9.12.15 All that has changed so much

You know , in history there is much struggle. Thing is, our economy and structure of our culture has changed so much. Our towns are no longer filled with small businesses owned by individuals . Reputation as a precious thing is changing. Getting the best deal is primary . So all those connections that enabled us so often in the past to know each other , to come to care for each other ; to look out for each other and employ each other and choose to go a little further or pay a little more because of who we wanted to make sure was ok... has changed.

 

9.12.15 It's the day after the paycheck

     It's the day after the paycheck, (not mine) and I'm standing at the gas pump at Cumberland Farms, filling up the gas tank, wondering how we're going to arrange the Rubik cube of the next two weeks. You know just what I'm talking about: expenditures and resources.

     I'm actually having paroxysms, unusual for me, but I am standing there pumping gas, glad my husband isn't, about to take the dog for a walk, and for once I'm glad there are those irritating speakers next to my head, 
     just because David Byrne is howling "Burning down the house !!" and it just begins plowing through me, moving me, that song, so much that I begin rocking the car, back and forth to the liberating tune; while I lean against the car, holding the pump, leaning on wayyy back onto the car, looking up at the robins egg blue sky, scattered with these brilliant puffy effervescent clouds, and suddenly, it all begins to fall away. 

The acute sense of impossibility. The distress. The struggling with that which seems to bind .
     Suddenly what comes to mind is that Chinese finger trap, remember? Made out of woven bamboo, a cylindrical, helically wound braid. I wonder if it even is Chinese at all.
     Thing is, you could put your two index fingers in either side, and if you pulled fast and hard, they would get stuck. Together. Bound. Whereas, if you pulled them apart slowly? After YIELDING? Why they would slide right out. That's life for you. In a nutshell, or a bamboo tube.
     As I turn my face to the warm mid-September sun, and watch as several small butterflies flutter far overhead. The smell of the gas wafting past me, as people come and go on this Saturday we have been given, and I settle back in to having a life.

9.12.15 Why, go ahead and lie in it

I have known people with much vitriol

for whom the opportunity to engage and rage is a welcome delight to race toward

that offers limitless excuse for in-person or online attack,and delightedly discards any need for accuracy, fact or inquiry. My sense is, sure -if you want to make that bed,why,go ahead and lie in it.

9.12.15 Finding that fond familiarity with our slowly aging selves:

     I think we look at, puzzle over, digest, and share photos of ourselves when we were younger.
     We say ' Wow! Youth!' And then inch by inch, if we want, we learn the beauty of the infant. Of the child, the adolescent. The young adult at reproductive prime. The middle age flavor of beauty.
     The beauty of the person who is sixty and seventy and eighty and ninety.
     We all remember being in our 20s, and gazing upon somebody in their 50s or 80s or 90s. It seemed like they were an alien, even if we loved them; all those changes in the body. The slowing of speech and mental processes, even if they were acutely aware and present.
     I myself had no capacity at that age to realize that my body would grow old. That my nose and feet and ears would keep growing! Oh! Really, that it was all true. That if I lived long enough, I would ever be different than I was that day.
     It seems understandable enough, right? There's just so much going on at that age. So much unknown. If you're lucky, so many plans.
     As we enter our 40s and reach our 50s and wander into our 60s, look at the focus. It's completely different. So is our awareness of the world. We've begun to get to know the terrain. We've begun to figure out how to navigate better.
     It also doesn't seem a huge mystery to me that our internal concept of who we are doesn't match with an aging body. Why should it?
     I think what our body looks like has been a continual surprise from childhood. I think it's simply something to learn to accept. So we don't have the repetitive stress of being surprised when we look in the mirror. And instead , learn to remind ourselves that, as the forest changes each and every day , so shall we.
     I think it's something we should anticipate. And say to ourselves "Yes. I'm going to be surprised every now and again when I look in the mirror, as I AM growing older.". And accept that we may never actually internally feel - the way we look on the outside.
     You know what it's like to love somebody? And only intermittently notice their physical appearance ; the things that differ from ads filled with photoshopped models?
     We look at people we care for , filled with love. That keeps us looking at that face, and seeing the beauty. The loveliness. Or feeling the attraction.
It seems that this is what we want cultivate, toward ourselves. This affection. This deep compassion and tenderness. This appreciation of these beautiful aging hands and feet and face and mind.
We all know by now that struggling against what is ...only causes us pain. Finding the way in, to what is, is key.
It seems like that is the role of self-love. As is self-care. The pleasure of taking care of ourselves ;the affectionate acknowledgement of all the processes of aging. As opposed to the fear.
     The pragmatic planning, if we are able, as we grow older. Versus the anxiety and fear and denial; the putting off looking at, putting off the shock of the changes, putting off the inevitable aspects of aging.
     I think if we don't support in each other the courage to feel the grief and loss of aging, and come out the other side to the acceptance, it's harder to not recoil from wrinkling, age spots, lost elasticity of skin, old eyes and lips. Our own. Others.
     It seems, though, if we can manage to learn from wisdom of the past, wisdom of some elders, and of the oak and the bear and the earth, we are comforted by "a time for all things under heaven."
It is then that we relax and discover the beauty that lies in older bodies. In our slowly growing-older self.

9.11.15 I'm thinking about 9.11. All the all the people

I'm thinking about 9.11. 

I'm thinking about all the overt and covert terrorist attacks and government over turns and murders our government has perpetuated all over the world, and in this nation.
I'm thinking that that's the way of it, with humans, with accumulation of wealth, property, hierarchies and power.
I'm thinking of all the places in the world that have sustained horrible attacks and genocide, which the United States barely, or never responded to. And I'm not talking money; but rather the simple and yet profound condolences we received from nations and people all across the globe after 9/11.
But those other places and people not being important enough for us to send our grieved regards.
I'm thinking about "terror" attacks on so many people here, and in other nation. By the likes of Timothy McVeigh, by others.
This propulsion to annihilate others. To destroy lives. To injure and maim. To make a big noise.
And then I'm thinking of all the tragedies that surround 9/11, the plane in the air and all of those moments ! Those lives. The Pentagon . The twin towers . All those experiences!
The reams of first responders, residents, and others who sustained life ending or life altering illnesses, which our government dutifully did the best it could to avoid helping with.
All the all the people, lost, in the twin towers.
All the people sick and suffering, after having put themselves out to see what could be done at ground zero.
Where each of us was , when we heard of the FIRST plane. Who ever imagined there would be two ? That the miracle of enormous buildings would simply collapse upon themselves. , like the very worst nightmare.
I'm thinking about the lives of those here, who knew and loved and needed those gone from them now, all these years , and more. Children and friends and parents and siblings and coworkers and fellow firefighters and officers and first responders and neighborhoods. Oh.
And then back again, to all the villages and towns and cities our nation has overtly or covertly slaughtered, so often in the name of oil, and profit, and global dominance .
Sometimes, a life time is such a short moment for humans and all other living things.
Sometimes, a life time is longer, and then brought to an end so rapidly .
It seems the essence of immortality lives in both something happening, and those who are moved and changed by it.
My prayers are with the moving, and the changing.