, I may have already done some experimenting. Maybe I’ve found a well-being from the juice that I don’t get otherwise. Or is the placebo effect? My point is that we hold beliefs so firmly when there are many variables and new experiences out there to help us refine them.

Two fellows were talking about gas versus electric model engines. Their belief is that electric engines are underpowered. They held the conversation while watching a powerful electric model in operation. Their belief is based on experiences from a few years ago, before batteries got fancy. In the present day, they are observing electric model engines which are powerful, but cannot see past their beliefs to process the new information. Such sticky thinking is threatening to me, because I so easily do it. How do we regain flexibility?

Maybe a practice of observation, of labeling what we see in each moment as a new thing, not that same old thing, keeps the elastic in our understanding. Not investing in our beliefs would also help. By that I mean not needing to be right, or correct, or the most astute. Maybe we can regain a sense of play and experimentation and toss ideas around. Maybe we could practice defending the side opposed to our beliefs and see what happens. I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t want to have evidence of a false belief staring me in the face and my preconceptions standing in the way of my seeing clearly.

So, now I’ll play with the ideas that I have held about negative and positive choices. Maybe I’ll have a hamburger for lunch to observe its effects on my body, now that I’ve had the juice for breakfast. I believe that I am safe to say that I no longer hold any unexamined beliefs. Unless I reread the previous sentence.

Driving Meditation

2006-10-26T22:53:00.000-07:00

While our town is in a growth spurt, traffic slows to a painful crawl. City planning and road building that might have anticipated this is now playing catch up. So while the roads are overcrowded, they also have construction going on to remedy the congestion.

I have several options with how to handle the pressure of this forced non-doing. I can rage and rant at being confined to moving in millimeters where once I could sprint. Ask anyone in a wheelchair what such rage can do. It has some potential, but not for me. I can growl at the others on the road and send them sign language of hate. Maybe I can even figure out who was here first. But so what? Someone else was here before me and they let me "in".

I could fret and worry over the cost of gas, the value of my time, our government and city planners, etc. But that gets me too distracted from what is really important: right now.

One time I even tried knitting while in traffic. I wouldn't recommend it. Both the knitting and the driving suffered.

The only useful transformation of traffic time that I have found so far is in doing a driving meditation. It's simple. I breathe in and know that I'm breathing in. Then I breathe out and know I'm breathing out. That's it. I observe the feel of the steering wheel, the sun on my body, the press of the seat on my back. I look at vehicles, people, plants. And I breathe. Upon arrival at my destination, I am ahead of the game by the deep sense of calm and peace that I have gained. Maybe I'm behind on the clock, but I've leapt ahead on what matters to me: peace of mind.

rising market

2006-10-26T19:53:00.000-07:00

Our house could sell today for twice what we paid for it only three years ago. I should be happy.

There are just a few holes in my bliss, however: other people. I'm thinking of the people who sold their homes for a now-pittance just before the market escalated (for example, the sellers of our home.) Are they experiencing regrets and losses at their home? Probably.

I'm also thinking of people who are home-buying -- correction -- home-looking. We could not afford to own a home here now if we were shopping for one.

It's been a pattern in Kona that the prices boom and bust. And I keep thinking that I should somehow be happy about the boom. After all, I could potntially profit from it all (if I cared to camp here or move off island after my home sold.)

What keeps coming to mind are words like fair trade prices and reasonable increase.

Granted, my perspective is skewed by the idea that we bought our house to live in, as a home. I'm sure, as an investor, I wouldn't dare to complain. I guess I just need to complain for all the other would-be Home-owners out there.

The Space Between

2006-10-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

Life is full of wondrous big events. We have our rites of passage like graduations. We have our travels. We have our amusements. These are the stars by which we sail. And we have our times in between the bright spots. Those times are my focus here.
Traveling helps us to see the spaces between in their full potential. While waiting for my transportation, and while being transported, I have crocheted a full lace tablecloth, knitted socks, conversed for hours with strangers, and read volumes of books. Any of those things taken as a project in my fully-scheduled life would have been impossible. In the spaces between, the impossible becomes possible.
It’s the little bite-sized portions of the spaces between that help them to be so powerful. The big things get broken down into small parts that we can tackle. Graduation, a celebration of completion, is the result of four years of spaces between.
I started traveling by seeing only my destinations. After enough experience, I realized that the process is actually the main event. I’ve seen some fantastic places. In between, I’ve seen that people are basically the same all over the world. I’ve found that down time is one of the most awake states I can have. I’ve learned to sit with myself, sometimes for many hours without end.
Cooking for my family, I catch myself expecting the meal together to be the event. Standing and chatting with my kids while dinner cooks, I see that I have narrowed my focus yet again.
Even the pastime of watching people is an activity unique to the space between. I like to see how people react, respond, and move. I really like to watch someone when they are watching someone else. I wonder who might be watching me watch. We are fun creatures.
The space between can be pretty uncomfortable sometimes. It’s the place where we are stuck, unavoidably examining our motives for what we do or say. It’s a place where we become powerless to make our wishes happen instantly, and so we learn how to handle our frustration, discouragement, and impatience. It’s where we learn to constructively amuse ourselves, an increasing concern in our leisure-rich society.
The next time I’m swamped and wishing for some down time, I think I’ll recall the masses of time I’ve spent waiting for the next thing. Maybe somehow I can transfer some of that vastness of time into a busier phase. And vice versa. The next time I’m trapped by waiting, I can remember the busier days when I would wish for a few minutes to just sit and zone. At the very least, remembering will help me to see that nothing lasts forever, and I can count on a change of pace somewhere along the way.
Waiting for a movie, my daughter and I invented a popcorn game. We giggled and fought over the popcorn, almost made a mess, and had great fun. Her giggle is the best. It was in many ways more satisfying than any of the laughs we had from the movie.
My greatest frustration comes when I am in the active phase and I encounter some obstacle that throws me into a space between. My plans are foiled, and I’m unwilling to look for that supposed hidden lesson. I don’t mind lessons, just Not Now. Isn’t that just why the space between is so good? If not now, when?

Consumer Culture

2006-06-26T23:05:00.000-07:00

Americans have been under the microscope as having a consumer culture. We get decadent, we overindulge, we possess and re-possess, and we make regular trips to the store to return with more than we needed. It’s all touted as a very negative thing. But what if...

What if the consumer culture we are seeing is just baby steps in developing skills in manifestation? Maybe we have discovered that the world really is a place of abundant supply, and we don’t quite yet know what to do with that information. It’s possible that we are at the juncture of the thinking that there’s only so much to go around and the evidence that there’s way more than enough out there. What an incredible discovery to see that there is an abundance of resources, if so!

As we start to figure out that we don’t need everything, and we can get pretty much anything, we will see a trend toward simplifying. In fact, there is a trend toward simplifying. Just open any upscale architectural magazine or look at many designer trends and you’ll see spartan furnishings, with a minimum of clutter on open surfaces. We can see a marked change from the kitsch-covered milk crates of the ‘70's. Look at many of the book titles available today: gaining the upper hand on clutter, simplifying your life, less is more.

At the heart of all the flurry around stuff, we can settle into the question, “Does this item help me on my way?” To answer that, I need to have an idea of what is my way. When we don’t know our own way, and don’t feel comfortable looking for it, we tend to buy any and everything that can distract us from the questions and lead us to entertainment. But, without the heart in it, the stuff turns empty, and at some point, we learn that we need to use our magic of manifesting for more than filling our homes. We need to conjur those items that will further our expression of our gifts. Those things are out there, and they are available. We just need the clarity about our way to find them in all the jumble

So, although the decadence is still in full swing, I think that there is hope for the cycle to come around to a very powerful result. As we become adept at using the myriad things to further our growth and skills, we will be able to hand on the secrets we’ve learned. Other cultures and later generations will take the seeds of our experiments and make something beautiful with the abundance. We’ll be able to use the manifesting alchemy to turn gold into gifts.

Routines, Rites, and Rituals

2005-11-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

I write every morning. Well, okay, not Every morning, but nearly. My husband is my witness. Well, okay, not nearly every morning, but nearly every day. Why does it matter that I tell you exactly how often I write? Because it is one of my routines. My writing routine is a way for me to burn off the dross from my creative gold and to get my thoughts and ideas in a semblance of order. Writing helps me to remember. Despite the jokes about memory getting worse as we get older, I have always had a hard time remembering flashes of insight or ideas that merit further play. By writing thoughts down, I get to keep them to look at for a while longer. Writing is my witness. I can see on the page what I am unwilling to look at if it just floats through my day out there.

This routine of writing daily (or very nearly so) has become a source of stability in my rapidly evolving life. I have written through growth spurts and through stuck spots that felt like year-months. In the pen, page, or word processor, I have come to find a reliable spot where I can rest my whizzing gears and idle meaningfully.

Others bicycle, or run, or bake. The what of the routine isn’t as important as having the routine. When we move, if we can’t find our old routine, we’ll find a new one to replace it. Why not be deliberate about that? Why not embrace our routines and choose them mindfully so that they provide us with what we need?

In my teen years, I looked down on habits, routines, and rituals. They struck me as silliness, voodoo, and a way to stay stuck. They can certainly become that. In my utter contempt for rites of passage, I skipped my high school graduation ceremony. However, it felt like a cupboard door was left open to have exited high school and made no mark of the event on my psyche. Not until I graduated from college (and went to the graduation) did I feel like I finally finished school. Since then, I have let go of my haughty estimation of the value of primitive behaviors... I hope.

Now I am working on deliberately developing my own rites and rituals. I have thought of most transitions and changes in my life as good/bad. Now, I want to think of them as simply transitions and changes, to mark them, to give nod to the what-was, and greet the what’s-coming. In fact, I can see developing a ritual for just about anything. Books now are packed with ideas. I seek to find what seems authentic to my experiences. I want to be sure to allow the changes that are passing through my life some recognition. If my arthritis gets painful to the point that I can no longer knit or crochet, I will want to have a letting-go ritual with yarns and who-knows-what so that I can kiss this love goodbye and find a way to visit the old friend in the following days. That feels kind to my self and respectful of a craft I have loved.

The changes that time brings to our bodies has become increasingly apparent in me. I am knocking on that mid-life door that is so feared by many in our society. My body chemistry is changing. As I pondered this a few days ago, I realized that I wanted a ritual to celebrate the letting go of the fullness of youth and to mark the embracing of full maturity. I am aging... will I flip the switch to bummer or choose party? Just the idea of celebrating the changes made me excited about them. I love a party! I thought about a full moon something. Maybe drumming. Then I decided that the new moon made more sense in its darker presence, largely unseen, but full of potential for light. That evening a friend invited me to a drumming circle. Surrounded by the stirred air, thick with the scent of sage and joy, one woman commented during our talk time that it was wonderful to drum on a new moon night... and I knew then that if I am willing to move through each change with an open heart, the world will celebrate with me.

Survival of the Moderate

2005-10-21T23:22:00.000-07:00

Whenever I observe our peak athletes, I think along the lines of the fit getting fitter and the flabby getting flabbier. But I don’t really think we’ve lost the middle ground on fitness. It’s more like fitness is an exotic state that each of us visits at various times in our lives. Yes, some folks live in that state, and others never get to see it, but many of us have tasted its fruits and like it in spite of ourselves.
A runner described how when she runs her legs never get tired, but her breathing gets increasingly difficult. I could relate, but boasted instead, “Actually, my legs never get tired, nor my breathing. But the minute I start to run, then I have trouble with both.” I have thought about doing marathons before. Star Trek has some back-to-back series marathons that especially appeal to me. All silliness aside, I’m not likely going to run for fitness. I might run to get an ice cream cone, especially if it involves haupia or chocolate. I will also walk, however, and for long periods of time on end. Same with swimming. For others, it’s biking, or hiking, or a sport, or even running.
What makes the difference is having a good reason to be active. I’m motivated by the idea of fun. Deliberate exercise falls outside of my field of fun. In high school cross-country, I never could reconcile that we would run out five miles solely so that we could run back. My idea was to stay put and just talk about running, since it would all end at the same place. Fitness for fitness’s sake is as bad a reason for me to do something as eating Lima beans and Brussels sprouts for vitamins. Fun includes enjoyment, discovery, moderation and purpose in the activity.
I walk in order to think. I swim for venting anger, viewing wildlife, and floating out at sea for a bit. I bike to be able to feel like I’m flying, with the air rushing past me faster than it normally does. All of these activities give me the bonus of fitness.
Dieting and our ideas of nutrition still smack of snake oil and elixirs to me. If I eat when I am hungry, and stop when I am full, I am able to maintain a reasonable weight. Also, I let myself be hungry for what I am hungry for, without insisting that I eat a “balanced meal” before I allow myself the desired ice cream cone. The meal is just extra calories that I don’t want: I’ll eat the balanced parts later, when I’m hungry for them. Believe it or not, eating this way does lead to an eventual hunger for salads (it took me a year, after a lifetime of dieting and mountains of salads, but I did in fact crave a salad after that year). Whereas hunger is usually interpreted as dangerous or something to be avoided, eating in this way makes hunger a welcome friend. This friend gives me a very clear message that it’s time to eat. I ignore the message of hunger less at the expense of my health than ignoring the signals for full. Overeating is what kills Americans more than hunger. And overeating on salads or the latest healthy thing is still overeating.
How about the next time we middle-grounders see the chiseled forms of athletes, we stop seeing ourselves as a potential flabolanch? Instead, we can focus on what we already do. What we focus on grows. Doing stairs at home counts, as do hoisting laundry, gardening, hauling groceries and trash, and dancing. Maybe the key is to find the fun and to let that grow. When at last our activities bear fruit, we won’t look like triathletes, but we will be reasonably fit.

Natural Selection

2004-12-26T23:19:00.000-08:00

If you catch a cold these days and decide its time to medicate, be prepared to sit down in the pharmacy isle for some reading and researching. Longs even has a bench of seats available. I thought that those seats were for folks waiting for prescriptions, but now I get it. There is a double rainbow of medicine packages available with infinite combinations of symptoms listed as well as infinite combinations of results. Trying to choose something in such a milieu while in the fog of a head cold is rather difficult. I would even consider buying ahead, except that how will I know my exact symptoms?
Before the wall came down, I visited the bad side of Berlin and saw what the opposite of such abundance looks like. Hole in the wall corner groceries housed empty wooden produce bins, with a few potatoes or onions left in one bin somewhere near the counter. Luxury items such as TVs were sold in the hotel gift shops. No one locally would be buying them anyway.
Having an infinite variety of products available is delightful. Even better is having an infinite supply of money to buy them. But, barring that, I enjoy the hunt. Our thrift shops carry luxurious treasures waiting to be adopted, and shopping is a common form of entertainment.
For the most part, we do a good job of avoiding waste, especially when you consider that the greater percentage of us never have experienced scarcity. Sometimes waste happens. My French toast this morning was served with an ice cream scoop of butter. Much as I like butter, I had to waste most of that one. When we start throwing away individual packets of unused foods, then I feel my hackles rise.
We stayed in a nice place in Africa renowned for its guest buffet. Upon approaching the ample line of food tables, it became apparent that most of the flourish was potted plants, and not at all food. In fact, only the third table in the lineup held the edible items, and that included three soups. The fame of that buffet shocked me into realizing how wildly fantastic we have it in America. Back at our table, the four of us asked our waiter if we could have some bread. “Some bread?” he asked, stalling with wide frightened eyes. “Uh, sure, of course.” He was gone for a while, and came back with a bread plate with one roll on it. We thanked him profusely and cut it into four large pieces.
My parents grew up during the depression. They taught me a few things about making do, doing over, or doing without. Even though I can sometimes afford newer things, I actually like shopping second-hand. Maybe it’s the treasure hunt aspect. Definitely the uniqueness appeals. But I also had to unlearn some things. When I was cutting the elastic off of worn out underwear to save for sewing projects, it took a true friend to point out that I don’t have a sewing machine, nor any intended projects. I had to let the BVD elastic go. Out of the things I throw away reluctantly because “I could use this for something,” only one in ten do I eventually regret tossing. That’s a good enough percentage to help me let go of the stuff. I just hope that I don’t regret it when it all crashes. Even if our economy does collapse, I don’t suppose I’m going to be hunting for that elastic before it has lost its stretch. More so, I don’t want to hang on to things so much that I lose mine.
I never did find the cold medicine I was looking for, by the way. I wanted the one that had a bright bold NEW on the front with fine print underneath which reads, “makes it go away.”

Alternative Medicine

2004-10-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

I went to a naturopath for a cough. This was a weird cough, not something I’d dealt with before, and I was ready for a weird, or less orthodox, treatment. Or so I thought. The good doctor was a gentle person, kind, and with a fantastic chair-side manner. As we talked, he determined a cluster of symptoms that pointed mostly to my diet.
My diet? I don’t diet. I believe that it’s all good, in moderation.
“It’s not all good.” he quietly asserted, amused at my simpleminded approach to life. Apparently there is a hierarchy of goodness in foods. I had forgotten that, having given up dieting for a lifetime of eating when I’m hungry and stopping when I’m full. Until I started eating for comfort and stopping when I couldn’t fit in any of my clothes. That’s about the juncture where I met this doctor, just when I was wondering what I was going to do in order to have clothes to wear.
He put me on a cleansing diet: no dairy, sweets, or alcohol while I had the cough. I was also to limit my intake of carbohydrates. That’s when I started whining, when he mentioned my precious carbs.
I whimpered for a while, “I crave them, my preciousssss.” and he looked at me like I was the golum I had become. How embarrassing! Then I decided he wasn’t going to crack. So I carried on the argument inside myself.
“Two slices of bread are less carbs than a wrap,” he was saying.
“Flatten those two slices of bread with a rolling pin and you have a wrap,” I didn’t say.
“You can use soy, almond, or oat milk.” he continued.
“Why isn’t oat milk a carb?” I didn’t ask.
I have spent the last couple of years unlearning all the shoulds and rules that I grew up with. I decided it was time to question everything and go with a fresh start. I wanted to find for myself what I found to be true. Now here was this official gent telling me some rules, specifically rules that I didn’t want to hear. I also wanted to find my direction in life from within, so hearing this very firm, albeit gentle, directing from without felt forced.
But I had this pernicious cough, and I really wanted to get rid of it. In fact, he did address the cough with some formulas to address bronchial health: liquid dirt, and pills comprised of roadside weeds from the western united states. I smiled and thanked him.
And I obeyed his directives. I took the weed pills and drank the dirt. The cough remained, and I lost an instant five pounds. I decided to give him another chance, and a week later returned to report no relief from the cough. This time, he told me to eliminate wheat from my diet. I laughed, and he didn’t. Well, laughing seemed like the thing to do when he mentioned further dieting. Hadn’t I given up everything already? But no, he wanted my firstborn son: pasta. So I headed into week two, with further eating restrictions and some new medicines formulated for sinus health: pill made of weeds from the roadsides of the eastern states along with liquid sawdust.
I experienced some early relief from the cough, and stuck with the instructions I was given into the second week.
My thinking at this point went something like, “I coulda just gone to my regular M.D. and gotten a pill to cure this thing.” But I didn’t really know that, just wished.
Then I thought, “I coulda just taken a road trip across the states and grazed roadside for what this doctor is costing me.” And I almost kicked myself for not doing that except that I lacked the one element needed for such a venture: time.
And that’s when I realized what this was all really about. I wanted a quick fix. I want a cure that goes from day one miserable to day two well. Alternative medicine is on a slightly longer time line than the mainstream. I suppose the idea is that my body might actually be able to regain balance on its own if I feed it the fuel it needs to do so.
The wait is very uncomfortable because it requires change from me, and I have to ask in that process of change, “Who is this woman I have become?” In grocery shopping for my cleansing diet, I found that entire aisles of the grocery store suddenly became not for me. The periphery of my usual marketplace held a few foods that were in line with my diet, but not many.
My next fear was that I was going to become high maintenance. A woman in a restaurant last night ordered her salad of baby greens and insisted three times that the waitress assure her that the greens were baby. That’s what I mean by high maintenance. I went to Starbucks and ordered a coffee: decaf, soy milk, sugar-free mocha without whipped cream. It would have been easier to order a cup of hot water.
“I don’t want to live like this,” part of me wails. And I wonder if it’s going to come down to a decision completely for or against this new way.
How sustainable is alternative living for me? If I have to shop for groceries that my family will eat at one store and for myself at another, that’s not very likely to happen. It’s also highly unlikely that my family will change their eating habits. If I seem resistant to change from the outside, my family is the ultimate challenge.
I’m tempted to see this as a polarized situation, either I change completely or go back to my old ways completely. Although the good doctor may not like the idea, I wonder if there isn’t a middle ground. Can I graze on weeds from the midwest roadside as well as the grains from the same region? Maybe it was right for me to see it as all good, but I just forgot to exercise moderation. What do we do when we hit a situation that seems to demand either/or and we can see both sides?

Kailani

2004-01-26T23:17:00.000-08:00

The ocean and I first met each other in Coronado, California. It was cold there, and gave me a bit of a shock. My feet ached as I ventured further out, little by little. I didn’t often go more than waist deep, too achy from its cold presence. Much later, in Mexico, we met again on warmer terms. The water was inviting, and I learned to ride its waves with just my body. I also learned to let it support me, as I floated in a full suspension by warm salty swells. It became a lullaby to my soul to rest on ocean waters and rise and fall with each wave. Our next rendezvous was in Hawaii, where I fell in love with the ocean. I played in waves that were nearly out of my range of skill, and I often simply sat on the rocky coast and watched the water play on the lava. My sorrows and joys seemed to break along the shore, passing as quickly as each wave. I simply watched from my observer position, and allowed tears or laughter to roll by. The ocean remains indifferent. When winds are big, its waves are big. It can be calm as glass and seem as nurturing as a womb. It can also be terrifying, developing giant waves and housing creatures of monstrous proportion. Whether serving as a metaphor for emotions, the depths of our minds, or a mother, the ocean cradles my heart in a wonderfully neutral suspension of both adventure and gentleness.
I sometimes swim out from the Kailua Pier, paddling over a coral garden of wide variety. Each time I see something new. My courage has grown. After nearly half a year of sitting on rocks at spots here and there, wishing I had the courage to just swim off from a protected spot, I finally took that leap of faith. It was an empowering moment when I looked back to see that I had made it out without being dashed on the rocks. An oldtimer told me about the cove where I entered the water, the underwater landforms to be seen as I swam out (a stone arch, then a long bench of rock and coral to explore), and the direction of the prevailing current, but failed to mention one thing. I explored and played and delighted in this expanded territory until I decided I was ready to come back in. That’s when I realized that my informant had forgotten something. How was I supposed to get back out of the water onto the rocks? Because it was a glassy-water day, it was no big deal. I scoped out the easiest exit point and made note of where it was for the next time.
Adjusting to breathing under water goes against every instinct a human possesses. For that reason, snorkeling and diving may need to be learned as a process for some of us rather than an event. It is unnerving to leave your natural element entirely and to go against the ancient survival instincts of our species. Once mastered, diving of any sort results in access to a wonderland to behold.
Ocean water is a living environment. It is impossible to replicate true sea water. Sometimes when I float, I feel the air on my upturned palms and fingertips. The air feels like an elastic bubble. When the sun comes out, it feels like a hot bubble. I wonder if that’s how fish out of water feel about air. Coming up toward the air from below, waves look like a bubbly surface, billowing like clouds. I wonder if fish that swim way out to sea get freaked out by seeing nothing but open sky above the air out there. Then I get my feet back on the ground.
Flying back to the Big Island one day, our aircraft turned in just such a way that my porthole captured only land for my view. Instantly I had a sad feeling of being land-locked. I wasn’t raised near the sea, but apparently I was meant to grow there. I am at home both in and on the sea.

Tall Tale

2003-10-26T23:23:00.000-08:00

I am a tall woman. Actually, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I am a very tall woman. Folks often stop chatting when I walk into a room. I get the head-foot-head scan. That’s when they look at how high my head is in the air, then check my feet for high heels, then check my head again to be sure it really is way up there. The scan takes only seconds, but it can be a bit longer for normal conversations to resume. For the longest time I wouldn’t cut my hair short for fear that people would think I am a cross-dresser, as if that really mattered. It’s been a long road to reconciliation with my height, but I think I’m nearly there.
Body image is a big marketing tool. We all want to look a certain way. We can predict that the desired look consists of anything other than how we already look. We apply our discontented thinking to all features possible on the human form, hair curliness or color, height, weight, features, figures, even hands and feet. To compare and covet (or strut) is a natural human process. It can also get quite out of hand.
Better yet is a delight in our differences. If this sounds like celebrating diversity and you want to run screaming, calm down. I’m talking about delighting in how I am different from you; how being tall can be fun and not just shocking. I’m talking about whatever differences you possess being your special possessions for the period of time that you wear your body.
“How did you get that tall?” People will sometimes ask me. I have a stock pile of responses, but some of my favorites include, “Well, I was born six foot and then grew two inches.” Or how about, “I drank lots and lots of water.” Now really, how on earth am I going to know how I got to be this tall? All I know is that I stood in the back row of all my school pictures, but I wasn’t that much taller than everyone else. Then, they all stopped growing and I just kept on. My late growth process may account for my uncharacteristically straight posture. I don’t feel a need to slouch just because nearly everyone else is shorter than I. What a silly notion that one is. That’s like short people thinking they need to go everywhere on tiptoe.
Tall women who are much older than I often comment on how nice it is to see that women are getting taller. I can’t help but wonder what the population will look like if I’m saying that to a taller young woman when I get older. Wow. Watch out Barbie.
The basketball question is by far the most irksome, mostly because it goaded me into trying to play basketball. In high school, the coaches looked at me with a dreamy glow until I joined the team. Shortly thereafter, I think I caught one crying. I’d never had to jump for anything in my life, so new muscles had to be developed. Long after everyone else had gone home from practice, I stayed in the gym jumping to try to touch the bottom of the backboard. Jumping was as foreign a concept to me as was using a ladder for reaching anything other than the roof. The top of the roof.
Inevitably, very short women and I end up in height conversations as well. We compare the relative shortcomings and benefits of our builds, and usually close the conversation with my promise to share some leg with the lady if God ever decides to stop messing around and distribute height more evenly. I’ve made that promise so often that I will someday be one inch tall.
A tall friend of mine told me he was going to start wearing a badge that read “6’7” No Fine” for how tall he is, if he plays basketball, and how the weather is up here. My favorite response to the rude question of how the weather is up here is to spit on the person and tell him its raining. I haven’t yet gotten up the nerve.
I hear people reporting that they get shorter as they age. At last, I have found a reason to look forward to getting old. Even then, I am what I am. You see, all my buddies will have gotten shorter as well.

Department of Frustration

2003-10-26T23:07:00.000-08:00

It can happen anywhere, in the grocery store line, at your doctor’s, and even at home. Someone with a label, such as, “assistant,” doesn’t do what the label says. It looks like the person is doing his or her best to perform a job, but it simply is not the job that is described. In our example, this “assistant” may create more difficulties and obstacles than were there at first. So it is with our Department of Education. I am going to call it by its real name here, the Department of Frustration, just so we don’t get confused. Within the DOF is a spelled-out hierarchy of who gets to do what. (It’s also within the prerogative of that person not to do what they are labeled to do, so this thing has layers, like ogres and onions. Gosh, lots of similarities come to mind.)
Our DOF brings teachers from the mainland (mightily reluctantly, it appears), and has them live and work here for a several months before they will pay them. I’ll bet that none of us established islanders could do that comfortably, and that’s without having the added concerns of moving expenses and all that. If you have friends or relatives thinking about teaching in Hawaii, you would do well to warn them so that they can plan accordingly. A pay delay of at least two months is almost guaranteed to happen. Mind you, this isn’t a deliberate or planned thing. It’s just part of the frustration. And we really, really need teachers.
Purchasing and contracting are so labyrinthine and spelled out as to mock the most retentive of us. Janitor’s shoes must be purchased through a series of steps, developed by the Union with the DOF: 1. Janitor puts in a written request to shop for shoes. 2. Janitor finds DOF approved shoe distributor. 3. Janitor goes to distributor and writes down the model number of the desired shoes. 4. Janitor puts in a written request to purchase the shoes. 5. Janitor waits for the DOF to get his shoes for him. 6. If Janitor’s shoes cost more than $75.00, a new procedure must be followed by which she pays the difference.
When I purchased reimbursable items for the schools with my debit card and provided receipts, I was paid back after two months. Except for the third time, when the DOF sent notice that they needed my personal credit card statement to show that I had actually paid for this purchase. Nevermind that they had reimbursed twice before. Nevermind that a debit card is like a check which immediately deducts funds from the account. After explaining these things over five conversations, I got my back up on that one and decided to donate the stinking supplies. Apparently, however, the DOF cannot have unresolved paperwork. After half a year of requests from the school offices for my credit card statement, I found a reimbursement check squeezed into my mail.
Our DOF brings administrators from the mainland (profoundly reluctantly), and has them go through a two year training program called Administrators Certification for Excellence to become administrators. Not training for excellence, mind you, certification. Experienced Superintendents and Vice Principals, along with the promoted ranks, are put in sub-zero refrigerated classes that have been thrown together for the initiate. For random local meetings, monthly weekends eighteen times over two years, and two solid weeks in the summer, our school administrators get to wear winter parkas through a windowless gauntlet of intellectual hazing and initiation routines similar to those banned on college campuses.
A Principal (“trainer”) pulls up next to a Vice Principal (“ACE”, mainland superintendent) in the summer school parking lot, raps on the window, and advises, “The ACE’s are to park in the dirt in the back.”
The rules for the two week training are written, including, “Family visits are not allowed.” In America! As taxpayers, we are funding plenty of electricity and travel expenses. Our tax dollars may be pretty safe, however. For the employee to receive per diem reimbursement requires presentation to the DOF of a completed flight coupon – you know, the thing you have to hand over to the airlines to be allowed to board the aircraft. The reason stated for this procedure is to be sure that the person really attended. Why not just catch the flight and never bother to show up for the aggravation? Two weeks of training administrators in school procedures, and nobody thinks to take attendance? They figured out that one mid-training this year and revised the rules, so we’re still out the money. The ACE training is a deliberate and planned event. We have 142 vacancies listed in the islands for administrators.
Where does all this leave us when each August rolls around? Our kids do their best to follow the instructions, the teachers do their best to instruct, the administrators to administer, and the DOF to… well. All concerned parties at the bottom of the DOF hill: students, parents, teachers, a chorus of support personnel and volunteers, and school administrators, are to be commended for their perseverance and dedication to learning in spite of the Department’s actions or nonactions designed to make learning stop (all verbal intentions to the contrary.) The system is broken, and yet the brave souls in the schools are still managing to do education.
A proverb reads, “They grind up my people like bread.” This obscure phrase clarifies how people get used up by the system. Employees are like a grain of wheat that can either be planted and nurtured for a greater future harvest, or ground up and eaten to satisfy an impatient appetite. Those at the school level of the education system get run through the mill every time.
A current Hawaii school administrator says that I’m putting things too mildly and have hit only a few high points in the stupidity. If you ever wonder why we have trouble keeping people in the schools, consider that the kids are the best part of a job in education. Everything behind the scenes has completely forgotten the students. When we expect Education to come out of a Department so well oiled in Frustration, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. “The system is NOT broken.” DOE advocates (board members) assert. The system is so deeply entrenched that it now is attempting to perpetuate itself through dominance-based pecking order routines established to keep the workers in line. In one way it is true that the system is not broken. It is highly effective and is excellent at what it does: Frustrate.

Something in the air

2003-10-26T22:59:00.000-08:00

I almost gave up on traveling in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. It wasn’t due to fears. It was due to having to jump through so many hoops to get on a plane. Living on the islands isn’t conducive to avoiding airplanes, however, so I just got over myself and went through the routine. Our security procedures have morphed several times since inception, with the latest version being the new Travel Security Agency.
Sometimes I am required to remove my shoes. Sometimes it’s okay for my laptop to go through the screening. Sometimes I’m instructed to keep my shoes on and to hand my laptop to someone personally. I’m fond of the game Simon Says, so I play along. They’ve gotten me a few times, though. One time Simon didn’t say for me to take off my shoes. I hope that randomizing procedure keeps the bad guys guessing.
I keep wanting to tuck into my suitcase a pair of handcuffs and a whip. But I always talk myself out of it by realizing that I’m too busy getting my body on the plane to be able to know when to watch while a TSA agent maintains composure over my suitcase contents. Besides, I’m not going to waste either my money or prime suitcase real estate.
If you type “Airport Security Hoopla” into your internet search engine, you’ll get some interesting perspectives on what we do to keep planes safe. I learned about the TSA there. I’m hoping that all the folks who were doing the screenings before the agency was formed are now working for the agency. I hate to think of anyone losing their job over all this. That would just be another way the terrorists win.
Speaking of jobs, I try really hard not to harass the screeners (schemes of making them blush excluded.) That would be like killing the messenger for giving me a message I didn’t like. And they’re pretty good about not harassing me back. Any sort of policing job has got to be a publicly-challenging position.
Where this will end is anyone’s guess. They have eased up considerably now, even letting passengers touch the airplane. The next attacks, if there be any, will likely come in such an unexpected form that it’s hard to say that the screenings are worthwhile. But I’ll abide by the rules all the same. It’s just that I can imagine the destructive side of human ingenuity developing weapons made of other materials than metal and in sizes too small or flat to be detected. Ah well, that’s just a product of too many movies, I suppose. But then I remember the communicators on the original Star Trek series being way out there as an idea when I was a kid. Now the airlines have to beg passengers to shut off their communicators during take off and landing.
The greatest screening tool at our disposal is human intuition. In his insightful book, The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker spells out how folks know beforehand that something bad is going to happen. Usually, the reports are from victims after the event, telling of the slight of hand, the look, or the feeling that something was wrong. There are multiple telltale signs that, if we are willing to trust ourselves, are detectable by our highly accurate insight. Fear is not the enemy. Terrorism, by its name, seeks to debilitate by creating fear. That’s a problem for the bad guys because fear is smart, when used as an intelligent gift.
I was surprised when my crochet hook was allowed through this last airport screening. I knew that knitting needles were likely out of the question. But, how secure are we really? Didn’t they realize that I might intend to crochet an Afghan?

Soda Pop

2003-03-26T23:16:00.000-08:00

Back in the days before diet sodas, the range of beverage selection was pretty straightforward. Mostly, you chose by color, and hoped that flavor could be imagined along with the color. Then the diet colas arrived. Tab was my favorite, and I got addicted. It’s not been on the market for a while, and I wonder if there was a secret ingredient (no, I didn’t have a kava with my java this morning.) Then the decaf diet sodas came along, and I waited to for the next step: non-carbonated. If you have a decaf diet noncarbonated beverage, what do you call it? Water. My grandmother would have laughed to think that anyone would pay for a bottle of water. “People will buy anything.” It would be like us imagining people buying canned air. I will resist making any paranoid comments about that one, and note that in the computer world such an idea is not out of the question.
I was raised where we called the bubbly koolaid “pop.” I went to college where it was called “soda.” In the movies showing rural America, they make it sound like the whole United States used to call it “soda pop,” but I haven’t found where that happens yet.
My uncle bottled Dr. Pepper way out in Texas during all of my childhood years. When Uncle Don came to visit, there was extra cause to celebrate. He didn’t believe in homes without Dr. Pepper. Since our home was a soda-free zone, this was a rather intoxicating influx of good stuff into our lives. The bottles, in the early years, were marked with a label showing 10 2 4 . Uncle Don explained that was to indicate the times in your day to stop for a Dr. Pepper. Not a one of us kids disagreed with that idea. Then the cans came along, and the numbers on the label became a trademark of the past. The best indulgence was when it got cold out and Uncle Don would fill a saucepan with Dr. Pepper, lemon and orange slices, and heat the stuff until the bubbles just stopped popping. He’d pour us each a cup of the warm concoction: Hot Dr. Pepper… the supreme treat in my winters.
Because I’m a full-on caffeine addict, I have to monitor my soda intake. This has helped me to realize how much a part of everyday life soda has become. In Africa, they call their convenience stores a “Bottle Shop” for bottled sodas. They still use bottles there, beat up and etched by the past hundred years or so of use. You cannot leave the premises with your soda, but must drink it there and return the bottle when done. To do differently would be as criminal to them as us leaving a restaurant with our drinking glass. They do have cans, but they are the heavy gauge aluminum we used years ago, with a seam and all. Nobody is crushing those against their forehead.
The beverage market has boomed. Our stores have a very large array of liquids in the refrigerated section. And we are coming up with new ones every day. I’m thinking I’d like to try a ginger limeade, li-hing lemonade or lilikoi lemonade, and how about a sassafras tea? Our home refrigerator has containers of milk, juice, lemonade, and iced tea. The kids will open the door of the ‘fridge and ask, “Don’t we have anything to drink?” They mean sodas, of course. I answer, “Just water.” (I’ve hidden the diet Dr. Pepper.)

Kava

2003-02-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Kava isn’t as addictive to me as caffeine. I’m an occasional Kava drinker, enjoying the atmosphere as much as the effects. But I always feel a nibbling foresight that our days of Kava bars are numbered. Maybe Kava brings on bouts of paranoia?
The procedure for drinking Kava is more ceremonial than what I know of it to tell you about. The parts that I know about include stirring up a huge wooden vat of mud, scooping a portion into a hollow coconut shell, clapping twice very loudly to help all your nerves rise to the surface, and then downing the nasty-tasting stuff before you lose your nerve altogether. At that point you can order a second cupful (the first effect of kava must be a shorting-out of linear logic: ooh, tastes bad, order more.) This cup you sip while your tongue gets really weird. Your lips feel fluffy and your body doesn’t ache as much as it used to, a long time ago. Like fifteen minutes ago.
I was first introduced to kava as a vitamin-like capsule. It did a great job of taking the edge off of high stress situations. Packaged kava has never given me the tongue effects, probably due to the difference in sheer quantity. I have been told that if you drink enough of the stuff, you start to hallucinate. I haven’t been able to get past the flavor thing well enough yet to go on my vision quest.
The weird tongue thing is difficult to describe. It’sth justh that ith ftheels stho muth thicker. And moothsier. Your tongue ends up out there. Whereas it’s a part of human anatomy about which we normally remain happily unaware, with kava a tongue grows to king kong proportion. To talk feels like you need better flight control. But it’s also okay with kava to just sit and listen. In fact, part of the whole ceremony is to have a good talk-story session while you relax.
Nobody gets funnier because of kava, either in their own estimation or yours. That’s a welcome omission. And it’s supposedly okay to drive your car home. Generally, my first kava is also my last when I have some, so I think I’m roadworthy, as long as I don’t need to control the vehicle with my tongue.

Java Jive

2003-01-26T23:14:00.000-08:00

I kicked coffee, again, for the second time now. Not exactly the thing to be telling a Kona readership, but I’m willing to admit my powerlessness over the jumpstart juice. Coffee and Kava are surely two substances that the FDA hasn’t realized that I need them to regulate. They’re two of my personal favorites. But the joe had to go. Rather than maturing over the years into a mellow Labrador-mix disposition, I was wiring up to purebred poodle. It wasn’t pretty, being 6'2" and yappy. I folded things for fun, fast. I laughed louder than necessary. I could hear my muscles and joints going, “Zah zah zah.” I smiled for no reason.
Getting a decaf cup of the fancy stuff this morning, I reflected on how involved our coffee routines have become. It’s like a tea ceremony, on steroids. I order my jumbo (yes, the official word is grande) unplugged (decaf, of course), and pay. Before I close my wallet, the man behind me is calling out his order, “I want a tall…” and I turn to walk out of his way at the counter. He looks at me, my height, actually, and is cut short (his words) by a perceived faux pas on his part. Thankfully, he didn’t go into the I didn’t mean you, where I have to answer, I didn’t think so, and the downward conversational spiral that would follow. He just didn’t finish his order. In fact, he waited until I found a seat around the coffee counter, out of sight. That man needed some coffee.
This same guy happens to be standing at the receiving end of the process when my cuppa comes out. “Grande Decaf!” the barrista announces. The man reflexively backs away from the cup that lacks caffeine. He might have hissed at the cup, but I didn’t hear for sure. I stand to get my psychological lift, and he backs even farther from the counter. It’s alright, buddy, this nightmare will all be over soon.
I sit back down, and try to focus on my scone, but he has become too fun not to watch. “Tall Latte!” His remedy comes down the chute. “Did you say small?” He looks at his cup with disgust, looks over at my taller cup. “Hey, did you say small or tall?” The barrista has seen this before, “It’s a tall, sir.” His body language says, how come the tall lady’s coffee is taller than mine? I want to tell him that the tallest is called a Grande, but I’m thinking that he needs to find his own way in the world. I sympathize with his disappointment because I once thought a pot and a half wasn’t quite enough. The jumbo decaf is residual of that habit. He stumbles on to the rest of his day while I crumble my scone into bites that I can savor with my pretend coffee.

Divisions

2002-10-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

Living down at Alii Villas for a year, I had the experience of listening to the jack hammers that cleared the way for Alii Lani. I work from home, so I heard this for some long daylight hours, six days a week, just like all the other tenants, and just like the folks using those tools. One of my neighbors, driven to illogic by the persistent pounding, blurted, “It should be against the law to make all that noise.”
“How quietly do you think our building got made?” I countered.
“Well, yeah, but… this is enough now. They don’t need to keep building.”
And so the sentiment goes. It may be a deep down gasp when we realize that another subdivision is going in. It may be a deep down belief that this was our ancestor’s land. Along with these thoughts, we add curiosity about the new homes, and consider hopes for our children to live somewhere nice. Next comes the bewilderment at how it grew to this.
Let’s look at the way our race (human) does these things. My kids are a good example. With two bedrooms for three children, having dibs on a room didn’t work. They had to hash out arrangements and discuss options. If they hadn’t all moved to our new house on the same day, I guarantee you that somebody would have claimed a room solely on, “I was here first.”
Using “getting here first” as a basis for ownership is problematic. It includes the idea of getting here, which hints at everybody once being the new guy, even if that was way back when. Obviously, treating the new guy as we want to be treated doesn’t work when the new guy just comes in and takes over. In the same way, a new takeover doesn’t repair an old takeover.
Because the American nation has a penchant for taking over, we solved how to do this (with each other, at least) a bit less bloodily. We now require the new guy to use money and the old guy to want the money more than his dibs. I have no comment on the system’s problems. I only wish to say that this is now how it’s done, and can be done by a determined anyone.
The point of such a discussion is to say that we all want our children and grandchildren to live well. Determining rights to livable places based on any sort of dibs will harm more people than it could help.
I love open spaces, likely we all do. There’s nothing like time in the wilderness and places of profound silence. Sometimes I get to enjoy them. All the time, here or there, I am connected with all creation by more than blood. We share the air. I am also connected with the earth by more than gravity. In the words of the Desiderata, we are all children of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, and we have a right to be here.

Feasting

2002-07-26T23:11:00.000-07:00

I enjoy eating out. It’s one of the luxuries in my life that has remained constant despite my changing tastes. I have tried most all places, upscale to hole in the wall to experimental. I’ll eat just about anything once, and twice if it’s good.
I have to wonder about those places that serve tiny portions of food in a pool of sauce. They pour the sauce on the plate, not on the food, drizzle in another colored sauce, and then scribble on your plate. Then they put a pea in the middle, garnish it with a stick, and send it out to you. Maybe there’s a subliminal message written in the sauce that says, “You’re not feeling hungry.” Maybe the stick garnish is so that you can write back.
They have to write the sauce names in French because we lose so much in translation (and comprehension.) Who wants a red butter sauce? But buerre rouge sounds much more mysterious. Besides, you don’t have to sit and figure out what they used to make it red. In Germany, a Chinese restaurant had to double translate to get to English, so I ended up ordering something called “dead chicken with black fungus.” I just had to see what it looked like, even if I never took a bite. It was chicken chow mein.
The more upscale steak houses give quite a presentation. They wheel a cart of vegetables to your table, to show you the evening’s selection of side dishes. Nevermind that you just paid for a fifty acre cattle ranch in the desert Southwest by ordering their smallest steak, you still need to eat your vegetables. For eight dollars a spear, you can get asparagus on the side. And so it goes. You can choose from potatoes large enough to serve Ireland (and at about the same outlay as the whole country), carrots charged to make you squint, and beans priced per.
Some of the pomp is pretty hard to swallow. At times like those, I find myself fondly remembering my last corn dog and lemonade.
Waiting tables is a challenging job. Think multitasking on steroids. I always feel a bit apologetic about asking someone to wait on me, until I remember that it’s their paying job. I suppose the tradition started back when people had servants. In our buffet and self-service world, being waited on sometimes feels a little strange. But if it helps somebody to get their bills paid, well then alright. As they said in Maid in Manhattan, we are trained to serve, but we aren’t servants.
My husband and I generally share a meal. Portions in most mid-range restaurants are plenty for two, especially with dessert. That way, we can afford to eat out twice as often, and we have room for dessert.
When I’m completely hungry, there’s nothing like a good mix plate. Talk about a meal to leave no room for dessert. These are the places to go if you are facing or just came from a hard day’s work.
Family feasting is the best, of course. My brother and his wife buy disposable plastic containers before they host a pot-luck. Then everyone gets a take-home buffet after the event.
When my hunger is small, I butter a tortilla and warm it. I’m pretty sure that it just doesn’t get much better than that. Since a buttered tortilla can be so satisfying, I get a better perspective on upscale fussiness. We get hungry for novelty and search for more and more, and fancier and fancier, without remembering the wisdom of the ages that less is more. Remember how it is to bite into a really good apple?

Living the Wild Life

2002-01-01T23:26:00.000-08:00

They got it right when they called the outdoors great. Although it often feels very much like the wilderness is shrinking, I’ve been in enough boonies to know that there still are boonies to be found. With such outlying places comes a certain inevitability of adventure. That’s part of why I think being outdoors is so great.
I might as well admit from the start that I spent a good fifteen years as a hunter. For those of you that dislike such things, you can rest better knowing I’ve turned in my rifle for a camera. For those of you who might appreciate my experiences, you can know that I fed my family alright and got some big ones.
We started each morning before light, drinking cups of instant coffee at the African fire pit more for warmth than to wake up. One particular morning I must have been extra chilled, because I drank a fair share of joe. As luck would have it, that was the only morning we didn’t take any breaks or stops. After six hours of driving in the bush, I was squirming, but I wasn’t about to be the first to ask for a break. I was the only woman in a truck of six men. Right when I thought I couldn’t tough it out, we stopped. The guide had spotted an elephant, and everyone got out their glasses to take a look. We weren’t hunting elephant, but it was the first we’d seen. I was equally amazed, and… I really needed to step out for a minute. The guide gave me a distracted go-ahead, and I dashed away. Little did I know I had dashed into the brush where the elephant intended to go. A couple of minutes later, a rustling of gigantic proportions alerted me to the convergence, and I departed my ground-level WC at a run. My khakis had made it only a bit above my knees as I ran back to the truck, which I could easily make out by the flashing of twelve binocular lenses in the sun. The guys were awfully quiet when I made it back to the vehicle, until I started to giggle. Compared to being squashed by an elephant, exposing myself to a truckload of hunters was the small stuff.
Such experiences change a person. Where before I would have thought about a messy public restroom with “good grief!” I now greet even the messiest with, “A Commode!” I’m more grateful for real coffee, as if that were possible.
Out and about in nature, I think about how elemental our world is. If I needed to make something right there and then, I have sticks, rocks, wood, plants, and dirt. Basically, out of those things plus water and petroleum (with some fire thrown in), we have shaped our world into how we know it today.
Being out for a while reduces me to thinking about what is essential. There isn’t a whole lot that I really need in life: Water, shelter, food, and companionship. Some might argue against this, but having a perceived purpose really isn’t a basic need. I enjoy a life rich beyond having my basic needs met. I fear becoming someone who thinks she needs all the beyond.
Anywhere on the globe, a simple hike with my walking stick gets me into the outdoors frame of mind. For this to work, there are some requirements such as a lack of pavement and relative quiet. I don’t have to go far or be gone long to feel like I’ve connected with something wholesome and primal. The longer treks out of doors tend to bring on realizations of how far away from a natural state we have gotten in everyday modern life. But then on the longer treks, my hunt begins afresh for a manawanalua bush (any shrubbery of sufficient size and density so as to conceal my person.) I guess everyday modern life has its benefits as well.