Category Archives: Awareness

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Last Day of the Year

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I started this blog 365 days ago.  Today is the last day that I can claim to be “in my 40s”. 

“What have you learned, Dorothy?”  “I’ve learned that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard.  ‘Cuz if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.  Is that right?”

Umm…not exactly. My initial post said,”this blog is dubbed scillagrace to symbolize ancient elegance of manner, action, form, motion and moral strength.  It is my goal to post entries worthy of the name.  It is my goal to avoid being dogmatic and prissy.  I want to challenge myself to go deeper into subjects that explore the ancient grace of life.   It is a lot of name and a lot of subject, to be sure.  We’ll see how it goes.”

Did I go deeper?  Did I go beyond my own backyard?  Here are my top ten Most Used categories: Awareness.  Photography. Philosophy.  Nature.  Relationships.  Writing.  Psychology.  Sociology.  Education.  Spirituality.  I have 200 followers, but the most “likes” I’ve ever gotten on any post is 24.  Which I suppose goes to show that you can’t please all of the people.  Not even once.  But statistics don’t tell the story.  Numbers have no meaning; it’s the narrative that goes along with them, the interpretation, that gives any statistical information its significance. 

Here is an ancient grace of life: deepening a relationship.  I have made new friends in far away places through this blog.  I have re-connected with people I haven’t seen for some time.  I have bonded with my mother in a new way, and I’ve even come to know myself better.  That will probably remain the enduring value of this blog.  I have grown up this year, and I hope to continue to do so as I go on aging. 

Last year…

I am planning to continue to blog, but probably not as often.  I am planning to get a new camera for myself and to spend more time writing.  I will be going on a 3-week adventure in October when I end my season as a living history museum interpreter.   There will be more change, more grace and, hopefully, greater awareness to come.

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Outside of the Box

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System, structure, dogma, convention, party line, category, pigeon-hole.  There are all kinds of ways to get living beings corralled into something that some authority will find manageable.   And then there are those of us who defy this kind of tidy dismissal.   Here are two examples that I photographed on my walk yesterday:

 

Here’s to all you defiant ones!  Thank you for teaching me a thing or two…

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Couple-ness

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Steve and I have been together just shy of 4 years, now.  Lately, I’ve been noticing how my thinking about ‘Us’ has evolved.  I keep my late husband’s last name, always, to retain that common bond with my children.  I have internalized Jim in many ways, as my sister pointed out in a recent comment.  I am adding a sense of past, present and future with Steve.  I wrote last about celebrating birthdays with his sister and brother-in-law.  I do feel like I’ve joined his family throughout a year’s worth of life events now: holiday dinners, post-surgery visits, weekly breakfasts, etc.  Now I’m feeling the reflected perspective of work colleagues who met us as a couple.  We’ve been invited to our first party!  Totally un-family, totally unofficial (although with friends from work), like a real social engagement based on what we do as partners.  That’s a new thing for us. 

A visitor to the museum met us while my daughter was touring the facility for the first time.  I took Emily into the wagon shop to surprise Steve (neither of us knew she was coming).  The visitor thought we made such a happy little family reuniting, that she asked if she could take photos.   After her visit, she sent this photo to the Historic Society and asked if they’d forward it to us.  She included some very nice comments about how delightful and kind we were.   I look at it and think of Emily behind her, making me crack up.

photo credit: Carol Toepke

We are eager to go off on our next adventure – a 3-week road trip to “Metaphorical Montreal & Maine”.  Where we actually end up is immaterial.  The adventure is continuing to forge our partnership, responding to new situations like dancers in tango.  We are becoming more graceful, more complementary, even though we have many more decisions to make. 

 

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At Table

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My mother quoted something to me over the phone this morning: “At table, we never grow old,” I think it goes.  I am savoring this idea, thinking of birthdays and family members, extended in geography and generation.  Steve’s sister had a birthday wish in April to dine at a French restaurant here in Wauwatosa.  That finally was accomplished last Saturday night, but as her husband’s 50th and my 50th are coming up next week, we decided that we were also celebrating our birthdays…and then we included Steve’s so he wouldn’t feel left out, even though his is 3 months away.  We spent over 3 hours at a table in the front window of the restaurant, sampling cheeses, drinking French wine, dining on lamb and pheasant and dissolving chocolate pastries on our eager tongues.  We laughed a lot.  We talked about philosophy and aging and Mars and mold allergies.  I was welcomed into this threesome who have been best friends for 30-47 years as a 10%-er…meaning I’ve only known them for 3.  But they like me!  They really like me!  That feels good.  My mother will be hosting my siblings and niece for dinner on Sunday.  My brother’s birthday is Saturday.  My brother-in-law’s birthday is the following Saturday.  I’m sure they will be dining for a good three hours or more, too, talking about philosophy and music and zoology and whatnot.  I wish I could be there in body and tastebuds, but I will be there simply in spirit. 

When a bottle is poured and glasses are raised, when family gathers in the same place year after year, when we face each other in candle light, Time in its immaterial essence becomes irrelevant as well.  Am I 10, learning to sip a drink and taste its fragrance for the first time?  Am I 20, listening to my beloved ask my father for my hand?  Am I 30, looking at my four children settling in next to their grandparents?  Am I 40, appreciating my parents through my own experience as a parent?  Am I 50, holding my husband and father in a deep, inward place as I use my hands, my voice, my mind to embody all of us?  I am all of these ages, and others besides, when I sit at table and nourish myself, body and soul, in this banquet of love.

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Justifying Decisions

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There’s something I do sometimes that drives Steve nuts.  I know it, and I’m trying to stop, but it seems to be a deeply ingrained habit.  He asks me to make a simple decision about something, and the first thing that comes out of my mouth is rarely my true feeling about it.  It’s either, “Well, we could do that….” or a few practical reasons to do something, none of which is genuinely revealing.  It’s like I’m protected my deepest self, the one that really wants something particular.   I imagine this is a coping strategy that arose from being Daughter #4 in my family of origin.  I probably didn’t experience much success simply saying, “I want that!” so perhaps I tried to come up with smart sounding reasons why giving me what I want was good for the general public?   Maybe.  Maybe the rejection of my true attachments was too painful, so I would pretend to be interested more in logic, which would appeal to my father.  It’s an interesting head game, anyway.

It came up again this morning, as I was thinking about how to justify something that I’ve wanted for more than a year.  I want a new camera.  I have been using a little Lumix that I borrowed from Steve’s aunt.  I had a Canon AE-1 which my husband bought for me when we were dating in high school.  It lasted 30 years, and then a gear broke down, and I couldn’t advance the film.  So I moved onto the digital point-and-shoot camera, but I’ve dearly missed the ability to focus manually with ease and get really sharp pictures.  What’s been keeping me from just buying a DSLR?  This weird thing I have about justifying what I want.  I never buy anything for myself until I can think of a few practical reasons or some really sentimental reason that will please someone else.  Pretty neurotic, actually.  

The breakthrough this morning was that I thought of the last bit of rationalization I needed to move forward.  It’s not enough that I just want a camera.  It’s not enough that I am turning 50 years old in a week and a half and a birthday present to myself is due.  It’s not enough that I have the money because I’m still only earning minimum wage at my seasonal job.  It’s not enough that I’m planning to take a lot of pictures on my upcoming 3-week trip, and I want them to turn out well.  What got me over the hurdle was thinking that Jim, my late husband, would have bought me that camera in a heartbeat.  On credit, even if he didn’t have the money.  The first camera he bought me was still working fine when he died.   I can hear him now, “Look, dear, the life insurance money is for you, from me.  I want to buy you a new camera.  It would make me happy.”  It would, I’m sure.  And he’d throw in all kinds of extra gadgets just for fun.  A macro lens.  A carrying case.  He was that kind of guy, generous and spontaneous to everyone, including himself. 

Why do I struggle so with offering up a spontaneous decision when I’m asked?

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Do Something and Do Nothing

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I would like to change the world.  I would like to see less violence involving guns.  I would like to see more wild and rural land reclaimed from developed areas.  I would like to see more tolerance and listening and compassion.  I would like to see more curiosity and play and wonder and less capitalism, competition, and greed.  I am never going to be an “expert” at anything, and I don’t want to market myself or make disciples.  How can I make an impact? 

“Integrity,” Steve says.  Know your vision and live it.  Don’t be afraid to do something and don’t be too busy to do nothing.

I can imagine myself being afraid to do something because I don’t have enough information, or I haven’t figured out exactly what the “right” thing to do is.  I will never know the perfect solution, but I don’t have to settle for inaction.  I can imagine jumping on some band wagon and stumping away at a project because others are encouraging me, without thinking critically or allowing time for observation to inform me.  I can imagine myself feeling obligated or slipping into habit and just going on and on.  I don’t want to do any of that.  I really want to live out of a peaceful center, spontaneously responding with integrity to the issues that I face.  And I want to be able to accept the fact that I may not be noticed…and that I may. 

I am a visual person, too.  I like examples, illustrations.  Who lives like this?  Gandhi.  Thich Nhat Hahn.  Pete Seeger.  Anyone else?  You tell me.

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Humanity

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Curiosity, creativity, collaboration, compassion.

Spontaneity, self-esteem, self-reliance, morality.

 

Ignorance, competition, capitalism, aggression.

Complaint, dogma, habit, paranoia. 

 

Love and appreciation. 

Ego and aversion.

 

Open. 

Closed.

I observe humanity, myself included.  What’s been in the news and on my mind?  Landing a roving data-collector on Mars.  The fatal shootings at a Sikh gurdwara here in Wisconsin.  (My sister is a Sikh.)  Drought and global warming.  Conversations with Steve about who we want to be, how we want to live, what risks we are willing to take, what new modes of being we want to develop.  Trying to see my inner self and assess it with honesty and compassion.   Hoping and yearning for my children.   Monitoring my energy. 

We are living.  We claim and generate energy, all the time.   The flow of that energy is governed by our choices.  (Ours and other living things’, although we humans are the ones who make cognitive choices.  Plants, animals, planets and cosmic particles participate in that flow differently.)  We are responsible for our choices.  Are we looking carefully and critically at those choices?  Are we blaming some other source for the results of our choices?  Are we even aware of the results or do we look the other way?

7 billion people.  We are making an impact on the Universe.  Do we like the results we observe?  Can we do better?  Can I do better?

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Living Inside Out

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Denholm Elliott in the Merchant Ivory production of “A Room With a View” portrays one of my favorite wise characters.  I love the scene at the pensione when he’s trying to convince two women unhappy with their accommodations to take his room which has a view.

“I don’t care what I see outside!  My vision is within.  Here is where the birds sing!  Here is where the sky is blue!” 

He is gesticulating with his dinner fork, poking himself in the heart all the while.  Sometimes I need a good poke in the heart as well to wake up that inner vision.  I find myself feeling bored and peevish, discontent with my fortune.  Why a traffic ticket now?  Why didn’t I get that early bird discount?  What am I supposed to do with myself when it’s 95 degrees out, I’m wearing a tight corset, I’m at work, there are no visitors to talk to, and I’ve got no chores to do?  Why am I feeling so stuck?!?  Because I’m not taking responsibility and I’m not living from the inside out.  I am waiting for the outside world to stimulate and satisfy me. 

And the outside world would love to take over that job!  There are a million things to distract and entertain and lead you from one external thing to the next.  I spent 4 hours this morning at the Wisconsin State Fair, manning the Tourism booth in my 19th Century costume.  A quick tour after my shift was all I needed to grab a lamb sandwich and some fresh roasted corn on the cob.  I passed up all kinds of brightly colored, noisy stuff.  I don’t need a chamois cloth or a giant roller coaster ride or chocolate covered bacon on a stick.  They’re not really going to make me happy.  I want to be satisfied from within, and I want that for my children.  I tend to worry about their fortunes, too.   How are they going to get a job?  How are they going to pay off those student loans?  How are they going to get around if their cars break down?  I find myself getting anxious and peevish on their behalf, too.  But really, more than catching a break, I want them to catch that inner vision.  I want them to be able to be satisfied and happy and enthusiastic about life no matter what their outward circumstances show.

An inner life.  Unassailable, regenerating, like solar energy that continues for millenniums.  Do we even teach our children to cultivate that anymore?  How are we supposed to have a moral compass if we don’t?  How does a nation of outwardly motivated and distracted people develop a moral compass to guide their democratic process?  I wonder about these things…..

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Where Am I?

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Ever go walking in your own neighborhood and take a new turn that you’ve never taken and find yourself wondering what world you’ve stepped into?  In my town of Wauwatosa, I discovered that there’s a 420 million year old limestone reef tucked away behind an industrial site…used to be a quarry.  I wandered down there after a rainstorm last week.  I saw stuff I didn’t expect to see…

…even though there’s no access to the reef just yet.   We can all be travelers, even within a 5-mile radius.

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Deflating *POP* Culture

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How does anyone keep up with Pop Culture?  I used to watch the Olympics; now I don’t have a TV, so I’m not even going to attempt to know who is making the sports news.  I’m also not attempting to keep up with movies and music.  Or social networking: no Facebook or Twitter for me. 

Steve just asked me, “How much calmer would you be if you played in a string quartet every day?”  Right now we’re listening to Haydn.  I proposed an idea a few months ago that I thought would contribute greatly to creating political harmony.  I think every member of the President’s cabinet as well as all the representatives in the House and in the Senate should learn to play in chamber ensembles together.  Think of how good they would become at listening to each other!

So now I’m going to shut down the laptop and resist the “tyranny of the urgent”.  I will not learn one weird trick to reduce belly fat or make a chocolate cake in one bowl or find out which celebrity wore the dress better.  It’s not important, and it’s not worth my attention.  Steve and Haydn are.  ‘Night!