Kung Fu Tortoise

(Baby Step, Toronto, 2011)

I joined a Kung Fu studio…oh, months ago now, I don’t even know how long. I dutifully attend once a week, practice at least twice a week. That’s the time I allotted when I started, squeezed and eked from a life that’s flying too fast with so many hopes still beckoning. I knew what that meant, from the start. I knew it meant I would be “taking it slow.”

Here’s the thing I didn’t know. I didn’t know what that meant to me.

I’m not slow. In school, in work, I’ve never had to give it my all to keep up and even lead the pack. And here I am, with my under-developed body-sense (isn’t the body just here to carry around my mind and do things for it?), trying to learn a completely foreign discipline. Just being seen by other humans doing this causes my brain to scream, “hide!”

If I were training alone, I think I’d be quite happy with my progress. Each week I can do something I couldn’t before. Some things are coming more naturally, a little faster. I’m starting to remember some of the order for the forms. I'm definitely stronger and more flexible. I’m not stagnated.

The problem I’ve discovered is that it’s much harder than I thought it would be, to notice that I fall behind one cohort and then another. It’s a little painful being the class dunce, the slow kid in remedial. I know it’s probably good for me, I recognize the rich and fertile ground for my personal development. That doesn’t make it a pleasant feeling.

There are times when I want to say, forget it, I clearly am not committed enough to keep up, and being seen not keeping up is a bad feeling I don’t want in my life right now, when everything is already so uncertain and scary.

Someone inside me laughs gently, with love, and asks in a mild tone, “Is this not your own life practice? What have others to do with it?”

She strokes my head and whispers, “Today you are not the hare, you are the tortoise. Bask in your pace while others stress and run around. For this one thing in your whole life, just one step and then another. Despite the pack. Your speed is your own, unique to you. You are the only one training your training.”

Breathe.

One step. Then the next.

(musical accompaniment from The Music: Take the Long Road and Walk It)

or if you're feeling more mellow, try Badly Drawn Boy: One Plus One is One)

Humbled and Horrified

(Humbled & Horrified, Toronto Zoo, 2011)

There is infinite creation. There is expanse of nothing. There is chaos and churn. We are afraid. We are confused.

We churn, we churn, we negate, we are lost.

At essence, we long to negate. Easier! Easier! Let go.

How can that be? How can being be and not be?

We must be!

We must know. We must become essential. Must? This is new, infection.

We are essence. We are the impossible and we long to exist.

We don’t want to choose. We long to choose. We hate the choice for pretending to exist.

We are angry; we are afraid.

We hate the fear. Fear weakens. Hate negates. We are weaker.

We erode. What to do?

We fall. We tire. We dissipate and densify.

We are a tornado, we are the centre.

We don’t know.

But we are. We do. Densify, physify. Why?

What do we pursue? What do we avoid?

Absolute density. Absolute expanse.

But what happens? What happens if we don’t?

Easier! We want it to be easier.

What is, is. Do we find acceptance?

No choices. All choices.

All choice. No choice.

I am humbled and horrified.

It flies from me, my inadequate capacity and absolutely insufficient capability to hold, describe, explain.

Production

(Staircase Noise, Winchester Mystery House, California, 2005)

I still haven't unpacked my boxes from work.

At the end of this month it's been 3 months since I left my job. It feels like 3 days. Three long, hectic days filled with nothing I thought they would be, filled to the brim. Where did three months go?

I haven't held still for a moment, yet I also haven't produced.

There it is. Production.

My soul is sold on this concept of production. Productization. Productivity. Producer. Production as indicated by output and measured by dollars earned. I can tell myself I value other things - the exercise that has let me keep my weight while stress-eating, the extra time and closeness with my kids, getting some aspects of our house-life in order - and I still judge myself for failing to produce.

The supportive coach in me asks me to reframe. Reframe. I note the personal progress (it feels like regress, but I think I had to go back to go forward). I feel the change in me as I let go of some things that have been with me a long time. I am expanding my networks, feeling around for my path, seeking help. I am mulling and living with what is now. Way to go!

The 6 Sigma Blackbelt in me snorts. The supportive coach gives him a dirty look. He steps forward. He says, "All of this production work means nothing until there is sold product, and then we can measure it by how much it sells and for what price."

I don't know how to answer that. I stammer. I look at my feet. The supportive coach purses her lips.

The outraged child can't sit still.

"Shut up shut up shut up shut up!" she cries. We all shudder. When she gets started we know it's the long haul.

"Who cares?" she wails. "Why should I even CARE? This sucks. This all sucks. I don't want to work. I want to tell stories. All day. Leave me alone and let me tell stories and stop bugging me with all this money stuff. Aren't we supposed to trust the universe or something?" She pouts, her arms crossed. The rest of the room laughs. Some of us think she's cute, but there are others grumbling. I can hear them muttering.

"She's going to bring us all down."

"She's forgetting that she's not the only kid who's affected"

"The universe? What's that supposed to be?"

"If we listen to her, we'll waste our time"

"She's so immature, thinking we can do what we want all day"

"It's not about fun, life is about work."

It goes on and on. I close my eyes. I stuff my fingers in my ears and try to listen for what I feel.

It's just too noisy in here.

An End to the Tyranny of Niceness

I stand today, alone, to challenge the Tyranny of Niceness.

Nice people are courteous, friendly, helpful, polite, honest, respectful and generous. Too bad humans aren’t very nice.

Oh, get over it.

Don’t say, “yes we are” in that pleading tone of voice. We aren’t. We just aren’t. Not you, not me, not anyone. We have nice impulses, yes, and logically many of us buy in to Niceness because its confines feel like a requirement of living together in harmony. We often practice and refine nice behaviour. We've even codified it into law as best we can. That doesn’t make us god. It doesn’t change the very nature of the creature we are.

A human’s primary biological imperative is to protect itself. That evolutionary requirement has far-reaching effects on how the brain and nervous system function. It affects our very minute-to-minute non-stress reasoning to an enormous degree, and hides from us assumptions that we can’t even notice to question. Protecting the ego from harm occupies an inordinate portion of our system’s activity and focuses on self.

If that was all, we might be nice by now. But it’s Survival of the Fittest in this harsh, challenging environment (I love Earth, but really, what’s with the EXTREMES?). So we developed a competitive spirit. A strong competitive spirit. Fight or Flight, Survival of the Fittest - not exactly a recipe for Nice. Even so, the need for community gives humans good reason to overcome our worst and act nice together.

Nice lets us tolerate each other. That only makes it, at best, a half-natural state.

We applaud Niceness in stories and song. We insist on it from our young. We encourage it and if necessary, enforce it through social means and, eventually, using the criminal justice systems. We expel 6 year olds if they aren't nice enough at school. All of this is geared to limiting and controlling behaviour to a set of norms that can be adhered to only through active, daily will. We all practice this art.

Every child knows that kids are unkind, adults use subterfuge, the best movies have guns, and hockey’s about the fights. We are aware of the active torture and angry violence that takes place against people throughout the world, every day, inflicted human to human. We see the contradictions. It’s something we don’t like to talk about – it’s not nice.

We also know what it feels like when we experience social disapproval. What’s the rule – no politics or religion at the dinner table? We must avoid conflict – it’s not nice. We must avoid raised passions – they lead to loud voices, which are not nice. We must come to agreement as quickly as possible to restore nice. We must silence or remove a disruptive person before they upset anyone. Let’s keep it nice, shall we?

All this niceness has let evil seep in underneath, knowing what it can get away with because people are too nice to say anything, to get upset, to say no, to ask questions, to band together, to protest, allow for the worst. Too nice to challenge each other and our assumptions. Too nice to be honest about what we’re thinking if it’s not popular. Too nice to risk social rejection by aligning with a cause or a person or pushing beyond the status quo.

While we’re playing nice on the surface, we’re keeping our gaze shallow so we don’t have to see that what’s holding it up is crumbling beneath us. For many, this is just as true personally as globally.

Niceness lets us live together. Let’s not let it keep us from living together.

Let’s find a way to have the tough conversations we all need to have, over dinner, over fences, in community centres, at the mall, in the parking lot, after the meeting. Let’s talk about values, and why values aren’t part of our conversations on economic value. Let's talk about what it means when we insist on lower taxes and fail to maintain physical and social infrastructure. Let's talk about what it means to our daily lives when our systems criminalize poverty and fail to support true mental health. Let's talk about the conflict between what's good for me and what's good for us.

Nice? Okay, let’s review the list: courteous, friendly, helpful, polite, honest, respectful and generous. This is not a list of behaviours but qualities to be applied to behaviours. Surely we can employ niceness and still raise difficult topics. Surely niceness doesn’t have to mean avoiding and pretending. Perhaps curiosity would help it along.

I often find social norms confining, but for the most part, if that’s what it takes, I’ll do my best and accept that some people will not like me along the way for whatever I failed to notice. But this norm, the norm that says no politics or religion in polite company – this one I want to push. I think it’s doing our species harm. I think it’s time we grow up and take responsibility to understand these tough problems together instead of abdicating to decreasingly effective governments. We will need to muck around in the Not Niceness together, as nicely as possible, if we're ever going to get out. Our leaders are too busy slinging mud over our heads.

There are ways out of the quicksand. Pretending we're not dirty isn’t one of them.

Coursing

Coursing

Sunrise

Sunrise

Value(s)?

I think I'm so special

I don’t know about you, but when I was in the Ether and they recruited me for this planet, I didn’t realize that I was going to have to work so hard.

I mean, sure, we all have to contribute, but each of us has natural talents, so that shouldn’t be a problem, right? I didn’t understand what they meant by “work.” And it turns out, my lot was a very easy one, by comparison.

As a child, the only work that was available to me was school. Same-for-everyone school. So, I learned the basic training and fed it back to them. Done. But over time I came to understand that was all they wanted, at increasingly complex levels. Learn and feed back.

I saw brilliant people spending hours every day collecting dry cleaning. I saw women with incredible talents for colour and design being scolded for taking too long creating table displays at Zellers. I saw creative geniuses told to build it like that one over there.

I heard, we’ve tried that, it won’t work, they’d never go for it, tone it down, soften it up, don’t rock the boat, don’t push the system, keep your head down, do what we ask you, here’s how it’s done, settle down, settle in, rotate your cog.

I heard people say, you're working too hard, trying too hard, it’s good enough, and good enough is good enough.

Like being in jail. A dolphin performing at Marine Land.

But I’m not meant to whine about it because, don’t I realize that most people feel that way? That’s the way life is. Suck it up, Buttercup. We don’t get the luxury of time to reach for our fully realized selves unless we can buy it back from the system. And the system is unforgiving.

Trust me, I get it. I know I’m not unique. Every living Consciousness longs for expression and communion. Such things simply are not priorities. There's too much work to do. I hear what people say when they gently try to tell me that I will accept this when I grow up, when I’m mature enough to know I can’t change things anyway. Just go with the flow, right?

You’re in Marine Land? Enjoy the fish.

We can be the happiest dolphins in Marine Land, fed and warm, turning tricks, and we will never be as alive as the dolphin who leaps for joy from the ocean’s waves. Even though the ocean is a dangerous place. It’s the tragedy of too many lives that so very much of them must be spent on a continuum between struggling for survival and working for others. Who am I to say I deserve more from my work than achieving someone else’s goals? Who am I to say I deserve to work in my potential-brilliance-zone?

Just Me.

Find original photos for injured tail, flaming hoop, joyful flip, and joyful leap

Musical Accompaniment for everyone: Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly

Musical Accompaniment for those who can take it: Monster Magnet, Powertrip

We're not the best machines

Once was, Human Bodies were the best machines for the job. Cheap, plentiful, capable of learning, flexible and multi-talented, most were far more machine than was needed at a bargain price! Like putting a V8 engine on a tricycle.

Public school systems assisted in the development and production of an army of human bodies, capable of producing and also providing a ready-made consumer base for that production. Technology and innovation flourished. Human civilization leaped forward on the model that the producers and consumers were the same.

People weren't perfect, though. They had unexpected shut-downs, were prone to error, slowed down without regular prodding, and were buggy with emotions. Unpredictable and sometimes hard to control. Being underutilized tended to create dissatisfaction that manifested in many obstructive ways. They required a lot of management attention and coddling along. Their tendency to die when not fed, sheltered and rested created ethical challenges within organizations.

Luckily, we've come a long way. We now have, or soon will, robots and computers that can do all the "cheap" and semi-complicated jobs more cheaply, efficiently and predictably. We will soon no longer require the human machines for increasingly complex tasks. See Foxconn.

The only Human Bodies that will be useful in the sense of production are ones that are better than machines at something. Expensive humans.

Expensive humans are expensive to make. They require more attention in the early years to ensure their talents are recognized and cultivated towards the ability to reach their full potential. Education must focus on the individual learning style, and the home environment must be low-stress, high support. They require excellent nutrition, many recreational and creative development opportunities, and of course, training and knowledge. They need love, kindness, and attention, most waking hours. The adult-to-child ratios required would significantly shift the labour of adult humans - perhaps even the equivalent of half of most adults' time spent solely on child development.

Humans are no longer the best machines for the job. The private sector has decreasing need for "cheap" humans for production. At the same time, Business clamours for "expensive" human bodies and complains of a shortage. We continue to hold the poor Private Sector accountable for creating full employment by insisting that each person earn his or her basic needs through paid employment. We make people dependent for their lives on businesses, which have no corresponding responsibility to provide employment, while under-utilizing the potential of what we have in our existing production run of humans. We vilify businesses when they don't want to buy the Human Bodies we've developed, and vilify our own product as deliberately inadequate and deserving of sub-standard living conditions. Worse, we continue to produce production-grade humans and fail to invest in producing the product our customer wants - expensive, loved, self-actualized human beings who are something machines cannot be.

Some thoughts to chew on with me?

Wasteful

Have you noticed how bad things are?

Okay, yes, I know all that frame of mind stuff. But come on. One immediate tiny example (indulge me, I'll keep it interesting). I'm trying to learn a flash animation GUI, and their help files are straight text.

I repeat, Straight Text. No Flash to flash them up. And the writing! SOOO well written, and so completely unreadable. I actually read the whole thing aloud using hand and arm motions similar to sign language, complete with facial expressions as though I were telling six year olds a story about how to understand movie making. In homage to how hard the writer tried.

It's not the writer's fault. I can see him or her, desperately reaching across the chasm of terminology and actual human learning, with words the only tool. Trying to make a living out of that English Lit degree Mother said was a waste of time. Management didn't get the specs there in time and everyone's breathing down his (or her) neck to just get the product out already!

My question is this: How many middle and upper management people reviewed all this text? How many marketing people made sure the language was aligned with their messaging to get me to buy something else? How many FLASH ANIMATION designers were involved in the creation of the How To manual? NONE. In 2011, with all those thousands of MBA's out there value-adding all over the place? It's just sloppy. It's badly done. There's no call for it.

Everything's like that. Flimsy. Cheap. Made for the process-makers instead of the users. Even the expensive stuff, I can see those corners you cut. Each one of them. I know what you did. You outsourced this and you sluffed off that, and you planned too little time, too little testing, took the cheapest parts...I know. I helped you for years. Building to last is not an effective business model.

It's too expensive. Doing things badly wastes our precious resources and the most precious of all, to me: Time. All this hurry-up wastes my time in the end, and my childrens' childrens' time a thousand times over. Human beings have the capacity to be better than this. We need to step it up and quit whining.

That's how I feel about poverty. Wasteful, sinfully wasteful. So badly done that I can't fathom how so many intelligent, educated humans could have possibly come up with even an eighth of it.

The more I look, the more I just want to take control of the situation and say, I am your OVERLORD, you WILL be decent people! You WILL treat each other with kindness! You WILL allocate adequate resources to ensure the public good! Or I will DISINTEGRATE YOU with my LAZER EYES! But I digress...

I have come to believe, as a working theory, that four main aspects of the problem are intertwined and underpinning the rest. These are the four things that currently have my attention, my "Key Strategic Focus Areas" (or KSFA's, for those who prefer):

1) Poverty is too expensive. It's dragging us down and must not be permitted to grow or remain at the same rate.

2) Poverty is so expensive because we grossly mismanage our resources

3) In the long run, it's cheaper to do the right thing

4) Society is currently too immature to focus on the long run with any sustained momentum

I'm interested in how a lot of other things come together, too, but these...these get my blood flowing.

At the core is my heartfelt belief* that humans could (should, but we don't say should in our family, so I'll say could) have the capacity to ensure that every life on the planet has shelter, food, water, clean air, some measure of security, and the ability to implement hygiene. It's not an adequate goal but still pie-in-the-sky enough to be going on with.

That we haven't already achieved this provides simply another example of how badly things are done.

*Constructs that come up a lot with me: Heartfelt beliefs, Values, Value, Community, Responsibility, The Plan, Full Potential...more on these in future

Sifting (short rant on ineffective framing)

I'm sifting.

Websites, reports, presentations, information to help move forward the dialogue in my country about how we want to be. I'm looking for useful data and I'm finding a lot of...words.

Here is what I am coming to in all this sifting. The people who control policy, and in fact most tax payers, care a great deal about cost and ROI. Yet as I sift through all the reams and reams of "data" and reports from people concerned with advancing the case of social equity and inclusion, hardly a dollar sign do I find. Eventually, I simply started doing a search for "$" before even starting a scan of the 64 pages of well-argued rhetoric I knew would follow the convoluted introduction. Rarely were the few dollar signs I found attached to useful ROI information. They were usually an expression of dismay at the plight of the disadvantaged, or a cost.

I think we are answering the wrong questions first. We seem to be jumping to how to solve problems that we have not all agreed need solving, without really talking about where the money will come from. And as a result, we are building in assumptions that do not serve us. We end up talking with each other, whining about how to get "them" to our table. What are we serving? What aroma might catch "their" noses?

Even if we weren't producing too much of our information in daunting reports and complicated frameworks, even if we were shoveling it out in exciting bite-sized chunks, we would not be successful. Because we are answering the right questions in the wrong order, then answering them with answers that require a level of agreement we have not achieved because we skipped over that sticky, fundamental First Question.

What are the rights we accord each other, and the responsibilities we owe each other, in this relationship which is community?

Or another way...

What is the minimum a person is "owed" and the maximum a person (or corporation) should be expected to "give"? And conversely, what is the minimum a person must give, and the maximum they are owed?

The answers vary wildly but we pretend there is a right one and it's ours. Can we try to grapple with the questions together, instead of working around the big, fat, elephant butt on the table? The elephant that keeps us talking to ourselves on opposite sides, trying to catch a peek of what's going on over there, yelling to get our point across.

Can we start to converse about rights and responsibilities, and the heartfelt beliefs people hold around these elusive and demanding concepts? I have a feeling everything else rests on these conversations we have among ourselves, every day, where we live and work and play. So how do we get the conversations going and make sure they are informed, when most people would rather talk about almost anything than what they really believe and how acceptable that is to others?

This is our work, my friends. I am preparing to join the fray.

(PS: If this post seems a little different than what you're used to, you won't be surprised to learn that this is the first post for my new blog which doesn't exist yet, on holdonhope.ca, which I haven't created yet. For now, I am housing this post here, though I realize that the rhythm isn't quite the norm for this space.)

Reflective Depth

Reflective Depth

No words

Emission

(July, 2011)

It doesn't take but a moment...

I'm trying this out...I'd like your thoughts on video. I find I avoid them because you can't skim and they are often long, but others tell me they only watch v-logs, don't even read blogs. I can see the appeal but I do like to hide behind my words. More on that in an upcoming post.

In the meantime...

Earlier this year, I reluctantly recorded some video about my writing and projects. Here's a 1 minute preview specific to this blog, Writing Out Loud.

The story of my 2nd Adult Life

Clarity (burns through) 

It’s the story of my second adult life.

My husband and I became lovers the year I turned 30. This year, I turned 40.

Now that I know him better, now that he sometimes shares some glimpse into what he’d rather be doing when there’s something he’d rather be doing (a dangerous admission in most circles), for the love of him I wish I had known what it’s taken us a decade to learn.

We spent so many years on the wrong goal.

We always knew we wanted to pursue our passions – for him, music. For me, writing. But what is a passion that you don’t practice and pursue? A wish. A fantasy. A frustration.

We thought the problem was money, and we also thought money was the solution. Money to buy time so THEN we could have the lives we wanted. We dismissed music and writing as pursuits unlikely to yield money, and never considered them in deciding what best to pursue. Right away, we had already picked a solution as if it were the only one that mattered. Then we diligently worked on that singular solution as if it were divorced from the goals it was meant to buoy.

We looked around for the best opportunity in our vicinity to yield enough payoff to let us live the lives we wanted. We considered our knowledge, skills, connections, abilities, talents, but never our passions, not seriously. We thought we found an opportunity that might pay off big, and invested our sweat, time and energy - twice. To our chagrin. Because there was no payoff. We worked with people who did not come through. We came of age at the end of the bubble, when so many entrepreneurial efforts fell stillborn with the crumbling of the twin towers. We used up our risk cards and at the end we had $60k in debt, and no visible chance at the lives we wanted.

Choices (narrow)

Maybe our parents were right. Maybe it was time to live their way.

And so we rebuilt. Jobs. Challenging, well-paying jobs that took our time and attention so that all we had left was to collapse with each other at the end of the days. Our minds were occupied. Our heartfelt passions, still, on the shelves.

Clear the debt. Buy a house. Begin to save.

Have a baby.

Have another baby.

Have alternating nervous breakdowns, intermittently, for years, manifesting with great variety.

(Suburban) Perspective

Stop.

Enough.


Now, is it too late to undo some of this, to start again and build another adult life, my third? An adult life that lets us do what matters to us. Not necessarily all day, every day, but at least every week, hopefully several times. That has enough space to allow us the presence and patience to make even the structured time - getting dressed, getting breakfast, driving to the school across town - time we look forward to together.  


It's not the original goal. If we'd been...if we had...if we could have...if we'd known... Who knows? Who knows what would be different if we'd started with a goal of music and writing every day, instead of making a pile of money so someday we could write and play music. 


Will we find out, or will the collective responsibility of adult life force us back on The Plan? 


Stay tuned... 

Wield

Forgiveness Pending

Se Pardonner
(Forgiveness)
(Arles, France, 2004)

Bless me, friends, for I have sinned.

Too many times...

I've responded to feeling intimidated

by becoming intimidating

I've responded to feeling alone

by acting as though I was the only one who mattered

I've responded to feeling sad

by denying it

by blaming for my sadness

by feeling sorry for myself

by letting myself crawl in too deep, and telling no one

I've responded to feeling rejected

by removing my caring

I've responded to feeling afraid

by getting bigger and stronger and bulletproof

I've responded to feeling vulnerable

With cynicism

I've responded to feeling angry

by pretending I was okay

by yelling and threats

by shutting down my feelings

by walking away 

I've responded to feeling left out

by removing myself from participation

I've responded to feeling unappreciated

With disdain

I've responded to feeling betrayed

with betrayal

with dismissal

with self-righteousness

I've responded to feeling unheard

by undermining

I've responded to feeling unloved

with shame.

For these and all my sins, I am truly sorry. 

Can I forgive myself?

(can I stop?)

(cross-post) Poking the Sky

This is a post from my blog at the Timeless site, where I'm desconstructing my "40cubed" project.

Poking the Sky

I'm inspired to write by a recent text-based discussion with an online friend (who knows my heart) that was initially about impatience, "deserving," and what it means to be truly operating at peak. She raised the term "divine slave," and I unexpectedly reeled with the phrase hitting my forehead, thump. So I immediately put that away, because there was clearly no time for that level of introspection! (But I did let a little, niggly bit of that meaning slide into my background processes. I will let myself roll those words around a little. )

As a starting place, I responded by describing my 40cubed  project as a way of poking the sky. Like saying to the universe, how about now? Wanna use me now? I'm bored here on the bench. I wanna run. I wanna play. I'm getting stiff. I'm losing my skills. Use me! Put me in the game. Whatever that means. So on one level it was about putting up my hand, even if timidly, even if not very high, but putting it up because if someone is ready to help me find my use, I'm ready to step it up.

At the same time, I'm not, really. I'm mothering small children. I'm struggling with anxiety and existential angst. I like to think I'm slowly building my health back, but I wear easily, cry easily, lose my temper and lose my patience more often than I want. I get embarrassed and it cripples me. I'm barely more than a child myself, grasping and lost, trying to lead others who don't even know they're awake yet. Is it arrogant to think what I have to offer is of value? Is it shameful to think anything but that?

So those are the questions I put myself to task for exploration in this project. I decided to raise my hand even though even though even though even though, and while I didn't jump up and down, the hand moved and something shifted in my universe. I let go of a big chunk of that nasty, crusty black Need To Be Seen As Perfect by opening up my unedited, unfinished work for participation. As it cracked off, it scraped some of my Desire To Please the Person I'm Talking To and a little of my I'm So Sorry to be So Insignificant and Still Bothering You. It also knocked a big hole in my What Will They Think, which has been itching and scratching at me far too long. I feel more hopeful.

I'm poking the sky, like a tease, like a test. And now, I'm about to jump to see what winds pick me up. I sure hope those are wings I feel back there, and not just weights.

Maverick Returns

I was feeling playful and laughing at myself so he slipped in pretty easily. I felt him right away, a part of me that I've been missing. But I'm still pretty mad at him for abandoning me.

"You're here."

"I'm here. Or you're imaging I'm here."

"It creeps me out, you watching me. If you're watching me, I want to see you."

"Look."

"I am looking."

"Look for something else."

"No. No cryptic stuff. Clear. Light of day."

"What if cryptic is all I can do?"

"Do it better."

"Hold out your hand."

I held out my hand.

"Notice the shadow of your hand reflected in the mirror. See your fingers, there?"

"Yes. Okay, but don't just shake the shadow or something, that's just me moving. Make it close and open, or wave or something."

"Watch."

As I watched, the reflected shadow hand began, almost imperceptibly, to grow. The fingers lengthened. I could see them snaking along the wall, reaching for the shadows behind the cabinet, impossibly long, the tips disappearing. My hands tingled. For a second, the index finger barely seemed to beckon, a tiny mocking shake.

Another trick of the light. Another goddamn trick of the light. Do you think parlor tricks are still good enough?

"No. No shadows. Out in the light. I want to see you."

I closed my hand and pulled the shadow into a tight ball. I shook it out.

I felt his despair in my own chest.

"It's just how you see."

(lost? the Maverick trail ended here: http://mrs-which.blogspot.com/2010/08/muddy-waters.html and previous incarnations are listed at the end of that post)

Tugging the Chain

Pride and Joy
(Hold on Hope, 2011)

How can I write you my joy before it dissipates into uncertainty once more?

Why, oh why do I always need such a long, laborious process and a complete physical breakdown before finally coming to the conclusion that whatever happens next, happens, and what happens after that, happens after that. What blissful relief.

And when I finally get there - actually, for-real get there, it seems so obvious. Just do the best you can with what you have, every day, and chill out a little.

The problem I have is when I don't think I'm optimizing. Who am I to say, anyway? I'm so impatient. Arrogant to be impatient, like my son wanting to build the Buzz Lightyear spaceship when he should be building the Mickey Mouse Car. Just shut up, quit getting freaked out by the emotion of how incredibly big this task is, and practice already.

(But there is this voice that says: you need to be greater at this, already. Fast track. Somehow. Quit waiting for permission. Quit waiting for assurances from other people who don't know either, even if they know more. Figure out your position, narrow it down and spit it out already. Get on with the show!)

I need to pat her on the head and say, yes, shhhh, momma will feed you when she's ready. When she's ready. And tug on that big chain to make her heel.

Musical Accompaniment A Sea Chanty of Sorts by Margot and the Nuclear So and So's followed immediately by Curve's Hell Above the Water

Wolf spirit watches

Essence

Essence Flickers

I'm reading a book my husband picked out for me for Mother's Day, called, "Tibetan Power Yoga: The Essence of All Yogas, A Tibetan Exercise for Physical Vitality and Mental Power." How's that for a title?

The book is written simply, in story form. It outlines the steps of a straight-forward set of postures, strung together like a wave, referred to as "prostrations." I find I have a hard time with that word. In any case, the monk shared 35 verses that people recite as they practice, then shared a simplified version for those of us in the West, consisting of 10 verses. I was delighted - the ten spoke to me far more than the 35. I had been kind of dreading all that contemplation, but the 10 felt like truths I could sink into.

Still, I couldn't remember them. So I wrote myself a little song, and I'm sharing the lyrics below. It's a bit corny, but I do feel a warm glow inside reciting this to myself. It helps remind me of the true verses, which are much more eloquent.

I'd like to share it (she says shyly)
Essence*

I am in love with all alive

I am one with patience

I am one with honesty
Sidestepping complacence

I am compassion incarnate

Tolerance, reflection

I am kindness, true and real

Steeped in circumspection

Today my gift is life itself

And those who share my way

Their essence calls my own aloft

I am myself today

*Based on the “Verses for Western People Who Practice” in Jutta Mattausch’s Tibetan Power Yoga


These are the original verses from the book (I hope I'm not breaching copyright by sharing, but it seems that sharing is the point)


I prostrate myself into the love of all living beings
I prostrate myself into the endless patience
I prostrate myself into absolute honesty
I prostrate myself into compassion for the poor
I prostrate myself into absolute tolerance
I prostrate myself into radiant truth
I prostrate myself into deep circumspection
I prostrate myself into true kindness
I prostrate myself into the golden abundance of all encounters that this unique day will give me.

Life lesson #18: Dethreading

Dethreading

Life Lesson #18: a gift from Fila, who insist on sewing tags inside their workout wear that are made of cast iron along the edges, and integrated as closely with the garment's actual seam as possible.

In other words, the tag won't go. It bugs. It itches, so I cut it out. But the part that's too close to the actual garment remains. It bugs, it itches. So I go in close. Still, the nubby back end and pointed corners laugh from their protected zone under the seam. You can't catch us here, they gloat. And I grab the scissors.

Stop. Do you see where I'm going? The tag - the unnecessary, unwanted thing placed in my tool (clothing) by its makers for their own benefit alone? The thing that itches, nags, even bites at times, and keeps me from flow? You see the life applications, yes?

Anyway, the scissors. And patience. It always does come back to that. How mad am I at that tag? How fast do I want to get this over with? Will I wield the scissors carefully enough? I start out well - a carefully placed little end-clip, a bit of tugging with the scissor-tips to pull the threads. It's coming out. I check the seam - unbreached. I keep pulling, tugging, making precision-snips where I need to. The tag won't go! It frays, breaks off, forces me into tighter and tighter competition with the regular seam. Do I have the patience? Can I keep at it till it's gone? Or will I face another workout with that damned annoying picking in my back? Is this good enough to go on with?

While I'm thinking that thought, my decision made before the thinking began, I take a deep cut into what I see as the heart of the reluctant left-corner contingent. I yank the ends with force, paying little heed to the seams or the garment. This is between me and the tag. This is personal.

And of course, I nick a seam. One, tiny little nick, waiting to become a big, gaping hole unless I sew it up, which never really works. GRRRRRR!

And in the end, I have to ask myself: am I okay with that? You know, for next time.

Musical Accompaniment from the Pixies, covering the Jesus and Mary Chain: Head On

A perfect form

She awaits (hope)
(Hold on Hope, 2011)

A perfect form
Repeats in nature
Where we look, we find

Love grows where it finds itself

Love grows where it finds itself
(Hold on Hope, 2011)

Too Much

Chi
(I'd love to credit this shot, but I have no idea where it came from)

When a child is out of control or afraid, and I am also afraid or weak, it is still my job, as the grownup, to be in control. I must put away what I feel to ensure that my child feels safe. 

I parent every human I encounter in this way. And when I can't, I'm reminded of the reasons why I must never, never let down my guard with anyone. Letting down my guard leaves me with vulnerable spots open, and if they hit one, I might hurt them with my response. Not physically, but that doesn't reduce the impact. 

I am too much for most people. Too much immediate intimacy because I already know their soul - and trust me, it's not on purpose. Too much love, which I can't help. but feels like over-intimacy to others. Too much power in my excitement and in my disappointment. Too much strength in my defense to hurt. Too much. 

The only way I knew how to avoid being too much was to be nothing at all. To give people only the surface, the smile, the encouraging word. To not let them really touch me beyond a brief reachout to see who they are so I can gauge how to behave. To keep myself well back of anything they might see, so that even if they hit a soft spot, I would only feel a tiny prick through the layers of distance between us, and I wouldn't have a gut-wrenching response that might throw them off-kilter. I honed this skill over years, with precision. People liked me. I got promoted regularly. People invited me for social engagements. I "had friends." It just never turned into what I needed from friendship, and I got lonely in here. 

Here's what I discovered along the way: I can't give all the good stuff of intimacy without risking that I get a big hurt. My hurt is too much for another person to experience in its rawness and still love me (my husband being the single exception currently in my life).

As I daily reach over a chasm that I dug with my own hands, trying to bridge between my dangerous, powerful, incredible self and the person people see and meet, I have no idea how. I'm clumsy. I'm careless. I vacillate between intimacy and coldness. I tell them what I think they need to hear to know what I want them to know, because if I listen too closely I'll get sucked into their humanness and let down my guard. I don't trust myself to be open without being unable to protect others from what I can be when I'm hurt or, god forbid, angry. I can't even be unguarded in casual conversation, or I might overpower you by accident. I must choose my words carefully so that you don't misunderstand me. I can't let you close enough to hurt me, because if you do, and I hurt you in return, it will break my heart into pieces. I can't trust you because I don't trust me not to be clumsy. I am the grown up, and I must remain in control. I only know one sure way, and it largely denies me.

I used to think my "authentic self" was not ready for prime time. Lately I've been thinking I was right in the first place, and maybe my authentic self simply has no place in this world except inside of me, a powerful watcher caged behind a carefully constructed wall. This week could be enough to confirm it.

And yet. Here I am, writing this out loud. So where does that leave me?

Music today from The Music: Breakin' (I need to move!)
(or if you want to stay in the heaviness a little longer, here's Jane Siberry: the Walking and Constantly)

Bound by the beauty in the muck

Beauty in the Muck
(Hold on Hope Series, 2011)

Would I walk among these humans if I had a choice? (we are always at choice)

Careless, clumsy creatures. Clumsy with each other. Careless with our words. Careless with blame, shame; clumsy with judgment, labels. Dependent on maps for thinking, a little lost when the detours come along. Lovely creatures, but really, can we be trusted with something so delicate as my raw little heart and all the muck that keeps it safe? The proof is in the living.

Would I walk among these humans if I could soar with the hawks? If I could prowl with my sister lions? Would I take on all this extra baggage? Would I place myself before them, again and again, with failings they dare not stare down, so they can make me what they wish they weren't or wish they were?

I would. Because I do. 

Humanity. I haven't quite decided about you. I have seen many signs for hope this week amidst my turmoil. I may vouch for you yet.

Musical Accompaniment from the wondrous Ms. Jane Siberry, Bound by the Beauty

A quick note

My last post, Labouring, was removed  by Blogger during their scheduled maintenance yesterday. They say they are restoring it. If you were looking for it, sorry! But there's lots here to read in the meantime.

A morning revelation

Passby

I had a revelation this morning upon waking. I don’t need language to know and love another person.

Perhaps this sounds banal to you. Maybe it’s a truth you’ve always held, but I find, now that it’s revealed, that I never believed it. We think we speak each others’ language. But we don’t.

It is very difficult to communicate truth so that someone else can hear it. Next to impossible. But we think we do it every day. We think everything we read, everything we hear, accumulated, amounts to what we call understanding. We think the words we say mean the same thing to the person beside us.

I remember as a child, learning that everyone sees colour in their own way. I was fascinated by the idea that what I saw as blue, someone else might see as what I might call a similar shade/grade of purple, and yet by agreement, whenever this colour appeared, we both called that “blue.”

How much does this happen when we say love, like, hate, wish, disappoint, worry, wonder, help, ask, brave, join, community, feedback, input, mother, father, wife, husband, good, bad, trust?

And we think we know each other? Well enough to judge, make decisions about, dismiss or accept as worthy?

We haven’t begun.

Yet, we can know each other, maybe only beyond the language that confuses us about each others' meaning, when we try to teach each other what our words mean to us, through what we do. And we can love each other without ever understanding  a word.

(my question for today: what do I feed?)

This month, this blog will also appear at http://holdonhope.ca/timeless/blog/ - check out Timeless!

So frustrated with my fellow Canadians that I could spit

The results of this election can only be symptoms of a larger social problem that I'd tricked myself into thinking was maybe smaller than it is.

Now we must exercise democracy a different way and I wonder if anyone is up to it. The current government has used our fear and low morale to create the very conditions that keep people afraid and mean. This vision for Canada will weaken our social fabric and hurt the families it claims to protect. Our middle class is already decimated - and why not, all dissent comes from a comfortable, educated middle class who looks around and says, wait a minute, that's not right. The cult of self-interest won a major victory over the communion of humanity.

There's a part of all of us that is self-interested. That part knows that she's selfish, but because she's selfish, she doesn't care. There's something primal in us that wants the world to be a contest, wants to engage in hard, fast play and see who comes out on top. We want the game to exist. We want it to be rigged so that, if we're smart enough, we can figure out the rules and win. We don't mind cheating because this game is life and death. We don't mind accepting the luck that comes to us as our deserved reward for existing. It's very fulfilling.

And there is something primal in us that understands, at a deep level, that while any of us suffer, the rest of us are culpable. We don't want to face that part. We don't want to accept that we could decide to value the human dignity of every life through all our systems of government, because if we could then we must. So it must be a complex problem. It must be unsolvable.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

We know exactly, precisely how to solve the problems of poverty. Not that it can be done overnight, but we know. And we choose to starve the systems that would do it, and design them to opposite effect because the short-term cost is prohibitive, yes, but more because we want to avoid being cheated. Almost everything that is wrong with our systems is a direct result of our primal fear that someone might get ahead at our expense.

So does every human life have dignity, or do I need to look out for me and my own first? What balance can I live with and still sleep at night? Do I keep myself ignorant to tip the balance for my own comfort? How much? Can I even have enough perspective to know that? What is the cost, in the long run, of paying money to enable poverty instead of spending a little more and beginning to eradicate it? How long will I have to pay for the social and health effects of deep poverty? Forever? How much of this is really about not wanting other people to be able to live with dignity unless they work for it, damn it! And do I even understand one thing about the "people" I think of this way? Where does my understanding come from? Is it up to date? Oh, I can go on.

I demand that people start asking themselves questions like this. It's a responsibility of citizenship. It's a responsibility of being human. I demand that we slow down our "growth" until we know what we're growing for, and give people time to think and breathe again.

But I must not demand. I must convince, cajole, plant seeds, influence, demonstrate. Slow, passive means. People are in distress, in fear, in anger. They are deciding from a very limited scope, deliberately, because they are not responsible for what they don't know or don't believe to be true. Depth of knowledge would require acknowledgements people can't live with and sleep at night. So I must not confront them with these truths. I need to find ways to get them across with love, not frustration.

Good thing I have a blog.

What happens next?

What happens next?

Spare-time Novelist

Follow Me
(Boston, 2004)

When I told regular people that I was thinking of writing a novel in my spare time, they smiled indulgently and thought to themselves, she'll never finish it. They figured that the day to day rigours would grab my attention, and I just wouldn't find the space of time.

When I told an artist that I was thinking of writing a novel in my spare time, he smiled with empathy and thought to himself (I imagine), I wonder if she's strong enough to finish? He knew what I was in for. Aspiring writer, if you have not begun your journey, I suggest you ask yourself that question before you fall in love with it. Are you strong enough to hold yourself and your life together and devote yourself to creation, too?

Because it's not the day to day rigours that will grab your attention. It's the writing.

Why did no one tell me about this moment in the creating process? Oh, maybe they did. I often don't understand what people are telling me. I assume I know me best.

Anyway, this moment. This moment when the story has grown to a heavy lump, not ready for the world but definitely in the way of living a normal life. This moment when the characters are demanding that I adapt my mind to them and live in them before they will give up their more of their secrets. This moment when the world of the story cries for its creator to feed it. My energy gets sucked up creating barriers to keep my drive to write the story from mucking up my daily life. I'm not as able to switch between worlds, focus my attention. It's like a constant siren's song.

This is the choppy water and sharp rocks that the artist wonders if I'm strong enough to take. There are real cuts and bruises in this journey, real impossible choices and no right answers. The regular people think not finishing is just a matter of losing interest, letting go of a fancy. The artist knows that if I don't finish, it will be a conscious decision to lower my expectations of myself in the face of "too much."  The artist knows that if I don't finish, I may never forgive myself.

The tension among all my "must do well"'s creates this moment. This moment when I need to ask myself - do I continue to let this eat up more and more of me because I am so in love with creating, or do I suck up my heartbreak and let it go, "for now"? (you can always come back...I might pick it up again...oh, who am I kidding).

The moment is not here, but it's coming. I feel the earth beginning to rumble with it, a tremor under my bare feet. I wonder what will happen next.

Veggie Art = Veggie Smart (how's that for a Mom Post title?)

I'm sure you won't mind if I go a little off side here and write a pure mommy post. Or, if you do, you'll just skip it and love me anyway.

All of a sudden, my kids eat vegetables. Like, not just one or two, more than a dozen different kinds, including the big ones: broccoli, cauliflower, spinach. The only ones they don't eat are tomatoes...yet.

It wasn't always this way. Although both children took to pureed vegetables early on, the moment they tasted fruit, veggies went out the window. We were down to pureed pea/corn mixes just to get a little veggie into them. That lasted a very long time. Every attempt to introduce vegetables into our meals was met with constant resistance.

So what changed? One, I got lazier, and two, I got bored.

I decided to stop cooking vegetables. I only bought vegetables that I was comfortable serving raw. In fact, I bought a bit of every vegetable that I felt comfortable serving raw, washed them and carefully put them away. That night, I cut up veggies and created the first of many tableaus to come.

That's the secret: raw veggie tableaus. And time.

I create a picture, sculpture, abstract visual piece, or an attempt at realism, using raw veggies. The family chooses our own veggies from the tableau throughout the meal. CHOICE IS KEY!

At first, the novelty got their attention. My rule was that they needed to choose three pieces of vegetable from the picture, no more than two the same. They reluctantly complied, and though it often took a long time at the table, they got used to eating their three pieces of raw vegetable every night without complaining too much.

Still, they were very limited, choosing only carrots or celery, avoiding chunkier bits. I persisted in using colour in my pictures, and managed to convince my son to try a piece of red pepper by making it a light saber. He loved the red pepper. He loved how happy I was that he loved the red pepper. He was encouraged to try other veggies, adding broccoli, cucumber, green beans and snap peas within a week. He declared that he LOVED zucchini and he couldn't BELIEVE I hadn't given it to him before, the night it was a face. He started enjoying his picks, taking six, seven and eight pieces of vegetable. Soon my tableaus needed to grow in size to keep up with demand.

My daughter was stubborn. I didn't think she'd ever come along, Then, based on her brother's recommendation, she decided to try just a little tiny bite of red pepper. She declared that she LOVED it. She loved how happy I was that she loved it, thought she only ate a few tiny bites, not sure after all. The next night she persevered, taking red pepper as one of her choices. She got a little further. Eventually, she could finish a piece in no time. Another day, we pretended to be rabbits and she ate the spinach leaves *nibble nibble nibble*. Next it was cauliflower, which had been the sheep in my shepherd tableau (she was happy to CHOMP the sheep!).

The thing is, I am not a veggie lover. Unlike my kids, my repeated tries have not resulted in LOVING any particular vegetable. But I am trying. And I make sure they see me take a variety, see me eat it. My husband, too, though for him it's not a chore since he actually likes them.

So here's the list of things that seem to have led to my kids' big turnaround:


- my positive attitude towards vegetables (look! I got fresh cucumber this week!)
- serving vegetables raw
- creative presentation
- variety available, choice
- patience
- supporting even a very tiny try with big love
- sibling recommendations
- eating my own vegetables so they see it
- perseverance and a willingness to sit them out, every night (or at least, most nights)
- early, promises of dessert, but not every time



That's my list. I can't guarantee it will work for anyone else. But I am shocked and proud to find myself the mom who's kids beg for more broccoli. Hooray!!


They won't make any museum, but my family really looks forward to them: