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Imagine

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While investigating a new follower, GYA today, I watched this YouTube clip from his May 17 post.  Again, I had to ask myself about the source of my tears.  (see my post Why These Tears? from 2 days ago)  Watch it and see if you don’t have the same questions.

Okay, I’ll wait while you go get a tissue.  Or watch it again.  (I did both.)

I love his choice of song.  It really puts the focus on the force of consciousness.  What does your brain spend time on?  Did you catch the comment by the one judge who said that it made her think that the things she worries about are “pathetic”?  Pathetic.  Sad.  Sorrowful.  Tearful.  That we get stuck in negative and depressive patterns of thought surrounding circumstance is very sad to me.  That there are other options, that we do have the capability to change our focus and probably our futures is the great joy.  The tears are a double whammy.  I am sad that seeing physical deformity and hearing the story of a child’s abandonment brings me to focus on depression by default.  I am overjoyed to see that assumption shattered by the reality of a young man who enjoys love, the gift of a beautiful voice, and the opportunity to create a life that is satisfying to himself and an inspiration to others. 

I hope that anyone reading this can take the time to IMAGINE today.  Imagine the things you worry about dissolving in a broader perspective.  Imagine your limitations transformed by the transcendence of judgment.  “Handicaps” aren’t handicaps.  Reality is neutral.  You can make a positive or a negative judgment about them, and that will effect your experience of them.   I really believe this is what we do with our enormous brains, but most of our culture thinks that’s metaphysical hocus-pocus and that quality of life is found in the nature of circumstances.   “IF” conditions are right, you can be happy.  Why not just be happy and never mind “conditions”?  This is not my own idea, of course.  It stems from centuries of Buddhist thought about suffering.  I have only recently begun to see it illustrated in my Western life.   So here’s the million dollar question: what is happiness and how can you discover it?  My mother used to quote, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”  If so, joy is everywhere.  Happiness is everywhere.  It’s already here, then.  It doesn’t need to be discovered; it may simply need to be uncovered.  “Cleaning the windshield” is what Steve sometimes calls it.  Get rid of the crud that keeps you from seeing the happiness that is all around.  Imagine!

Living for today…

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Borrowed Beauty

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Today I have been impressed by the beauty and grace of others.   I sometimes think that is intimidating, but more and more I am learning to appreciate and celebrate what I notice without turning in judgment upon myself.  I admire the woman who gave me a “Thank You” gift for taking her shift at work.  This gift was hand-crafted, creative, personal, AND included chocolate!  Plus, it was totally unexpected, as she had already thanked me in a note the day I agreed to work for her.  This woman took the day off to go to her granddaughter’s school for Grandparents’ Day.  She is also an expert woodchopper, using the twitter and froe like a man half her age.  I told her that I struggle with that chore and frequently get stuck on the knot holes.  This is what she tucked into the little bag of chocolates for me:


I admire my next door neighbor’s garden and appreciate that she shares that beauty with the entire village.   I love the look of her irises, like bridesmaids dancing in the wind.

So, today I just wanted to take these graceful, thoughtful, beautiful gifts and pass them on.  I appreciate all the other bloggers out there who share their best on a regular basis.  Perhaps we can be a more graceful species after all.  

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Why These Tears?

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So I didn’t get a post in yesterday.  It was a hot, humid day at work; thunderstorms arrived just as we were leaving.  I got home at 6pm, put my feet up for a bit, made dinner, and then prepared packages for mailing for the book business.  By the time we were done, it was 9:30, and my eyes were stinging.  I closed them and fell asleep.  I’ve been musing on an issue for two days, though, and since I don’t work today (except for a voice lesson), I’m ready to give it some time and work it out in writing. 

It happened on Saturday.  I burst into tears at work. 

It was late afternoon, toward the end of my shift.  Families had been coming through in dribbles to look at the church.  Since it was hot, I put a chair out on the landing in front of the door so that I could catch the breeze.  Sitting there in my bustle, I suppose I made a good picture of a prim and proper church lady.  A father and his two-year old daughter wandered down the road, leaving Mom and older siblings at the General Store.  I invited them in and showed the little curly redhead the pump organ.  She liked the sound of her voice in the echoing chamber of the empty church, so I played “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” (a good Mozart tune) and let her sing along.  She took a look at my pin cushion balls, too, and held one until her father gently took it and handed it back.  She never left the safety of her father’s arms during the whole visit.  I walked them out of the church and settled in my chair to watch them walk back down the road, hand in hand.  She stumbled at one point, but Dad righted her gently.  That’s when I lost it.  That sudden, rising swell of heat in my nose and the burning tears tumbling down were totally unpredicted.  Why these tears?  Why now?

Driving home with Steve, I began to talk it out and answer his compassionate questions.  Where were my thoughts?  What were my emotions?  I remembered that I had been bored, hot, and feeling a bit lost and alone:  all dressed up in an empty museum, wondering how I got there.  Kind of disconnected and surreal.  That father and daughter reminded me of my late husband and our curly-haired youngest.  Seeing them walk away together triggered a sense of devastating loss.  I will never see Jim again; Emily, now 21, will never be that young again.  That manifestation of life is gone forever.  

But I knew that.  Why the tears?  Why judge that as something sad?  Obviously, I am still very attached to that particular arrangement, and perhaps not so attached to my current one.  “Attachment causes suffering.”  Somehow, I came to believe that my life as a wife and mother was very meaningful, very important, and it became a “secure” identity for me.  Not hard to imagine how that happened.  The thing is, it isn’t the Truth, wasn’t the Truth, either.  It was a temporary condition.  I enjoyed that condition, but Change is the nature of life.  Conditions always change.  One condition isn’t more meaningful or important than another.  To be able to think about every moment of life as a valuable moment is a mindset that can set me free to live happily.  I think of Hafiz, the Sufi poet, and his exuberant joy in living, not dependent on circumstances.  I get sentimental about family life, but I don’t want to be the mother of a two year old, now.  Somehow, though, that sentiment suggests that there is greater value in that particular model of life than in others, and that I am “missing out”.  It’s just not true.  It’s a kind of cultural propaganda.  Hallmark and Focus on the Family and organizations like that profit from supporting that way of thinking.  I love my children, but our life isn’t Hallmark any more.  It was, once.  It was nice, but it wasn’t the only and most important manifestation of living.  Conditions arise, conditions change.  Judging that one is “better” than the other can get me stuck and cause suffering.  That’s not to say that I can’t think critically about my life and make changes.  But I also want to be able to be happy in any situation. 

I like my tears, too.  They help me learn about myself. 

photo credit: Susan

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And It’s Still a Mystery!

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Yesterday’s post featured some views of Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin.  You can read about it in the Wikipedia article here.  The pillars formed a stockade that enclosed an open area that contains a few pyramid-shaped, flat-topped mounds.  Excavations have produced some burial remains, but re-constructing the way of life of these Mississippian people is still largely guesswork.  It didn’t help that the area was sold for farming and plowed in 1838 after its initial discovery and survey.  In 1941, the stockade was re-constructed from post holes that were excavated, but there were gaps…were there always gaps?  No one knows, for sure.  So all of you who guessed that the area may have been used for keeping animals in or animals out or for fortification or for rituals or for farming…you may all be absolutely correct!  And you may all be incorrect.  Pre-history is great for people who like open-ended answers.  It’s humbling to those of us who tend toward perfectionism.  We can’t ever really know The Truth, but we can observe and imagine and learn about ourselves by the stories we tell about the world.  Change is all around us.  Our experience seems to be the truest thing…until the next experience comes along.   Maybe a good way to look at all of life is with a wink and a smile!

  

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It’s a Mystery

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Geoffrey Rush’s voice must read the title of this post. 

And here are the photo mysteries of the day: why are these posts sticking out of the ground?  What are they for?  Who put them there?  When?  I would love to get some sample conjectures.  I am fascinated, as a historic interpreter, at the way we take clues and put them into the context of a story.  So tell me the story of these…

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Oh, You Kid!

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I spent a lovely afternoon with my daughter yesterday.  Despite being in grad school and already a real adult, she still has a wonderfully childlike nature.  I was waiting for her in the park on the square, and she managed to park her car and sneak from tree to tree without me noticing her, in order to come up from behind and grab me in an ambush hug.  Needless to say, she makes me smile and feel like a kid myself.  We wandered over to Aztalan State Park, where the wide open spaces were calling to me.  When I was a child, my dad used to take me to the Morton Arboretum.  I’d see fields of dandelions and expanses of grass that made me break out into a run, or a gallop, or a skip.  I just had to propel myself into the middle of that lush landscape, wishing I were a wild bird so that I could skim over the entire scene.  What happened to that energy, that joyous surge?  I still feel it in my brain, although the rest of me is greatly slowed down.  I invite you to step into this place as if you were 7 years old again….how does it feel to you?

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Sun Spangled Afternoon

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My daughter treated me to a belated lunch today in honor of Mother’s Day.  We met at a bistro about halfway between Milwaukee and Madison, then walked around the nearby state park for a while, visited the Farmer’s Market on the square and stopped by the beach of Rock Lake.  The late afternoon sun sparkling on the water made me think of so many summer visits to my grandmother’s cottage on Lake Michigan.  Young kids were playing about in the sand, and my daughter and I rolled up our pants and waded in the cool water.  Ah, to be young, blonde and carefree again!

Summer’s almost here!

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How Old is Old?

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I am trying to wrap my brain around history.  As an interpreter at Old World Wisconsin, I talk about St. Peter’s Church, the first Catholic chapel & cathedral in Milwaukee, which was built in 1839.  The liquid glass in the windows is rippled with age.  Kids who come by can’t believe that the pump organ isn’t hooked up to speakers and that the stops don’t produce drum patterns or other synthetic sound loops when I pull the knobs.  My blog friend, Stuart, is posting amazing photos of Gloucester Cathedral (you must pay a visit…click here to see his shots) built in 1350 or so.  Stone masonry and stained glass and soaring vaults predating the little immigrant church by 500 years – shows you that history isn’t about straight-line ‘progress’, it’s a complicated story with twists and turns and explosions and annihilation thrown in.   Then compare this photo of Mesa Verde in Colorado, a cliff dwelling inhabited somewhere between 600 and 1300 AD, most likely closer to 1200 AD. 

What we do with the raw materials at hand, the technology available and our cultural values is totally up to us.  So much is possible.  So much has always been possible.  What are we doing today?  How will our imprint appear in 500 years?   It’s a lot to think about.

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Mid-day Napping

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The windows are open; a warm breeze floats through the screen and caresses my cheeks.  Sunshine brightens patches of my orange bedsheets and makes a heating pad for my aching back.  I feel old today.  Probably because I am allowing myself to.  Today I do not need to greet visitors with a smile and pleasant conversation.  I can curl inward and feel the aches I have acquired in living.  I have a living history, too.  It involves struggle and fortitude and being foreign… like those German immigrants I talk about at work…though it is very different in its particulars. 

The art of self-comforting.  Breathing.  Slowing down.  Searching for health in the interior of being.  Acknowledging tender spots.  Bathing them in warmth.  And perhaps in tears.  I feel the love of my children, my husband, and of summer, wafting around me like a vapor of dreams in dappled green light.  I hang on by my toes to a branch of substance, and rock myself to sleep.

Death Valley, CA, last April. Photographed on the trail to Darwin Falls.

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Mothers and Others

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I probably greeted about 200 mothers at work today.  I talked to each of my 4 children on the telephone, and left e-mail and voice mail messages for my own mother.  Mother’s Day was sunny and bright and happy, or at least seemed to be, here in the Midwest.   The local grocery store ran a sale, as did most businesses, and featured a picture of a mother and daughter in 1950s style matching dresses, matching pearls and matching smiles on their outdoor sign.  How American.  How stereotypical.  How misleading. 

Every mother-child relationship is unique.  We use the term “mother” for convenience, like we do any other word, and run the risk of that symbol replacing the concept of an actual individual living out a particular life in a particular way.  This is where we have to be vigilant and intentional in order to keep from assuming a role instead of forming a relationship.  My mother is not a cookie cut-out on an assembly line.  Neither am I.  Nor are my children.  I want us to know each other as real people, in the present tense.  We have histories together that span our lifetimes, but we are always evolving.  I don’t want to get stuck in old habits, old emotions, old psychological baggage.  I want to keep a vital, dynamic exchange going with these people whom I so dearly love.   That takes effort.  Distance complicates it.  It takes dedicated time, too.  I am humbled by the idea of loving my mother and loving my children.  I want to have more than the sentimental attachment or the Hallmark moment once a year.  I desire more and they deserve more.  I guess this is another way that “convenience” and ease can lull us into accepting a substitute.  Just send the card, the flowers, the e-mail.  Say the words, do the brunch, go through the motions.  Done.  Off the hook for another year.  Nope, not good enough; not to me.  I want to slow down, appreciate, be present, be real.  I want to know and be known.  I want intimacy.  It’s actually a scary venture, so I’ll only try that with a few people in my life.  I think my mother and my children qualify.  So, my darlings, I’ll keep trying to overcome the distances.  You are very important to me.