Velvet Verbosity

Yesterday at work, a little ant crawled into my keyboard. One of those tiny sugar ants that you can’t despise until there are hundreds of them crawling over a drop of juice on the counter.

I waited for him to come out, but he never did, and now as I type I wonder what letter is beating down on his tiny little corpse.

I received this email tonight (along with another 30 or so impersonal emails):

Kindly be informed that Late Engr. Lukas Jonas Würth made you a beneficiary
(bequested USD$20,100,000.00) in his WILL. Reply to this email:
barr.adamuk@______.com for estate execution. Legal partner take note.

Signed: K. A. Adam (Esq.)

I barely glanced at it before deleting it. There was a time when I would have first felt a surge of excitement. The gears in my brain would have been set into motion looking for connections, some way that this inheritance could possibly be true. Back then I still would have dismissed it after a few minutes of analyzing, but I long for that part of me that had the ability to believe it might be possible. That part of me that still believed in fairy tale endings. That part of me that believed in the goodness of the world. That part of me that believed the future was wide open and pliable to my wishes and demands. That part of me that saw adventure around the next corner. That part of me that believed in soul mates and real life heroes. If only I were still that younger, more naive version of myself.

Sometimes life throws you a curve ball, and if you’re not ready you it shoots right past you leaving you empty handed. It stinks, but you can catch the next one with some practice.

Sometimes life throws you a fast ball and the inexperienced has to dodge or be hit while the experienced can catch it but may walk away with a bruise.

Sometimes life becomes a pitching machine gone haywire and no amount experience will avoid hits and misses in rapid succession.

Sometimes life throws the ball when you thought the game was over and turned your back.

The last few weeks have brought a series of escalating revelations, good and bad, and I feel like I’m standing on the catcher’s mound without pads, without a glove, and a dazed sheen in my eyes. I had to call a time out even though the pitcher still wants to throw. I’ve had to walk away and go sit in the dugout while the game plays on. I don’t know when I’ll be ready to play again, or if I even want to play the same game by the same rules. I don’t know if I like the players. All I do know is that time outs are good for adults sometimes too.

I miss libraries. There are few times in my life that I miss, probably because there have been many hard times, but I loved when my children were young and I stayed home with them. I love the term, “stay at home mom”, as though “mom” needs any sort of qualifier. During those years that I “stayed at home”, I and my two children did little staying home. We did a lot of biking, walking, park visiting, people visiting, exploration of the world, and lots and lots of library visits. We were library junkies. Or rather, I was a library junkie and I dragged my kids along to get my fix.

Even though I was a young mother, and quite adamant before having children that I would NEVER have children, I found motherhood almost entirely blissful. Particularly all those hours when it was just the three of us, wandering around our life in a seemingly close to perfect symbiosis. Each day stretched out before us with infinite potential. I don’t judge it, but I’ve never understood parents who put their children in front of the television and walk away for hours at a time. I suppose it’s so they can keep the house clean. But for what? In the end, what real purpose will that have served? You bet our dishes were going to wait when there were probably caterpillars turning into butterflies right outside our door and right that very second. Life was all around us, and I didn’t want to miss a second of living through the eyes of my children as they discovered it. I was so in love with them.

So tonight, when I walked into a public library for the first time in three years, I was washed over with that melancholy nostalgia we feel when life hasn’t gone as we thought it would and we are suddenly reminded of a time that was full of blind hope. Back then, I was so sure that by sharing the world with my children that it was all going to turn out well for them, if not downright perfect. I would feel confident and satisfied as I tucked them each under one arm and read story after story out loud, complete with animated character voices. Everything, back then, was going to be alright. All those days at the library, curled in corners and chairs and beanbags and nooks reading was all the evidence I needed that life was kind and good.

As I walked through the children’s section of the library looking for my, now teenaged, son who was supposed to be there somewhere for community service to make amends for some trouble he got tangled up in, I couldn’t escape those waves of bittersweet sadness and longing. How did everything go wrong? How could it have? Why wasn’t I strong enough for my children, to keep them forever safe, forever in my lap with a book, forever ok?

When I found him finally, I wanted to be happy and carefree and beam that mother-love smile onto his face, but instead my face crumpled into haggard worry and I berated him for being late, for taking chances he shouldn’t, for making me worry, and for not being responsible. Who is this other mother that keeps eclipsing the mother I was and still want to be? How could I know then to let the dishes go, but now I lecture and nag and obsess and worry? How could I know then to not interfere with the unfolding of these two little sentient beings, but now I’ve let the hammer of cultural pressure knock me into senselessness as I hear that other mother tell them what they’ve got to be? How could I have so much grace, patience, strength and compassion back then, and now be reduced to tears, or yelling, or pleading, at the drop of a hat or a forgotten chore?

I’m going back to the library tomorrow, and every day after that until I find her again. The mother I was and still want to be. I know she’s there somewhere.

In 1999 I read a small passage that would both dramatically and subtly forever alter my life’s path. In a small class at a local community college, I opened a textbook on World Religions and stared The Four Noble Truths in the face. They are, according to that text, as follows:

1. All life is suffering
2. The origin of suffering
3. The possibility of cessation of suffering
4. The eight-fold path - the “way out”

That is my translation as I remember it. I won’t expand on the meanings of those truths here because you didn’t come here for a lesson in my religion. You came here for a story. If you want to know more about the Four Noble Truths, I can point you in the direction of some very good books, or you can just use trusty old Google.

When I read the first Noble Truth, “all life is suffering”, I had what many would call an “enlightenment” experience. Reading those words, I felt all confusion instantly fall away and I was left with a clear “360 degree” mind. I felt like I could see the interrelatedness of everything past, present, and future. Yet to try to look at any one thing meant I would lose the clarity. It was so swift, so complete, and so…fleeting. For the first time in my life, I felt I had read something true. Truly true. Indisputable, clear, swift and complete. It was freeing, and joyful to read that “all life is suffering”.

“Strange,” you might think. How could such grim, damning words be translated into an experience of joy and freedom? At the moment I read the phrase, I couldn’t have possibly articulated why. Now I can try. It seems that questioning the meaning of our existence has been the curse of human consciousness, and what we seek in that meaning is comfort. We want to know that there is a reason for our being here; both the large “our” and the individual “our”. In short, we want to know that our suffering has some point. We also want to find comfort in thinking there is a reward for that suffering. The rewards we seek are the meaning we seek. The rewards we seek are joy, pleasure, and a final resting spot where there is no more suffering.

Thus, many of humanity’s great philosophies and religions gave us rules of what kind of suffering we ought to endure, and how, and then carefully laid out what our rewards would be in the here and now, and in the after life. I had struggled with all of these traditions, yet was never able to exactly pinpoint the illusions I couldn’t align to. To read that “all life is suffering” was freeing to me. It meant that I didn’t need to escape anything. I didn’t need to try anything. There was no judgement, no reason for judgement, and no “one” to judge. Life just simply was. Life was suffering, and the source of that suffering was that we were always trying to find a way out of that suffering.

It wasn’t grim to me. It was joyful. It seemed that I could suddenly see, and hear, and feel, and smell, and touch, and experience everything fully. I didn’t need a storyline. I didn’t need a reason. I didn’t need to interpret and determine whether my experience was something I wanted or didn’t want. It just was what it was. I had found the way out of suffering by just being.

That was then, this is now, and if you’re interested, I’ll tell you some more stories about my journey on the Buddhist path.

So Woman Remodeled and I were talking on the phone last night and I was on one of my usual spiels about something frightening, maddening, and even depressing. In this case, it was our tanking economy. She was firm in her optimism, and I firm in my resolve to get her to understand the situation we’re facing.  Not that WR is one to keep her head in the sand about important issues (just read her blog and you will see she is a woman of depth and carries concern for the world), just that this was an issue that she couldn’t do anything about.  Finally she asked, “Why do you read about this depressing stuff?” I don’t remember what I said, something off the cuff and vaguely humorous. Then she emailed me today with an article on the Federal Reserve stepping in that she had been reading, and I thought, “Oh, this is not good. What have I done to the cheery sprite?”

So I started thinking about why I DO read the things I read. Why does it seem I’m always looking for the problems? The answer to that is more complex than I can tease out, but I do know some of the core reasons. It is not that I am looking for problems. One reason is my untiring quest to see life as it really is, without the sugar coating. I do this with people too. A friend told me recently that I have a way of walking in a room and looking like I’m seeing right into people. Another person told me essentially the same thing, and then added, “not everyone wants to be seen that clearly”. It’s not that I’m looking for the bad or the negative, it’s just that I can’t really know anyone, truly, without seeing all of them, and it’s only the bad bits that anyone or any institution doesn’t readily reveal. I’m just always looking for the authentic person.

I carry this into my interpretation of the world too. I want to know the truth about what is going on. I’ve been this way since I was a child. It just seems to be part of my nature. The thing is, it doesn’t really depress me the way it depresses others. It just motivates me to do something, or say something, or write something so that others can be willing to see through to the truth of things, and make decisions for themselves about what they’re going to do about it. I realize that sometimes this makes me seem too serious for my own good. Sometimes people just don’t want to hear about it, much less talk about it. But I can’t change who I am. I’m passionate about all things generally. Whatever I become passionate about in any given moment, is usually either a truth I’ve myself recently discovered, something I’ve come up against in my own pursuit of personal freedom, or what people most don’t want to hear.

Yesterday, I was driving home from work and there were two police cruisers in front of a house. The officers were walking from the house with a man between them, cuffed, and obviously being arrested. Some people would see this and feel a sense of relief. Ah, score another one for the good guys, right? Another criminal sniffed out and taken care of. I can’t see it that way, I just can’t. I see this event, and I see the whole picture. It makes me a little sad. I know all too well, for example, from my studies in Neuroscience, that it is highly likely that this “criminal” they are arresting suffers from a frontal lobe disorder. I also know from my studies of Neuroscience and genetics that it is highly likely that a frontal lobe disorder can be attributable to a chaotic and “dangerous” environment during the early years of development. I know that we, as a society, actually breed criminals by our failure to address poverty and violence, and that our punitive institutions as well as our social services (arguable part of the punitive system) do little to help, and much more to harm. I know that it is likely this man will be released in a short amount of time, that our tax dollars will go into housing him, but not into reforming him, or getting him treatment that might help. I know that we cannot allow him to be free because we didn’t take the steps for preventing it in the first place, nor will we take the steps now to reform him. I know that the police arresting him may very well have their own dirty secrets but they are protected because they are on “the right side of the law”. I know they’ve been trained to think in terms of black and white, and I don’t just mean race, but it is probably not a coincidence that both arresting officers were white and the arrestee was black.

I find it a dangerous state of affairs when people don’t want to face truths, in themselves especially. It’s not that I fancy myself as some crusader of truth, or that I think I’ve got myself and everything else nailed down, it’s actually more innocent than that. I’m trying to make sense of things, and then vocalizing it to further help me make more sense. People don’t want to talk about things they can’t do anything about. While I know that I can’t fix all these problems with a magic wand, it still inspires me and gives fuel to creative forces within me. I’m a “big picture” person, and I can’t talk about the environment without talking about sociology, and I can’t talk about sociology without talking about evolutionary psychology, and I can’t…well, you get the picture.

So, if I sometimes seem the bearer of bad news, look a little deeper and you will see that I am struggling to make sense of it all, so that when the time comes in each little moment everyday, that I will make the best choices. The choices that will cause the least harm and do the most good. I’m far from getting it all right, but I aspire to at at least try.

Oh, and I also temper all of my media input with less violence on television and my daily dose of Gimundo, all good news all the time.

Sitting in a cafe, pondering stuff, feeling the pulse of the place and realized it’s almost Tuesday and I haven’t written here in a few days.  There’s not much cohesive to write about but I could share a random sampling of tidbits.  Actually, there are a few posts brewing underground, but I’m not ready to write them yet.

Over the weekend, I watched Lord of the Rings on a big-screen TV at my friends house, drank toasted almonds, and generally had good times.  Since I myself don’t really watch TV, I rely on a few friends to make me watch what they find interesting.   It is at other people’s houses I’ve discovered shows like House, or Scrubs.  Just when I start to get addicted, I return home and it’s all over.  Whew.  Don’t ask me why.  I’m not adamantly anti-television or anything, it has just never struck me as something I want to spend time doing.  It’s happened more by accident that I’m without a television habit, but I must say I’m glad it’s worked out that way.

I also went to see a friend’s band, The Lowercase g’s.  I wish I had a website or a myspace profile to send you to, but alas, couldn’t find one.  They were awesome, even though it was a bit surreal to see these late 30-somethings rocking out Ludacris, and then Madonna in one set.  Don’t ask me how they do it, but they were working the magic!  Some dancing, some free food (courtesy of a friendly bartender), and lots of fun was had by all.

That does remind me though, a few weekends ago I had the pleasure of seeing the Alchemystics for the second time, and that band rocks in a way I can’t even define.   Being in the same room with their live music equals exponential amounts of good times.   If they play near you, I INSIST you go see them.  Understand?  You will not be disappointed.  They are also in competition for a record contract and need lots of support.  I think you can find info on their Myspace page.

And THAT reminds me.  What is it with grown people having the tackiest Myspace pages?  What’s worse, is that these designs often render the text on the page unreadable.  Why would you do that to your “friends”?  Really.  Why?  People, clean up your Myspace pages before I have to give you a good talking to.  None of us want that.

Sometimes other people are able to speak/write about things I think about but can never articulate as well.  Slickaphonic is one of those people, and sometimes I swear she’s got a direct line into my brain.  We sometimes joke about being long-lost twins, but no, she’s just an eloquent and well-written kindred spirit.  Her latest post, “But I Didn’t Mean To…” on forgiving “accidents” vs. “non-accidents” was an issue that was on my mind a fair amount in the not too distant past. Particularly how to communicate this.  I had failed, frustratingly so, but I changed my circumstances so it was out of my mind, but when I read her post I had a “yes, that’s how I meant to say it!” moment.

It seems that there are two types of people I meet in my life.  Those who find me easy-going and forgiving, and those who find me “difficult” and unyielding.  The latter I can count on one hand.  I’ve never been able to articulate very well to the second type just what it is about their behavior that inspires me to anger, though it’s much more frustration and disgruntlement.  The “difficult” part is because I try so hard to communicate this to them, but fail time and time again.  Perhaps if I had had Slick’s words in my arsenal, some of those conversations would have turned out better. She illustrates so well the difference between an honest mistake and a careless mistake and why the latter carries more weight and less forgiveness.

However, there are occasions wherein “I didn’t mean to” just doesn’t cut it. If you knock a glass over and break it because you didn’t see it, I won’t be angry. If you try to take the tablecloth out from under a fully set table and all of the dishes crash and break, then we’re going to have words. In neither case does the individual “mean to” break something, but in the latter, the offender knew there was some probability of breakage and proceeded anyway, hoping to land in the “happy” tail of the probability distribution–hoping to “get away with it.” In the courts, we call this negligence. If you own a pit bull and build a ten foot tall impenetrable fence and the dog escapes, you are not held liable when Fido bites someone leg off because you took reasonable actions to guard against such misfortune. However, if you are a pit bull owner and built a 3 foot tall shrub around the back yard, you are liable under the law for negligence. Further, even if you are the responsible fence-builder, the second time that dog escapes, you’re in trouble. Almost every known set of laws from Hammurabi’s Code to the Laws of the Old Testament lay out punishment for such negligent behavior.

So, in my life this translates that I am very easy-going when someone “breaks a glass” truly not meaning to, and could not have taken much precaution against the accident but is sure willing to be more careful in the future.  Mistakes will be made, verbal blunders will slip out, but when the core intent of someone is noble, those mistakes and blunders are just that.  Mistakes and blunders to be forgiven, to be laughed at, to be dissolved and blown away on spring breezes.  I have no bone to pick, no “beef” with such individuals, and often I cultivate friendships with this type because I can trust that whatever their flaws, their intent toward me and others will be thoughtful.  Everyone gets along swell.

The second type, the ones who find me difficult are the type who don’t look before they step, think before they speak, or consider before they act.  They are the table-cloth pullers.  They seek thrills and pleasure and give little thought to the consequences of their actions.  What’s worse is that they often feel self-righteous when others around them get upset.  The whole world ought to “lighten up” in their view.  I don’t get along so swell with this type.  It’s hard for me to not want to point out that their mistakes are more often attributed to carelessness rather than honest mistakes, particularly when they continue to make the same type of mistake and refuse to change their own behavior.  Or as Slickaphonic says:

There’s also the problem of cumulative emotional neglect. When you see that someone has rolled the emotional dice with your feelings and their actions, you begin to question their innocence for past transgressions you might have assumed at the time were cases of true accidents. I have the problem that until some transgression really pisses the hell out of me, I smile, rationalize their behavior for them using much better excuses than they could ever contrive, and sweep it under the rug and out of my mind. It’s like putting the raging pit bull back in the yard without telling the owner it escaped. When the dog finally takes a bite out of my hand, I’m out of grace and understanding and am ready for the pruning scissors.

So I’m learning.  Learning that I simply don’t need to point out the obvious to anyone.  To date, my talking has done little to reverse this behavior in anyone anyway.  Besides, it’s a form of arrogance on my part, that I feel I can persuade anyone to change their behavior.  In future, as soon as I get a whiff of the negligent type, I’m just going to get up and walk to the nearest exit.  No harm, no foul.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard commitment described so well as LouCeel does here:

It can be awfully lonely, being on the outside looking in. And as for your fear of ‘getting comfortable’, committing - Have you ever stood on the side of the pool, thinking to yourself “Man that water’s going to be cold” and you hesitated to jump in for fear of the shock to your system? But you got up the courage and jumped in and it wasn’t so bad - the jumping in - and once in, you didn’t want to get out?

That’s what it’s like, committing.

Who doesn’t enjoy the pool once in?  Ok, maybe if there are imported sharks in the water, or there’s an 8 year old with a mischievous gleam in his eye and a yellow watery halo around him.

Image: “Arial of Woman Diving from Diving Board” framed photographic print by Rick Raymond, found at www.art.com