My head is filled with a refreshing new sense of Mag, as I remember a rich conversation with a friend yesterday about the choices we make in our lives and how and why we make them. I found myself saying things like, "Even though a voice inside tells me to go out and walk on the beach, I really find I don't want to," which is followed by the voice that says, "but, oh, you know it's good for you, my dear." And there we have it. The fascist train of thought that has been lashing me about all my life, instructing and driving me to do the right thing. As though someone up there was keeping score! So, I said to my friend, "what my body is telling me is that it does NOT want to walk the beach today … too many aches in the hips and knees … and let's face it, walking on soft sand is a real challenge even if you aren't facing deteriorating knees at age 70." And we laughed together, thank God, that we can finally get to the truth of things, and not be so hardwired to perform. We can just be. The truth of things yesterday was that I preferred sitting in my living room gazing at the ocean, listening to Bach, reading, and talking with a true old friend. No harm done, right?
The roots of this strange habit are deep indeed. As my mother pursued a career as a painter, and my father put on his gray flannel suit and went into the city to work, I tried like crazy to figure out the right path to get people, MY people, to recognize me, to see me as good and smart and worthy. I was about six or seven at the time. Shored up by my grandmother, I studied hard in school, took piano lessons earnestly, and figured out my table manners. This became my career. Develop my brain that lived inside a head that my mother had pronounced "too big for your body." When I became an adolescent and then more acceptable in my mother's society of hard drinking intellectuals, I remember feeling grown up and proud. I felt I had worth and that I was seen through the haze of cigarette smoke. I think by then I had given up on being hugged and kissed and cherished. And when I met a similarly brainy young man in college whose brown eyes reached out and who loved getting lost in conversation with me, I thought I was in love. My innocent shipboard romance five years before was now a dim memory, and I plunged recklessly into loving and being loved by this man. I had no clue. All I knew was that I needed someone to listen to me, to see me.
Many years have passed since that time, years in which I have continued to drive myself to improve my mind, and my life in general. Relationships did come and go, and it appears I wasn't very good at them, and only with a great deal of patience and determination was I able to find closeness with my two beautiful daughters, as I kept reminding them that I came by my maternal deficiencies honestly, raised by a woman with no clue how to give love. Deficient -- such a cruel word, really. And I held that close for a very long time…. My brain was always just fine, and I fine-tuned it by reading James Joyce and Tolstoy, and training to be an English teacher, but my heart didn't seem to know how to navigate the complicated relationships I had entered into. The Buddha teaches us that we are all complete and good just the way we are -- that we are NOT deficient. But I didn't learn that until I passed the half century mark in my life, and even then it proved to be a tough lesson for me.
Last night at my local tavern in the Old Valley Ford Hotel I was drinking a margarita and reading Being Mortal on my Kindle as people around me noisily delighted in each other's company. A man sitting next to me at the bar with a worn and friendly face commented that he thought I was reading grim stuff. "That's kind of a downer, it seems to me, " he said. "Oh, no, not dark and grim … really inspiring," I said as I read about muscle and bone deterioration, and the shrinking of the brain, and withering of eye muscle in the aging human. "I work with dying people," I told him, "and I find this interesting… we need to see what is going on, not pretend that we're not aging and falling apart. And besides, this guy who is a doctor is advocating for honest realistic care of the old, sick, and dying." And my rancher friend with the leathery face drank his rum and coke and nodded, his face softening. He got it. He then went on to tell me about the passion of his life: raising cattle. He talked with pride about how well he cared for his cows, and when pressed by me, he admitted that yes, he raised them not just for the milk. And as he began to speak the truth about his work, he also became more interested in learning about why I gave my time to work in hospice. And even though I could never imagine killing animals to make a living, in that moment I saw his respect for the cows he was tending, and I trusted him. We were telling each other real stories about ourselves. We were people "of a certain age" sitting around on a Saturday night drinking and doing something else we both seemed to enjoy: telling what was real for us and being witnessed.
I went to bear witness to a dead whale on a nearby beach the night before last. This was the eighth whale to be washed ashore since April. I got close to the 27 foot creature in the early evening light to take some pictures, and my heart went out to this young wild animal who had died before her time and lay there decaying before me as the sea gulls started to do their job. And I thought about the seven others who had mysteriously shown up on our shores in recent months, and I wanted to know WHY. Of course I did. That was my brain trying to do its job. All sentient beings -- human or animal -- are born, grow up, age and die, we know this to be true. But some, like this poor beast, don't get to grow up all the way… My rancher friend and I had done some growing up, we were around the same age it seemed, and I'm sure we both felt the age in our bodies as we talked last night, and I wanted to imagine each of us offering gratitude now and then for our physical selves that have carried us this far.
When I left the beach and the dead whale, I walked slowly up a steep hill of shifting sand, and my knees hurt and my ankles hurt, and yet that felt secondary; I had been a part of something magnificent. Life's enormity, and its darkness. And it was all good. That was one walk on the beach that I would take again.
My Elephant Friends
Amboseli elephants
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Monday, May 25, 2015
Conjuring Love
The writer Helen Macdonald said in an interview today that animals are "conjures" in the lives of humans, beings who help them hold and live through times of grief. That word "conjure" is a beautiful one, I think; it's about transformation and change. When we are lost, hurt and confused, we can't see how to go forward, and so we simply muddle along. In a lot of suffering… This woman's eloquent and poetic book explores her experience of grief as she trains and learns to live with a goshawk, one of the wildest and most savage of feral birds. She describes letting go of human-ness and becoming as wild as the hawk in the course of this relationship, and I am reminded that our connection to animals, either tamed or wild, can allow us to leave behind our linear mental ways and join them in the mysterious animal realm. We can touch the animal in ourselves and come to balance.
I had a fifteen year relationship with a dog who changed my life at a time when I sorely needed it. She was a Golden Retriever and her name was Francesca. I was living in Northern New Mexico in a brand new relationship with a person who called himself "an emotional cripple," and I was convinced I could transform him by offering my love. Years unfolded … a house was built, a teaching job was found, and a honey colored dog with wavy hair came to live with me ... and she became my best friend. She knew a needy person when she saw one! As my new affair went from good to bad, Francesca and I became bonded. She went everywhere with me, and watched me incessantly. He called her a "wimp" and "neurotic," for reasons that eluded me, and I in turn felt accused. No matter, she was my witness: when I was cooking dinner, walking in the woods, or crying into my pillow. We were in a car crash together one night where I miraculously escaped grave injury, and my great companion disappeared into the high mesa in terror. Some loving friends helped me in my search the following day, and she was discovered as she searched the hills for my now defunct car.
Later, when I finally said goodbye to my painful 12 year relationship, she learned to live in a city dwelling after years of exploring the southwestern landscape, and she went to work with me in my jewelry gallery, and at the bedside of the dying at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco. She became a hospice dog. She was in her element as she leaned into the frail bodies of patients who were grateful for her golden warm body. When I took her for walks on the beach, she always stayed by my side, declining the possibility of play with her fellow "four leggeds" racing through wet sand all joyful and smelly. I always said she saw herself as person in a dog suit, not really a dog. And she had a job to do: take care of me.
Her companionship took me through deep grief, as I first tried to forge a life of love and dedication, and then later summon the courage to live alone for the first time in my life. The baggage I carried was heavy, from the guilt of abandoning a twenty-five year old marriage, to turning my back on kids and home, and trying desperately to believe in the possibility of new love with a person clearly not up for the challenge. It was as though I was following in my mother's footsteps, with her continuous parade of husbands, and the notion that I could be her haunted me and added to the weight of the baggage. Like her, I was living an illusion, and sadly it took many years to give it all up. But when I looked into Francesca's dark brown eyes I saw unadulterated love and confidence, and this shored me up much of the time. Love was present right there. And looking back now, I feel as though she and I met each other half way; as time passed she became more and more human, always knowing what to do or how to be without ever being told, and I grew closer and closer what I call the essence of dog: devotion and presence.
She lived a very long life, the last year of it with cancer, and when I finally let her go, my broken left arm wrapped around her emaciated old body, I thought that for sure there would never be a love like that again in my future. You can't conjure that kind of magic. I tried and failed with another dog. I resigned myself to the quiet, easy, exquisite companionship of cats… And then love came through a doorway unannounced. On a bright sunny morning recently, I held the phone to my ears and heard a warm, young sounding male voice from across the country conjure our shared young love during a far distant time when life was so much simpler.
We tell ourselves stories in order to live, writes Joan Didion. We also tell ourselves stories in order to remember love's gifts. More tales of conjuring to come, I promise...
I had a fifteen year relationship with a dog who changed my life at a time when I sorely needed it. She was a Golden Retriever and her name was Francesca. I was living in Northern New Mexico in a brand new relationship with a person who called himself "an emotional cripple," and I was convinced I could transform him by offering my love. Years unfolded … a house was built, a teaching job was found, and a honey colored dog with wavy hair came to live with me ... and she became my best friend. She knew a needy person when she saw one! As my new affair went from good to bad, Francesca and I became bonded. She went everywhere with me, and watched me incessantly. He called her a "wimp" and "neurotic," for reasons that eluded me, and I in turn felt accused. No matter, she was my witness: when I was cooking dinner, walking in the woods, or crying into my pillow. We were in a car crash together one night where I miraculously escaped grave injury, and my great companion disappeared into the high mesa in terror. Some loving friends helped me in my search the following day, and she was discovered as she searched the hills for my now defunct car.
Later, when I finally said goodbye to my painful 12 year relationship, she learned to live in a city dwelling after years of exploring the southwestern landscape, and she went to work with me in my jewelry gallery, and at the bedside of the dying at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco. She became a hospice dog. She was in her element as she leaned into the frail bodies of patients who were grateful for her golden warm body. When I took her for walks on the beach, she always stayed by my side, declining the possibility of play with her fellow "four leggeds" racing through wet sand all joyful and smelly. I always said she saw herself as person in a dog suit, not really a dog. And she had a job to do: take care of me.
Her companionship took me through deep grief, as I first tried to forge a life of love and dedication, and then later summon the courage to live alone for the first time in my life. The baggage I carried was heavy, from the guilt of abandoning a twenty-five year old marriage, to turning my back on kids and home, and trying desperately to believe in the possibility of new love with a person clearly not up for the challenge. It was as though I was following in my mother's footsteps, with her continuous parade of husbands, and the notion that I could be her haunted me and added to the weight of the baggage. Like her, I was living an illusion, and sadly it took many years to give it all up. But when I looked into Francesca's dark brown eyes I saw unadulterated love and confidence, and this shored me up much of the time. Love was present right there. And looking back now, I feel as though she and I met each other half way; as time passed she became more and more human, always knowing what to do or how to be without ever being told, and I grew closer and closer what I call the essence of dog: devotion and presence.
She lived a very long life, the last year of it with cancer, and when I finally let her go, my broken left arm wrapped around her emaciated old body, I thought that for sure there would never be a love like that again in my future. You can't conjure that kind of magic. I tried and failed with another dog. I resigned myself to the quiet, easy, exquisite companionship of cats… And then love came through a doorway unannounced. On a bright sunny morning recently, I held the phone to my ears and heard a warm, young sounding male voice from across the country conjure our shared young love during a far distant time when life was so much simpler.
We tell ourselves stories in order to live, writes Joan Didion. We also tell ourselves stories in order to remember love's gifts. More tales of conjuring to come, I promise...
Sunday, May 17, 2015
A State of Wondering
This week we heard that a jury in Boston handed down the death penalty to a young extremist called Tsarnaev for his part in the horrific bombing two years ago. And once again I sighed with deep sadness at our misguided notion that we somehow right wrongs by executing people. For as long as I can remember I have thought about this issue, going back to the Caryl Chessman case in the 50's. And that was before I began practicing the Buddha's way of deliberate non-harming... If we're to look at it all objectively, we'd have to say that taking one life in exchange for a life or lives does not really heal the wounds or erase the crime, and it does not set us on a course of becoming more humane. It is just barbaric mathematics in my view. An eye for an eye. It never made any sense to me... And it doesn't even seem to prevent further violence and cruelty. There are a lot of human beings walking around out there in deep suffering, abused and tortured themselves, who are sadly on a course of destruction, their own and that of others. And executing the wrong-doers, even in the incontrovertible cases such as the one in Boston (little doubt about responsibility here), does not change things for those who are lost and out of control.
What does, one might ask? All that rises in the mind now is that witnessing and supporting those who are sick in mind in all the ways they must be supported. The Buddha said: "hatred doesn't end with hatred, but with love alone." And compassion. A heartbreaking challenge in the face of the pathological violence we're surrounded by.
What else do I wonder about on this grey Sunday? I wonder why many of us cry at sentimental movies, why people retreat from the world when unhappy, why we can't see the chaos that is caused by passionate love, why people have a hard time looking at homeless people and offering a smile, why we feel the need for excitement even when we know it changes little in our life, why purging the "stuff" of our lives immediately makes us feel lighter and happier, why beautiful scrambled eggs all golden and buttery is some of the best comfort food on the planet, and so on, and so on.
Last night I cried up a storm while watching (for the umpteenth time) "An Affair to Remember," despite not totally believing in Deborah Kerr. Cary Grant yes, but Deborah, not so sure... There is something so undeniable and "feel good" about this romance -- it reminds us of a time in our lives when we felt such a complete welling of love for another that nothing else in the world seemed real. I have been looking back at such a time in my life, and it has been both delightful to recall the unfolding of love, and poignant as I notice the quick blurring of the love in the complicated territory of relationship and the passage of time. But, to remember a fleeting moment when the universe belonged only to you, ah yes, that does give you a bit of zing!
My revered grandmother believed that passion was messy business, and she turned away from it when it was offered to her. She settled on a safe marriage to a chilly patriarchal fellow. I never turned away from passion, and through my young adulthood, my life was frequently in disarray on the outside and the inside. I didn't know how to balance my affections very well, and frequently mistook restlessness and doubt for the call of affection and romance. And now that I have comfortably (?) become an elder. reading one great life story after the other, I find myself applauding Penelope Lively's sensible observations in her recent memoir: "I don't need or want excitement..... that restless feeling that you must having something happen, you must look ahead, anticipate, you need a rush of adrenaline -- that is gone." Except, except ... I had the opportunity to hear the voice of an old love over the phone recently, largely because I had stuck my neck out to discover this mysterious gentleman, and I have to say that it made my mind and body go all weird, as in heightened pulse and accelerated energy, and a feeling that almost anything on earth was possible. All in the space of about 20 minutes. After over fifty years of separation! If that isn't chaos showing up, I'm not sure what is. There is certainly nowhere for us to go, the paths have been forged in dramatically different ways, "we" don't have a future. Only the present trembling moment where you imagine what it would feel like to actually see this person face to face just once. You imagine a long distance friendship, just maybe ... and you imagine some more.
Thrills and excitement are like the pepper and garlic and red chili sauce in our cooking. They add some jazz music and for a fleeting moment we feel stimulated and inspired. I envy Penelope's clarity about how she doesn't need these spices any more in her life. For her it is enough to have simple enjoyment and pleasure. When I said I agreed with her, it was probably because I really want to, because I hunger for the peace that this acceptance offers. I don't think I'm quite there yet. I'm still planning adventures to Japan, the Galapagos, another safari in Africa, and Tibet, if I get brave enough. I still seek out the cutting edge eateries in San Francisco, looking for that once in a lifetime dining experience. Last night I went to such a place, or so I thought. I ate a serving of stuffed squash blossoms very artfully presented, and I mindfully noted the fluffy softness of ricotta and the tang of anchovy and appreciated the perfect form of the zucchini flower, and after quite some time of this slow eating, it was all gone -- the form, the flavors, the vibration of pleasure deep inside. And what was left was just memory, which of course pales by comparison. There you have it. The impermanence of joy and delight. Even my exquisite scrambled eggs during Mother's Day brunch last week are a hazy memory now...
Our first love vanishes too, as do the colorful memories of Burma and Venice and Paris, or the perfect plate of little white sand-dabs I cooked up for myself a few nights ago. The tapestry of this life of mine is really beautiful, I must admit, and I feel enormous gratitude for all of it, even all that letting go, the hanging up of the phone, the rolling credits at the end of the film, the inevitable washing of the dishes, and the deep compassion I feel for my society that still chooses an eye for an eye.
What does, one might ask? All that rises in the mind now is that witnessing and supporting those who are sick in mind in all the ways they must be supported. The Buddha said: "hatred doesn't end with hatred, but with love alone." And compassion. A heartbreaking challenge in the face of the pathological violence we're surrounded by.
What else do I wonder about on this grey Sunday? I wonder why many of us cry at sentimental movies, why people retreat from the world when unhappy, why we can't see the chaos that is caused by passionate love, why people have a hard time looking at homeless people and offering a smile, why we feel the need for excitement even when we know it changes little in our life, why purging the "stuff" of our lives immediately makes us feel lighter and happier, why beautiful scrambled eggs all golden and buttery is some of the best comfort food on the planet, and so on, and so on.
Last night I cried up a storm while watching (for the umpteenth time) "An Affair to Remember," despite not totally believing in Deborah Kerr. Cary Grant yes, but Deborah, not so sure... There is something so undeniable and "feel good" about this romance -- it reminds us of a time in our lives when we felt such a complete welling of love for another that nothing else in the world seemed real. I have been looking back at such a time in my life, and it has been both delightful to recall the unfolding of love, and poignant as I notice the quick blurring of the love in the complicated territory of relationship and the passage of time. But, to remember a fleeting moment when the universe belonged only to you, ah yes, that does give you a bit of zing!
My revered grandmother believed that passion was messy business, and she turned away from it when it was offered to her. She settled on a safe marriage to a chilly patriarchal fellow. I never turned away from passion, and through my young adulthood, my life was frequently in disarray on the outside and the inside. I didn't know how to balance my affections very well, and frequently mistook restlessness and doubt for the call of affection and romance. And now that I have comfortably (?) become an elder. reading one great life story after the other, I find myself applauding Penelope Lively's sensible observations in her recent memoir: "I don't need or want excitement..... that restless feeling that you must having something happen, you must look ahead, anticipate, you need a rush of adrenaline -- that is gone." Except, except ... I had the opportunity to hear the voice of an old love over the phone recently, largely because I had stuck my neck out to discover this mysterious gentleman, and I have to say that it made my mind and body go all weird, as in heightened pulse and accelerated energy, and a feeling that almost anything on earth was possible. All in the space of about 20 minutes. After over fifty years of separation! If that isn't chaos showing up, I'm not sure what is. There is certainly nowhere for us to go, the paths have been forged in dramatically different ways, "we" don't have a future. Only the present trembling moment where you imagine what it would feel like to actually see this person face to face just once. You imagine a long distance friendship, just maybe ... and you imagine some more.
Thrills and excitement are like the pepper and garlic and red chili sauce in our cooking. They add some jazz music and for a fleeting moment we feel stimulated and inspired. I envy Penelope's clarity about how she doesn't need these spices any more in her life. For her it is enough to have simple enjoyment and pleasure. When I said I agreed with her, it was probably because I really want to, because I hunger for the peace that this acceptance offers. I don't think I'm quite there yet. I'm still planning adventures to Japan, the Galapagos, another safari in Africa, and Tibet, if I get brave enough. I still seek out the cutting edge eateries in San Francisco, looking for that once in a lifetime dining experience. Last night I went to such a place, or so I thought. I ate a serving of stuffed squash blossoms very artfully presented, and I mindfully noted the fluffy softness of ricotta and the tang of anchovy and appreciated the perfect form of the zucchini flower, and after quite some time of this slow eating, it was all gone -- the form, the flavors, the vibration of pleasure deep inside. And what was left was just memory, which of course pales by comparison. There you have it. The impermanence of joy and delight. Even my exquisite scrambled eggs during Mother's Day brunch last week are a hazy memory now...
Our first love vanishes too, as do the colorful memories of Burma and Venice and Paris, or the perfect plate of little white sand-dabs I cooked up for myself a few nights ago. The tapestry of this life of mine is really beautiful, I must admit, and I feel enormous gratitude for all of it, even all that letting go, the hanging up of the phone, the rolling credits at the end of the film, the inevitable washing of the dishes, and the deep compassion I feel for my society that still chooses an eye for an eye.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
An Examined Life: Letter to My Mother
An Examined Life: Letter to My Mother: Dear Mom - You have been gone for a long time now - over 20 years - and yet I know you live inside me. I used to try to pretend that I c...
Letter to My Mother
Dear Mom -
You have been gone for a long time now - over 20 years - and yet I know you live inside me. I used to try to pretend that I could be entirely separate from you, but that wasn't possible in the end. I miss you still, and remember our stormy life together.
You weren't prepared to be a mother - how could you be, raised by governesses and always been seen and not heard? You went through the motions while dreaming of something much more glamorous and exciting. I was a good baby, you always said that, but it wasn't enough. My father wasn't enough either. Being an artist saved you momentarily from dying of boredom and distraction. You painted enormous beautiful abstract paintings and our house was filled with the smell of oil paint. You brought home hard drinking artists and jazz music and we swam in the colorful chaos of all that. We were always secondary my father and me, and eventually you forced him to go. Me you had to put up with ... but it wasn't too long before you found a new mate to help you raise a plump, highly aware young child. We went to live in Italy, became expatriates for a time, and I found my way, as I trudged the streets of Florence and Rome, learned the language, and began to feel connected to a larger world. I fell in love deeply at 14 and basked in the attentions of a 19 year old Sicilian man whose kind eyes told me anything was possible. But of course it wasn't. You could have told me that, but you didn't. You and I ended up having an easier time of it as I grew into a young woman and married the first person who was in the right place and the right time. Or, maybe it wasn't the right time, but there was love and friendship, and then a pregnancy, and so ... I suspect you were relieved to see me leave the nest, and you moved on to husband number three.
My entire marriage was haunted by a desire to be a better wife and mother than you were to me. Sad. I had no tools, for you hadn't given me any. The only way I knew about love and devotion was from Grandmother, whose devotion to my wellbeing made me safe. My crusade didn't work in the end, for I never fully examined my heart to understand what I felt for this young man I married and whose children I had at such a young age. He and I muddled through, because that was what was expected of you then, and we made a good show of being a vibrant young family for a time. He worked hard at his scientist job and I applied all my will to tend for home and children, down to camping trips and bake sales and holding my daughter's hand in the night when she had nightmares. I was determined to be good -- I guessed I thought someone out there was keeping score -- and I lost track of the fact that love was ebbing away from my heart. I wanted to show you up, and strangely enough or maybe not, you never noticed.
It didn't work for me, as it hadn't worked for you through two marriages, but what I did do was try in my own bumbling way to love my two daughters. There are some things we humans can do without haven't been taught, I think, and one of those is just to witness and to love. I was inconsistent at best, but love never faded, and as I began to know these little girls, I discovered I was grateful for their presence in my life. It wasn't always a smooth ride, to be sure, but one that affirmed one of the life's truths: love wins out in the end. Eventually my children understood the strength of my love and forgave me my inconsistencies, as I could never forgive you yours.
If I had made it to your bedside when you were dying, I think I would have asked for forgiveness for my judging and withholding from you. I would have tried to close the circle so that we could come together in at least one moment in time. But I didn't make it, and I was left with that hollow and queasy feeling of abandonment. You had long ago abandoned me, and I eventually decided to slice you out of my heart. You died alone in a sterile hospital room without anyone to hold your hand and remind you of your astonishing beauty, intelligence, life force, and wit. This haunted me for years until you returned to me in a dream when I was traveling in Cambodia, and suggested I tell your story. I did this, you know, and in doing that I was able to let go of much of the dark judgment, and just see you - and me - for the limited, fragile humans we are (were). And you know what else I found? Gratitude and love.
I see that you did the best you could, given the unnatural circumstances of your lonely childhood. And so did I. I really did love you, I want you to know that.
You have been gone for a long time now - over 20 years - and yet I know you live inside me. I used to try to pretend that I could be entirely separate from you, but that wasn't possible in the end. I miss you still, and remember our stormy life together.
You weren't prepared to be a mother - how could you be, raised by governesses and always been seen and not heard? You went through the motions while dreaming of something much more glamorous and exciting. I was a good baby, you always said that, but it wasn't enough. My father wasn't enough either. Being an artist saved you momentarily from dying of boredom and distraction. You painted enormous beautiful abstract paintings and our house was filled with the smell of oil paint. You brought home hard drinking artists and jazz music and we swam in the colorful chaos of all that. We were always secondary my father and me, and eventually you forced him to go. Me you had to put up with ... but it wasn't too long before you found a new mate to help you raise a plump, highly aware young child. We went to live in Italy, became expatriates for a time, and I found my way, as I trudged the streets of Florence and Rome, learned the language, and began to feel connected to a larger world. I fell in love deeply at 14 and basked in the attentions of a 19 year old Sicilian man whose kind eyes told me anything was possible. But of course it wasn't. You could have told me that, but you didn't. You and I ended up having an easier time of it as I grew into a young woman and married the first person who was in the right place and the right time. Or, maybe it wasn't the right time, but there was love and friendship, and then a pregnancy, and so ... I suspect you were relieved to see me leave the nest, and you moved on to husband number three.
My entire marriage was haunted by a desire to be a better wife and mother than you were to me. Sad. I had no tools, for you hadn't given me any. The only way I knew about love and devotion was from Grandmother, whose devotion to my wellbeing made me safe. My crusade didn't work in the end, for I never fully examined my heart to understand what I felt for this young man I married and whose children I had at such a young age. He and I muddled through, because that was what was expected of you then, and we made a good show of being a vibrant young family for a time. He worked hard at his scientist job and I applied all my will to tend for home and children, down to camping trips and bake sales and holding my daughter's hand in the night when she had nightmares. I was determined to be good -- I guessed I thought someone out there was keeping score -- and I lost track of the fact that love was ebbing away from my heart. I wanted to show you up, and strangely enough or maybe not, you never noticed.
It didn't work for me, as it hadn't worked for you through two marriages, but what I did do was try in my own bumbling way to love my two daughters. There are some things we humans can do without haven't been taught, I think, and one of those is just to witness and to love. I was inconsistent at best, but love never faded, and as I began to know these little girls, I discovered I was grateful for their presence in my life. It wasn't always a smooth ride, to be sure, but one that affirmed one of the life's truths: love wins out in the end. Eventually my children understood the strength of my love and forgave me my inconsistencies, as I could never forgive you yours.
If I had made it to your bedside when you were dying, I think I would have asked for forgiveness for my judging and withholding from you. I would have tried to close the circle so that we could come together in at least one moment in time. But I didn't make it, and I was left with that hollow and queasy feeling of abandonment. You had long ago abandoned me, and I eventually decided to slice you out of my heart. You died alone in a sterile hospital room without anyone to hold your hand and remind you of your astonishing beauty, intelligence, life force, and wit. This haunted me for years until you returned to me in a dream when I was traveling in Cambodia, and suggested I tell your story. I did this, you know, and in doing that I was able to let go of much of the dark judgment, and just see you - and me - for the limited, fragile humans we are (were). And you know what else I found? Gratitude and love.
I see that you did the best you could, given the unnatural circumstances of your lonely childhood. And so did I. I really did love you, I want you to know that.
Monday, May 4, 2015
Falling from the Nest and Flying Again
"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be in no-man's land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again." Pena Chodron
When I look back on the last several months, what I see is a wave of letting go experiences that have been dark, sad, and superbly revealing -- and then fresh and new as I move through time. Back in March, which now feels like a long time ago, I let go of my memoir in its second draft form, sending it off to be scrutinized and evaluated by my smart young writing teacher. The days before I packed it up in the manila envelope and went to the post office, I was consumed with nervous angst, with each page shrieking at me and saying, "listen, listen now! ... you must listen ... and care about my story..." And then I paid the postage and handed it over to a surly postal worker, and I went home. A few weeks later I was reading deeply from a most touching book about friendship and death, I was imagining my conversations with my grandmother as I prepared to launch her story, and I was picking up Bach's Goldberg Variations again and choosing to return to a couple of old favorites therein. Slowly but surely my fingers felt the muscle memory return and became warmer, and pretty soon I was playing those stunning ornaments and counterpoints with conviction, and smiling like crazy at the wonder of it.
I let go of my hospice job that had been the cornerstone of my life these last ten years because I could not navigate a conflicted relationship, and because I felt I was being rejected and it hurt like hell. I backed away to sort out the emotional confusion, and soon went on a journey to Italy, my ancient home, where I walked the cobbled streets with all my senses purring away, and looked at art and felt once again re-born. Gazing at beauty will do that to me. I makes me want to flap my wings and fly again. And as I explored, I remembered the residents at the Victorian guest house in San Francisco and sent them compassion from afar. I was still doing the work in a way, though my body wasn't moving through their physical landscape.
I let go of trying to find an old, old love in my life when my messages of curiosity to him went unanswered. Oh well, I thought, perhaps I have the wrong person, or perhaps the right person and the wrong time, or perhaps right person and just not quite the right time. With more than fifty years since we had been close there was a vast landscape of not knowing. And simply my wish to understand and recreate the connection will not make it so... And then early one morning after I returned from my Italian adventure, I saw a message written in Italian on my cell phone, a message from this seventy-six year old Sicilian gentleman who had loved me long ago. I detected surprise and curiosity in his tone, I could almost see a smile spreading on his face, and I felt a flutter in my heart that morning. I brushed off my vocabulary a bit and responded. Something new was born. And I have no idea where it will go or what it means!
It turns out that being thrown from the nest of creature comforts and imagining we know what's going on is a good thing. It forces us to be momentarily invisible, and then finally dust ourselves off and start again. From invisibility and "don't know mind" we take on new form, sing a new song, dance a new dance... That book I brought kicking and screaming into the world will assume its own place out there, not as an intimate part of Mag, but simply as something I made. And my mindful caregiving work will assume a cleaner, clearer, more heart-full character as it reforms itself, and finally the old romantic chapter will be re-written in some mysterious way, according to the laws of causes and conditions and not necessarily in keeping with my shimmering dreams and visions. And the beauty of it is that while we will surely stumble and fall, we never seem to forget to fly!
When I look back on the last several months, what I see is a wave of letting go experiences that have been dark, sad, and superbly revealing -- and then fresh and new as I move through time. Back in March, which now feels like a long time ago, I let go of my memoir in its second draft form, sending it off to be scrutinized and evaluated by my smart young writing teacher. The days before I packed it up in the manila envelope and went to the post office, I was consumed with nervous angst, with each page shrieking at me and saying, "listen, listen now! ... you must listen ... and care about my story..." And then I paid the postage and handed it over to a surly postal worker, and I went home. A few weeks later I was reading deeply from a most touching book about friendship and death, I was imagining my conversations with my grandmother as I prepared to launch her story, and I was picking up Bach's Goldberg Variations again and choosing to return to a couple of old favorites therein. Slowly but surely my fingers felt the muscle memory return and became warmer, and pretty soon I was playing those stunning ornaments and counterpoints with conviction, and smiling like crazy at the wonder of it.
I let go of my hospice job that had been the cornerstone of my life these last ten years because I could not navigate a conflicted relationship, and because I felt I was being rejected and it hurt like hell. I backed away to sort out the emotional confusion, and soon went on a journey to Italy, my ancient home, where I walked the cobbled streets with all my senses purring away, and looked at art and felt once again re-born. Gazing at beauty will do that to me. I makes me want to flap my wings and fly again. And as I explored, I remembered the residents at the Victorian guest house in San Francisco and sent them compassion from afar. I was still doing the work in a way, though my body wasn't moving through their physical landscape.
I let go of trying to find an old, old love in my life when my messages of curiosity to him went unanswered. Oh well, I thought, perhaps I have the wrong person, or perhaps the right person and the wrong time, or perhaps right person and just not quite the right time. With more than fifty years since we had been close there was a vast landscape of not knowing. And simply my wish to understand and recreate the connection will not make it so... And then early one morning after I returned from my Italian adventure, I saw a message written in Italian on my cell phone, a message from this seventy-six year old Sicilian gentleman who had loved me long ago. I detected surprise and curiosity in his tone, I could almost see a smile spreading on his face, and I felt a flutter in my heart that morning. I brushed off my vocabulary a bit and responded. Something new was born. And I have no idea where it will go or what it means!
It turns out that being thrown from the nest of creature comforts and imagining we know what's going on is a good thing. It forces us to be momentarily invisible, and then finally dust ourselves off and start again. From invisibility and "don't know mind" we take on new form, sing a new song, dance a new dance... That book I brought kicking and screaming into the world will assume its own place out there, not as an intimate part of Mag, but simply as something I made. And my mindful caregiving work will assume a cleaner, clearer, more heart-full character as it reforms itself, and finally the old romantic chapter will be re-written in some mysterious way, according to the laws of causes and conditions and not necessarily in keeping with my shimmering dreams and visions. And the beauty of it is that while we will surely stumble and fall, we never seem to forget to fly!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)