Vision

1.31.07

Hanah got glasses this week, a dark purple pair of Barbie spectacles with sparkles on the earpieces. I was 8 as well, when diagnosed with myopia, and my first pair were tortoise shell cat's eyes, ironically much like the ones I now wear. She posed in front of the mirror, giggling at how "smart" she looked and knew exactly which pair she wanted. She can now read signs and the world sparkles a bit more for her. I look at her and love this child with her exuberance and take charge attitude and wonder what I was like at her age, have so few memories to draw on that I can only speculate. One thing I know, she has self confidence up the wazoo, something I could not have claimed with her zeal at any time until recently.

The NYTIMES today reported on a documentary about the photographer Sally Mann whose controversial photos of her children created a stir in the early 90's during the pre-school sex abuse scandals. Her photos depicted her spawn in various poses and undress, prompted cries of sexual voyeurism to which she responded that she was only shooting what children do naturally. Now, it appears that she staged many of these scenes, imposing on her kids an adult affectation that she had claimed to have merely witness rather than prompted. I would like to see the photos again, knowing what I know, to see if they have a different impact.

What we see and how we process it is so affected by context, our cultural and psychological filters, personal and epochal timing. What was once considered, lewd, crude and decidedly rude is now broadcast on mainstream, primtetime television. The very porno many decry as obscene is of course the favorite hit of many websites and Janet Jackson bared breast searches. When I saw the Mapplethorpe exhibit years ago, I was struck more by the beauty of the photography than the content. But then again, I grew up in Greenwich Village with many of the men who could have been his photographic subjects, so the imagery was no big surprise to me. What I saw was probably very different than what a homophobe or straight-laced bible thumper would see.

Studies have shown that people can look at a scene and not see certain elements of it. We take cylocibin (sp?) mushrooms and see lion's heads in carpets and faces dripping off of skulls (well, at least I did in college.) Images that are not there in real life, but in our mind's eye, absolutely. We wake up from dreams convinced we were there in our somnabular struggles. We look at a loved one's face and see beauty when they are present, yet that same face turns ugly when trapped in anger. ONe day the front lawn is a glowing carpet of green, the next merely a covering for dirt and earthworms.

Hanah talked about rods & cones the other day; I think of Roshoman, how different people will remember the same event in as many distinct ways as witnesses; two people have polar opposite understandings of the same words or event. Philosophers ponder what is "real." There is a website where you can live and trade commercially in some virtual reality. CHildren play on-line games in "real-time" with others around the world. I look at my face in the mirror and some days do not recognize who looks back.

What you see is what you get. I no longer believe that to be true. Especially now that you can alter phsyical realities through surgery, mental realities through drugs and sprititual realities through the whatever belief system is in vogue this week.

Hanah's glasses lay snuggled in a bright patent leather pink case on the kitchen table. She wears them proudly as a fashion statment as much as anything else. I see in them the world made clearer, a link to my father's gene pool (all bespectacled Byfield's we), a gift of "reality." When we cannot see what is before us, we must speculate. We must fill in the empty space and imagine the boundaries. The light and dark become our only clues in their various gradations. When I take off my glases the world becomes soft and fuzzy and shapeless, even though the objects I see remain the same. There are some days of acute awareness when I think it would be easier to not see what I see, to let fantasy refine my near-sightedness.

Life through rose colored glasses. One's glass is half full; the other half empty. Now that she can see, will Hanah see what I see? Will her world, as she grows older and learns more be one of endless possibliities as it is now? Or will she start to see the shadows, the garbage dump at the other end of the rainbow? Will she know when to take off her glasses and just take in the world with all of its uncertainties and vagaries, or will she always wake up, look around and say "this is going to be the greatest day ever!"

I'm going to the optomestrist tomorrow to get my own pair of sparkly Barbie Glasses.

El Nino al Que se le Murio el Amigo

1.24.07

El Nino al Que se le murio el Amigo
por Ana Maria Matute

Una manana se levanto y fue a buscar al amigo, al otro lado de la valla. Pero el amigo no estaba, y, cuando volvio, le dijo la madre: "El amigo se murio. NIno, no pienses mas en el y busca otros para jugar." El nino se sento en el quicio de la puerta, con la cara entre las mano y los codos en las rodillas. "El volvera," penso. Porque no podia ser que alli estuviesen las canica, el camion y la pistola de hojalata, y el reloj a quel que ya no andaba, y el amigo no viniese a buscarlos.

Vino la noche, con una estrella muy grande, y el nino no queria entrar a cenar. "Entra nino que llega el frio, " dijo la madre. Pero, en lugar de entrar, el nino se levanto del quicio y se fue en busca del amigo, con las canicas, el camion, la pistola de hojalata y el reloj que no andaba. Al llegar a la cerca, la voz del amigo n lo llamo, ni lo oyo en el arbol, ne en el pozo. Paso buscandolo toda la noche. Y fue una larga noche casi blanca, que le lleno de polvo el traje y los zapatos.

Cuando llego el sol, el nino, que tenia suerno y sed, estiro los brazos, y penso: "Que tontos y pequenos son estos jugeuetes. Y ese reloj que no anda, no sirve para nada." Lo tiro todo al pozo, y volvio a la casa, con mucha hanbre. La madre le abrio la puerta, y dijo: "Cuanto ha crecido este nino, Dios Mio, cuanto ha crecido." Y le compro un traje de hombre, porque el que llevaba le venia muy corto."


The Boy Whose Friend Died
By Ana Maria Matute
(translation with apologies by BGB)

ONe morning he awoke and went to look for his friend across the fence. But his friend was not there and when he came back his mother told him, "The friend has died. Son, don't think about him any more and look for others to play with." The boy sat down on the front step, with his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. "He will come back," he thought. Because, it couldn't be that here were the marbles and the truck and the toy pistol and the clock that no longer worked and he would not come to get them.

NIght came with a big star and the boy did not want to come in to eat dinner. "Come in, child, now that it's getting cold," said the mother. But, instead, the boy got up from the front step and went looking for his friend with the marbles, the truck the toy pistol and the clock that no longer worked. When he got to the fence, his friend's voice did not call, nor did he hear him in the tree, nor in the well. He searched the entire night for him. And it was a long night, almost white with the dust that covered his suit and his shoes.

When the sun arose, the boy, tired and thirsty, stretched his arms and thought, "How silly these little toys are and this clock which no longer work, isn't worth a thing." He threw them all in the well and went home, very hungry. The mother opened the door and said, "My how this boy has grown. My Lord, how this boy has grown." And she went out and bought him a man's suit because the one he was wearing had become very small.

Hues

1.19.06

In researching real estate in Guanajuato I came across a tiny little apartment, nesteled in a hillside, whose exterior walls were a bright pumpkin orange. The sight of it brought a smile to my face and I immediately wanted to go inside. The interior pictures revealed a lovely, tiled kitchen and living room with more of the same orange tones, furnished in Mexican style.. The thought of it, being in it, made me happy. The next apartment in my price range was colored a bright Tunisian blue on the outside, a little cooler to the eye and inside was much darker, no imagination in the decor. A lovely patio triggered thoughts of coffee al fresco in the morning. I think of people's whose homes I know and how some make me want to stay a while and some don't and I realize that color plays a big part in how I feel in a place. We recently repainted our living room in what I now learn is the cool new color of the year, wasabi. Our decor has always been in the cool pine greens and the room offers respite from summer's heat. It's quiet and restful. The master bedroom however, is more on the orange, warm tone range and the rest of the house in pine and greys. I have always chosen colors for their effect on ambiance and mood. And now seeing this little piece of light againt a hillside I think about what it means to make a home.

My mother fell in love with Morocco and lived there for a couple of years. She was my age and I realize now going through "the change." She had always loved their art, the food, the landscapes. These warm reds, ochres, oranges, siennas are shared between Mexico and this arab land and I now wonder if she and I don't have more in common than I know. The home she made for us, was also of cool colors, teals, beiges, light blues, tans. This temperature permeated all of our relations as well; everything kept under control, no outbursts, just little jabs and sharp pins in carpets to let us know we were all alive every now and then. I wonder if her fascination with Morocco (and mine with Mexico at the moment) had more to do with her perception of a certain heat that was lacking in her life. Ironically though, or perhaps not, she ended up moving back to teh States and taking all those cool colors with her up North to her last house in Michigan. Did she not find what she was looking for in that great desert country? Was it too hot to handle? Or did she find herself there and that very person was all she could be, wherever she went?

We know that marketers use colors to sell products from cars to candy. They speak to the rods and cones in our eyes, with rainbow messages. I wonder why, deep down, certain hues represent different emotions: red - passion, anger; yellow - happiness, blue - thoughtfulness, calm; black - death and despair. I imagine they are associated with nature's palate: our beating blood red hearts, welcome sun after winters night, the absence of color as our eyes close for the last time. My bedroom feels warmer and cozier than my living room, just from how the light hits fabrics and reflects back into my face. A room too busy with "stuff" drives me nuts. Yet the classically sparse modern Italian cocaine white landscaped motif leaves me shivering and eager to leave or at a minimum spill red wine on the leather couch, leave stains on the bear skin rug, yell. Color consultants match clothing to people's personalities; I'm a "winter" supposedly, my Hungarian coloring best set off with blues, blacks, lilacs, mauves etc. I rarely wear reds, never yellows or orange, yet these are the colors that spoke to me from that hillside abode.

When I think of a country I think of colors. Meeting the Tunisian the other day reminded me of azure blues, their doors that reflect the sky and the Mediterranean. I think of Zaire in dusty ochres, pale browns and few colors other than the women's wraps. I think of the U.S. as a cacaphony of fake colors, from strip malls to teh artificial blue glow in people's living rooms. I think of France with greys and whites (like their cheeses) and green vineyards. And now I think of Mexico and heart tones. All of a sudden I am reminded of my first foray down there when in college. A month in Cuernavacas and perhaps my first taste of a different culture and a language I loved as a young adult, verbal and playful and a certain Abelardo Albarran, a youthful crush, a boy with brown eyes who could look into my own and hold them.

Perhaps this is the call I feel, to wrap myself in a warm, pozole colored shawl, to taste the peppers and terracotta in life again. To wash it all down with a red wine, rather than the white swill I am so used to. Freud would say its' the womb calling. Jung, conjunctio. Aries, my fire sign ignited. Perhaps I should re-paint the house instead of dreaming a new one. But would a fresh coat of paint, change what's inside? Shall I better kindle the fire within, nurture embers in their vari-hued glow, simply blow more oxygen into that furnace? Or seek out the rainbow's arced journey wherever it can be found?

Freedom

1.17.06

I met a man at Trader Joe's, my cashier du jour, sweet eyed, brown skinned, from Tunisia. He was prompted to ask me about a dance school near where he lives because I was doing some foot work while waiting in line and the man behind me, another cashier I have chatted with, commented, saying "wondeful" and we all got to talkinga about dance and music. Turns out Mohem has been here for 7 years and is doing well. I asked him how people are treating him and he said "good, thank you for asking."

For some reason I am thinking about him now after reading this week's New Yorker and noting a cartoon featuring a man lying on a shrinks couch as the shrink takes notes. The caption reads "Could we up the dosage? I still have feelings." I won't re-visit my rant about how we're all running around stuffing our feelings, but last night there was a section on ABC about some enormous morbidly obese men, one over 1,000 pounds which did mention a therapist who works with these people on an in-patient basis and said that the one thing they all had in common was some kind of abuse in their past.

So, I'm now thinking about feelings, how afraid we are to have them, how some of us were allowed to express them as kids and do so well as adults, and some of us weren't. How childhood trauma, abuse and neglect can cause so many of us to swallow, hide, misdirect our righteous feelings of loneliness, anger, sadness, even happiness. How as adults these repressed feelings can pop up in the oddest ways, like sarcasm, or passive aggressive behaviour or road rage. How we are happier to medicate to eradicate these feelings, than actually deal with them.

And I meet someone like Mohem who has left his nation, his culture to pursue a better life and wonder about the millions of immigrants who come here for some freedoms, whether religious or economic. I wonder about the societies they come from and whether they do a better job of handling all of these emotions we do battle with every day. Never having lived for any real length of time in anything but my own culture, Western Civilization (which Ghandi once commented would be a "good idea") I know I am prone to romanticizing the green grass on the other side of borders.

But I do find it ironic, that we, this nation of ultimate freedoms, purports to allow all pursuits of happiness and inclinations, yet so many of us seem so uncomfortable with some of our most basic instincts: to challenge, to create, to run and play, to sing and dance, to be truly who we are even when it doesn't fit in with someone's expectations. Do immigrants, once they've met their needs for housing and income and safety and transportation and remittances back home, feel these freedoms of expression as we do? I see so many more displays of phsyical affection in public among the Latino population; are they more comfortable with showing tenderness and desire than we are? Or do they simply not have the privacy to do it elsewhere?

Perhaps I will ask Mohem and the Ethiopian contractor I met at the hardware store how the "feel" in this great nation of ours. More like themselves? The selves they could not be at home? This would seem to be the ultimate freedom; not to be able to vote (although that is part of self acutalizing) or purchase or be free from various forms of persecution, but to fully become whoever our destiny holds. Isn't this our greatest challenge, then, "to be or not to be?"

Orphans

1.14.06

In a review of Festen, a play adapted from a movie by Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg, being presented in Mexico City, the play's star Diego Luna recalls a comment by the director of Y Tu Mama Tambien (in which he also starred). Alfonso Cuaron said, "The innocence of the parents begins when that of their children ends." In reading this I sat upright, cocked my head, and then slumped slightly. I got it. For when our children pull away from our control and establish themselves in the world, in their ever larger steps, leaps and forays, we relinquish the fantasy that we can save them from pain. We give up the illusion that we ourselves go on forever. We recognize them as distinct beings, not mirrors of our own unrealized dreams. We see in them every moment of our own childhoods, the maps we used to navigate them. We relish that first taste of peppermint ice cream, the view from on top of the jungle gym, the first gold star in kindergarten, the mud pies in the back yard. And then, when our child experiences disappointment, rejection, failure, dis-content, we re-live those moments of our own, feeling that umbilical flow of shared emotions. We hug them, want to take away the blues, offer salvos or step back to let them process their lives with their own tools. And in those moments, are humbled in front of their quests and our own.

Later in the article the play's director, Martin Acosto, opines "in his country, as in much of the world, many traditional father figures have been discredited and dumped and no new figures have risen to take their place. 'we are a generation that is totally orphaned. We dont' have a guide, we don't have a spiritual leader. Suddenly we entered into a series of secrets, half-truths of a social order that is completely perverted by lies."

Not having seen the play or knowing much more than the plot centers on a familiy's revelation of devastating secrets, I think about this comment and look at America and our leader who has deceived us with lies, leading to the deaths of thousands and the destabilization of nations. I look at individual families whose parents hide their loneliness and anomie behind tons of avoirdupois, who battle their demons with substances or mis-directed anger and unaddressed fears and can't take care of their children properly. Michael read to me something about Bush's absolute need to win the game of Risk in college. How far back did that quest for world domination go? What was he needing to control in his family of origin? What pain could he not bear that lead him to alcoholism and utlimately this complete escapism and inability to see the world, receive new information? What lies about his self worth did he believe growing up that he has had to hide amongst the safety of his tunnel visioned cronies, in the face of some simple embarassing truths?

Our social order is perverted by the most major lie that we can find ourselves within the malls and media of our making. Bush's perogative is to protect his interests and those of his oily friends. That he will not admit that is his lie to us. We as a species are obsessed with life and death yet lie to ourselves when we are afronted by images of sex and violence. We lie to our children about Santa Claus, we lie to ourselves about that 4th piece of pizza, we lie to our loved ones about our unconditionality towards them.

And when these lies are revealed, we look for answers in our self-help books, our TV evangelists, our quick fixes, our purchase power and come up empty. Who are the leaders we seek? The spiritual guides? Are they really to be found in government, our temples, our therapists offices? When we feel lost, like orphans, where do we go for that feeling of belonging, of meaning, of mattering in the grand or minor scheme of things? A comment on my evangelical spanish radio station made me think of the Bible as the first selfl-help book. And christianity asks us to look to Jesus for answers.

But doesn't he and any other guide only tap into that which we have in ourselves? Before Jesus and Allah and Buddha and Zeus, there were only the stars and the heavens to ponder, to guide us, then the stick in the sand and the paintings on the cave walls and language and storytelling and wandering and returning. And now, there is art. There is a play in Mexico City in which secrets are revealed. There are audiences who will witness the storytelling and perhaps see their own truths. Will they then go home to their children, both real and internal, and embrace them, parent them with love and acceptance, guide them through the forest of fears or at least provide a flashlight, a torch, a burning ember?

Parabola

1.14.06

In these curved walls, the dips and swings of men's lives. They careen down vertices and fly back up the precipice, like falcons soaring on their wind. Bound by earth, drawn to the air above, they push and pull at limits, testing flight and swooping towards the core. The sun sets, drawing shadows on their dance. Yet, tomorrow will dawn. New inspirations bring them back, to test, to ascend and plummet once again in a never ending search for self.

Hell

1.12.06

I bought the ingredients to make chili today, Hanah's reward for cooperating in the mornings in getting out of the house and I suddenly realized that this is the only incentive that works for her. I take away her toys and her TV privileges and she doesn't seem to care, but remove the possibility of cooking chili, or having a lemonade stand or her "girls band" and she wakes up, steps to the plate and comes through with her responsibilities. It's not the stuff she wants, or the zoning out that TV offers, it's the opportunity to engage in the world in the way she wants to, cooking, commercing, dancing, singing, playing. It's being alive and all that she is that is of most value to her. Therein lies her little heaven.

When I think of loss, pain, suffering, malaise, my own and this culture's, I see Hanah everywhere, people striving to fulfil their species being, yet being thwarted by bad food, sedentary lifestyles, aliented relationships, inner demons, lack of meaningful work or endeavours, spiritual paucity. I see people with large eyes made small, squinting in the glare of our media satuation, Madison avenue driven desires, the voices in their heads which fill them with the fear of living. But I also see the vibrant smiling Yoga teacher who beams at me every day, the large bodied parking attendant who suffers my Spanish with a toothy grin as I check in, the women in my group struggling with their own personal hells, tissues flying, yet always finding a laugh in there somewhere. I see art in the pepper berries fallen on the ground and hear music in the palm trees. I am given the gift of connecting and helping others find their truths and in turn finding my own.

In class the other day, my largest client's (519 pounds trapping a beautiful boy child face) cell phone's ring tone went off "Fuck you mother fucker!" We all laughed, slighly aghast, and he was mortified. I was pissed and appalled yet took notice. What does it mean that you choose to put this message as your ring tone? Was it personalized for a buddy? Where are we in the time that people lovingly called each other bitch and muthafucka? Are we so angry that we just want to go around giving each other the finger, the clenched fist, the proverbial smack upside the head? Are my clients so dispossed of their true feelings from having stuffed them so long that only their phones can speak their truths?

Hell is not being allowed to be who you are. It is in the prisons with jail cells and the prisons of our limited imaginations, our fundamentalisms, our rac-,gender-homo-phobo-politico-isms. Hell is the house where the parent slaps down a child's innate being. Hell is the relationship that shackles. Hell is the workplace that demeans. Hell is the restaurant that does not nourish. Hell is the place we inhabit when we do not speak our truths and greet each day with, "what now, my friend?"

Gelassenheit

1.10.06

"Serenity, the condition of having let go." Emptying the bucket of fear, fear of the past, fear of the future. Eschewing the safefty of the known. Welcoming the unsteady pebbled path ahead, tasting the fresh brook waters of a new stream. Releasing. Shining that golden bowl, the container whose polished parabolic sides reflect the coming and going of air currents, deflecting and inviting.

How easy it is to sleep, to pull the covers of familiar habits, albeit rough textured and insufficient, up over our heads and slumber through life. Then something, someone pulls them off, exposing our fabulous and frail selves to the light of day. Do we get out of that bed, the comfort of what we know and look in the mirror, or do we wrench back the old blanket and choose to dream instead?

Guilt

1.06.07

Last night I went to sleep feeling terrible about the accident, yet also terrible about not feeling more terrible about it. I have accepted that I am responsible for what happened, yet what happened is only that. It is not a reflection on my innate characteristics, except that I am a thinker prone to distraction, or my inherent value as a human being. Yet, as I think about her injury which so far seems to be a possible "fractured hip" and the fact that she has engaged a lawyer, I am aware that she will have a long recovery period, pain and possible other consequences to her life (job impact, physical rehabilitation, traumatic memories) as a result of my imperfection and that I pay a price as well, through this legal system which seeks pecuniary retribution for mistakes. And which does not allow me to take cookies to her in the hospital for whatever verkakt reason.

I am prompted to look up Guilt in Wikipedia as I struggle with old, old messages from my childhood that have been triggered from this and other recent events. And I come across many defnintions as well as references to art, including:

"The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements ISBN 0-06-050591-5 was Eric Hoffer's first and most successful book, published in 1951. It discusses the psychological causes of fanaticism.

The premise of the book is as follows: Mass movements spread by promising a glorious future, and they need people to be willing to sacrifice all for that future, including themselves and others. To do that, they need to devalue both the past and the present. Therefore, mass movements appeal to the frustrated; people who are dissatisfied with their current state, but are capable of a strong belief in the future and to people who want to escape a flawed self by creating an imaginary self and joining a compact collective whole to escape themselves. Some categories of such people are the poor, the misfits, the creative thwarted in their endeavors, the inordinately selfish, the ambitious facing unlimited opportunities, minorities, the bored, and sinners. The book also explores the behavior of mass movements once they become established (or leave the "active phase")."

Parents use guilt and shame in raising children to teach them conformity and help them socialize effectively. Some less than completely actualized parents also blame their children for their own inadequacies. And here is where I see the confluence of society, using guilt and shame, to shape a malleable populace for its purposes and parents sculpting their children for similar reasons. A consumer economy needs people to feel inadequate so they will buy products. A religiously driven culture needs its people to feel guilt or fear in order for the powers that be to remain so. A Communist society needs brainwashed cogs in wheels to serve teh greater good of unity. And a nuclear family needs to channel its children's energies in ways that serve the parents' desire for order and predictability, for continuity and perpetuation of its lineage and sadly, often, to preseve a mother or father's fragile ego state.

When someone, or group of people, breaks the rules, does something they "shouldn't do" according to their society's constraints, they might feel righteous rebellion, guilt, shame or, in the case of psychopathology, nothing at all, depending on the severity of that action's consequences. When Rosa Parks broke the rule of her day, or the students in Tianamen Square, protested their muzzles, or a long upstanding member of teh Catholic Church comes out of the closet, or a Harvard bound teenager chooses to apprentice with a Yogi instead, they are becoming themselves. Very few of our rules, laws, mores, and regulations are about constraining a persons right to be themselves, at least in America where we have the freedoms of speech among others. Yet we live within so many culturaly imposed constraints and messages of guilt and shame. Thou shalt not rejoice in thy God given less than perfectly proportioned, size 2, body. Thou shalt spend countless hours and measures of psychic energy trying to reform it into an impossible ideal. Thou shalt buy into the consumer culture, endlessly replacing teh old with the new, never questioning true need. Thou shalt seek satisfaction in pleasure seeking activities based on virtual experiences rather than truly connecting with other human beings. Thou shalt want bigger and better and more and faster and prettier and edgier until you implode under a pile of credit card debt, cirhossis of the liver, diabetes, lung cancer or depression.

Rilke's poem, op cit, looks at the legacy children inherit from parent who doen't self actualize. I can relate to making my family a priority in face of desires to at times exercize my inner gypsy, in contrast to my parents who did take off on their own quests, leaving divorce's dust and dirt behind. I put my children and relationship first, partly because I know myself better and what I need. Their mistakes, alcoholism, infidelity, depression served as examples of what not to do (although I developed my own set of coping mechanisms). But I also honor their values by living simply, putting life experiences in front of things, passions before sloth, relationships before aquisition, duty before desire. Were they alive, I think they would be proud. (Indeed a radio psychic a couple of years ago voiced my father's approval.)

But I can also see how their guilt (my mother for her failed relatinoships, my father for his failed marriages, both for their unrealized career aspirations) got smeared on our forheads, plastering down our unruly hair and exuberances. My sister and I both manifested symptoms of depression and ways to cope with it (my bulemia, her drug use) long before it was so well known. My half sister has her own issues and divorced as well. My full sister has never married. When i think of my parents unrealized aspirations and dreams of love, parenting together, their artistic endeavours I wonder how they differ from my own.


I have achieved 18 years in a relationship (theirs lasted 6) with 2 kids, 8 & 10. I have been able to explore work that I love and community involvement that has been meaningful. Yet, I have not had many of the "successes" I dreamt of as a child and I wonder where the wet blanket of shame and guilt and fear has held me back over the years. My mother was afraid of botching another relationships after her 2 failed marriages and so never mated again, living a fairly lonely and bitter life, blaming my father and her kids for tying her down. My father, 2 failed marriages and 3 kids behind, chose the opposite route and mated many times, rejoiced in his children's presence and finally settled down to his last happy union with his 3rd wife. He never spoke ill of my mother, only admited his own guilt at not being able to make things work. So, 2 messages I received on how to deal with failure, guilt and shame; one was blame and escape through alcohol. The other was serial mating but eventual self inspection and risking love again.

Is it any wonder then, that at mid-life I would choose my father's wind blown cape over my mother sodden mantel? She took of at this age for Morocco with my sister, then 16. I don't know what she found there, but she returned back to NYC knowing it was time to leave there and headed North to her family's summer residence. I now have the desire to explore a different culture and way of being and but the pull for me is to the South. However, I am also aware that wherever I go, there I am, and perhaps what I desire is not so much a different culture or country but what it symbolizes. The idea of a pedestrian life again, in a colonial town which reminds me of Europe, where people shop at mercados, life is cheap enough one can afford the time to not work as much (at least in my priviledged situation, with funds of my own), where things go more slowly and people laugh more loudly, and touch each other, where the mountain air is clear and my ears can be bathed in a language I love and where the things I care about (a university, flamenco, music, an orchestra, good coffee, fresh fruits & vegetables, a gay community, restaurants, and clubs) are readily available without a car. Those are the things that I value. Question is, can I get them without leaving home?

And what about the kids and work for both me and my husband? Well, that's the reality check. They're happy as we are. But it's valuable to look at dreams and see waht it is that they are about, not necessarily the specifics. I feel that living this life, leaves so little time to live and yes, I can organize my life better, we can adjust schedules, refine goals and work towards having more of our values met. We can check and make sure that those values are not derived in defense of or in retribution for or as an escape from our parents unrealized dreams and the mandates of our cultures or even the demands of the kids' college funds. If we're lucky in this life we can look at guilt, when it tells us "should or shouldn't" and examine whose demons we're talking to. True freedom is not from guilt or shame, which in their fleeting application serve as guides and reminders of our imperfections. True freedom comes from lifting guilt and shame's historical and omnipresent oppression of our true dynamic selves. We can be right and merry, responsible and vibrant, and alive and conscious of our footprints along the way.

Driven to Distraction

1.4.06

I wake after a sound sleep and now the images of the impact come back. Last night with the kids home, back in the routine it was easier to push them aside, take care of the family, get distracted. Michael tells me that what was most upsetting to them was how upset I was. I ask Hanah to recount what her experience was and she does very matter of factly and then shows me all her new moves on the trampoline. Noah seems fine, but when I ask if we can talk about what happened, he doesn't want to so I drop it. I make myself eat, go through the moves of whatever needs to be done, while my mind whirls around what this means. Hanah tells me a bedtime story, with her large brown eyes animating the characters, filling teh action with life and I am grateful for the distraction. I am aware of little fingers pulling my glasses off as I fall asleep.

Now the house is silent and I am wondering who this person, Eun Jung is. Where is she from? Where does she live? She had a CA license that I saw, her voice souned quiet when she spoke to me and she was well fed. That's all I know. Does she have family here? Her address is unrecognizable to me. Was she in our neighborhood to shop? At that time of day, does she not work? Was she headed to a job? How is she feeling? What impact did this have on her body? Who is taking care of her?

One of the first things Michael wanted to know was what kind of person I hit. Had it been an fragile senior or a toddler, the impact could have been fatal; indeed, I have no idea if it wasn't even for this healthy, lightly padded young woman. I will find out the extent of her injuries as soon as the adjuster does. Is she still in the hospital? With privacy requirements, even her family doesn't have the right to her medical info, so obviously I am not allowed in the loop. Why does it matter to me? Will I feel less guilty if she only has soft tissue damage rather than broken bones and long term disabilities? Perhaps. I don't even want to think about worse outcomes.

So I force myself to think about other things, how to take care of the kids during their last days of vacation. Financial matters, work, life. And I marvel at how this brain, which drove me to distraction from my driving task, now allows me to escape ruminations about this event. Cognitive dissonance, the bi-cameral brain, mult-tasking. It's a blessing and a curse. Had I been doing something else that distracted me, I could swear off that activity while driving. But how do you turn off your thoughts? Meditation technique advises that we let our worries, concerns, mental machinations wander onto the stage of our mind, then let them exit as we attempt to center our attention on our breathing. I am about 50% successful with this.

So much of my current edginess is this feeling that comes from not having the time to do everything. All my women friends who are mothers feel this same pressure, whether they work full time out side the home or not. We have so many aspirations and ambitions, yet never enough minutes in the day to devote to them all. We talk about simplifying and saying no to requests for our time. But underneath is this current of untapped creativity that got put away while we made babies. Now they're in school and we volunteer and do the housekeeping and work and drive and take care of our husbands and our friends and work, if we do. Some of us have our hobbies. Some make time to write. Some knit and bake and re-decorate. We kvetch about the demands of modern living over lunch and then go about meeting them. We are the privileged who even have time to bemoan our many choices.

Keeping busy is supposed to keep thoughts at bay, so I will attempt to do so today, sending my prayers to Eun Jung and trying not to worry about information I don't have. I will drive carefully, mindfully. I will try to think only of the task at hand. I cannot help the people I love, nor this stranger I have impacted, by merely thinking about them. I can only offer an ear or a hand when asked. I can send a card or flowers. My thoughts are mere soldiers fighting for attention in this cerebral cacaphony I call a brain. I can disarm them, send them home, give them weekend passes, let them go AWOL. And when the troops have left, and there is no one else to battle with, who will I meet on the empty field? What mines lie under the surface? What weapons of mass or even minor destruction will I discover? I dare not ask who the real enemy is; we know that answer all too well.

Impact

1.3.06

It’s strange how life seems to slow down when something awful happens. The earth feels spongier and my whole body heavier as I try to move on the planet. It was a day like most others, that began with morning pulling me out of bed, through the routines of exercise, getting the kids ready, planning the day with my husband, packing lunches for work and thinking many deep thoughts. I was excited about a new word I’d read: Gelassenheit, which is German for serenity. The author quoting it added: “the condition of letting go.” So much of my current sturm und drang lately is this process of letting go of unrealistic expectations of myself, my relationships, life in general, trying to find balance between dreams and working toward them and living in the here and now. I was thinking about what we look for in our relationships to others and to ourselves, how we help or merely witness another person’s journey, hold their hand when asked, go away when needed.

I was looking forward to work, trying something new with my class, checking in with them to see how their journeys were going. I was feeling vibrant, yet a bit sad too in realizing we just don’t get it all in this one life. And I was thinking, pondering, driving the kids to their camp, going the route I go every day, making the same stops and turns I do by rote now. Driving this vehicle I know so well, down the streets I have memorized, accelerating and stopping in perfect rhythm with planned intersections. It’s all programmed as usual. And then I turn left, while thinking about whatever I was thinking about, and suddenly, my windshield goes white as the sun blinds me and I don’t see the young woman making contact with my hood as I brake and she flies up in the air like a gray starfish, limbs akimbo, bags tossed, hair released into a halo around her head. I don’t hear a thing. Don’t even feel the impact, just see the movie of her body slowly swim through the air and land softly on the street in front of me. I jump out thinking, what they all say, “this isn’t happening” and approach her lying on the street as I hear a siren. I bend down and put my hand on her shoulder as she groans and say I’ll call 911 but a passing ambulance has already pulled into our lane so there’s no need. Three ambulance men swarm around her as I stand stunned. What has happened? How? Why couldn’t I see her? I check on the kids and tell them what’s happened and then ask the guys if I should call the police. They say it's already done. I bend down and tell her I’m so sorry, I didn’t see her, the sun was in my eyes. They attend to her, ask her where it hurts. Now the police have arrived and people have gathered on the street and I watch as the additional EMT’s assess her. She is awake and they have collared her, asked her to move legs and feet, which she does. They ask if anything hurts as they slide her onto the board and she winces at her left thigh but other wise seems okay. The EMT guys are non-chalant, so it doesn’t feel like high drama except inside my head. But there she is, helpless. I have hit her. I was thinking.

The policeman takes my report and an elderly woman in a yellow quilted coat and very pink lipstick (why do I remember this) offeres her witness. The young woman, is being put into the ambulance and I go up and ask her her name which she says softly, Eun Jung, and now she is even more real. She has pale skin, dark eyes and looks very young, solid. I touch her again and say I am sorry. They slide her up into the back and tell me where they are taking her as they pack her bags (which for some reason I have noted include a fashion shopping tote and a stray bottle orange juice) along side her and now sweep her away. I check on the kids again. Hanah is wide eyed and Noah hiding, I tell them she will be okay and then turn back to the policeman. He continues filling out a form and then takes the witnesses account out of earshot and I am aware of wondering if she saw something I didn’t; she looks so disapproving. And I’m shaking, wondering what have I done to this poor woman, will she be okay, what are the kids thinking, what are these people thinking, will I be sued, how can I reach out to her, what do I do now? The witness now approaches me and puts a hand gently on my arm and asks how I’m doing. I am surprised at her kindness and start crying again, thank her, say I’m worried about Eun Jung. She says something else I can’t remember and then moves on. I call my husband tell him what’s happened and then have to deal with the policeman again, who reassures me that he’s a collision cop, or something, that he’s seen it all and this wasn’t that bad and to take care of myself and then recites what he’s done and some other stuff that seems so formulaic and I just want to scream, “ I just hit a woman with my car, how can I make it better!” But I am aware of the kids and his strong body up on the curb is telling me to go home and relax and then another woman comes up, I guess a store owner, and asks how I’m doing and I’m grateful that no one yet has told me what a terrible person I am. She offeres me a glass of water, but I decline as I continue to shake and think, “what have I done, how can I make it better?” I get my paper work and the woman does bring my water which I welcome and she says something comforting and I I feel a little more stable.

And then I am released back into the path I was on, take the kids to their camp and call my husband who’s on his way for some reason, and I’m not sure why. I am thinking how I will write about this and wonder what's wrong with me that this thought even enters my head at this moment. Hanah seems okay, but Noah won’t talk to me, so I let the director know what’s happened in case they have trouble. I head to the hospital, not knowing what I can accomplish, as my mind races through the logistics of liability insurance, umbrella policies, protecting assets and I can’t stand that these thoughts can even have purchase in my head while this woman’s life may have been forever altered by the confluence my inattention and the angle of the sun. My husband advises me against trying to talk to her and I’m pissed because it’s the human thing to do, for god’s sake, yet I live in a friggin culture that makes me aware that my mere human instincts to make amends, offer whatever I can, or to say simply I’m sorry puts me at risk of some 1-800 lawyer trying to make a buck.

At the ER I tell some nice woman why I’m there, to offer whatever I can, and she finds Eun Jung, reports back that there’s nothing she wants from me. I ask how she’s doing, but of course they can’t tell me and my husband arrives and I know I’ve done all I can do, but it doesn’t feel right, or like enough. We head home and I recount the event, we deal with insurance companies and the adjuster who asks about the van, any damage done to the vehicle (as had the police officer) and all I can think is why do they care about the friggin car? I hit a woman. Stare Farm takes my report and informs me of what will happen next and how my rates will go up, and I tell them I don’t care, how can I find out about Eun Jung? They tell me the adjuster will call and when she does, I ask her as well, and all I can do is wait for the medical report. I tell her that I want to contact Eun Jung, but am aware that people are advising me not to and she corroborates that it’s not a good idea, due to litigious issues etc. and I ask if I can at least send a card and she thinks that’s fine.

Michael and I wonder how best to deal with the kids. I call my therapist who advises that if they’re okay at camp, leave them there, but later give them a way to process it. So Michael and I talk practicalities again and my head is swimming with the symbolism of this event. This has been my greatest fear in life, that I would do someone great harm and now I have and I don’t know the extent. I was not driving negligently, not speeding, or on my phone, but I was thinking thoughts and this may have distracted me. My presence has done some damage to someone else’s life.

I wonder if it is irony or kismet that I have recently been processing this desire to feel that I matter in life, and was thinking as I turned that corner that I do matter to some people but don’t know about others. I was wondering how to manage these feelings that come up when I feel adrift in my relationships. I was thinking. Was my head turned the wrong way? Was I not seeing? I was thinking. Did the sun’s rays bend in a new way at that particular time of the day? I was thinking.

I can look at this as a mere collision of journeys, of wrong timing, of simple human frailty. But I am flooded with guilt. I have had so many frissons of near misses on these freeways, of my own and others’ making. We catapult through space, as Michael likes to say, in these deadly machines and only luck and close attention keeps danger at bay. He reassures me that I am not the only one who gets blinded by the sun, that we are lucky she was young, that the EMT’s were blasé, that she is probably going to be okay. But I don’t know this. And it doesn’t matter. I hit her. My presence has done damage. I was thinking.

Guilt and shame. Shame that thoughts about protecting my assets even entered my mind in this culture where everyone sues everyone. Shame that I keep talking about, counseling and trying to live in the here and now, but was thinking about something else in the moment. Shame that I wonder if I can ever forgive myself and allow myself to smile again. Guilt that I didn't leave my house a minute later or sooner. Guilt that I was busy thinking.

I come home to my life as it always is. I take a walk and want to find a pastor, a guru, a church, a temple but know not where to turn so I talk to a friend and the distraction helps. The sun is warm and I am cold. People smile at me as I pass. Everything is normal and I could just chalk this up to “life in the big city.” The insurance companies will “take care of everything, leave it to us.” But I feel the need to make amends, to atone, not only to this woman who intersected the unholy trinity of my thoughts and certain rays of light and a ton of steel, but to all who have been affected by my presence. This is not how I want to connect. And it is certainly not the only way I am in this world. But if it is a wake-up call, to pay attention, I have heard it.

The family returns. The kids are normal and the world goes on around me. I sit here writing, wondering why it helps, but it does. I think of how I wish to craft this telling to make meaning of what has happened, how I care about syntax and vocabulary and what writing means to me, how I want to leave something behind, how some of us want to turn life's accidents and traumas and losses into something of meaning, artful. The Mexican photographer who was recently reviewed for his incredible pictures of people in death. The kids need and get there normal routine of dinner with an added dose of Spongebob. But there is someone in pain out there and I want to take her soup. I want to tell her again that I am sorry. Michael tells me that Hanah says the hand was red when I entered the crosswalk, meaning perhaps that Eun Jung was crossing against the light. I don’t know. I can’t remember if the light was yellow or green. It seems irrelevant. I hit her. I was busy thinking. I want to make it better.

Some say there are no accidents. And I can peel away the symbolism of any single event or confluence of occurrences and right now accept that I live in a car culture that puts all of us at risk. I can say it was the sun, that I wasn’t paying attention, that maybe she wasn’t paying attention. But my truth is that I was thinking. Thinking about how we live in this world, how we connect, how I wish to connect. Thinking, then, boom, Impact.

Sanctuary Redux

Okay, after a few cups of coffee and a visit with my religion, exercize, I have further thoughts about that "sanctuary" to which Rilke may have been referring. Yes, relationships help define us, but there is also that relationship to our selves, our souls to which we must pay attention when feeling untethered on the oceanic swells of our lives.

Jung says: "Personality is the supreme realization of the innate idiosyncrasy of a living being. It is an act of high courage flung in teh face of life, the absolute affirmation of all that constitutes teh individual, teh most successful adaptation to the universal conditions of existence coupled with teh greatest possible freedom for self determination."

When in midlife we find this supreme discomfort, we can look out our relationships to people, things, work, our bodies, our religion and ask why do I feel so out of sorts. Hollis (op cit) opines: "What pulls us out of false rebellion or the easy torpor of the familiar is that the soul's protest has grown too painful to ignore. Then we are called to achieve our particular idiosysncrasies as our gift to the collective. In the end, the meaning of our life will be judged not by our peers or their collecctive expectations, but by our experience of it, and by whatever transcendent source brought us to it in the first place."

That "transcendent source" perhaps, then, is Rilke's sanctuary to the East. For after examining those relationships to others where we seek support, solace and succor, we must look further within to how we relate to ourselves. And when we wake up one day and feel some overwhelming desire, (which comes from the Latin nautical term for "of the star." Hollis says, "To have desire is to have a vector, an intentionality, a direction. To lose desire is to be as adrift as a mariner who has lost the guiding star across otherwise trackless seas.") we must look at our maps and see where that desire points us. If we are awake enough to see clearly it may indeed point to where we already are. (I just had an exquisite un planned moment of bliss, sitting in the sun in my backyard). But that compass may also spur us to rise from the evening meal, to go outside and go and go and go...