Cries of a child

Why do I still feel like a child? I am 40 years old. And I don't mean a child in a fun-loving creative way. I don't mean jumping for joy and dancing in the sunlight. I mean sitting in a meeting full of faculty colleagues (but not actually colleagues because they are tenured or tenure-track and I am not) and feeling powerless, small and weak. I mean thinking about my life and how I left home to get a break from a stressful family situation and it seems so petty and childish. I mean thinking about being alone and feeling scared and wanting to call out to someone. But there is no one to call out to. I am an adult. I can't be comforted by a soft teddy bear or my thumb in my mouth any more. I am 40 years old and I am all alone.

Writing

As a very happy subscriber to the Writer's Almanac (subscribe) I have been wanting to feature it in a blog entry. I have been waiting for just the right issue, just the right time. Well being so philosophical lately has led me to spontaneity, there is no 'right time' so I am doing it today. The Writer's Almanac is a daily email newsletter Minnesota public radio. It is written and read by Garrison Keillor (it comes with a link to the audio if you prefer listening to reading). Each newsletter features a poem and then some pertinent biographical or historical literary information related to the date. Today's issue has a wonderful poem by William Stafford, An Introduction to Some Poems, the first stanza of which was very meaningful to me:

Look: no one ever promised for sure
that we would sing. We have decided
to moan. In a strange dance that
we don't understand till we do it, we
have to carry on.

To give you an extra taste of what flavors and textures were offered for today:

It's the birthday of the novelist Andrea Barrett, (books by this author) born in Boston, Massachusetts (1954). She is known for writing about botanists, oceanographers and geologists in novels such as The Forms of Water (1993) and The Voyage of the Narwhal (1998).

She grew up on Cape Cod, and spent most of her time near the ocean, fascinated by sea life. She decided to study biology in college and went on to study zoology in graduate school.

At some point, she decided she was more interested in history than biology, and started studying medieval religion. It was while she was writing papers about the Spanish Inquisition that she realized she should be a writer. She said, "I'd go to the library and pull out everything, fill my room and become obsessed with the shape and the texture of the paper, and the way the words look, trying to make it all dramatic. At some point I realized: 'Hey, this isn't history, and I'm not a scholar.'"

She worked as a secretary in medical labs, trying to write. After years of struggling to finish her first novel, she showed it to a writer at the Bread Loaf Writer's Conference, and he told her to throw it away. She was so upset that she cried for a day, but then she took his advice and wrote her novel Lucid Stars which was published in 1988. Her collection of short stories Ship Fever (1996) became a best-seller after winning the National Book Award.

Because so many of Barrett's books deal with scientists, she constantly has to do research before she writes. She said, "I love research...I describe a [sailor] character who has to go belowdecks, and I think, 'So what is belowdecks?...Then I have to get books about ship building, ship history, immigration history, so I can write a little more...I love learning that way—lurching from subject area to subject area. When you're lit by your own purposes, it's astonishing how easily you can leap into a new field and get to that center of passion."

In order to finish her book The Voyage of the Narwhal, about a group of British scientists exploring the Arctic, Barrett traveled to Antarctica herself.

Her most recent book is Servants of the Map (2002).

Andrea Barrett said, "I think science and writing are utterly the same thing. They are completely rooted in passion and desire, if they're any good at all. You can fall in love with the natural world in the same way you fall in love with a person. There's that same sense of helplessness, of lacking control over how much of your life you want to devote to it."

She also said, "It's hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It's the greatest secret of the world."

After reading this I thought, "Wow! I want to do that!" I have read Ship Fever and really enjoyed it. To anyone who isn't already a subscriber, I highly recommend it. It has given me a lot of joy over the months I have been reading it.

Support Minnesota Public Radio and NPR through your local public radio station if you can. They do good work!

Lower expectations

I have been working on healing myself. Focusing on healing myself. And all the while I have been piling on expectations. Planning what books to read, what exercises to do, what lists of things to write and then do. All in the guise of self healing. Guess what, I don't feel very healed after 1 month of this. Here is an excerpt of something I wrote on the Childless Stepmoms forum.

I was thinking this morning about what I have done, learned and experienced in these weeks free from the day to day demands. I imagined that without the usual household chores, I would have an enormous amount of free time. I would luxuriate in baths each night, go to the gym, write long entries in my blog, crochet an afghan for my sister, read lots of books, mediate each day. Guess how many of those things I have done? Not too many. I am spending more time at work. My drive is much longer to and from work. I am spending time with my friend but I am not living the life I expected. I also expected to lose weight. Maybe I have a little but it has not dropped off as I expected. I did not transform from an overweight unkempt woman to a svelte sex goddess. I have been to the gym exactly 3 times. I have gone for 1 walk (although I now park in a lot farther from work so I end up walking 20 mins a day to and from the car). I have not started training for a triathlon as I expected. I have not started getting up at 5 AM. I am not zipping around with unbounded energy. Now it seems to me that my impossible expectations of life and myself are my main problems.

Mulling this over for a while and something remarkable came to me. Why not just lower my expectations? Why not write to do lists containing 5 items rather than 25 or 50? Why not schedule the 8 hours of sleep that I need instead of condemning my wimpy biology? Why not plan for the goofing off (or socializing depending on your point of view)? Why not write the couple of candy bars a week into the diet and learn to live with it for now? I am tired of feeling like a failure. According to my view of the universe I have been failing for 40 years. I just can't stand to fail anymore and the only way I can see to start succeeding is to lower my standards, ridiculously. Make goals that are laughable (to my overachiever brain). That's my new plan. So what's slated for tonight. Not much. Therapy from 8-9 and then home to relax, maybe a bubble bath, but if not, then not. Anything is ok. It may be hard to believe someone can feel guilty about not getting a bubble bath but if it's on the list and I haven't checked it off... Drive home, go to bed sometime, preferably wearing pajamas and having brushed my teeth (flossing optional, I am being gentle and relaxed). That is one evening's goals I expect to achieve. :)

Moving along

I am moving forward in this path
if slowly
then slowly
so be it

On Sunday, at Zen
I kept time on the makugyo
for the first time

Somehow thinking about drumming
Made chanting easier
Until I made a mistake
Because then I made two

I also swept leaves from the path
The gentle early morning sun
And the rustle of leaves
Were just what I needed

Healing music

I haven't posted in a while because my personal life is complicated right now. I am staying with a friend, trying to sort through my feelings, trying to look at myself and my situation and my family from a different perspective. Humans (or me at least) are a mosiac of past and present, of hopes, expectations, disappointments and memories. I was thinking about how I am a generally competent person but I can't seem to get anything right or have any success when it comes to myself. Part of the problem is that I don't know what I want, what I should work toward. All the usual goals of the perfect job, a certain amount of money, fame, getting a book published, a beautiful house, a child, a loving family.... I am unsure about. Such desires seem to come from outside myself, societies expectations, or maybe unattainable, or maybe undeserved? One thought came to me when I was walking, a goal that I may be able to work toward, if I can get past how selfish it sounds, to heal myself. Just that. And if I accomplish it, maybe the description of perfect job will be within view. Maybe a loving family will seem possible. Maybe a book will make some sense.

As I thought this I was listening to my latest ipod playlist, Heroes and Ordinary Mortals. Lyrics from the songs alternatively made me cry or my heart swell. Each song had an additional meaning compared to the last time I listened. I thought I would write the most emotional words here, rather like a quilt poem.



Here on earth I'll have my cake
Gonna eat it too, make no mistake
'Cause if it's a question of to be or not to be
I'll put on my boots and go see what I can see
Here on Earth - Crash Test Dummies

Once I get you up there, I’ll be holding you so near
You may here, angels cheer - because were together
Come Fly with Me - James Darren

See that boy with that guitar
He's got skinny legs like I always wanted
A girlfreind in his car 'cause he's got
Skinny legs like I always wanted
Sister look at me again
You'd love me if I were as skinny as him
Skinny Legs - Lyle Lovett

I will try not to burden you. I can hold these inside.
I will hold my breath until all these shivers subside,
just look in my eyes.
I will try not to worry you.
I have seen things that you will never see.
Leave it to memory me. I shudder to breathe.
Try Not to Breathe - R.E.M.

Then I see you standing there
Wanting more from me
And all I can do is try
Try - Nelly Furtado

Folks said his family were all dead
Their planet crumbled but Superman, he forced himself
To carry on, forget Krypton, and keep going

Superman never made any money
For saving the world from Solomon Grundy
And sometimes I despair the world will never see
Another man like him
Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies

The fat girl
She always stayed inside and played piano
And she told her mother
The children made her cry
And her mother told her
They don't mean it

Now the fat girl
She ain't fat no more
And lord how she plays piano
And she sings loud
And she sings low
And she sings of love
And blind passion
But she don't mean it
The Fat Girl - Lyle Lovett

Ophelia's mind went wandering
You'd wonder where she'd gone
Through secret doors down corridors
She wanders them alone
All alone
Ophelia - Natalie Merchant

I'm just a walkin' my dog
Singin' my song
Strollin' along
Yeah it's just me and my dog
Catchin' some sun
We can't go wrong
The Dog Song - Nellie McKay

I know a man he lost his head
He said: The way I feel I'd be better off dead.
He said: I got everything I ever wanted
Now I can't give it upIt's a trap, just my luck!
The gift of life it's a leap of faith
It's a roll of the die
It's a free lunch A free ride
The gift of life it's a shot in the dark
It's the call of the wild
It's the big wheel The big ride
But Nature's got rules and Nature's got laws
And if you cross her look out!
It's the monkey's paw
Monkey's Paw - Laurie Anderson

Make me laugh
Say you know you can turn
Me into the real thing
So I show you some more
And I learn
Jackie's Strength - Tori Amos

How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time
Thank U - Alanis Morissette

I returned a paler blue bird
and this is the advice they gave me"you must not try to be too pure
you must fly closer to the sea"
so I'm walking through the desert
and I am not frightened although it's hot
I have all that I requested
and I do not want what I haven't got
I do not want what I haven't got - Sinead O'Connor

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
Anthem - Leonard Cohen

Blogger bar

Has anyone tried the next blog button on the blogger bar? I read in some blogger news item that it was a good way to find new blogs, like flipping through channels on the tv. Well I wasn't very impressed. I saw lot's of nearly empty blogs, a number of blogs in languages I couldn't read. Some blogs that just weren't interesting to me. So I was ready to give up, thinking I would never find something that resonated. Then I found this wonderful site, Restless Thoughts. I like it a lot. Most especially, I love this poem posted there:

Number poetry
Two nine

Four eight one
one six six four one
one three six three six one six one
one nine three six nine three six one three six one

one zero
nine
one two
seven
nine
one

four eight
one two
three

two nine
one one
two

I wish the author would allow comments.

Debatable

I watched the debate last night. I hadn't watched the presidential debate last week so I wanted to see this one. We are not tv watchers, we have to disconnect our cable modem and plug the tv in when we want to watch. We don't do it very often. But, I wanted to watch the debate. It seemed... the correct thing to do, to be more involved in the political process. I have to say that what I kept hearing over and over again from both Cheney and Edwards worried me. Over and over Edwards said 'find terrorists and kill them'. Cheney said the same thing in different words. What about trials? What about evidence, what about imprisonment? I have always opposed the death penalty. To me, killing is not the answer. I saw a great bumper sticker in a catalog. "Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?" What worried me even more is that I knew that to get elected this was the right thing for him to say. The American people (I hate this term, it doesn't include me, I don't know who it includes maybe not you either) are out for blood, it seems we are a scared, even terrified nation and without talk of death and destruction of our so-called enemies, one cannot be trusted and cannot be elected. I am very sad about this.

Garrison's democracy

From Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts From the Heart of America by Garrison Keillor

I am a Democrat, which was nothing I decided for myself but simply the way I was brought up, starting with the idea of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, which is the basis of the simple social compact by which we live and also You are not so different from other people so don't give yourself airs, which was drummed into us children back in the old days when everyone went to public schools. Don't be conceited. So you can write: goody-goody for you, but don't think you're a genius because, believe me, you're not. The democracy of the gospel. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All we like sheep have gone astray. These articles of faith, plus our common tongue and a fondness for jokes and the American landscape, bind us together in a union of souls, each one free, each one devoted to the union. . . . I grew up among Bible-believing people in Minnesota, a cold weather state when the jet stream slips and the wind blows steadily from Manitoba; it gets so cold your skin hurts, your innards clench up, and a man's testes shrink to the size of garden peas, but --- Everyone is just as cold as you are so don't complain about it, this is not a personal experience, that's what we say, and you comfort yourself with fried eggs and bacon and you bulk up a good deal by spring, but then everyone else is fat too, so it's not a problem. Here we have the democracy of flatness: there simply aren't so many hills for the rich people to live on top of. We suffer less from the self-esteem issues that make people call on their cell phones and announce their whereabouts.

I read this and it felt so true, so real, so much in harmony with the way I think. What is really amazing, is that when I go home, most of my family is Republican. So, I don't know where my ideas came from, maybe I watched too much TV. Maybe it comes from hours of Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, and Star Trek?

I haven't finished reading this book but it is delightful. I would love to quote more here but really you just have to read it for yourself, if I have enticed you with what is quoted above. And in pure democratic fashion, I took the book from the library. Don't worry, I'll return it soon and give you a chance to read it too.

Misc ramblings

I wanted to post all weekend. I wrote a great post in my head on Saturday afternoon in the gym. It was about how my inner world must be reflected in the outer world and my inner world is pretty harsh and maybe if I start to change my inner world, gentle it, soften it, the world around me won't seem so grim. Also on Saturday, I received my beautiful earrings from Mahala. How well-made they are, how they dangle gently from my ears, how it warms my heart to have something made by her hands. Yes, that would have been a good post. Sunday zen was great as usual. I had lots of ideas for Sunday. We talked about Beowulf, Our Town, the traumas in Haiti. Lot's of good material there. Sunday we also went to a pumpkin festival. I took some pictures, saw some interesting things. Could have been a wonderful blog entry. Last night I had dinner with a fascinating man who is editing the eleventh edition of the premiere book in pharmacology. He talked about his experience as an editor. He is really taking his job seriously. Often times academics have disdain for such work. It can be so dry, compiling all the old data of someone else, looking for details, trying to explain things that aren't within their expertise. It's not exciting, new and fresh. But he has a positive outlook about it, it was nice to speak with him. I could have written all this and you would have had something interesting (I hope) to read. But I didn't. Why? I am in the middle of a fight with my family. Not the screaming, plate-smashing kind of fight, but a quiet, I am not speaking unless necessary kind of fight. A I-will-not-smile-rather-keep-my-face-neutral-at-all-times kind of fight. Why? It seems silly to write. I am waiting for an apology and a promise that a certain digression will not happen again. He doesn't think there was a digression. So I feel like I am in limbo, waiting for my life to start up again, too distracted to write a real blog entry.

Unfinished business

I didn't finish the proposal. Today was the due date and I just couldn't do it. The next time to submit it will be Feb 1. So I guess I will keep working on it for the next four months and submit it then. I feel relieved but also very disappointed in myself. It is just another time that I have procrastinated about this. What if the same thing happens in January? This kind of thing is happening to me too often. Too many times I skip meditating or going to the zendo. Too many times, I avoid the gym, or work out only half-heartedly while there. Too many times I start to change my eating habits only to fall back into the same unhealthy patterns. In some ways, my life feels like it is coming together. Things at home are better, with my stepson and husband. I am not crying with frustration and desperation a couple times a week. That is good. But I am still far from where I want to be. I still have to do lists with hundreds of entries. I am still not satisified with myself.

Silliness

Your Icecream Flavour is...Neopolitan!

You aren't satisfied with just one flavor. They say variety is the spice of life and this shines through in your Ice cream of choice! Just don't eat all the chocolate and leave the strawberry and vanilla behind!

What is your Icecream Flavour?

Find out at Go Quiz

Exactly....

PRAGMATIK: "But there is certainly something wrong with closed-mindedly rejecting something and single-mindedly doing the opposite and then calling that freedom. One is then still under the control of what one is rejecting. That seems simple and obvious enough."

Great post. To read more...

Hero

Saw the film Hero recently. I found it very beautiful but I was a bit troubled by it, without really allowing myself to pursue it since I have been so busy with work.

I was distracting myself tonight reading some blogs and found a link to this review: Fascinating Fascism: Hero at the vernacular body.

I think this is what was bothering me just put into words. Many, pleasing to read words.

Gratitude, guilt and more questions

Hello everyone! I am feeling more myself, or the self I like better. I am embarrassed by my previous post. I sounded like a spoiled child. I would have deleted it by now but for the gentle, heartfelt comments that are attached. It makes me consider how I censor myself, how I categorize parts of me into bad and good, things to keep, things to remove, and things to improve. If I had not written that post in my moment of frustration and complete dissatisfaction with myself and my life, I wouldn't have received those wonderful comments. I would have missed hearing those voices and I am grateful I did not. But immediately I feel guilt. Why is that? I feel that I don't deserve those comments, I don't deserve that concern or consideration. What have I done for Siona or Dale or Mahala that they should offer me such a gift, that they should--can I say it?--love me? It brings a strange juxtaposition of emotions in me and I am quite sure I won't end this message with a pithy statement that shows I integrated this message into my life. Quite sure of that one.

So where does this leave me? I am still a bit sick but also a bit better. I still have the huge, horrendous, nearly impossible to finish proposal, but it is several pages closer to completion, I still feel grouchy and speak to my family in short clipped sentences when they dare to come into my presence. But there is a little feeling, a little voice that is saying that it is ok, that some imperfection is acceptable, that there is some benefit, some use for this jumble of 'negative' emotions. These are the demons that I face. This is the mess that is the inner workings of my mind. Much to my chagrin, it is not peace and logic inside me. Warner is right. Will it ever be so?

How do we deal with these non-niceties? I try to pretend that I am something and I fight moment by moment to be that way. To demonstrate it, to live it ... but it's not true. What is the answer? Control? Suppression? Organization? Compartmentalization? People say things like 'deep down she is a good person.' What am I 'deep down?' It seems the deeper I go with my inner work and meditation the more slime, decay and putrefication I find. What if I find deep down I am not even recognizable? What if deep down there is nothing, an empty hole?

Oscar the grouch

I wasn't gonna post today. I am too out of sorts, out of time. I didn't even write much to my friends on CSM. I try to be the supportive one, the helpful one and today I just don't feel up to it. And I have to confess, I started another blog. A secret blog where I can write all the mean stuff that I won't say and I won't write here and I won't even write to my sister. So there! I'm cheating. There is another me! But that still leaves something for me to write here. I thought about looking up an uplifting quote to put here. Honestly, I can't do it. I don't know that I would even know an uplifting quote if I read one. Just about everything is bothering me today. Should I list my complaints -- an ungratitude list? I am still sick, my throat still hurts, I still have too much work to do. I guess tomorrow or the next day or certainly by next week (when this @#*& proposal has been mailed) I will feel better. I know this but it doesn't help right now because I am in a mood that doesn't want help, I spit on help.

One view of zazen

I've been sick for a few days with a bad head cold and have a big deadline at work, so rather than not post at all, I thought I would just post a paragraph from Hardcore Zen. I chose this one because of Dale's comment, my struggles with zazen on Sunday and because I thought it was humorous.

For everyone -- everyone -- who first takes it up, zazen is tedious and awful. Your brain is in constant motion like there's a hive of angry wasps in your head. There are moments when you're certain you're going to have to leap right off your cushion and run around the room singing the chorus of Hello Dolly! just to keep from going utterly bananas. Anybody who doesn't feel that way about it, at least sometimes, is not doing the practice very sincerely. Zazen isn't about blissing out or going into an alpha brainwave trance. It's about facing who and what you really are, in every single goddamn moment. And you aren't bliss, I'll tell you that right now. You're a mess. We all are. --Brad Warner Hardcore Zen

Sunday Zen

I went to the zendo today. I didn't go last week and I almost didn't go today. Why is it so hard? My mediations was mostly sitting and thinking about stuff. I had a few moments of actually doing the work but that was it. I definitely felt more focused during the nitensoji (short cleaning period during formal practice), sweeping the brick path, than I had during zazen. Maybe I need more activity and less sitting in front of this computer? I had a slight headache the whole morning and I began to contemplate the pain and how it kept me in my body and mind. Perhaps that's why we hold on to pain? To stay with the ego self? The discussion with our teacher was wonderful as usual. He was reading one of Roshi's teishos and in was a line about being one with everyone, and everyone being no other than myself. Therefore when I injure someone, I am injuring myself. For some reason, this made me cry. It wasn't a very strong cry, since I was with the group and supposed to be listening and participating in the discussion, but it was good because some of the debris of the last two weeks was washed away, some of the tightness was loosened, and some of the agitation was released. A small bit of peace could seep into me. And that felt very good indeed.

6 months

This question came up for me today: What would you do if you only had 6 months to live?
Here is what I think this day, at this time.

If I only had 6 months to live. That is a tough one and I am not sure I can honestly answer it. I don't feel that I can really move into that space in my imagination. I suppose I would repair and/or strengthen relationships with my extended family and with my husband. Why am I thinking about that, I wonder. I guess I don't want to leave any loose ends I don't want people to feel too much regret when I go. Why aren't I thinking about myself, I wonder, what I want to do? Why wouldn't I want to do all the things I have planned now? Read more books, meditate, yoga, take classes, travel? I certainly wouldn't go on a diet. Why not do things I have never done? I don't know. I guess am jumping ahead, like 6 months is nothing, fast forwarding the the ultimate 'goal'. I suppose I do this all the time, like reading the last page of a book before even starting Chapter 1. I am amazed at my lack of an answer to this one. And I have thought about it before. One of my officemates has cancer, serious cancer. The Dr. told her the prognosis was not good. And yet she is still working, for two reasons, one, she doesn't believe the prognosis, and two she needs the health insurance. Would I do this? No, I am pretty sure about that. I would not go to work. I am reminded of a movie I saw on Lifetime with Farrah Fawcett, called The Substitute Wife. When a woman was told that she was dying she found a new wife/mother for her family. It was set during the pioneer days. Anyway, I guess I would try to make my passing easier on my loved ones. And I don't know if this is good or bad. Does this mean I don't have any idea what my Self even is, that I only see my Self as it exists as a part of other people's lives? This definately requires further contemplation.

So what!

From Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao : A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior
by Stephen Russell

Letting Go
You sit there alone in a state of mild agitation, the primordial monster of encroaching insanity threatening to escape through the cracks in the plasterboard of the reality you constructed so neatly and to engulf you in its slimy, entropic discharge. Your plans seem to have gone awry and you're racked with doubts about the choices you made that got you into this position in the first place. Who did you think you were anyway, thinking you could take destiny into your own hands like that?

So you're disappointed. So what! Disappointment's only disappointment. It will be transmuted into its opposite by the immutable law of yin and yang anyway.

So, so what! May sound impolite or downright compassionless, but really, so what.

The thing about "so what" is that it's got an edge, a small portion of anger released every time you say it. That's its advantage over "never mind," which is also good and valid, but only when you truly don't mind. Most of the time, though, especially when the disappointment's just recently dropped, you do mind. So with that faint hint of churlish delinquency, stand up, release that irritation and boldly proclaim, "So what!"

Red bush tea

I am drinking red bush tea tonight. I first tried it after reading Alexander McCall Smith's second "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novel, Tears of the Giraffe. The heroine of the series, the No. 1 Lady herself, Precious Ramotswe, drinks bush tea all the time and making and drinking the tea is such a pleasing ritual to read about. I wanted to try it myself, to see if by drinking it, I could drink in a little of the unprentiousness that Mma Ramotswe displays. In an interview with the author he says that her character was inspired by a woman he saw chasing chickens around her yard. Later in the interview he says "There is something of Botswana in the books. The whole ethos, the whole feel of the books, is to do with that particular country." The books are a joy to read and leave me feeling calm and peaceful inside, as if there is goodness in this world after all. The feeling doesn't last forever but as long as McCall Smith is writing (he says there will be 8 books in all), I'll be reading... and sipping tea.

---