Tag Archives: psychology

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Traveling Mercies

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Today’s poetry writing prompt is to write a travel poem about getting from Point A to Point B.  I took this with me as I walked with Steve to meet his mom for breakfast at a cafe on North Avenue.  Here’s what I came up with:

Suburban sidewalk, cement sanitation

Fighting blight from untidy dandelions

Writhing, withered stems polluted, poisoned

Preventing spreading superfluous seeds

 

Muddy raindrop crater-pocked parkway

Mini helicopter maples, twin neon confetti

Mossy black trunks, petal-splashed branches

Tinny worm smell, saturated iris-limp toilet paper

 

Hiking boots treading asphalt pathways

Longing for the purity beneath.

 

Yesterday’s rain has left a distinct damp chill over everything.  I miss the golden sun.  My mood is slow and overcast as well, but I think I’ve had an epiphany in the recent “relationship talks” we’ve been having.  A serious and positive epiphany, too complicated to explain.  I never knew that shock and denial could last four years and then drop in an instant.  I feel like a snail without her shell.  Perfect for crawling about a rain-soaked environment. 

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Tuned In

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NaPoWriMo Day #3

Today’s prompt invited me to look up the #1 pop song on my birthday and write a poem inspired by that song.  I could also look up another significant date and use the song associated with that date instead.  I tried my birthday, and then the day that my husband and I always celebrated as the day of our first kiss.  I have to say that the first option won out.  Poems I have written inspired by my love for my husband will have to wait.  Especially since I am posting this in advance (courtesy the techno savvy of my friend Helen) because I am taking my kids to the Museum of Science and Industry for their birthdays today…their 23rd and 25th birthdays (kids never outgrow museums!).   I want to give my husband and the poetry he inspires a bit more time.

The number one hit song on the day that I was born was…..”The Locomotion” by Little Eva. 

I had an immediate association.  Not with the song, specifically.  With a train.  Steve has taken to describing my typical M.O. as “the freight train”.  It has to do with a very focused, linear way of acting.  I get into a task-oriented mode when I’m trying to get something accomplished.  I do not like to get side-tracked when I am operating like that.  I like to streamline and simplify and do one thing after another until the whole bloody thing is finished.  God help you if you get in my way.  That’s what cow catchers are for.  It can be an effective way of doing things.  Steve, however, likes to be “light on his feet”, like a river, like a school of fish, shaped by movement and fluidity.  There are advantages to that, too.  Anyway, it’s one of our points of reference when discussing our differences and trying to achieve compromise.

That’s the back story.  Here’s the poem:

 

Was I born to do this straight-track motion

Or was I just trained?

Was chugging along my very first notion?

Was it always ingrained?

It’s not much of a dance.

It’s not fluid with grace.

There’s not much of a chance

Of a partner to face

When we’re all in a line

Going forward full speed.

Someone’s always behind;

Someone’s always the lead.

So “ev’rybody’s doing it”,

And that may be true.

But, c’mon baby, are you sure it’s for you?

I think this is my moment to jump off the track.

And, no, I’m not asking for my money back.

Was that Scilla that just blew by?!

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A Jury of My Piers

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Those solitary places where great expanses spread to absorb thoughts, dreams and other venturings of consciousness always appeal to me.  They feel accepting and safe.

An appropriate physical place to house a mood is often hard to find.  I think that’s one thing that keeps me exploring.  I keep my favorites locked in my memory and go back to them by closing my eyes.  This is how I try to listen to myself, I suppose.  Before I face any jury, I want to know my own story.

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Intimacy

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How well do you know me?  How well do I know myself?  How well can any two people know each other, accept each other, celebrate each other, or be open and honest with each other?  Do you really want to be that intimate with someone?  It sounds like a lot of work.  And there are some things that might not be pleasant to know.  Even about myself.  Maybe especially about myself.  I want to present the pleasing face.  I’ve worked on being able to do that.  Is that not me?  Are you sure you prefer the genuine me over that pleasing mask?  Why?  

My partner Steve and I go around and round about this.  He maintains that he is honestly working toward a genuine intimacy that is non-judgmental and completely open.  Whether that’s attainable is another question, rather like a Zen koan.  I find that my brain is hard-wired to make a million comparisons, a million analytical assessments, a million judgments all in a short time…about everything.  I turn that brain on myself all the time, without being terribly conscious about it.   I want to practice being aware of those thoughts and communicate them honestly to Steve.  He promises to practice accepting, appreciating, and honoring them, holding a safe space open for me to continue my practice.  What might that look like?

We go on a walk together.  His long legs want to stretch; I can’t keep up.  I assess myself and feel slow and out of shape.  I begin to feel like I am a hindrance.  I blame myself.  I blame Steve.  I decide to communicate.  “I want to walk more slowly and take pictures.”  “I want to keep up a good pace and get more exercise.”   “Let’s just do what we want and meet up later.”  Sounds reasonable.

There he goes.  The Walking Man walks.  James Taylor sings in my head.  I wander toward the river, away from the parkway, the bicyclists, the dog-walkers, the joggers, the strollers and baby strollers.   On a sunny Sunday, the village moves outside.  I find a spot by the river’s edge, alone with my camera.  I watch the water glide over rocks, reflecting light.  What do I reflect?  Is that me?  Is it genuine?  Is it a costume, an act?  Maybe I am everything — change and movement.  Maybe communicating is so important because this change and movement is constant.  You will never know me if you’re thinking about what I said a minute ago.  You can never step in the same river twice.

If I take the energy I might have spent on “formatting” myself for presentation and apply it to communicating myself “as is”, will I get closer to knowing my true self?

I am still learning how to be what I am.  Just that has taken half a century almost.  This conscious brain is cumbersome, manipulated early by social constructs and patterns, weighty now with baggage.  The simple forming and blossoming of a bud reminds me that life can be much freer than I make it. 

I dreamed last night that I could fly.  It was like swimming in air, gliding where I wanted to go, my feet never touching the ground.  I have had this dream my whole life.  I’ve always known how to do that, effortlessly.  But only in my sleep.

 

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The Bicentennial Post

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I began this blog 200 posts ago, and there’s nothing in this world that I don’t know…


Well, that’s not true, but I’m remembering my father sitting in his chair on our wrap-around porch singing old silly songs as the sun went down.  “I was born about 10,000 years ago…” verse after unbelievable verse.   There’s a lot in this world that I don’t know and will never know, and many things that I can know if I pay attention and try to be aware.  One thing I became aware of is that my blog was hard for my mother to read in its old format.  The light text on a slightly darker background was obscured through her developing cataracts.  I hoping that this new look will be clearer for her.

Another thing that I’m becoming aware of is the way that thoughts influence energy.  Life is difficult (opening line of M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled), in other words, living requires effort.  Solving problems, finding food, making money, communicating – all of that takes some energy, but sometimes the energy returns to us if the process is positive and life-giving.  When I feel drained and sad and depressed, it’s often simply because my thoughts about problem solving, making money, and other efforts of living are not positive.  In another Summit with Steve this morning, I asked myself this question, “Are you going to roll up your sleeves or roll up your eyes?”  Steve offered an illustration from our favorite National Basketball team, the Chicago Bulls (President Obama is also a loyal fan).  Rookie Jimmy Butler, brand new to the team, has a life story that exemplifies the effort of overcoming obstacles.  He was abandoned by his father at an early age, kicked out by his mother at 13, raised by a widow with 4 children who remarried a man with 3 more children, and finally made it to Marquette University and the NBA.   He is part of the energy infusion we fans call “The Bench Mob”.  They’re not “good enough” to be starters, but when they go into a game, they roll up their sleeves and get to work!  Another member of “The Bench Mob” who has a totally different physical attitude is Omer Asik.  We love him, because he’s nerdy-looking like us.  He’s tall and skinny and white.  He’s from Turkey.  He is a great basket defender, but he’s pretty new to the team, too, and not as athletic as many players.  He has this comical hang-dog expression when he fouls someone or misses a shot.  He literally rolls up his eyes, instead of his sleeves.

Energy ebbs and flows.  Sometimes I roll up my sleeves, sometimes I roll up my eyes.  Here’s another comic example: Buster Keaton.  Mr. Keaton had a stellar career in silent films.  He’s a little guy, very physically strong.  His acrobatic stunts on camera are amazing.  His comedy is also about solving problems, thinking outside of the box and using his incredible energy.  Of course, he doesn’t squander any energy talking!  His reaction to social situations is great.  He doesn’t let them deter him from going after what he wants, and whenever he fails, he simply tries a new tactic.  See any of the clips from “College” (1927) that you can find…or the whole film!  He makes a great movie star hero, in my book.

So, this one’s for me, my kids and anyone else out there who is putting effort into living.   You are not your thoughts.  If your thoughts of failure and shame are draining your energy, listen to them and then change them.  Are you really ashamed of yourself?  Or is that a perception of what you think ‘society’ thinks of you?  The truth is you are a good person and you desire to be a good person (most likely – granted there may be exceptions).  Roll up your sleeves, Good Person, and play!

A couple of really Good People rolling up their sleeves!

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A Bigger World

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I’ve been thinking lately about my ego and my mood cycle.   Two days ago, I wrote “I feel that expansive, fecund, open sense bubbling up in me, settling me down, inviting me to nurture and set free.  Then, a while later, I feel a feisty urge to grab hold and wrestle with my circumstances and force them to conform to some idea in my brain.”  Right now, I’m in the restless part of my cycle, and my ego is eager to get to work on something.   It gives me a sort of shimmering sense of dissatisfaction, not like something is “wrong”, but like I’ve been sitting too long and want to stretch.  I don’t want to get into the habit of simply indulging my ego with any old thing whenever it prods me, though.   Steve often talks of feeling like he’s “treading water”, too.  He told me this morning that he wanted to work on “pointing his canoe”, which is his metaphor for re-establishing direction and putting energy into venturing forward, so I asked him if he uses some kind of ego energy to address that.   He said, “It’s not like that.  It’s more like gathering your courage and discipline to step into a bigger world.  I think the ego is a smaller world.”

I immediately got my pencil and notebook and wrote that down.

A bigger world.  A world that is beyond me, beyond my control, beyond prediction.  A bigger concentric circle.  I do think we tend to pull back into our tiny, lower-case universe, the one where we feel safe and comfortable and powerful.  We can’t really help that tendency, but we can acknowledge it and try to point our canoe in a different direction.  I am really inspired by people who do that, and through the network of blogging, I have met a few who I think are paddling away.  Maybe they’re not the people you’re thinking of.  They aren’t the extreme sportsmen.  They aren’t the world travelers.  They aren’t the social superstars.  They are the suffering, the ones who have met their limitations and crossed into the unknown.  They blog about living with their illness, their addiction, their recovery, their brain damage in a way that definitely requires them to gather courage and discipline and step into a bigger world, a world which they don’t master.  And sometimes they whine, and sometimes their posts are incredibly boring, but I keep visiting them because I think they are truly onto something.  I suppose that I am hoping to witness their breakthrough flight, when they will soar high above the rest of us into that bigger world of awareness.  I’m not sure what that will look like, but maybe I’ll recognize it anyway.

I am working on writing a memoir on my husband’s illness and death.  Four years ago, he had his last surgery.

The story of how he came out of anesthesia is perhaps a glimpse into that bigger world.  My oldest daughter wrote about it in her Live Journal that evening:

“When I saw him after the surgery, painkillers and low blood sugar had rendered him almost completely unresponsive. We tried everything—tickling him, turning his insulin pump off, talking to him, poking him—but the most we could get from him was a groan or a slight shift of position. I told him I was pregnant. Mom said they’d called a rematch of the Super Bowl. I even took a picture of him, threatening, I think, to mock him with it later. Nothing made any difference until I had to leave for work. I squeezed his arm and said “Bye, Dad. I love you,” and in a sleepy, submerged-sounding voice, he said “Love you.” We couldn’t get him to say or do anything else, but every time someone said “I love you,” he would immediately mumble it back.”

So, I think of Jim, hovering somewhere between consciousness and death and knowing only one response: “I love you”.   This is the Universe you don’t control.

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Stressed for Success?

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My very astute sister once pointed out to me that all stress is not created equal.  There’s daily stress, the normal result of a body functioning without rest for 16 hours or so, which is alleviated after 8 hours of sleep.  There’s distress, which gives us the feeling of being overwhelmed or upset by the amount of stress we experience, and then there’s eustress, which according to Wikipedia is “a term coined by endocrinologist Hans Selye which is defined…as stress that is healthy, or gives one a feeling of fulfillment or other positive feeling. Eustress is a process of exploring potential gains.”  Examples of eustress could include climbing a mountain, running a marathon or sky-diving.  Or surviving a nautical disaster.

I was intrigued by a comment I read from one of the survivors of the cruise ship, Costa Concordia, that sank in the Mediterranean this past week.   ABC News reported:

‘Australian miner Rob Elcombe and his wife, Tracey Gunn, told Melbourne’s Herald Sun Newspaper they booked a spot on the Concordia as a last ditch effort to save their marriage.  Instead, the couple found themselves trying to save their lives when they boarded the very last lifeboat to leave the ship with survivors. “This has made our bond much, much stronger,” Elcombe told the paper. “Who needs couples counseling, when you survive a Titanic experience?” ‘

An adventure.   Stress worked into a feeling of gain.  Is it possible to turn your distress into eustress?

Peace like a river

Another news story I ran across came under this headline: Wife Slips Into Madness As Husband Dies of Brain Tumor. (ABC News)  Catherine Graves wrote a book called Checking Out: An In Depth Look At Losing Your Mind describing the distress of caring for her husband.  The headline rather sensationalizes an experience of overwhelming stress that is shared by a lot of people who find themselves in the role of caregiver.  I can relate.  I went through depression and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome during my husband’s illness and after his death.  Like Mrs. Graves, I was widowed at 45.  But did I lose my mind?  Not irretrievably, I don’t think.  Maybe what I’m doing now, being unemployed, slowing down, is my way of turning that distress into eustress.

There’s an old hymn that I’ve affectionately heard referred to as “The Playtex Hymn” (after the girdle).  The first line is “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in His excellent Word”.   It was written by John Keith in 1787.  My favorite verse goes like this:

“When through the deep waters I cause thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow;
For I will be with thee thy trouble to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.”

For some reason, singing that verse always causes me to choke up with emotion.  I know how it is to feel like I’m drowning.  I have a gasp reflex that reminds me of this almost daily.  It shows up lightning fast in moments when my reptilian brain senses danger.  It first became noticeable when I was trying to teach my kids to drive.  I would gasp and grab the handle above the passenger side door at the slightest correction of the steering wheel or touch of the brake.  It happened to me again just this morning.  I was stacking packages on the table and the tower toppled over.  I gasped.  “I must be drowning!” I laughed.  It’s probably a rather annoying habit for those who live with me.   I appreciate their patience.

There’s another hymn that follows this theme.  “It Is Well With My Soul” was written by Horatio Spafford in 1873.  The story behind it is quite amazing.  In brief, according to Wikipedia:

“This hymn was written after several traumatic events in Spafford’s life. The first was the death of his only son in 1871 at the age of four, shortly followed by the Great Chicago Fire which ruined him financially (he had been a successful lawyer). Then in 1873, he had planned to travel to Europe with his family on the SS Ville du Havre, but sent the family ahead while he was delayed on business concerning zoning problems following the Great Chicago Fire. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship sank rapidly after a collision with a sailing ship, and all four of Spafford’s daughters died. His wife Anna survived and sent him the now famous telegram, “Saved alone . . .”. Shortly afterwards, as Spafford traveled to meet his grieving wife, he was inspired to write these words as his ship passed near where his daughters had died.”

And here’s the lyric:

When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

I am trying to re-train my brain to believe that my deepest distress can be sanctified.  I don’t think this is an exclusively Christian perspective at all.  The Noble Truths of Buddhism are all about addressing the suffering (distress) of this world and how we think about it.   I hope that as I “explore potential gains”, my drowning will become floating, and all will be well with my soul.

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Nerd Love

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Last night, we watched the 1955 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, “Marty”, starring Ernest Borgnine.  The year this movie was released was the same year my parents graduated from college and got married.  My mother could have played the heroine, a gentle, intelligent young woman with a narrow Celtic jaw and a fabulously stylish but thrifty wardrobe.  Except she was just 20 when she got married, and Clara in the movie is a dangerously spinster-approaching 29.  Marty is “the stocky fellow”, an Italian butcher and a bachelor at 34.  My dad was “that cute boy on crutches” who was a little soft around the middle due to a bum knee that kept him from vigorous exercise.  The social game of the day in New York City was to go to The Stardust Ballroom, a dance hall “loaded with tomatoes”.  Marty and Clara are the kind who get turned down for dances.  He owns up to the fact that they are “dogs”, but awkwardly, tenderly, they begin to treat each other like real human beings.  They speak honestly together while Marty’s Italian family covers up true emotions with white lies and secrets and his buddies pretend machismo.  The two of them create a little oasis of sanity in the desert of social confusion.  And it’s charming, really.

Happy nerds on opera night

All of us who grew up believing “that love was meant for beauty queens and high school girls with clear skin smiles who married young and then retired” (Tara Mclean) might find a champion in Marty, who recognizes a chance for happiness in being himself, like Motel in “Fiddler on the Roof” who asserts that “even a poor tailor is entitled to some happiness”.   Why does our society put so much pressure and competition into the process of discerning your identity and living authentically?  I suppose that our economy runs on producing that neurosis.  “You couldn’t possibly find love or happiness without our product!”  Maybe there’s a lurking sense that civilization is actually advanced by feeding that neurosis in order to produce those marvelous, gorgeous, socially admirable types.   God forbid that the misfits should breed.  And so, the universal theme emerges: misfits and nerds are humans, too, and we all belong in that category, really.  The “in crowd” and the “out crowd” are fantasies.  We are ‘the crowd’, that’s all.

The Italian mothers in Marty’s neighborhood keep up this refrain: “You oughta be ashamed of yourself.  34 years old…when are you gonna get married!”  Shame.  God, what a horrible thing to put on someone.  I am a mother, I oughta know.  I used it enough.  Now I feel like shouting out, “Never mind what I said before!  Be happy!!”   Aren’t we all entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness  as long as we aren’t harming anyone?  Ah, yes, it can get complicated.  The pursuit of my happiness might impinge on the pursuit of your happiness.  It happens.  I can’t be a happy Italian mamma unless all my sons are married to Italian women and producing grandchildren that I can feed.  Maybe happiness has to be a responsibility that doesn’t require someone else’s participation.  Can I be a happy Italian mamma all by myself, cooking for myself, caring for myself, doing things I enjoy, entering into relationships by mutual agreement, not by obligation?  Marty’s aunt keeps saying, “I’m 56 years old, a widow.  This is the worst time of life.  I’ve got no one to cook for, to clean for…”  Marty’s girl suggests that she take up some “hobbies” and the old women stare at her as if she’s just shot a hole in her own forehead.  God forbid I should take responsibility for my own happiness!  No, make that “God require that I should take responsibility for my own happiness”.

Be happy, people!  Live happy, love happy.

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Joy to the World

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Gift of the Universe #22:  JOY!

I truly believe that joy is available to everyone.  No one is denied the opportunity to be joyful.  Many people on this planet will never have a full stomach or adequate shelter or enough material wealth to climb out of poverty, but believe it or not, some of those very people know joy.

“Joy is not in things; it is in us.”  – Richard Wagner

“Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.”  – Joseph Campbell

My late husband was ill for many years.  He went under the knife for open heart surgery when he was just 31.  He suffered a host of medical problems stemming from diabetes, always believing that he would get the disease under control.  When he realized that was not going to happen, he said, “Okay, I’m sick.  I can be sick and miserable, or I can be sick and happy.  I choose happy.  Pain is inevitable, misery is optional.”  I really admire him for coming up with that maxim, and for embodying it.  The night before he died, he called me at work and asked if I’d like to go out to dinner.  Our daughters were out for the evening, and he took the opportunity to enjoy a ‘date’ with me.  We went to a local sports bar & grill and enjoyed veggie appetizers and sandwiches.  Our youngest called from rehearsal to say she was not feeling well and was coming home early, so we went home to be with her.   Jim was tired, so he took his medications, hooked up to his dialysis machine and CPAP and watched some TV.  When I came up to bed, he turned off the TV and the light.  We fell asleep holding hands.  He never woke up.  And he never complained.  Some people claim that “if you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything”.  I don’t buy that.  Jim didn’t have health, but he had joy and love and he knew it.

Many people would foreswear food, health, housing, and money in order to find joy in an ascetic lifestyle.  Mendicants, yogis, monks, and priests of different faiths have adopted austere practices in order to experience the bliss of enlightenment.

“Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”  – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything.”  – Julian of Norwich

This is a deep and serious topic, and much too heavy for me to write about today.  My brain is circling closer to Dr. Seuss and The Grinch who puzzles how the Whos could be singing without “ribbons and tags, packages, boxes and bags”.  Perhaps joy means a little bit more than the glee we feel when we get a shiny, new present.  Happiness is fleeting.  Joy is deeply felt.

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”  – George Bernard Shaw

I’ve got to say that the way I have most felt this joy of being used for a mighty purpose and force of Nature is through mothering.  I know what it is to be thoroughly worn out and joyful.  I know what it is to feel like nobody is devoting himself to my happiness and not to complain because I am finding so much joy in devoting myself to someone else’s well-being.  Not that I didn’t complain occasionally (hey! I’m human!).  I always felt that mothering mattered.  That I was truly making a difference, a big one, to at least four people in the world.  I smiled at my babies even when I was not feeling joyful, and joy emerged.   Never underestimate the effect of a smile.  Check out this Still Face Experiment by Dr. Tronick on youtube.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apzXGEbZht0

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” – Thich Nhat Hahn

My joyful (and crazy!) kids

Are you smiling every day?  I’m sure I am.  I even busted a belly laugh today as Steve was describing a Giotto fresco…of Mary and Joseph… kissing at the gates of Bethlehem…with Snoopy in the background.  He speaks like a nerd who knows everything, and then I realize he’s bullshitting me.  I fall for it all the time and then get to laugh at him and at myself.  Steve’s identity motto, which he came up with at a psychology school retreat, is “I am the joy in change and movement”.  I am really benefiting from his perspective because I am often afraid of change and movement.  I so don’t need to be.  There is freedom in allowing joy into your life.

Let Heaven and Nature sing…and see if you don’t find yourself singing along.  Rejoice, my friends.