Walking You Home

"We're all just walking each other home." ~ Ram Dass

I was flattered when I was invited to take part in #1000Speak, and I'm honored to be here. As much as I myself suck at it sometimes, I'm all about compassion, and I couldn't wait to be a part of something even bigger than the blogosphere, to be a drop in the rolling wave of human kindness, to be a part of being the village.

Then I thought about what I wanted to write about compassion. What did I want to say? What is the point that I want to make?

I can effortlessly write a bonkzillion words about domestic abuse, about bullying, about homelessness, about energy reform and caring for this beautiful blue sphere we call home. I can rant about racism and intolerance, because my loathing for bigotry probably makes me a bigot about bigots. I have a lot of topics that are absolutely deserving. But which one? They were all so tempting.

I had to bark my mental shins on the coffee table about a dozen times before I finally had the sense to see it.

Everything I'd thought of, the ones that came easily and immediately to my mind, none of them counted. Not for this post.

It's easy to be compassionate when it involves a cause we care about, something we have a personal stake in for whatever reason. I'm an endless well of compassion for targets of bullying or abuse. I've been there. Poverty and homelessness are causes that come naturally to me as well. Bigotry, as I said.

But those things aren't a challenge. And what I can't help feeling about #1000Speak is that while it should be humane and uplifting and inspiring, it should also be just a little bit hard. It's like the parable about the rich man and the beggar who both give a silver penny: which one gave more?

The answer, then, is to look in a place where it's not so easy.

It can be hard to admit that there is a certain someone, a certain class of people, whether it's the homeless, or battered women, or a particular race, or illegal immigrants, or fat people, or addicts, or people who like peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwiches, whom we think are not as entitled as we are to...anything, really. It's the people we consider to be pathetic wastes of oxygen at the least (Kim Kardashian, anyone?) or consider to be evil personified at the worst (such as The Demon Boss from the Seventh Level of Hell). And those hard places that I'm loathe to even admit exist, those are the places I should be looking.

Go ahead. Set aside the justification, and you know it's there. They're only homeless because they don't want to get off their lazy asses. They must like being knocked around or they wouldn't stay. They can stop if they really want to. They have no right to mooch off of honest hard-working people. Their skin is a different color from mine or they worship the wrong god or they love different people than I do, and that makes them evil and it's my duty to hate them. You know how the tune goes.

That's the one. That one, there. The one that really makes you wrinkle up your nose, brings disgust welling up out of your gut, really makes you feel like that doesn't belong in my face, in my space, on my planet. The one that you just can't find it in yourself to be kind about, no matter how hard you try.

It's time to get past that "no matter how hard you try" part. In the words of the great Yoda, "Do. Or do not. There is no try."

And looking, I see it. Just scroll up a few paragraphs and it's right there. The ones I ultimately have no patience with, no sympathy for, would like to see jettisoned off into cold blue space, are the abusers and the bullies. If I'm going to be a part of this movement that's worth anything, if I'm going to walk the walk like I talk the talk, then I have to own it. Bullies and abusers: I fucking hate those people. (And yes, the expletive is necessary. It is a small verbal indicator of my abhorrence, and it means something here. That's what words are for.)

The Queen of Digression now digresses. Several years ago, I had taken my children and left an abusive husband. I was living paycheck-to-not-even-paycheck, anxiety and depression threatening to overwhelm me amidst the stalking and death threats and his suicide/manipulation attempt in my living room. I was determined in spite of it all not to give in to my natural Scorpio tendency to lash out in a fury of righteous vengefulness and utterly decimate him - legally, in open court. I was determined not to sink to his level and to keep to the high road. I kept reminding myself that he hurt me because he himself was hurting and empty. I took more deep breaths and counted to 10 more times than I can count. I deflected, I cast protection, I cried myself to sleep, I prayed. And as I slogged through day after changeless day, I had never felt so alone.

Until the night, after several months of this, I had one of the most realistic dreams I have ever had.

I was looking down at myself, watching from above as a flower and words that I knew to be poetry, in a language I couldn't read, were tattooed onto my lower back. I felt the needles, I saw the vibrant colors, I could smell the scent of the living flower being embroidered into my flesh. I didn't need to understand the poetry to know it was the lyrics of the cosmos. The whole dream was heartbreakingly beautiful, and I felt at peace as I never had in my life. I woke weeping, tears of comfort and release, with the sure knowledge that everything would be all right, that I was loved and Someone Up There was seeing me through all of this. Along with the images, I had a sounds-like in my head. I called in sick to work (sorry, John) and fired up the computer and consulted the Great Google with my sounds-like, and there she was.

Kwan Yin, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva in Sanskrit. Kwan Yin is a Buddhist goddess of the sea and of compassion, the Mother of Mercy. A bodhisattva, she is often shown sitting on a lotus blossom, symbolizing the purifying of the soul as it struggles through suffering up to the godhead. One of her epithets is She Who Hears the Cries of the World. She is said to have 10,000 arms, to comfort all who suffer. If you call her in need, she will answer.

I learned some time later that the tattoo on the base of my spine was meaningful too. That is where kundalini energy is coiled inside us like a snake, the spiritual energy that purifies our spirits and helps to unite us with truth and divinity.

That dream is one of the most profound things that has ever happened to me. I'd had virtually no knowledge of Buddhist practices and had never heard of Kwan Yin. I did not doubt at all that she was there, that she had answered a call I hadn't even consciously sent, and that she was calling me in return. Because one truth I was left with was that I was very right to have compassion for a man who had treated me as though I was merely a possession and not even fully human. As hard as it had been, and would continue to be, that was the only right way to treat him, because in the grand Universal end, it matters. And the other truth I was left with was that it matters because what I give for others, for him, was also there for me. As alone and broken as I felt, I was cared for. We are all children of the Universe, and we are all worthy of kindness.

All. Even Kim Kardashian. Even The Demon Boss from the Seventh Level of Hell. Perhaps especially her. This is where it gets so very hard, for me.

Back to #1000Speak and the point of this whole post. Compassion is impossible alongside judgment and condemnation, and to refrain from judging and condemning can be one of the hardest things ever. As I think back to the cruelty I've seen people exhibit, and the satisfaction some of them seem to take in it, I am certainly not inspired to want to be compassionate toward them. It actually makes my stomach roil a little just to think about them. And this is the part where I stub my toe and hop around on one foot, cussing at the Universe. Who am I to call them pots without making myself into a kettle? I've been a waste of oxygen many times. I've been cruel to others in order to feel better about myself, too. Oh, yes I have. And that makes my stomach roil even more, to admit that I am one of them.

But there is compassion for me. I am getting better at being compassionate toward myself, and I know why I behaved as I did, and if everyone else is just as human as I, then anyone else is entitled to be imperfect as I was. If I am entitled to compassion, so are they. I am reminded that I need to grant all of these people the same grace I extended to my now-ex, the same grace Kwan Yin gifted to me that night. I need to remember that people abuse other people because they are trying to feed their own hunger for love, trying to fill their own voids of emptiness and lift themselves up. Their reasons were my reasons.

This is what it all comes down to. My experience is theirs, and theirs is mine. If I look closely enough at them, I will realize that I am gazing into a mirror, and will see my own self yearning back at me. We are all walking different paths to the top of the same mountain.

Make no mistake, this does not mean I have to invite these people into my life. Just because I recognize the need to save an endangered species doesn't mean I'm foolish enough to share my house with one, like, say, an alligator. I deserve better than The Boss Who Shall Not Be Named, and I'm not going to stop reading Ronald Takaki so I'll have time to be a Kardashian groupie. I cannot link to my ex ("Throw Your Darts HERE!") because he has been excised from my life, and rightfully so. But that doesn't have to keep me from looking upon them with something more than derision or venom. For some, it is even possible for me to say the few words or perform the one small act that can help them see, help them feel, help them know that they are not alone and that solace and and empathy and a twining upward to the Sun are there for them, too.

It is true that what we put out is what we get back, that we reap what we sow, that like attracts like. When we extend ourselves to others, we create a ripple in a Universal pond of energy, and add mojo to the big circle of connection that runs like the strands of a silvery web, one to the other.

And we are all just walking each other home.

 Daniel Racovitan, used under Creative Commons license

I'm in! #1000Speak

I'm in!

Why do I think this can make a difference?

On a mass level:  In 1993, The Global Peace Initiative conducted a strictly controlled experiment, where 800-1400 volunteer Sidhas engaged in mass, simultaneous meditation in Washington DC, accompanied by other unofficial participants from all over the world. Crime dropped by 23%, attributable to nothing else but the meditation. Before the experiment, the police chief had been quoted as saying that the only thing that would make crime drop by 20% was 20 inches of snow. Ta-daah! Meditation...even stronger than Mother Nature?

Or part of Mother Nature?

More and more, science is learning that thoughts are things. They have force, they have power, they may even have mass of some sort. When we persist in looking at the world a certain way, that is what we will see. When we optimistically expect that everything will be all right on a consistent basis - everything is all right. Some people call this luck. Some call it faith. Others call it magic, real magic, not bibbity-bobbity-boo stuff.

I call it...reality.

It doesn't have to be meditation. Not everyone meditates, but everyone practices their own form of sending will and desire out into the Universe. It is a prayer, it is a candle on an altar, it is a spell. It is a wish on dandelion fluff, or a lucky shirt, or a personal ritual, or a smile for a stranger, or a random act of kindness. It is that fervent "Oh pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease" accompanying a midterm or a biopsy. It is a blog post.

When we focus our thoughts and our will and send them out with intent and purpose, it creates a ripple of energy throughout the aether. When we join with others to focus energy and intent on a common goal, the results can be wonderful and amazing.

It makes my heart melt a little that #1000Speak exists.

I'm in.

Tarcio Saraiva, used under Creative Commons License

Drowning in a Sea of Books

Dear dedicated readership of maybe 10 people:

Please know that I may be a bit scarce. This quarter at school is trying to kill me with reading. Trying.

I'm not complaining. I love being back in school, and I love to read, and I love to learn, so doing all three simultaneously is my definition of a good time. Well, one of them. All of my classes this quarter require a lot of reading, and learning to read, write, and speak another language is particularly time-consuming. I am grade-motivated and protective of my GPA, notwithstanding the fact that Sadistics...er, Statistics...tried to tank it.

Photo by austinevan on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

In fact, my only real complaint is that I was unable to finish I, Claudius. I tried, but Graves' fiction is quite academic, a bit ponderous and lacking in dialogue compared to bestseller fluff. After two weeks I hadn't even made it to Caligula's assassination, and the machinations of Imperial Rome were interfering with my absorption of the finer points of the Greco-Persian Wars. Perhaps I'll give it another shot during the summer break.

Still, I may surprise you. An idea may take hold of me and not let me sleep, or I may be unable to sleep and end up scribbling something out. It's happened before.

Back to Attic tragedy...

A Lost Art

I have recently regained something I hadn't known I'd lost.

When I was 11 and my family moved halfway across the country, I would spend hours sprawled on my bed, writing letters to the friends I'd left behind. Throughout high school, if I was staying at my grandparents' for the summer or if other friends were gone, I wrote letters. On one of those occasions, I asked my grandpa for an envelope and a stamp. He said, "Sure, whatcha got?" and frowned the tiniest frown when I held out the letter to my very bestest friend ever, scrawl-covered, scraggly-edged paper torn from a spiral notebook. Grandpa mailed my letter for me without further comment. But when I got back to the house the next day, arrayed on my bed were three different boxes of pretty writing paper, matching envelopes, and an elegant pen. "A lady," Grandpa said, "writes her correspondence on proper stationery." I never forgot that. I still have the pen.

I never forgot it, but it got left behind. I drifted away from all of those friends. My letter writing was confined to one or two hastily written pages (on proper lined writing paper, you can be sure, Grandpa) tucked inside annual Christmas cards. With the advent of the computer that annual letter became a Dear Everybody newsletter, typed in a festive font and printed off on elf-decorated copy stock.

Eventually, during one of my many moves, I got tired of lugging around the various boxes of stationery and notecards I'd collected over the years, never used now, and donated them somewhere.

If I had to hand-write a letter now, all I'd have on hand is a spiral notebook.

Even more than stationery was lost; also lost was the art of writing the letter itself. Technology is wonderful, but it buries things, too. As I was getting ready to sign and send Christmas cards recently, I realized that I had nothing to say, not really, even in a short note on the blank side of the card itself. With Facebook and texting and blogging and Tweeting and other things I've never heard of, all the people we are connected to know what's going on with us already. It might be that they know too much. Would I include in a letter that I enjoyed a raspberry tart at a French bakery yesterday? Possibly; it's a snapshot of life some recipients might enjoy. But thanks to social media, everyone already knows it, and they probably saw a picture of it too.

On the other hand, how much would most of the people I connect with through social media really want to read a lengthy letter? Our lives are not what they were, walking to the mailbox, spying familiar handwriting while sorting through the envelopes, sitting on the porch to savor the news. All of this technology was supposed to have made our lives easier. It may have, but it's made them busier too. Between emails and texts and faxes and junk mail and tweets and telemarketers and Facebook statuses and spam and all the other noise of modern life, who has time to sit and read a letter anymore? Or to write one?

It's a lost art.

I might never have seen this but for the gift of recently establishing a correspondence with my birthmother. It has been a joy to connect with a stranger whose heartbeat I once shared. Writing a letter is one of the things she is very good at, and I have had the additional happiness of rediscovering what smiles are borne from both writing and receiving a good old-fashioned letter. Kathleen and I are not connected online; we are not as in-your-face as the rest of life is in the cypersphere. I smile and take my time with each letter, picking and choosing what parts of myself to share this time, finding the perfect words to paint a picture of myself and my life. Her words, on the hand, strike me as effortless, but she has always been rather mythical to me. Reading her words to me brings the same beauty slowly revealed, like the unfurling petals of a spring flower. Effortless or not, it means so much. Both the sending and receiving are things to take slowly and savor.

But that's only one of the best parts. I'd forgotten the mundane pleasure of walking to the post office and choosing a postage stamp I like. I used to be picky about my stamps; they had to have a design I thought was attractive and meaningful. It was even better if I could find one that somehow matched the stationery I'd painstakingly picked out, because I certainly couldn't write to the same person on the same letter paper twice. It's like wearing the same dress to two proms - it is Simply Not Done. What with being able to do everything online, from paying bills to licensing my dog, I hadn't bought a stamp since they cost a quarter. I think. It's been quite some time. I'd forgotten the irrevocability of dropping the letter in the post box. I'd forgotten how I like picturing my letter shuffling and sliding among hundreds and thousands of others, from mail bin to sorting machine to transport bin to loading dock to sorting machine to postal carrier to the waiting hands of the one person on the planet it's meant for. And in the back of my mind as I make my way through my days is the promise of a reply making its magical way back to me. The anticipation!

The silly things I fill my mind with.

But I'm not alone. Perhaps it's even genetic. Kathleen tells me that letters are her favored form of communication, and she keeps the ones she receives tied in ribbon. The thought of someone keeping the me I share, safely tied inside a silky bow, almost makes me want to swoon.

I will keep her letters to me bound in ribbon too, as soon as I go pick some out. Nobody keeps ribbon on hand anymore, either.

Photo credit, in order of appearance:
Letters in Ribbon: Karen Cox, Flickr/ Creative Commons License
Fountain pen: Power of Words by Antonio Littorio, Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Unported License

Happy Things #3

Another post about random things that make my days good things to be in. I'm looking forward to having so many of these posts I lose track of the installment numbers.

1. Hats.

United States Public Domain.

I could totally rock this look. Perhaps not as well as Garbo, but I could rock it. I would have loved living in these times, just for the hats.

2. The Tominator.

A few weeks ago I said to him, "You know, I believe I could commit cold-blooded murder and you would be steadfastly convinced I had a damned good reason." His reply: "Yep." There are no words for that kind of unconditional love and backing. And, he thinks I look amazing in hats.

3. Grinching.

I bitch about various aspects of the holiday season, including the commercialism ("Christmas, it seems, doesn't come from a store"), the supposed "War on Christmas" (honestly...why can't everybody just let everybody celebrate how and what they want to?), and holiday homesickness, but it's all good. I spent an hour listening to The Lost Christmas Eve by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra and wrapping presents and enjoying my pretty little improv tree. and everything was all better. Christmas is Christmas no matter where you are and what you have, as long as you keep your heart open.

4. Rhinos.

Many years ago, someone gave me a stuffed rhino as a gag gift, the story behind which is salacious and not suitable for sharing as it could be used against me. Someone else gave me another, and then I got another, and then people began thinking I collected rhinos, so that it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. It felt more like rhinos were collecting me. This is how totem animals announce themselves, and Rhino has much to teach me. At last count, I have over 125 rhinos, from stuffed to carved to ceramic to key rings to Hot Wheels rhinos to wind-up toys to...you name it. I have not purchased a single one of them; they were all gifts. They're all my favorite but this is one of my favorite favorites, a Christmas gift past from one of the best bosses in the world.

5. Maps.

Maybe I should have been a cartographer. I can entertain myself for hours with a road atlas, a globe, or just a street map of a strange city. I roll the names of cities and avenues off my tongue. I daydream about getting there and being there. Maps are groovy.

Used under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

East Side Story

The Tominator and Dream Girl and I crossed Lake Washington to Bellevue to catch the Snowflake Lane celebration. I've heard people say it's the best in the country, and I can see why.

The streets and the performers are dressed to the nines. Happy holiday music plays and live toy soldiers keep the beat.

The Wintergarden has a huge, breathtaking tree.

At 7 p.m., more soldiers block the street off to make way for the Jingle Belles dancers. It's infectious; the crowd is dancing and laughing while snowflakes glow and the snow machine fills the air. One of the things we learned is to get there early so you can get a good spot; otherwise it's as futile as watching a parade when you're short. Sorry; no pictures of the dancers.

We also learned that eating is a good thing to do early. When we were there, the wait was two hours at each of the restaurants we checked. You won't go hungry, though; there are street vendors and walking a few blocks we found Subway, pizza and noodle places, a Thai restaurant.

The show is free, and so is parking in three different garages just for the occasion. Dress warmly. Baby, it's cold outside. Afterward we warmed up with peppermint coffee and hot chocolate and freshly baked pie.

Happy Holidays!

***

Photo credit:

The Tominator, Dream Girl and I are my pics.

All others appear courtesy of Kathleen Leavitt Cragun, used under Creative Commons license.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...new style.

Westlake Square

Since Thanksgiving I've enjoyed watching lights and decorations go up around the city. Since things have calmed down after finals week I've wanted to write a holiday post. I sat down with the intention of writing a happy Christmas post but honestly - I'm having a hard time doing it. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I don't want to force feelings I don't have, either.

Things were supposed to be a lot different after moving to Seattle. I expected the first year to be a little rough and unsettled. I expected that the first year celebrating the holidays away from home would be strange. I was right on both counts, but I'd also expected that by this time, our second Christmas in the Pacific Northwest, I'd be settled into my new job, making good money, debts paid off. I'd expected we would have moved up from a small apartment into another house, with room to spread out, and would have been able to return to Nevada to get the rest of our belongings out of storage. I'd expected that the Tominator would be feeling great, that we'd have established some new holiday traditions for ourselves, that Dream Girl would have found her niche.

Sparkly morning sidewalk.

The first year was not just rough; it was hell. The job I moved up here to take was nothing short of horror and my life has swerved into a direction I'd never seen coming. I'm still in a small apartment. Most of our possessions are still stored in Nevada, including all of the Christmas things I've amassed over the years - the tree ornaments with accompanying memories, the special advent calendar, the handmade stockings. We have not, in fact, been able to spend Christmas Eve in a cabin on Mt. Rainier, warming up with hot cocoa after a rousing snowball fight. I haven't seen my mom and sibs in almost two years and it's been almost a year since I've hugged Monster. I never knew how awful homesickness can be. Girl Scout camp did not prepare me for this.

It is so easy, right now, to miss my old life. My House, with all of My Stuff. The smell of my sister's house when we arrived to exchange gifts and eat the best dinner ever - and the holiday rolls! Hugs from Mom, that aren't like any other hugs in the world. My brother, my nieces, Ordinarily Megan, all the rest. Monster laughing at me getting tipsy on Christmas wine. The dusting of snow on the ground, maybe. If it felt like it. The party at my last job there, with people I'd come to think of as family.

But there's always a flipside. Don't forget the flipside. How many times have I loved the B side? How cool is Janus?

We have had to downsize our giving drastically, limiting gifts to one apiece from each of us to the others. It takes a lot more thought and effort and a lot less money that way, and the gifts are actually better. We make a trip downtown to do our minimal shopping together, enjoying the lights and the scrumptious store window displays, stopping for a hot drink and a sweet treat. I think this year we may check out Snowflake Lane in Bellevue, with its ice skaters and live toy soldiers. Even if the Tominator does win the sweepstakes, I don't think we'll ever get back on the silly spending merry-go-round.

Dream Girl is indeed finding a niche. She loves her school, she has made some good friends, connected with a local live theater, and been trained as a barista. I am given to understand that being trained as a barista in Seattle is like graduating from the Ivy League of coffee schools. My little bundle of eccentricity is flourishing.

The Great Recession pushed me into something I've been wanting to do for decades - earn my college degree. Seattle's schools are stellar. I am learning fascinating things (even Sadistics...er, Statistics), and I'd forgotten how much I love the academic atmosphere. I will be sitting pretty for a rewarding new career when I'm done.

And there is the Tominator, my Prince Charming. In the sea-level altitude and mild coastal temperatures, he can move around largely without pain, and he can breathe. Breathing simply cannot be overrated. It's wonderful to see him feeling better than he has in years. His happiness while stringing colored lights around our balcony is infectious.

I can look out my window and see Yule trees, all year round, alive with birds and squirrels. Holiday lights in the Big City are spectacular. I have a fireplace for hanging stockings and enjoying hot cider.

But still.

When I was a little girl we would all gather around the upright grand piano. My mom would play and my dad would sing, and he sounded exactly like Perry Como. This one was his favorite, and mine too:

I'm feeling better now, but I won't stop missing people. Keep the memories coming. With the Solstice comes the return of the Sun and a lightness to carry us out of this winter hibernation.

Merry Yule, Blessed Bodhi Day, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, -- and Happy Newtonmas (or just "enjoy winter!") for the atheists!