I had no furniture then, and the trunk was given to me when I made the move cross country. It still safely holds my silk-screens, relics of a previous life. Having no furniture then was easier than now having to rearrange the mostly useful but eclectic assortment accumulated somewhat on purpose and somewhat by chance. Donating what clutters and crowds gives me lots of exercise, and at day's end the treacherous hits on my body are more than a memory. But there's also a felt lightness of being.
So I am relearning (again) the lesson that gets lost when I'm lazy and too comfortable. Things in my living space were placed conveniently enough and functional, but now that I've moved the trunk twice in three days, I am surprisingly pleased and find the new plan the best so far. And the bookcase also seems so much better in it's new location, making me wonder why it took me so long to move it. But now, overall, a sense of accomplishment animates me, probably because in downsizing I am also beginning to feel a very notable advantage: greater ordering of the "stuff" surrounding me means I will actually find things more easily!
And I do know that what worked well for me perhaps looked odd to anyone else, especially sticking my bed there by the window, so I have reluctantly moved it. But I love seeing the starry, starry night before I sleep, and hearing rainfalls, and tracking clouds, and feeling gentle breezes and waking to the dawning day. (Sleeping farther from my wonderful windows really is a lamentable deprivation which may indeed become intolerable!)
Nevertheless, tossing, shredding and discarding allows some hope of simple order. (I think it'll also reducing my carbon footprint but don't know exactly how that translates. ) Besides, it would be a chore to move everything anywhere else, and extremely embarrassing to think of leaving truckloads of things behind when I die, things of little value to anyone else. So here's hoping I can keep a forward momentum and then savor the victory of finishing what I've started. Admittedly, there's more to it than meets the eye (e.g. my garage!) but at least there's a working plan!
Good chess players may think five steps ahead, but that's not easy for someone who only plays checkers. Nevertheless, the game has begun, and though I need timeouts to catch my breath, that's mostly to regroup - not to quit. Picture that scene from Arsenic and Old Lace when the Teddy Roosevelt Brewster character rushes up his San Juan Hill (stairs) exclaiming: "Charge!" It was a crazy scene, but not without purpose, eh? I'm not sure if he was going up or down the stairs. I think he was going up! So the travel trunk will stay in it's perfect location (for now) and, for fun, I'm adding that old movie to my Netflix Que!
Deception Pass Madrones
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Radiant and Unabashed
It's good to have goals. I've never articulated any "five year plan," but realize that certain decisions necessarily put me on a path to carry them out. And the most difficult decisions, the ones that have been hardest for me, never came overnight. Lots of procrastination and other "things" went into the mix, and percolated or ripened into something that became really, really sparklingly clear. Then when the pieces fit together, and confusion about conflicting options was dispelled, I could put my hand to it.
Ideally, it'd be great to say I've always moved forward radiant and unabashed, but a review of the facts suggests that maybe unabashed is all I can claim. That time my flight circled over Dallas-Fort Worth provides an apt metaphorical description of other journeys completed: once safely on the ground, welcoming friends saw me walking unassisted but looking whiter than the whitest sheet, anything but radiant!
The thing that gets in the way is, I suppose, wintering in my discontent. Thinking about that I pause, lest I unwittingly misuse Shakespeare, but I know I've been seriously disgruntled when I've had to assume the role of a grown-up, and put away childish things like timidity, fear, laziness, expectations of instant gratification and stupidly counting on someone else to step in and save me. Who likes being an orphan? That's a killer aspect of having to be a grown-up: actually parenting myself, knowing it all depends on me (nevertheless trusting it all to God, since I do believe there's a God).
But admittedly, others definitely do save me little by little since no decision comes out of a vacuum. Every suggestion or bit of shared experience nudges the process. The crushed grapes are forced through winepresses, distilled in barrels, then bottled and corked and Voila! fine, aged wine! Somewhere in it there's a miracle, but turning grapes (or water) into wine always meets a need and requires fermentation.
Time often runs faster than I do, blurring and changing the world I know. But however slow my pace during the marathon, I've set my goal to finish radiant and unabashed. Then I'll leisurely savor that fine, aged wine!
Ideally, it'd be great to say I've always moved forward radiant and unabashed, but a review of the facts suggests that maybe unabashed is all I can claim. That time my flight circled over Dallas-Fort Worth provides an apt metaphorical description of other journeys completed: once safely on the ground, welcoming friends saw me walking unassisted but looking whiter than the whitest sheet, anything but radiant!
The thing that gets in the way is, I suppose, wintering in my discontent. Thinking about that I pause, lest I unwittingly misuse Shakespeare, but I know I've been seriously disgruntled when I've had to assume the role of a grown-up, and put away childish things like timidity, fear, laziness, expectations of instant gratification and stupidly counting on someone else to step in and save me. Who likes being an orphan? That's a killer aspect of having to be a grown-up: actually parenting myself, knowing it all depends on me (nevertheless trusting it all to God, since I do believe there's a God).
But admittedly, others definitely do save me little by little since no decision comes out of a vacuum. Every suggestion or bit of shared experience nudges the process. The crushed grapes are forced through winepresses, distilled in barrels, then bottled and corked and Voila! fine, aged wine! Somewhere in it there's a miracle, but turning grapes (or water) into wine always meets a need and requires fermentation.
Time often runs faster than I do, blurring and changing the world I know. But however slow my pace during the marathon, I've set my goal to finish radiant and unabashed. Then I'll leisurely savor that fine, aged wine!
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Why?
I know, and have heard, that bad things happen to good people. Nevertheless, the logic of it is something I cannot keep a grip on for long. Adding to the confusion is that old, ever popular and vigorously unchristian belief that blessings rain down to reward kind, generous, loving, upright individuals. It's that idea that we can earn, that we really deserve the sunshine and blessings, when there's really scant empirical proof of this.
But when this popular mentality is preached from the housetops, it does indeed seem to motivate a lot of good behavior. The trouble comes when the wicked, selfish, unscrupulous scoundrels skate by unscathed and healthy, or even prosper into old age from their greedy and devious machinations, passing on what they have gained as inheritance to their children. And the trouble comes when the sweetly innocent child is diagnosed with cancer, when families scramble to pay medical bills and mortgages, when the unsuspecting blue or white collar worker jobs and pensions go up in the smoke of mergers or outsourcing. Who is to blame? Not God. The sun does shine on the just and the unjust, but sometimes that fact is both infuriating and crazymaking.
So the question arises: What changes would be more fair? Do I prefer a less merciful God? Sometimes. Maybe. But not, of course, in my own life because I need all the mercy I can get! Admittedly, I indict myself. But I wonder still about the playing field and why it's often so uneven. I also wonder why the wit and wisdom of some is so disproportionate to their success and failure. Clearly, some people seem jinxed and, clearly, there's an awful lot of dumb luck going around!
And that thought saves me from wishing all the worst all the time to all the bad people. And from having to decide who they are. And maybe even lets me benefit from some of that dumb luck now and then. So it is comforting to recall the lesson Job learned, and a greater consolation to know that he articulated it to his "comforters." The bottom line is that Job understood only that he understood nothing. Hugely humiliating, this was also ultimately liberating because he gained a true perspective. Life in this world is often more simple and more complicated than we realize.
There are, in fact, shades of gray to tolerate and maybe even value, nuances which escape me. Word that a child is diagnosed with liver cancer immediately alarms and draws compassion from me and from hundreds, even thousands of friends and strangers. Why not the same impact if the diagnosis befalls an old coot on medicare? No matter how beloved, the effect is very different. So my job is to focus the lens, not to control the shutter speed. I've been convinced for a long time that context and content matter, and just because the madman shouts in the marketplace doesn't mean he's right and sane. Often it just means he's got a soapbox. And a voice that certainly doesn't require my attention. Why do I keep forgetting that?
But when this popular mentality is preached from the housetops, it does indeed seem to motivate a lot of good behavior. The trouble comes when the wicked, selfish, unscrupulous scoundrels skate by unscathed and healthy, or even prosper into old age from their greedy and devious machinations, passing on what they have gained as inheritance to their children. And the trouble comes when the sweetly innocent child is diagnosed with cancer, when families scramble to pay medical bills and mortgages, when the unsuspecting blue or white collar worker jobs and pensions go up in the smoke of mergers or outsourcing. Who is to blame? Not God. The sun does shine on the just and the unjust, but sometimes that fact is both infuriating and crazymaking.
So the question arises: What changes would be more fair? Do I prefer a less merciful God? Sometimes. Maybe. But not, of course, in my own life because I need all the mercy I can get! Admittedly, I indict myself. But I wonder still about the playing field and why it's often so uneven. I also wonder why the wit and wisdom of some is so disproportionate to their success and failure. Clearly, some people seem jinxed and, clearly, there's an awful lot of dumb luck going around!
And that thought saves me from wishing all the worst all the time to all the bad people. And from having to decide who they are. And maybe even lets me benefit from some of that dumb luck now and then. So it is comforting to recall the lesson Job learned, and a greater consolation to know that he articulated it to his "comforters." The bottom line is that Job understood only that he understood nothing. Hugely humiliating, this was also ultimately liberating because he gained a true perspective. Life in this world is often more simple and more complicated than we realize.
There are, in fact, shades of gray to tolerate and maybe even value, nuances which escape me. Word that a child is diagnosed with liver cancer immediately alarms and draws compassion from me and from hundreds, even thousands of friends and strangers. Why not the same impact if the diagnosis befalls an old coot on medicare? No matter how beloved, the effect is very different. So my job is to focus the lens, not to control the shutter speed. I've been convinced for a long time that context and content matter, and just because the madman shouts in the marketplace doesn't mean he's right and sane. Often it just means he's got a soapbox. And a voice that certainly doesn't require my attention. Why do I keep forgetting that?
Saturday, January 14, 2012
No Rhyme
Off and on today I remembered that it is Friday the 13th. I am not superstitious, so no particular importance attaches to the day, but then I recalled starting my blog a whole month ago. And, with no particular rhyme or reason, various familiar clichés kept popping into my brain: there's just a dusting of snow on the lawn; he's got salt and pepper hair; she had no wind in her sales; he had no stomach for that; we had an early frost (or a hard frost, or a killing frost); he looked a little green at the gills; you nipped it in the bud; they wilted in the sun; stranger things have happened; he withered on the vine; why her not me!
It's been a good day, all in all. Yes, there's been some very terrible news, but even while on my knees mentally, praying and wishing all the bad stuff away, I took comfort going about the day again pondering why, then moving on to delight in something I read, then reaching deep into the little gray cells for something I'd almost forgotten, then wondering about the difference between El Niño or La Niña years and, finally, studying how on earth a mosquito can fly in the rain. (Okay, that last thing was something I just stumbled upon!) I needed a day like today.
And so the clichés kept coming. Today was good proof that the mind is a wonderful thing: sunlight, music, awareness that life is hard yet it is always changing.
It's been a good day, all in all. Yes, there's been some very terrible news, but even while on my knees mentally, praying and wishing all the bad stuff away, I took comfort going about the day again pondering why, then moving on to delight in something I read, then reaching deep into the little gray cells for something I'd almost forgotten, then wondering about the difference between El Niño or La Niña years and, finally, studying how on earth a mosquito can fly in the rain. (Okay, that last thing was something I just stumbled upon!) I needed a day like today.
And so the clichés kept coming. Today was good proof that the mind is a wonderful thing: sunlight, music, awareness that life is hard yet it is always changing.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Talk
I'm not sure anymore who wrote it, but when I read it I agreed. The point was made that, while we are awake, we are always in conversation with ourselves, another or God. I am pretty sure it was a notable theologian making the statement, but even if understood in an entirely secular manner, isn't it psychologically true? Aren't we always talking or listening during our waking hours?
My Dad talked a lot, and so do I. I did not really blame my Dad, but even when i was seventeen I had enough self-awareness to know that we were similarly flawed. So when a retreatmaster said that in ten years I'd be what I was then only more so, I was forewarned! I was also a little scared. It's not that I then succeeded in talking less, but I think I began learning how to listen more. In fact, skilled listening became one of the most essential elements of my spiritual and professional life.
Nevertheless, I know that longtime friends (and acquaintances) have intentionally and heroically survived my monologues long enough for dialogue to emerge or reemerge. For this I am extremely thankful. In fact, I am still heartened by the quite kind and insightful defense or apologia a close friend once made on my behalf: she just wants to be thorough! He knew that I went through a forest of details but that it was purposeful and I somehow needed to do that. He also sometimes found it a crazy-making experience, but he had gained insight and forbearance because of our friendship. In fact, as he chided me less often for this fault, he helped me carry the burden of it. That's what friends do.
So as I thought about the oddities of various kinds of discourse, and how people try to communicate thoughts with words, talk, conversation and writing, I began to differentiate between kinds of discourse. I also recalled some of the dynamics of listening, for example, the emotion I experienced when I "heard" a friend's eyes glaze over during a phone call, when the focus was no longer directed onto my friend's concerns. When I had been a good and sympathetic listener, but found my concerns abruptly dismissed with, "I really have to go now..." I knew that In the big picture I certainly deserved being cut off. And since I've been responsible for so many lopsided conversations, I have no right to complain. But I noticed not being heard, and then I also learned something.
Who said what? When was it said? Why did they say it? Where and how was it heard? I ask such questions when catching up on the news or when trying to find out about something important to me. True, these days I have many options and resources for information and for sharing my thoughts. And I also have easy access to thinkers of the past and present. My laptop and internet connection are tools for research and expression and I have only begun to tap the possibilities they offer. But I already know the fabulous feeling of shouting, as it were, my scorn for the demagoguery so pervasive in the current political process, even if I just tweet it into cyberspace where I have zero followers!
And yes, it comforts me to know and to say that demagoguery is the politicians' tool of choice, used precisely for gaining power and arousing emotions and prejudice! When I forget this, my outrage at all the preposterous promises and false logic can be rather unsettling. And so I engage in an exercise of comparing and contrasting different forms of "talk": monologue v. dialogue, pedagogy v. demagogy, oratory v. homiletics, talk v. silence. Any useful conclusions ? Yes, of course, I say to myself and to another and to God!
Indisputably, "talk" possibilities are exceedingly diverse nowadays. Whether annoyingly boring or bombastic, whether geared to provide comic relief, consolation, distraction, drama, diversion, entertainment, education, empathy, political "spin" or spiritual insight, talk begs for a hearing. And so I ask myself: When did I really listen? How many chances have I lost? Or conversely, when was I really heard? When did I say something that mattered? What singular experience of being heard (or not being heard) is most poignant for me?
Well, there was that time danger threatened when someone in grief knew where I lived and made unreasonable demands for an art piece, a work-in-progress, that had involved his loved one. I knew it was advisable to hand over the work , but it was an unfinished creative effort and it was mine. The sacrifice I'd be making was acknowledged by those who acted as intermediaries, but until a fellow artist heard my saga it seemed that no one had really listened and understood what I was surrendering. But I can never forget : at least one person knew I was losing a part of myself and that made it a little easier to let go.
Talk? Listen? Yes, I say to myself, and to another out in cyberspace, and to God! It energizes me to explore and acknowledge diversity, opportunity, challenge and even change. But I admit that achieving balance, or maintaining perspective about the sometimes cartoonish and superficial successes headlined in our culture is not easy. I suppose it's sort of like struggling to hear the whisper of a gentle breeze. Who does that anymore?
I was certainly talking way before my memory of saying anything, and there's no telling when I'll stop . This said, I suspect I was always more intuitive than precocious, and because I know it's vital to pause for a deep breath now and then, I will leash my talk, take it for a walk and let someone else get a word in edgewise!
My Dad talked a lot, and so do I. I did not really blame my Dad, but even when i was seventeen I had enough self-awareness to know that we were similarly flawed. So when a retreatmaster said that in ten years I'd be what I was then only more so, I was forewarned! I was also a little scared. It's not that I then succeeded in talking less, but I think I began learning how to listen more. In fact, skilled listening became one of the most essential elements of my spiritual and professional life.
Nevertheless, I know that longtime friends (and acquaintances) have intentionally and heroically survived my monologues long enough for dialogue to emerge or reemerge. For this I am extremely thankful. In fact, I am still heartened by the quite kind and insightful defense or apologia a close friend once made on my behalf: she just wants to be thorough! He knew that I went through a forest of details but that it was purposeful and I somehow needed to do that. He also sometimes found it a crazy-making experience, but he had gained insight and forbearance because of our friendship. In fact, as he chided me less often for this fault, he helped me carry the burden of it. That's what friends do.
So as I thought about the oddities of various kinds of discourse, and how people try to communicate thoughts with words, talk, conversation and writing, I began to differentiate between kinds of discourse. I also recalled some of the dynamics of listening, for example, the emotion I experienced when I "heard" a friend's eyes glaze over during a phone call, when the focus was no longer directed onto my friend's concerns. When I had been a good and sympathetic listener, but found my concerns abruptly dismissed with, "I really have to go now..." I knew that In the big picture I certainly deserved being cut off. And since I've been responsible for so many lopsided conversations, I have no right to complain. But I noticed not being heard, and then I also learned something.
Who said what? When was it said? Why did they say it? Where and how was it heard? I ask such questions when catching up on the news or when trying to find out about something important to me. True, these days I have many options and resources for information and for sharing my thoughts. And I also have easy access to thinkers of the past and present. My laptop and internet connection are tools for research and expression and I have only begun to tap the possibilities they offer. But I already know the fabulous feeling of shouting, as it were, my scorn for the demagoguery so pervasive in the current political process, even if I just tweet it into cyberspace where I have zero followers!
And yes, it comforts me to know and to say that demagoguery is the politicians' tool of choice, used precisely for gaining power and arousing emotions and prejudice! When I forget this, my outrage at all the preposterous promises and false logic can be rather unsettling. And so I engage in an exercise of comparing and contrasting different forms of "talk": monologue v. dialogue, pedagogy v. demagogy, oratory v. homiletics, talk v. silence. Any useful conclusions ? Yes, of course, I say to myself and to another and to God!
Indisputably, "talk" possibilities are exceedingly diverse nowadays. Whether annoyingly boring or bombastic, whether geared to provide comic relief, consolation, distraction, drama, diversion, entertainment, education, empathy, political "spin" or spiritual insight, talk begs for a hearing. And so I ask myself: When did I really listen? How many chances have I lost? Or conversely, when was I really heard? When did I say something that mattered? What singular experience of being heard (or not being heard) is most poignant for me?
Well, there was that time danger threatened when someone in grief knew where I lived and made unreasonable demands for an art piece, a work-in-progress, that had involved his loved one. I knew it was advisable to hand over the work , but it was an unfinished creative effort and it was mine. The sacrifice I'd be making was acknowledged by those who acted as intermediaries, but until a fellow artist heard my saga it seemed that no one had really listened and understood what I was surrendering. But I can never forget : at least one person knew I was losing a part of myself and that made it a little easier to let go.
Talk? Listen? Yes, I say to myself, and to another out in cyberspace, and to God! It energizes me to explore and acknowledge diversity, opportunity, challenge and even change. But I admit that achieving balance, or maintaining perspective about the sometimes cartoonish and superficial successes headlined in our culture is not easy. I suppose it's sort of like struggling to hear the whisper of a gentle breeze. Who does that anymore?
I was certainly talking way before my memory of saying anything, and there's no telling when I'll stop . This said, I suspect I was always more intuitive than precocious, and because I know it's vital to pause for a deep breath now and then, I will leash my talk, take it for a walk and let someone else get a word in edgewise!
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Losing
It's not all that it's cracked up to be. Losing certainly is not an easy experience, but even in the short term it often proves an amazingly efficacious element of life. Suddenly I recall that old song, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do," and it weaves easily into my train of thought. The losses that came each time my life broke off a familiar piece and threw me into new territory, well, those losses were both frightening and thrilling. Sometimes it was hard to breathe, but never gasping for long, I can now see there was forward movement. Lurches and leaps, stumbling and bumbling, the dance less than graceful, but there was a rhythm to it! Even when it was a leap into deep darkness, i've learned the benefits, and that it's still quite necessary to make a grand jette from time to time.
And then light is supposed to come, or some kind of graceful landing. But because the sequence of darkness and light isn't always predictable, the trick is to believe that it is actually, mostly inevitable. It's also quite useful to remember that nothing stays the same for long. Then that mysterious timing that keeps me living on the crazy-making edge of life isn't all bad.
For example, the blue (with a tint of violet) jacaranda trees in UCLA's sculpture garden come to mind and perhaps bolster my assertion. I hope they are still there. It's been a long time since I first saw them and they were wonderful! What did I know about the mess they made when their blossoms fell? Would I have cared? That fabulous blue hue, so visually stunning, was priceless! Do I lament the loss of that spectacle? Absolutely! But seasons of life and changes of locale notwithstanding, there is an up-side: they bloom every year and I can still remember!
And now another example, as my thought wanders off to focus on that job I wanted so much, and did not get. It was the 80's, and becoming a staffer at Chris Brownlie AIDS Hospice in L.A. was what I dreamed of after finishing my graduate degree program. Coursework, a practicum, lots of volunteer work and empathetic motivation made me feel fairly well qualified. So when a position opened, I applied and interviewed and waited hopefully. The call came, and I lost out because another person was (surprise, surprise) a bit more qualified. The director did offer genuine encouragement though, saying that in the near future there'd likely be another chance because they were expanding quickly. Nevertheless, losing out was hard for me and I was discouraged.
But another chapter actually did open a few weeks later when I got a call during my workday at the hospital in Santa Monica. The same director had managed to break through my current employer's human resources wall and called to ask if I could come back that day for another interview. I was heading to the Valley after work that day and said yes, I could stop and see him. When I got there, two other key staffers were present for our meeting. After introductions, the narrative began. They told me that the person hired for the job I did not get had taken a brief trip to Mexico before his scheduled start date. He had a bout of montezuma's revenge on his return, and ended up in the emergency room. Unfortunate, to be sure, I thought, but ... "and he died." "WHAT?" "He died." The death was sudden, shockingly unexpected, not AIDS-related and probably not montezuma's revenge! So they offered me the job and I took it. Far fetched as it sounds, even now this real event does strongly suggest that losing is not all it's cracked up to be!
Who cannot share stories about the positive aftermath of losing? We all lose things and people, but losing opportunities, jobs, income, youth, health, agility, hopes , homes and even memories ... well, when I look at it again, I often see that losing, even excruciating loss, isn't all bad.
And then light is supposed to come, or some kind of graceful landing. But because the sequence of darkness and light isn't always predictable, the trick is to believe that it is actually, mostly inevitable. It's also quite useful to remember that nothing stays the same for long. Then that mysterious timing that keeps me living on the crazy-making edge of life isn't all bad.
For example, the blue (with a tint of violet) jacaranda trees in UCLA's sculpture garden come to mind and perhaps bolster my assertion. I hope they are still there. It's been a long time since I first saw them and they were wonderful! What did I know about the mess they made when their blossoms fell? Would I have cared? That fabulous blue hue, so visually stunning, was priceless! Do I lament the loss of that spectacle? Absolutely! But seasons of life and changes of locale notwithstanding, there is an up-side: they bloom every year and I can still remember!
And now another example, as my thought wanders off to focus on that job I wanted so much, and did not get. It was the 80's, and becoming a staffer at Chris Brownlie AIDS Hospice in L.A. was what I dreamed of after finishing my graduate degree program. Coursework, a practicum, lots of volunteer work and empathetic motivation made me feel fairly well qualified. So when a position opened, I applied and interviewed and waited hopefully. The call came, and I lost out because another person was (surprise, surprise) a bit more qualified. The director did offer genuine encouragement though, saying that in the near future there'd likely be another chance because they were expanding quickly. Nevertheless, losing out was hard for me and I was discouraged.
But another chapter actually did open a few weeks later when I got a call during my workday at the hospital in Santa Monica. The same director had managed to break through my current employer's human resources wall and called to ask if I could come back that day for another interview. I was heading to the Valley after work that day and said yes, I could stop and see him. When I got there, two other key staffers were present for our meeting. After introductions, the narrative began. They told me that the person hired for the job I did not get had taken a brief trip to Mexico before his scheduled start date. He had a bout of montezuma's revenge on his return, and ended up in the emergency room. Unfortunate, to be sure, I thought, but ... "and he died." "WHAT?" "He died." The death was sudden, shockingly unexpected, not AIDS-related and probably not montezuma's revenge! So they offered me the job and I took it. Far fetched as it sounds, even now this real event does strongly suggest that losing is not all it's cracked up to be!
Who cannot share stories about the positive aftermath of losing? We all lose things and people, but losing opportunities, jobs, income, youth, health, agility, hopes , homes and even memories ... well, when I look at it again, I often see that losing, even excruciating loss, isn't all bad.
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