The Manifesto

So, my dear friends, I have an announcement:

I have just published a self-help book. I wanted to say “a sort of self-help book,” but I don’t think it would fit into many other categories. Something about philosophy, perhaps? Or spirituality? But not quite. Not really either of those.

It’s a book. A short book, which should make for a quick read. I self-published it through Amazon. It is called The Manifesto. In it I list 10 ideas that help me to feel freer to be my own authentic self. I talk a bit about each idea, trying to explain and clarify. I give a few suggestions for exercises that might be helpful for readers, things I do myself. I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I don’t suggest that my perspectives are the only “right” ones. In the end, I challenge readers to write their own manifestos for their own freer lives.

Why did I write this little book, when I’m a literary poet and creative nonfiction writer? Well—it felt urgent. It pushed at me. It seemed important. As I wrote it, I thought of the people I have been privileged to support through difficult times. I thought of the students who have cried in my office (NOT because I made them cry, but because I just listened). I thought of how much it would have meant to me if someone had said, years ago, that it might be helpful to try to stop judging myself. I thought maybe a few people will read this, and it will say something they need to hear. I thought, if even one person reads it and it says one thing that person needed to hear, then it is a good thing.

I’m not a self-help expert. I’m not a doctor, yogi, therapist, philosopher, or guru. I’m just a teacher, writer, reader, friend. I meditate, but not, I admit, every day. I think a lot of different groups are onto a lot of really important stuff, but for me, no single formulated ideology gets everything right for all of us all the time. I think the biggest job each of us has in this life is to try to figure out ourselves and the world, and any tool that helps with that job is worth trying. And I think you, my friends, are very, very smart, and already on the path of figuring out yourselves and the world, and if anything I say can support you in that endeavor, then I’ll be honored.

Another question: why did I choose to self-publish, starting with Kindle, through Amazon, a company some people have political difficulties with? Really, I just wanted to get the book out. I wanted to have complete control over it. I didn’t want to have long conversations with editors about making it “sexier” for the “market.” And I wanted the process to be very simple and very easy for me, so I could spend my time writing, reading, and teaching. I’m sorry if it is politically problematic for any of you. There will be a print version, also through Amazon, but that’s the next step for my tireless and saintly friend, Jim Miller, who has already volunteered his expertise to format the book for Kindle. If you don’t own a Kindle, incidentally, you can get the Kindle app for free on any computer, tablet, or cell phone. Or you can wait for the print version, which we hope will be available soon.

At this point, I will try to split my posts into “more literary” things that I put on this blog, and “more manifesto-related” things that I put on my other blog. I hope you will dip in and read either or both, and perhaps get something from the reading.

Boundless love and gratitude to all of you. 

November Grief

This Thanksgiving--the Sunday after Thanksgiving, actually--it will have been six years since my mother died.

The grief is like a cocklebur I have picked up on a walk somewhere, stuck to the back of my shirt. I feel a scrape when November starts, but it goes away and I forget. Some part of me knows there's pain back there, so I spend a lot of time leaning forward without remembering why. And then plans for Thanksgiving finalize, and it's like leaning back so the stinging bits of the burr finally push through my shirt. Oh yeah! That's what it is. This is the anniversary of the loss of my mother, her absence from this world. No wonder it hurts.

If you've ever tried to remove a cocklebur from your clothing, you know it's an imprecise process. The thing comes apart, each little hooked spine trying to stay embedded in the fabric. Even after you take the shirt off, even after you wash it, you might find bits of it scratching at your skin.

I know people feel differently about marking the anniversaries of painful events. Some believe that ritual gives us comfort, and maybe that's true. For me, I need to mark the anniversary of my mother's death--to remember it--because if I try to forget, the feelings cling to me anyway. I go around hunched and jumpy and not really sure why. That's opens the door to self-judging, as I think I have no reason to feel bad and why don't I just stop moping already? And then I remember. Or I don't, but my sister reminds me, and then we both remember.

And, remembering, we recognize grief. Yes, that's what is hurting. That hurt is never going to go away completely--a hooked spine will poke and scratch me at random, forever. But I know what it is. I can see it, examine it, feel it. And thereby make space in my awareness for all the other things I'm experiencing, as the days get shorter and we approach the winter solstice and holiday celebrations.

Maybe I'll start making this year's Christmas playlist.

Sometimes I Go Shopping

I go every week to a "sangha," a group of people who meditate together. I discovered it by searching for meditation in the Champaign Urbana area, and luckily they have a website. Meditation practice is, as most of you know, basically a solitary thing--we sit, or walk, in silent contemplation. Each of us has her own issues to think through and notice, his own path towards feeling freer. But like most of us, I am helped by routine and the expectation of other people; because I go "do meditation" once a week, I know that, if I get lazy, I will still do this thing that I love and is good for me at least sometimes, if not as often as I wish.

The location is a Quaker meetinghouse, so it's airy, simple, and open. The space just feels good. We sit on cushions or chairs for an hour, in silence. I often have images of light--light going up towards the sky from each person's head, or a swirling set of colors that move around and among us. Some of the older and more centered-seeming people have very strong, stable light in my imagined world. And then I do my own thing--have thoughts and feelings, notice them, remind myself to focus on the breath, concentrate on radiating love out into the world. The hour is over very quickly.

After meditation, we listen to a "dharma talk" (yes, I'm using quotation marks around these terms because they're new to me; I came to meditation via secular self-help and not formally through Buddhism, so I'm still enamored of all the special terms). It's generally recorded from a retreat, so it's a teacher talking to people who have come to learn and meditate over a period of time. I like that the teacher isn't there in front of us, in part because I can listen more objectively. After the talk, the group (sitting in a circle by this time in another room) discusses any ideas or reactions. Without the teacher being present, everyone feels free to question, disagree, wonder.

It is an eclectic group of people, from 15-25 on any given night. Some are retired, some students, a lot of us in-between. People are thoughtful and passionate and confused and intelligent. No one pretends to have all the answers.

My favorite discussion so far, however, was decisively ended by a woman I find delightfully frank. We had gotten onto a tangent, and phrases like, "the commodification of wisdom" and "money-making-machine of self-help" had gotten thrown around. The general attitude was one of disdain for money and materialism and all those things we were supposed to be "above." And yeah, I supported this line of discussion myself--I do think that we live in a culture that tells us money and objects will make us happy, and we have to fight against that to figure out what will actually make each of us happy. And then this gray-haired woman who brings her own chair said, "I just have one last thing to say: sometimes I go shopping. And sometimes I even like it."

I burst out laughing. A few people smiled uncertainly. The leader wrapped it up, and we started putting our chairs back in their stacks.

The thing I loved about this comment was simply this: she had called us on our little judging bubble. Is it good to get caught up in materialism? No. But we are all human, and flawed, and imperfect. And judging other people isn't something to aspire to, either. Even the Buddha, I am learning, advocated the Middle Way. Not totally ascetic, nor totally indulgent. Just muddling along trying to do the best we can in the middle of things. Sometimes we meditate. Sometimes we eat chocolate. Sometimes we put on makeup, or we drink too much, or we sleep too late. Sometimes we go shopping.

Instead of telling myself not to do normal human things, I opt for liking it all as much as I can.

I'm Ready to be Adored Now

Every day I have a kaleidoscope of feelings, beautiful and terrifying mood swings and fractures of the time-space continuum--I might move from loving the window wall in front of which I sit at the library, looking into someone's tiny 3rd story deck, to lamenting my lack of huge riches with which to solve the problems of all my friends, to thinking that my taste in music is quite plebeian (but no self-judging, Katie!) and wouldn't it be fun to blast Macklemore's "Thrift Shop" in the nonfiction section about now?

The funny thing is that when the feelings quiet down a bit, when my moodiness abates--the pendulum taking shorter and shorter arcs--I often don't come to a sense of peace or self-acceptance. I come to emptiness--what Louis CK calls in this terrific clip (watch past the kids and cell phones part to the brilliance, please) "that forever empty."

Oh, and how BORING it is there! How without the drama of tears or the hip swing of wanting to dance to a catchy song (see Macklemore, "Thrift Shop") I simply don't know what to feel. And when I don't know what to feel, I fall back into one of my most basic desires, and find myself thinking, "I'm ready to be adored now."

Then of course the Buddhist in me feels like a failure (emptiness should be a goal, a gateway to transcendence) and the psychologist in me feels weak (we should each be self-sufficient, should be able to live with the quiet inside ourselves, love ourselves before we love others, etc...) and the me who was raised in this culture that seems to value both bragging and humility just feels confused. Should I be telling the world I'm awesome, or that I'm really not? Or should I be feeling so completely self-sufficient that I don't want to tell the world anything?

But all those thoughts are about judging, and they're not honest, and they tell me, at the most basic level, that I'm not allowed to want.

I think sometimes I need to get to that quiet, boring space in order to hear the tiny voice inside that wants things. And not just the loud, easy desires: chocolate, money, a brand new stack of books and a week of vacation to read them. The more complex and elusive things. The things I might only joke about wanting in my regular life. Big desires, vast as canyons, and dreams, and freedom, and hope, and love, and to feel good, really good, about being alive and being me.

But admitting to wanting those things is terrifying. Do they even exist? Do I deserve them? Does anyone ever get them?

I don't know. I really don't. But I want to give myself--and you--permission to want. No self-judging, really. I mean it this time.

Here's the amazing thing: when I have given myself permission not only to want, but to tell other people, honestly, what I want--even when those desires conflict with what others want me to want, and even when I fear hurting other people by wanting what I do, even when I fear looking stupid or vulnerable--I have opened myself up to greater connection with myself and others. I have given and received love. I have felt larger and more free inside.

Maybe one of these posts I'll tell you a bit more about that.

For now, let me just say to you all, "I'm ready to be adored now."

The Goal

Yeah. So I woke up this morning thinking, "The goal is not to have no feelings." A double negative there, I know. But let me try to explain. It's not quite accurate to make it a positive: "The goal is to have feelings." Because, honestly, we're going to have feelings whether we want them or not. Even when we try to numb out, shove the feelings down into our stomachs, lose ourselves in endless tv, answer "fine" when anyone asks us how we are--even when we try to do that, we're still going to end up with feelings. Somewhere along the line, we'll trip over a crack in the sidewalk and find ourselves on our knees, crying and cursing and wondering why the world hates us.

The world doesn't hate us, by the way. The world is just there, doing its own thing, and we're not in control of very much at all when it comes to our lives, and that's terrifying, so we make up things like we're specially singled out for pain.

But anyway--I've cried a good bit lately. I'm doing something amazing that many people don't get to do--taking a year to live in the landscape I love, with family, and re-center myself--but it's still a whole ton of change all at once. And change, even when good, is always about loss. So I'm at the beginning of a year of flux, and I've got some crying to do.

More specifically, the other night I was walking down the country road in front of my sister's house, at night, under the stars, beautiful temperature, endless sky, no cars or people--heaven for me--and crying so hard I went through all 5 of the tissues I'd stuck in my pocket on the way out the door. I was thinking, as I often do at such times, that I couldn't bear it. I simply could not bear the sadness I was feeling, the loss, the grief, the fear, and how those feelings so often turn against me, until I feel utterly valueless in the world. I was thinking, "I'm not good at this living thing. I'm just not good at it. How can I go on hoping, wanting, when I don't get what I want? Shouldn't I just stop hoping, stop wanting?"

Luckily nothing said anything back to that--the corn, the stars, the asphalt road--except for some night-birds resting on the warm ground that exploded into the muffled feathered drums of wings when I walked too close to them.

And then, eventually, I went back to my room, talked to some people I love, and fell asleep.

A couple of days later, I heard from two friends who both apologized for appearing to be feeling sad, and assured me it wasn't really all so bad. And I thought again of my own brain saying, "I can't bear it," and the lengths to which we will go in order to avoid either feeling or admitting to "negative" feelings. And I knew that I felt closer to my friends because they admitted to their negative feelings; I felt the humanity we shared. I was connected to them in their sorrow and fear, just as I am in their joy and hope.

And I realized that feelings are, really, everything we have. All of them. All the pesky, irritating, despair-driven, itchy feelings along with the comradeship and love and wonder. Do I want to live my life so I never cry? Nope. No, not really. I was crying because I cared, deeply, about myself and other people and the whole idea of trying to be a human. Would I cry less if I cared less? Sure. But I don't want to care less. I want to be all in. I want to be passionate. I want to push my face into the cold water til I come up with an apple in my mouth or see the other world. Maybe I'll come up laughing, mouth full of sweetness; or maybe sputtering and crying. But at least I'll feel something.

Some people think the goal of meditation, the tenets of Buddhist and Yogic thought, are about ending desire and blocking out emotion. I don't think so. Yes, I want to always have a part of me that's aware of being connected to the universe, made of the same atoms--a part that notices I'm having feelings and doesn't judge those feelings, a part that notices I'm dripping snot and tears on a country road and still knows itself to be Part of Everything. But I'm not planning on giving up the tears and snot part of me, either. That's not my goal. Feelings--all of them--are what this human thing is all about for me. Meditation doesn't take away the feelings; it just mutes the part of my mind that judges the feelings and analyzes and schemes to never have them again, to never feel that bad again, to never burden the world with my sorrow again. Meditation turns off the logic and opens up the contradiction and paradox: I am the one crying, the one laughing, the one cursing out the indifferent universe, the one loving other people, the one with her soul off in the dark sky, the one hurting, the one afraid, the one who doesn't judge, the one who can be disappointed, the one who hopes, the one who wants to give up, the one who wants dazzling kisses.

So. The goal is not to have no feelings, because feelings are not problems in need of solving. They are, like all of us, Part of Everything.

Goodbye (for now) to Florida

Goodbye to ibis. Goodbye to the Gulf of Mexico. Goodbye to alligators and armadillos. Goodbye to drive-through liquor stores. Goodbye to people dressed in suffocating costumes dancing on street corners in 95 degrees just to get one more driver to stop and buy stuff at a store in a strip mall. Goodbye to daily thunderstorms. Goodbye to smiling clerks and servers. Goodbye to the host at the gate to my friend's apartment complex who asked me, "You all fixin' to have some fun?" and laughed when I said, "It could happen." Goodbye to Winn-Dixie, one of the only places where the clerks don't always smile. Goodbye to Publix, where everyone seems genuinely happy. Goodbye to traffic jams on I-75. Goodbye to the giant confederate flag on I-75, the one that embarrasses us all. Goodbye to year-round porch-sitting. Goodbye to royal palm trees, still exotic to me after five years. Goodbye to Sandhill cranes in the mall parking lot. Goodbye to black widow spiders. Goodbye to cigar-sized grasshoppers. Goodbye to so many people I love. Goodbye to the places I didn't love, like Bruce B Downs north of Fowler. Goodbye to my best excuse for using "y'all." Goodbye to TPA, the easiest and most efficient airport I've ever been to. Goodbye to socklessness. Goodbye to the ubiquitous palmetto bugs and their ilk. Goodbye to hurricanes. Goodbye to the anoles my dog loves to chase. Goodbye to shorts worn with Ugg boots. Goodbye to decent iced tea served everywhere. Goodbye to the zebra longwing butterflies that liked the passion flower vine I planted. Goodbye to bringing a sweater to restaurants in the summer, and not in the winter. Goodbye to the voluptuous smell of gardenia and the velvet-heavy scent of jasmine. Goodbye to pelicans. Goodbye for now, Florida. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye...

I Hate Packing

Whether it's for an overnight trip or a move to another state, I hate packing. Every decision nearly paralyzes me--should I take these earrings or those? Do I have room for an extra pair of socks? Should I give away this book, though it was my grandmother's, though I haven't opened it in years? I want to live simply; I want to save everything, just in case I need it later. I want to get rid of the STUFF that is expensive to move or store, that weighs on my mind so that one of my recurring dreams is of having to move and never quite being able to gather everything. But then I pick up a card, ready to throw it out, and read it again, and see that it was given to me by a friend and it contains words of love, and I travel in memory...and then I put down the card, not having decided what to do with it, and look around me at the unfilled boxes, and despair. I contradict myself, like Whitman, "...I am large--I contain multitudes."

But I like unpacking. I like opening a box and figuring out where those items should go in the new place. I even like opening my suitcase and putting away the things I took on that trip in their proper places. The decisions have already been made--the stuff was taken with me, and brought back. It is finite, having already been contained. And the old brass figurine of a terrier dog that was my grandmothers comes out of the box and is put on the shelf, clean from having been dusted before it was packed, and I am home.

There's a lot of talk on the internet these days about being an introvert. There are tests that people take to define them as introverted or extroverted, this or that. Simplistically, introverts don't like to be around people, and extroverts do. But I--sometimes I like to be around people and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I like to meet new people and sometimes I like to stay home from the party and read. Sometimes I like talking one-on-one, and sometimes I like talking in groups. And aren't we all, really, like that? Some of both?

I'm not saying labels and categories are completely useless. But I do think we all contradict ourselves. We love to travel, and we love coming home. We hate being on the airplane, but we love glimpsing a new place from above, the mountains and trees so familiar and so strange. We love dreaming of going to Ireland, but hate planning the actual route to drive and where to stay. We feel a bit sorry for ourselves when we're sitting on the couch for another Friday night watching Netflix, and we dream of doing something so relaxing when we're standing awkwardly at a stranger's party with a drink in one hand and a fake smile plastered on.

But this, I'm sure of: I ALWAYS hate packing. It goes too slow and I get nothing done, or it goes too fast and I just KNOW I'm taking something I should have thrown out. Packing makes me feel like I'm shrinking, like I'm losing certainty; I don't know where that ball of garden twine is, and what if I suddenly need it? And it gives me more reasons to judge myself, because inevitably I'm far less organized than I would like to be, and packing highlights disorganization. It is, by nature, imperfect.

I think now I will put aside the boxes and tape, find my tennis shoes, and take a walk. Later, no doubt, I'll dream, again, about being unable to gather all of my things--the books that don't fit in the one box I have with me, the jewelry lying in a tangled mess on the dresser, the lamp I simply cannot carry down the stairs with this load, and the truck already driving away...and then I will wake up, and it will be nearly as awful in the waking world.

And then, finally and too soon, one day I will be unpacking boxes at the other end of my journey, rediscovering the parts of myself and my life that I had to put away for a little while.

Unloveable

I have a hundred arguments for why I'm unloveable. I can list my flaws and my mistakes--going back decades--more easily than I can list what I had for breakfast. When I'm sad or hurt or anxious, I settle into my own particular groove, a chorus my best friends know all too well:  If anyone knew the real me, the me who isn't trying to be what other people want, then no one--absolutely no one--would love me. And I'm talking all kinds of love here: familial, friendly, romantic. This is the voice I hear in my worst moments, the faux-logical voice that makes complete sense and comes to this conclusion despite everything I have read, thought, felt, heard, and tried to be.

On most of the bad days, I wish my miserable, pathetic inner voice said something else--anything else.

At a drive-in movie this summer, the fireflies speaking in light over the surrounding cornfields, I cried during the intermission. This was not a crying movie: it was The Lone Ranger, the reboot with Johnny Depp and that other guy. But I had stuff going on in my life, like we all do, and in my case it was stuff that involved a lot of uncertainty and change. I stood leaning against the car with an old friend who had already put up with a lot of my crying and worrying the previous month, and I couldn't stop the damn tears, and I told him I realized, finally, that despite years of thinking I was a fairly balanced, fairly confident person, I really, truly feared that no one could ever love the real me.

"Welcome to being human," he said, and he let me get tears and snot on his t-shirt, and then he said something that made me laugh, and then we watched the 2nd half of the movie.

In her book The Gifts of Imperfection, Brene Brown says some pretty scary stuff. Here's the scariest: "We can only belong when we offer our most authentic selves and when we're embraced for who we are." WHAT? This seems to confirm my worst fears, to reinforce what my high school self knew in her core: I will never belong. Outsider forever. Get used to it, geeky girl who likes to read.

But of course, Brown's book goes on. And eventually it gets to this: "If the goal is authenticity and they don't like me, I'm okay. If the goal is being liked and they don't like me, I'm in trouble."

Which, to me, reads like a version of Whitman: "...re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.” It also reads like an echo of Buddhism, suggesting that to live an authentic life--to seek enlightenment and understanding--is in itself the goal.

And these ideas comfort me. They do. Perhaps more comforting, however, is this thought: when I love someone (family, friend, lover), I love that person's authentic self. For me, a big part of loving someone is wanting to get closer to that authentic self, to be privilege to someone's fears and joys and inner contradictions.

My friends, I wish I had The Answer. If you're having one of those days, if your miserable inner voice is whispering similar poisons to you, I can only advise you to try all your tricks--meditate, walk, exercise, watch dumb tv, beg someone to tell you something nice about yourself, eat that pint of ice cream--and don't beat yourself up for trying them, even if they don't work. Especially if they don't work.

It's terrifying, this thing we're stuck doing, trying to live. Admitting to what you fear is also admitting to what you hope for. For me, after the tears, the sighing, the moping, the too much or too little sleeping, I try to remember the hope. We aren't guaranteed, any of us, that we'll get what we hope for. But then, we aren't guaranteed that we won't. (Take that, evil inner voice. Nothing is certain.)

Breathe. Keep breathing.

My Grandfather's Resolutions

My mother's father was a lawyer. When my mother was a child, he worked for the IRS, and family lore tells us that he was one of the lawyers who went to Chicago and helped put away Al Capone for tax evasion. My grandmother was extremely worried the whole time, we are told. And then my grandfather died, when my mother was just 14. I never met him.

But my mother adored him, though she was kept from him at times because he was "resting," because he had been diagnosed with hypertension and the thought was that playful, rambunctious children would make his condition worse.

Other than these things, what I mostly know about my grandfather was that because of the hypertension, he was on a low salt diet. Because of that, my mother never put salt on anything. And so I, too, am sensitive to salt, and avoid traditionally salt-loaded foods like potato chips.

But then my siblings and I went through some old documents and pictures in a box, and came across my grandfather's New Year resolutions for 1924. All of them made me laugh, but here are some of my favorites. Clearly I inherited my sweet tooth and my flirting habits from him.



January 2, 1924

WHEREAS, upon the beginning of a New Year it is meet, fitting, and proper that a certain lawyer aim toward a greatly improved conduct in all things of life…

IT IS THEREFORE RESOLVED, by him,

(1) That he will  not fall in love with more than twenty-five pretty girls at the same time, nor will he seek out the company of more than twenty-five in the course of one calendar week, nor will he flirt with any greater number than he can safely flirt with and not be found out by any of the others.

(2) That he will not stay out later than three o’clock A.M. on more than eight nights in any one week.

…

(4) That he will not attend any more movies than he can, and will not take any more pretty girls to the movies than his limited finances will permit; neither will he hold more than two (2) of any one young lady’s hands at any particular movie…

(5) That he will not shake the cherry pie tree nor milk the whipped cream cow more often than he gets a chance, nor will he eat any more of either's products than he can hold.

…

(10) That he will not smoke, drink, chew, swear, gamble, or grumble at the street car service, or lack thereof, very often.

(12) That he will not eat any more than two caramel pies at one time, and will not ask for said kind of pie more than once a day.

The Mouth of the Sky

Hi, friends. I'm sorry I haven't posted for nearly a month. Much has been percolating inside this summer, as I'm sure is the case for most of us. I have been staying at my sister's place in Pesotum, Illinois, where she has just started a therapeutic riding center called Healing Horse Stables. Today was the 2nd class through the Champaign Park District, with 8 riders and 4 horses and many volunteers making it work. I was nervous, just like I was for the first class last week. I don't deal well with so many variables--riders, horses, different saddles and bridles, stirrup lengths, side-walkers (in case some riders are unsteady), barrels to twine around and balls to throw in buckets. So I just sweet-talked the horse I was leading, kissing her nose when we stopped, telling her what a good girl she was being. I survived being in the maelstrom of all that chaos by focusing on the horse. When I was most nervous, I closed my awareness down to just her--her brown eyes looking around, her sweet horse smell, her need to get out of the way of other people and horses.

I suppose if there's a bigger idea here it's that this is one way to get through the chaos of our everyday lives: narrow the focus. There is so much, both outside of us and inside of us, clamoring for our attention. And though we often believe we should be in control of it all--especially what's going on inside each of us--sometimes we need to let go. We need to know that we're not in control of everything, and we don't have to be. The storms will rage, inside and out. The rivers will rise and overflow; the wind will pull down tree limbs; we will get lost in the fog. Maybe what we need when this happens is one thing to lean into, just one. One song, one bowl of ice cream, one horse, one walk, one hug. To let the rest happen as it will.

And then maybe we, like the sky in this picture, can sing out light when the time comes. We can always hope.

A June Day in My Homeland (Pesotum, Illinois)

9:00am  The alarm goes off. I am going to the very small church where my sister goes, my presence requested so I can add to the size of the choir (from 6 members to 7) because they're singing a special song. I am a mostly-Buddhist, who-knows-what-else-ist, but I love these kind people and this small church so I go. My 4 year old nephew comes over to sing too, though who knows whether he's singing the actual song or one of his own, and nobody minds because he is so cute.

Noon-ish  Lunch with church people; I sit next to my nephew (John John, or JJ) and he shows me silly cartoons on his iPod. Welcome to 21st century childhood.

2-ish  We return home to my sister's Therapeutic Riding Center. It's in the 80s and there's a strong Illinois prairie breeze. I bounce between the 7 dogs in the house and the horse-training going on outside. I sit in the sun and the wind so the flies don't bite me.

3-ish  I decide to meditate! On the other side of the house, where no one goes. Among the tall grass. It is 30 minutes of what meditation should be. I can imagine for the first time doing a whole hour every day. The only sounds are the wind and one of the horses running in his pasture. I finish filled with love for my friends and the world.

4-ish-6ish  I sit in a reclining chair on the porch. The windchimes play. The dogs come in and out the dog door, and my sister waters plants and chats on occasion. I think maybe I should get up and do something. I don't. I leave my phone in my pocket.

6ish-10  We drive into town to have dinner with my brother, his wife and 2 boys. They are fun and silly. We look at old family pictures together--from when we were kids, and then older ones going all the way back to the late 1800s. One relative, nicknamed "Leafy," looks so Irish I have to laugh, and there are many pictures of her. It is overwhelming. One letter is a typed statement by my great grandfather of how he will behave over the next year, and it includes not flirting with more girls than he can handle at one time.

10ish-11ish  Return to the country, the horses, the dogs--and then I take a walk down the road in front of my sister's house. No car passes. Fireflies call to each other over the fields, corn and soybeans and tall grass beside the road. The moon lights the landscape nearly as much as each homestead's lights, which are islands in the big flat rich fields. I keep walking past being tired; I keep telling myself "just a little bit longer." The wind is a friend. I think of Robert Frost's poem, "I have been one acquainted with the night" and I feel like a Midwest sprite and I let my hair blown around me.

11ish-midnight  Writing. Just journaling. My three dogs sleeping next to me on the couch. The windchimes outside. And then a sweet and hilarious friend messages me, and we chat while I can barely keep my eyes open.

Some time after midnight  Bed. To dream of dogs and horses, fireflies and fairies, wind and stars.

My Meditation Spot

This is where I get to meditate at my sister's Therapeutic Riding Center, Healing Horse Stables, in Pesotum, Illinois. This is beside her house, with a pasture behind that contains a curious and sweet stallion named Manue. As my sister Dorey and I were wandering through the side yard, noting the spots in the long grass where deer must bed down for the night, we came across a small area paved with bricks. "This is your meditation spot!" she said, and I knew she was right.

People meditate differently, and suggest different books and approaches. For me, the most important thing is just to sit quietly, my eyes closed, for a pre-determined period of time. Today it was 20 minutes. When I meditate, I don't try to "clear my mind," or attain an enlightened state, or stop worrying--I don't try to do anything. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. My mind and feelings dart around, from thought to thought. I notice that I'm thinking or feeling something, and then I take another deep breath, focusing on it. And then my mind goes again. And again I notice it moving around. But I don't judge where my mind goes, or what I feel. I don't try to analyze it. I come back to the breath.

For me, the key words in meditation--my informal mantra--are nonstriving and nonjudging.

And what usually happens for me? Why is it worthwhile to do this, knowing I am unlikely to attain enlightenment in those 20 minutes? Mostly: I remember that it is a whole and good thing to simply be myself, sitting quietly in the universe. I let go of the constant internal commentary that tells me I should be doing something productive. I quiet the voices that tell me my job is to solve my problems and the problems of others. The problems are there, yes. But for these 20 minutes, I give myself permission to notice them and not do anything about them.

There is so much struggle in this world. We believe everything will be better once we cleanthekitchenwalkthedoggradepaperspaybillschangethelightbulbovertheoutsidedooranswerthatemailmakemoremorey. For me, meditation is a break from this mindset. It is a peace, an acceptance, to quote my friend Nyssa Hanger, of what is.

Other things may happen for you when you meditate. Or not. They may happen every time, or just occasionally. And all of that is ok. I believe it's worth trying, and doing even if you don't make it a regular practice. You are worth the time it takes to center and understand yourself. You are of worth, even when you're not actually "doing anything."

Some cool quotations

When I was in graduate school, I walked into my mentor's office for the first time and was overwhelmed by the quotes he had on his walls. Every wall had postcards, slips of paper, yellow-lined paper, hand-written and typed quotes. It was a bit like a scene from A Beautiful Mind, and I didn't know what to make of it.

Now I'm about at the same age my mentor was then, and I, too, am obsessed with quotes. I love coming across words written by someone else that resonate with something important inside me, words and ideas that support, clarify, or amplify things I, too, have been thinking. I spend whole days ruminating on quotes. Through my years as a teacher, I have taught the same poems enough times that lines float through my mind.

I am not, like some people, able to recall relevant quotes when I need them. I can't even remember authors' names half the time. But right now, I feel like reading is taking a walk through a gorgeous landscape, and the quotes are the things I simply must take a picture of to remember and think about later.

So having said that, here are a few quotes I've really enjoyed recently.

from Ranier Maria Rilke:

All tenderness you may feel for your childhood is good.

*

There are the hurts. And, always, the hardships.
And there's the long knowing of love--all of it
unsayable. Later, amidst the stars, we will see:
these are better unsaid.

*

How delicious it is to wake up in a place where no one, no one in the world, guesses where you are. Sometimes I have stopped spontaneously in towns along my way only to taste the delight that no living being can imagine me there. How much that added to the lightness of my soul!




from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The good news is that the moment you decide that what you know is more important than what you have been taught to believe, you will have shifted gears in your quest for abundance. Success comes from within, not from without.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“It is easy to live for others, everybody does. I call on you to live for yourself.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Quick Word on Gaslighting

(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you.)

--Walt Whitman

I was talking with a friend the other day--a smart friend who has been through therapy more than once and has thought a lot about psychological issues--and I used the term "gaslighting." This friend gave me a blank look, so I tried to explain it.

A brief explanation isn't easy, trust me. If you want a fuller explanation, I highly recommend you read this short blog post. Basically, "gaslighting" has come to mean when you substitute your own reality for someone else's. It most frequently happens when one person says, "That hurt" and the other person says, "No it didn't."

That's a simplification, of course. Variations on this include someone saying, "You hurt my feelings" and another person saying, "You're just too sensitive." So...instead of recognizing that someone feels hurt, we take away that person's permission to feel hurt. We tell her/him that s/he SHOULDN'T feel hurt. We try to fit FEELINGS into a right/wrong scenario.

We start this with children: Susie hits Bobby and he cries outrageously, dramatically, pouring it on. A parent says, "Oh come on, it didn't hurt that bad." And the parent is probably right: the reaction is outsized compared to the actual pain.

But guess what? We're not kids anymore. And that strategy of dealing with other people's pain is very unhelpful when we're trying to be psychologically astute, mindful grown-ups in relationships with other grown-ups.

So I propose the following:

1. You are ALWAYS allowed to feel whatever you feel--hurt, sad, happy, relieved, scared, whatever.
2. When someone tells you s/he feels ANYTHING negative, DON'T respond by implying the feeling is somehow unearned. I'm not saying you have to take full responsibility when you didn't intend to hurt the other person. Just say this: "I'm sorry you feel hurt." If you're especially courageous, try, "I'm sorry I hurt you" or "I'm sorry what I said or did hurt you." This situation is NOT about right and wrong. It's not about who has the moral high ground. It's simply about someone having feelings.
3. When you feel hurt (or anything else), recognize that FEELINGS are NOT the same as ACTIONS. You are absolutely allowed to feel anything at all, to whatever degree you feel it. But feeling angry DOES NOT justify you yelling at or punching someone else. And those kinds of behaviors don't lead to any kind of understanding, nor to any cessation in the feeling you're having.
3a. Again, FEELINGS DO NOT EQUAL BEHAVIOR.
3b. I would also add that often, anger is related to hurt; that what makes us angry is, in fact, feeling hurt.

In other words, don't gaslight. If someone else is hurt by something you said or did, be courageous enough to face that hurt with compassion. You didn't intend to be hurtful, and you know it. If you don't understand why the person is feeling hurt, gently ask for an explanation. Apologize not because you did anything "wrong," but because you genuinely feel sad that the other person is hurt. (Incidentally, one reason people gaslight is because they feel guilty for having hurt someone else; more of that poisonous judgment, only this time directed inward instead of outwards.)

And if you're feeling hurt, try to communicate that feeling without blame. This is why therapists suggest "I" language to couples: "I feel hurt" is a very different statement from "You hurt me." It is easier to move away from offense and defense--and towards nonjudgmental connection--when each person is responsible for clearly articulating how s/he feels.

There is, of course, more to say on this subject, including the fact that our language doesn't help when we're trying to express that someone else's pain also makes us feel pain. "I'm sorry" is woefully inadequate, when what you really want to say is something like, "I suffer because you are suffering."

We will all screw up and hurt someone else. It's inevitable, and we can't lead our lives trying to be "perfect" so that never happens. But when it does, we can let others and ourselves off the hook by simply saying, "I'm sorry you feel hurt."

The wonderful corollary to that is: "I'm joyful you feel happy." Here's to more of those comments for all of us.

"Theme for Form & Technique of Poetry"

First, if you don't know the amazing Langston Hughes poem, "Theme for English B," go read it now. It's ok. I'll wait.

Now I'll just provide a short introduction, and then you can read an imitation of this poem written by one of my students in Form & Technique of Poetry this past semester. This is our beginning poetry writing class at USF, and yes, one of my assignments is for them to write an imitation poem. It's not only a great way to learn techniques; it's also a long-standing literary tradition, and many publishing poets still use it as a way to get a poem started. Also, it often produces terrific student poems, as the original poem both frees them from their worries about being profound and challenges them to think in ways they hadn't before.

So this is one of many wonderful student poems I got to read this semester. Like so much of my students' work, it showcases issues we still must face in America in 2013--for example, the issue of race and higher education. And of course it gets me thinking about the links between (to steal Taylor Mali's phrase), "stage" poetry and "page" poetry. But mostly this poem just makes me sit back and recognize the unique wisdom each one of our (often very young) students brings into the world, and reminds me that my job involves me being a part of that. How very lucky I am.

Theme for Form/Technique of Poetry

 by D’von Edwards

The professor said,

                  Go home and imitate

                  one of the great poets that inspires you

                  and let yourself run through the words--

                  in this way, anything that comes out will be yours.

As if it’s ever that simple.

I am eighteen, black, born in Miramar, Florida.

I lived there. I loved there. I thrived there.

I survive here. 

I am the only colored student in my class.

After lesson I prefer to take the route home I know best

on pothole ridden back roads

past unscrupulous characters,

through empty parking lots

and up into the bowels of Castor Hall

where I sit at my desk and go back to Miramar to write this:

As if it’s ever that simple.

Some of the very lines I write

I used in rhymes in a life past.

It’s not the same though.

If they’re confined to a page they aren’t free to be me.

They don’t crack with excitement at the thought of a challenge

or burn with righteous indignation

nor do they bleed with enough sarcasm to exsanguinate my insecurities.

They don’t eat, sleep, drink, smoke, or know of being in love

or tell you they are plagued with the paradox of being home sick and sick of home.

If they aren’t me who can they be?

Maybe they belong to the person that credits their worth

with credits and comments and numbers and A’s and B’s and C’s .

And for the hell of it, I’ll add a line about bad bitches with double D breasts,

and it will belong to the same person who will put a third to complete the trilogy

of misogyny, lewdness, and failure.

That is me, but the words on the page are yours,

do with them as you wish.

This is my imitation poem for Form/Technique of poetry.

A small, good thing

The other night, after I received bad news--the kind of news that confirms to your weakest self that the thing you really badly wanted to be good at you aren't, or at least you aren't good enough, which amounts to the same thing; the kind of news that comes on the heels of other events also seeming to confirm this basic unworthiness about you; the kind of news that worms its way into the weak heart of you and makes you feel stupid for even hoping that you might be good enough for something wonderful to happen (and I know the specific kind of news that does this to each of us is different, depending on our own circumstances, and that what exposes my rottenest core wouldn't be so huge to you, and vice versa)--after I received this news, the miraculous happened and I actually took my own advice to take a walk.

I snuck into the garage with my socks and sneakers and sat on the steps to put them on, because walking with my three not-very-bright aging spaniels is more about picking up poop in plastic bags using a flashlight and trying vainly to untangle leashes than about mindfulness and equanimity. And then I half-slid down my steep driveway and turned onto the sidewalk, blindly trying to think about nothing while the various parts of my mind shouted or whispered or screamed in a conversation that went something like this:

Part A: You should change everything about yourself, and then you'll get what you want.
Part B: Someone else will be happy because of this; someone else will feel blessed. That's a good thing.
Part C: FUCKTHEWHOLETOADSUCKINGSHITBAGOFAWORLD
Part D: I want my mommy.
Part E: Stop being such a baby.
Part F: Give up.
Part G: If you let anyone else know how how upset you are, it will make them sad. So just shut up.

I could go on. Every letter of the alphabet had something to say. But you know how those old tracks go.

And then--the neighbor's orange cat saw me and came running over to me. He's a very friendly cat (and I call him a "he" though I don't know the cat's real gender because I love him, and even a possibly inaccurate "him" is more of an endearment than an accurate "it") so he immediately twined around my legs, and I, of course, squatted down to pat him.

He rubbed his head against my hand and I patted his back, feeling his fur soft and still thick from winter under my fingers. Usually when I see him, I pat him until my knees start to hurt and then stand up. But that night, I couldn't stop. I patted him obsessively. I spoke to him the way I do to animals, saying hey-pretty-one and aren't-you-a-sweetie and who's-a-pretty-kitty in low, soothing tones. My knees ached and my thighs hurt and I didn't want to stop, so I just sat down on the sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house. It was after 10pm, and no one was around, or looking out the windows. Though I didn't care. I patted that cat like he was a life raft. He pushed his head against my stomach, rubbed his cheek on the edge of my sneaker. He purred and purred.

Finally I stood up and told him I had to go for my walk, and he should go home. But he didn't. He followed me, walking with me like a dog. I took about 20 steps and he didn't stop. I bent down and picked him up, and he pushed his soft head against my chin and cheeks; he held my face with his paws and pressed his nose to mine. I smelled that he was an outside cat, but I could feel that he was fed well. He was not desperate, a creature I had to worry about; he just wanted to be patted.

Eventually I put him down, and eventually he stopped following me, turning back towards his own house. And I went on the rest of the walk, knowing I had been given a gift: my need and his matched up at just the right time, each of us getting something we craved from an undemanding stranger.

The conversation in my head didn't stop. I wish I could say it did, that this encounter was so magical it knocked me out of my pitiful self.

Here's the thing: it was still magical. It was still a gift. It didn't solve anything or fix anything, but I was grateful anyway. The good and the bad aren't about balancing each other out, any more than a strawberry balances out a flat tire.

It's just: there is the strawberry. There was the cat. As Raymond Carver would say, it was a small, good thing.