On Peace

It is Nov 1st, 2010.  We have had a short and late summer this year.  However, fall is officially here.  The leaves on the trees are turning shades of orange and yellow and are forming a bright carpet on the sides of the road day by day.  Soon enough the trees of St. Edward's Park will be bare and I'll be able to see the sunset over Lake Washington through their skeletons.  How different the view is season by season.

Often I walk my dog, Rango, on the trails,  headphones on, lost to the external world of people but tuned into the sight of nature and into my internal world,  wherever the music transports me.

Music is magical that way.  It brings forward memory, dreams from the night before and emotion you thought was dead and buried over events long past or events you never realized had significant emotion attached to them at all.  One day you find yourself listening to

"The cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you coming home dad
I don't know when
but we'll get together then,  son
You know we'll have a good time then,"

and tears are streaming down your face.  For the first time in forty years you realize that you are grieving the loss of a father you never knew not because he wasn't physically present but because he wasn't emotionally present.  As your fingers could touch his skin and feel his warmth,  or your ears could sense the resonance of his voice or the rattling of his snores, so too you wish it could be so easy to feel connected,  loved, and that you mattered to him.  These are the types of things I think about when I'm listening to music and walking my dog on the trails of St.  Edward's Park.

At the waters edge I remove my headphones.  The gentle waves lap against the shore.  The leaves rustle.  A bird chirps. Kenmore Air passes overhead and the clopping of a runner's foot passes behind me and fades into the trails from which I came.

I continue my trek up the hilly trail,  back to my vehicle, back to what awaits me. My focus shifts from the present to what's next.  Anxiety and dread return but I know that on the trail, beauty surrounds me and peace lies within me.  I need only return to experience it.

It would be three more years before I would realize that the experience of beauty and peace lies not out on the trail,  but is accessible always within.  How nice to find this bit of writing nearly three years to the day,  to see where I was and to be grateful for how far I've come.

On Breaking Bad

What is it about breaking bad which resonates with the heart of me?  Is it that it is a story which  makes me think more deeply about the nature of good and bad?  Is it that at its core it is about existential crisis, transformation and connection?  Is it that I identify with the main character, Walt, who having lived his life according to other’s rules and doing what is expected has lived a canned life and yearns to break free?  Yes, yes and yes.

Walt, in facing his death to lung cancer, is freed to do what he previously feared, live life on his own terms, according to his own values.  It freed him to embrace himself.  The journey begins when Walt leaves his job as a high school chemistry teacher and part time car wash attendant to become a methamphetamine cook, a profession which will allow him to leave behind the legacy of having been a good provider for his wife and children.  He “breaks bad”.  Three of the primary, but not only, complex relationships Walt has are with his wife, his DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank, and his assistant cook and former degenerate high school student, Jessie.  It is through these relationships that we witness Walt’s transformation and the blossoming of his authentic self.  

Through the course of the show, Walt changed from a man claiming to do what he did out of self-sacrifice for his family, into a man who acknowledged to his wife what few of us can - that his deeds were done to fulfill his own needs.  This makes Walt for me, not only sympathetic, but a hero.  In contrast, Hank’s shallowness of insight and affection left me ambivalent towards his demise.  It was Walt’s grief at Hank’s death which moved my sympathies more than the death itself.  

Walt had been a hero to his teenaged son when living a life of pretense.  This was shattered in the end and never mended.  However, Walt gained a son in Jessie, someone who saw, accepted and I believe loved Walt for who he was. We see in the final scene of the last episode that Jessie, who could never do anything right in the beginning, became for Walt a beloved son that he was proud of.  In the end, Walt achieved that which I desire - an authentic life fully lived.

On Feeding the Creative Soul

Not sure what I will write about.  All I know is that after being back to work a week, my soul misses waking up and spending the first few hours meditating, thinking, reading and writing.  Even now, on my second day off I feel the call of responsibility - bills, grocery shopping, ironing, vacuuming, brushing the clumps of hair calling to me off of my dog's back and hind quarters, filing, culling through closets and cabinets and drawers in preparation for moving next spring, setting up the external hard drive for backups, retrieving files from the now dysfunctional  laptop's backed up drive and installing them onto the desktop and how about getting reimbursed from the flexx spending account?  When was the last time I balanced my checkbook?  On and on and on.

Meanwhile, it is probably the last week of eighty and sunny.  How much more would I prefer to be hiking in the Olympics?  Let's not go there.  All of these responsibilities seem so much more agreeable when I have my thinking and writing time.  What must I do to feed this need in the midst of real life?  I haven't the answer yet.  What I do know, is that this is a need.

Hey, this Imagine Dragons CD  I downloaded last night is hitting the spot.  Just another day in the life.  In this, too, there is something to be learned.  It's just another wave under the paddleboard.  Sigh.  Though it's not the amount of time I'd like to have spent writing, the 17 minutes it took to write this is enough for now.  It is a rough draft of perhaps something that will become something more in time, in time.  I am grateful to be in a place where I can recognized a need and honor myself enough to carve out 20 minutes to feed it.

On myself

Whenever I am finding fault in another,  I must turn it back onto me.  If I find your behavior disrespectful towards me,  then I must reflect on how I disrespect myself in the relationship.  When I am tempted to nag my son about going to bed earlier so that he has less difficulty getting up for school in the morning,  I must look at myself.  Am I not guilty of the same offense?  How much more fruitful would my efforts be if they were exerted on my own behalf. Just for today,  let it begin with me.

On Excursions

Why must I go into the world,  together or alone, to BBQs, go sailing or watch passersbyes small or grown?

Perhaps a conversation starts,  or maybe I'll blend with the wall.  Neither of which matters,  it's all ingredient from whose mixture something evolves.

Sometimes hours pass,  sometimes a day or more, but I always get a feeling when the ingredients will become something more. 

Like the nauseated is to a commode,  I am drawn to paper and pen.  As a lady in labor must push,  so I must expel that which is within.

On paddleboarding

Yesterday was a beautiful end of summer day. I had waited around in the hope that my son would decide that he finally did want to go do something summerlike with me or even just go get a haircut. At 3:30 I could wait longer. I went paddleboarding.

Log boom Park sits at the northern tip of Lake Washington. The water there is fairly protected so it remains calm even with the passing speed boats and occasional jet ski. The conditions were great for paddleboarding and afforded me an opportunity to be with myself and observe my thinking.

I recently heard that the ego does not exist in the present. It only exists when we are reliving the past or worrying about the future. It came to my attention while paddleboarding that I was spending and awful lot of time thinking about the past, which means I was spending a lot of time identifying with ego. So I positioned my boat upwind of the landing and floated. I placed the life vest under my head and relaxed into the board with one goal - to be here now.

I closed my eyes and paid attention. What I noticed was a wave coming on the right side of my board and exiting on the left, coming on the right and exiting left, coming on the right, exiting left, while I floated effortlessly above.

Like the waves, situations, people, thoughts and feelings enter our lives and like the waves, so will they go. I am as powerless to prevent this as I am the coming and going of the next wave. What I can do, is try to place my board in a favorable position, then lay back and experience the now.

On Presence

What is it I strive to be if not honest and present in mind, body and emotion?  It is not that I must act on my thoughts and desires.  I must only acknowledge that they exist. So too, I needn’t share all of my inner experiences, these are intimate parts of me, intimate details that I want to be judicious in sharing.  After all,  what is the most precious gift I have to give, if not myself? So then, I ought take care with whom I share the gift of myself.  Vetting is a wise action when considering placing something valuable into another's care. 

How then, do I go about the process of vetting? How do I determine what is and is not appropriate to share and when?  Do I determine this based on your behavior, on what it communicates to me is appropriate?  Certainly not!  Yet this I have done as though I were a mere image of you! It is I who must determine, with the guidance of my higher power, what is and is not appropriate to share of myself.  I must not share for the mere purpose of holding your interest or out of fear that should I not, you will turn your attention elsewhere.  

I cannot rely on myself however to remain pure in action and intent.  I must rely on my higher power and awareness practice to hold my ego in check, to keep me from falling into my old beguiling ways, to replace these with new responses and to keep the end goal at the forefront of my mind no matter what my heart and body desire.   What are they but impetuous children, always wanting and craving, who no sooner obtain the desired object then become wanting for something more.  

Lastly, what of communication?  We for the sake of ease, fall into the trap of text messaging as what seems to be the main source of communication these days.  Are we not using this format as a shield, as a way to keep others at arms length, as a way to obscure what we really mean or feel?  Without the nuances of body language, tone and intensity of voice we do ourselves a disservice when we communicate in this forum.  I want to experience and be experienced in the fullness of presence, not just as text on a screen.  I want to bring to you my practice of presence.  Will you bring me yours?

On Coincidence

Coincidence - I don't believe in this as a principal. We may mis-ascribe the meaning to seemingly random events, to happenstance, but I find meaning in everything that occurs in my life, even when at the time, I cannot imagine what meaning there could possibly be in particularly hurtful events.

By being open to the possibility that there is something to be learned, some meaning inherent, I never fail to see it in time. It requires trust in a power greater than myself. Often, in the most painful of circumstances I have said to God, "I cannot imagine what good can come from this hurtful experience. I can't fathom its purpose but I know you have a only good planned for me. So I trust that this is somehow for my benefit though I can't see it right now. I trust you and supplicate myself before you."

It is never long after I do this that I obtain an answer. I find the meaning and indeed, the reward exceeds the suffering. In this I am never disappointed. My higher power never disappoints, abandons or inflicts harm for harm's sake.

On Attention

I am learning to focus on what I have rather than what I have not, the relationships available to me for nurturing rather than those that are not. It is a practice, to see what is in abundance rather than to focus on what is withering away. If I place my attention on what is withering, so too will be the fate of what is currently growing.

On Global Conflict

Having given up cable television last year, I rarely watch the news but CNN happened to be closed captioned on the screen in front of the chest press at the YMCA yesterday.  In the two minutes that I sat there, this is what I gathered: Iran is acting badly and Obama made a threat.  The media was analyzing with fervor whether or not Obama would follow through on his threat.

I found this humorous.  What I saw was the alcoholic/codependent dynamic on a global scale.  I heard the words of my sponsor - Say what you mean.  Do what you say.  It's ironically simple.  I saw the media scuttling around in a dramatic buzz like ants with a disrupted mound, like family members dealing with an alcoholic crisis of chaos and I felt - amazingly sane.

Time

Time. Wide open. Empty. Ready to fill with possibilities, so much so that I am paralyzed. This is why I sit here on my brand new computer which I was forced to purchase when my old one died a few weeks ago. I've barely used it because my son is on it constantly. I have to say...Niiice!

Who knew that in five years computers had gotten so much faster and had so much more drive space?! Now I have to start saving for the next one that I will undoubtably have to purchase five years down the road, kinda like the replacement car which I have not begun saving for yet.

Did I buy or give a car to my seventeen year old daughter? Heck no. Is there college savings? Some, but it didn't come from my pocketbook. Am I saving up for the wedding she will someday have? That's a laugh. Welcome to the world of most people, Laine. God knows, it is not how I grew up. Everything was given to me. I practically had someone walking behind me sweeping up my tracks. So it surprises me, of all the high expectations that I have held myself to all of these years, why was it so easy for me to let go of the idea that parents should provide these things for their children?

Just as I was about to walk away and end this with the question, "What do you think?" the answer came to me. I was able to let this go because as an adult, I've resented it. I've resented that my parents didn't allow me to grow up, to pay my own way for some things, to mature into an independent adult. I began at 37 what I should have begun at 15. So when my daughter leaves for work on a bike or a bus I take no pleasure in that, but neither do I feel any guilt. I lose no sleep over what she is going to do after high school or how she is going to pay for it. I have complete confidence that she will find her way. She may have little money and no education, but she will be far better equipped to deal with life than I was. Nope. No guilt.

On how I start my day

I wake and look into the mirror. I see circles under my eyes and think, you have not been giving yourself enough rest. I see flaky skin and think, you have not been drinking enough water. I see eyebrow hairs growing in and think, you need to take care of that and I recall that I've been telling myself this for several days now.

Today I awaken to the fact that these are not the words of love, but hate. I wonder, if this is my inner landscape, then what must I project outwards and onto others and if I do not treat myself with loving kindness how can I expect to attract others who will? Then I think how much better it would be to place my effort into this endeavor, to love myself, then it is to place my effort into seeking it from impermanent external sources as I have always done.

I go back to bed and imagine starting my day over, peering into the mirror and saying, "Good morning. I love you."

On Happiness

Who knew that happiness was quiet? It is not exuberant exhilaration. It is a placid lake. It is sitting still. It is warmth in my belly.

Happiness is accessible. It is within. It is without. It is expansive. It reaches out.

Happiness is knowing with certainty that no one is disconnected, separate, or alone and that there is absolutely nothing that we must do.

Performance Art Witnessing

Thank you to my friend, Emily, and her performance last night at A Family Affair. Before she began speaking we sat silently observing a film,  a film of a person being mummified in toilet paper.  In those seconds before Emily spoke a feeling came over me, an urge, the need write, just as she had done when she had witnessed the original mummification. But the moment wasn't about me.  It was about her witnessing experience so I listened and was moved as much by her experience as by my own.  What follows is what I experienced in 30 seconds of witnessing.

Free me of these bandages,  this bondage of self which encumbers and prohibits me. I am screaming to break free.  There is no one to hear me,  no one to witness me.

There is no one with scissors to cut me loose. It is I who must free myself like a butterfly from a cacoon.  It is in the struggle to break free that the muscles are developed to fly.  I must do it on my own.  No one can do it for me and I must do it because I have the desire to see the light of day,  to spread my wings and fly.   Daily I do what I can to chip away at that which binds me.  Today is the day,  the day I break free and fly. 

On a hike

I decided to do things differently this weekend.  I chose to focus on myself by going for a hike and in doing so I was going to war with myself.   You see there is a part of me that is all about change but there is an impudent child in me as well, a child who wants to maintain the status quo.  The result is an intra-psychic battle.

As I began the ascent to Lake Valhalla, I observed my thoughts, “Ugh.  This is hard today.  Maybe I should have stayed home.  Maybe Ben would have eventually wanted to go swimming or do something other than sitting in front a screen all day.  Perhaps I am a bad mother for leaving him at home.”  I listened but pushed on. 

Soon enough my heart had reached a steady cardio rhythm.  I found my stride and the status quo’s voice of negativity disappeared.  The noise distractions and interruptions of daily life had been shed like a child’s coat after returning home from school.  I was in flow, a moving meditation.   My body, mind and spirit were synchronized and at ease with the surrounding environment.  I experienced mental clarity and receptivity, the reason I hike.    

I remained in flow for some time until the voices of other hikers calling after their dog, Oscar, crept into my awareness.  We became traveling companions until at last our destination, Lake Valhalla, was reached.  I, seeking the solemnity of solitude to eat and to reflect and to write, took a separate path.

Alas, solemnity was not to be.  Though there were no humans in close range, there were the black flies.  I moved.  I swatted.  I swung my extra shirt like a horse swishing his tail.  I stood in the water.  I stood out of the water.  I ate. I didn’t eat.  Finally I took a new approach.  I sat on a log, closed my eyes and calmed my agitation.  I listened to the sound of insect wings whirring past my ears, some growing louder, others softer.  I felt the tickle as they alighted on my skin.  I observed myself.  I did not react.  I was willing.  Then one bit me.  That was it! 

I came to see that a seated reflection was not the purpose of this trip.  I was meant to move and so I did.  I moved to begin the return journey.   I had plans for that evening to get home to, plans I was looking forward to.  I allowed the thoughts of what was to come carry me down the trail and back to my car.  I moved swiftly over Stephen’s Pass, past the Iron Goat Trail and the town of Skykomish.  I checked my GPS for the estimated time of arrival at home.  “That couldn’t be right,” I told myself.  I sought another source of information and as I did, the traffic came to a halt.  I single line of brake lights stretched out in front of me and disappeared around a bend.  My heart sank and the voice of the status quo perked up with delight.  “I knew you shouldn’t have come out here on a Sunday!” it berated.  It called me stupid and what were you thinking, you should have known better.  I took a deep breath and this is what came to me - acceptance.  

The day had been an opportunity to accept life today as it was, with all of its imperfections, unrealized expectations, annoyances and changes of plans.  It was an opportunity to accept my powerlessness to change any of the circumstances of the day and an opportunity to accept myself, impudent child and all.  It was an opportunity to practice patience and to extend compassion to myself.  What I got to experience was love.

On Worthiness

I am discovering more and more how unworthy I believe I am of love. I see it in the way I sweeten the package (of myself) to make it more attractive.  It is sneaky,  in the same way as the disease of alcoholism and I am convinced that the codependent is suffering from the exact same disease where self deception and self-hate run the show like the wizard of Oz behind the curtain.

Recently I got to see how when I am attracted to someone I will default into flirtatious mode with innuendo.  I do this because I believe that on my own I am not interesting enough to attract someone or that if they knew who I really was,  they would turn away. 

I got to see how I use sexuality to try to trick someone into loving me.  It's only a matter of time before the sex fizzles though and you find little of substance or compatibility lying beneath it. 

I got to see how I will glob onto any characteristic the other has found attractive and use that to try to bring them closer, to  be ready to spend time with me now,  and not make me have to wait some undefined quantity of time.

I got to see my fear as just that and I get to give to my needy little person what she had sought from others through relationship. 

I am getting to feel her calming, being more at ease.  She is feeling the freedom to skip down the street, abandoning her post on the couch where she had sat turned facing the back looking out the window waiting with vigilance for the return of someone who once left without a word.

Today no one is leaving without a word.   Today someone has simply asked for some time, time she can use to build sand castles.

On pain

During my morning meditation, I kept getting this cramp in the arch of my right foot, a painful cramp which pulled my foot downward in a pointed position. I tried flexing my foot to release the tension and the pain. This provided only moderate relief. I placed pressure to the area where the muscle was contracting with my thumbs.  This too provided only moderate relief.

Then a thought came. It was the same suggestion that my tattoo artist had given me.  "Don't fight it. Go into the pain."  So I did.  I relaxed into it. I accepted it. I observed it. I felt the pain's warmth spreading outward,  moving from a central point upward and downward along the length of the muscle. Soon enough the contraction let up and so did the pain.

I saw this as a metaphor for emotional pain. To what length do we go to relieve emotional discomfort?  We deny it. We avoid looking at it. We avoid feeling it. We try to convince ourselves why we shouldn't feel the way we do. It was a reminder to me that to love and accept myself, I must honor my feelings, my pain, my disappointment, by observing them without judgement, by not trying to change them or fix them or squash them into a box. I honor myself by letting them be what they are. With quiet awareness I give them the space to be what they are, no more and no less and in doing so I am giving them the freedom to pass as they will naturally on their own. 

Emotions are like molecules of gas. By trying to contain them, forcing them into a box to hide away like an unwrapped Christmas present , they become combustible. But when allowed the freedom of space, they will disperse naturally into the ether.

Today I will observe my feelings as they arise and give them the space they need to float away.

On Youthful Friendships

I had the pleasure of kayaking with a new activity buddy yesterday. We rented boats from NWOC on Lake Union. We were soon making our way across the boating lanes, scouting a spot to practice our wet exits. We gave way to the local cruise lines in their various sizes and degrees of luxury, rowed past sailboats anchored off shore and maneuvered around the many paddleboarders.

Finally I spotted calm waters and a hidden bay tucked behind a set of James Bond style house boats with attached personal high-speed watercraft. A teenage boy and girl sat facing one another submerged to their waists a few feet from the shore. I couldn't help but feel that we were breaking up a moment, but I figured that was probably not a bad thing.

After some hemming and hawing about not liking the idea of plunging myself into the feathery plant life that lay below,  I finally rolled my boat upside down.  Disoriented in that position, I managed to exit the cockpit and bob to the surface unaware of the plants around me. After another go of it, it was my partner's turn. I stood by as she situated herself in her boat. "Geesh," she said looking at me. A potent aroma of now legalized marijuana filled my nostrils. I turned my head. Through the wire grated sides of the house boat ramp I saw a cloud of smoke. A set a paddleboards, like lawn furniture, sat clustered beneath it on the water offering support to their riders.  I imagined someone paddling up to them, nodding his head and grinning as he said, "waS'UUUUUP?!"

On Loss

In June the weather became warm enough to open my bedroom windows and to leave them open for sleep. Every morning at 5 a.m. I was awoken by the sound of the birds. They seemed so loud. Some mornings I'd get up and with frustration close the window. Other mornings I'd pull a pillow over my head. After a while I simply grew accustomed to lying in bed for 30 minutes listening to their sounds before drifting back to sleep.

Now it is August. The temperature is warm and the days, though not as long as they were in June, are still long enough but there is something about the daylight that has changed. It is not as brilliant. The Sun no longer passes directly overhead and the landscaping along the back of the house, which just a week ago received full Sun in the late afternoon, now remains in shadow.

Restless,  I turned the other day to look at the clock next to my bed. It was 5am. I wondered where the birds had gone. Before drifting back to sleep my ears focused.  I heard them. The birds had not gone away. I had just stopped hearing them.  A touch of sadness crept in. I missed being awoken by the birds! They were a reminder to me that the good days of summer were beginning and filled me with anticipation of the activities that lay ahead, the hikes I would make, the boats I would row, the tomatoes I would grow.  The birds reminded me that one day soon I would don my bathing suit and sandals again, take my lunch break outside and absorb the warmth of the sun.

That I am no longer awoken by the birds is a sign that the end of summer is approaching. Though it has been fully satisfying, I feel a wave of nostalgia for summer's past. My children are no longer little and the time is past when I could take them to the pool daily. I have come to a period of my life in which I am truly happy but as the summer begins to fade, I feel the loss of all those years while my children were little during which I was incapable of happiness. I wasn't able to experience the joy that I now can at watching them grow. I am sad both for what I could not experience and also for I could not provide.  It is then that I take comfort in knowing that if it weren't for the loss,  I would never have experienced the gratitude for the joy I have found.  

On Aging

I think a bit about aging these days and the things I dreamt of doing someday.  The amount of time I had to experience these dreams stretched out in front of me, the end date not on the horizon.

At 44, the end date is in sight. I'm realizing that many of these dreams will likely not be realized and accepting that this is okay.  What I have and what I will experience is enough. My life has been meaningful just as it is.

I had a visit from my childhood best friend last week, her husband, and her 17 year old son. We sat outside a burger joint, a perfect Seattle summer evening. It was warm enough for shorts, not so hot that it made you sweat and the daylight lasted till 9 p.m..

Like a scene from The Big Chill, we sat reminiscing, sharing stories and laughing like we did as kids, unrestrained and worry free. Her son politely tolerated what I can imagine was boring old people talk. He sat mostly silently looking around at the passerbyes. Eventually he excused himself to browse a record store. In him I felt my own eagerness at his age to break free, to make my mark, to live my own life. I felt the excitement and wonder of what may lie ahead for him, so many possibilities still available.

I wonder, how did it happen this change from youth to middle age? I look at my friend sitting across the table from me. Her hair is now long and silver but I still see her as I did when we were ten. I watch us as her husband tells a story. I see that we are the older people of my youth , having grown up conversations. I am awed and proud of who we have become. We are full people, richened by our life experiences. We are clay which has been molded, painted and put in the kiln. We are pieces of art, valuable, each with its own story worthy of appreciation.

At 17, her son is still softly formed clay. I wonder what he will become, what detailing life will etch into him, and what he will display after being put through the fire. I am content, then, to be where I am in life. I am enjoying my life just as it is and I'm ready to be enjoyed and valued just as I am.

On Satisfaction

I learned a new youngster term this week,  YOLO. My 14 year old son, Ben, kept saying,  "YOLO, Mom.  YOLO!" Then he'd take a running start and go  sliding on one of the mounds of icy snow in our path. 

Ben and I went on a camping trip in Washington's Central Cascades this past week.  The fourth of July crowds were bumper to bumper on Sunday afternoon heading West back into the Seattle area on a meandering two lane highway.  We however,  were heading east,  away from town and away from crowds. It never crossed our minds that soon we'd be standing on snow in our shorts.

As many of you may know,  I'm not big on thrill seeking.  I was the one child at slumber parties who wanted to actually sleep.  I didn't ride a coaster until I was an adult and I don't go down escalators without one hand free to hold onto the rail.  No amount of coaxing with, "You only live once,  Mom!" was going to get me to go sliding out of control down a mound of melting ice even if we weren't three miles from our car on a mountain ridge.  Ben, however, found making fun of my aged sensibilities thoroughly satisfying.

On our descent we came across the last of the snow mounds, not far from the trail head.  Like he'd done so many times before,  he took a running start.  Perhaps the terrain had a greater slope or perhaps the invincibility of the age got the better of him, but this time Ben lost his balance. His arms went windmill style.  A flexed foot lifted off the ground in front of him, his torso leaned sideways and to the rear. Somehow he managed to remain right footed, if not humbled.  I said. "YOLO, Ben. Is this how you want to die? YOLO!"

I guess you could say that the hike was mutually satisfying.

On hubris

It strikes me how nice the younger generation of doctors are that I come into contact with at work. They treat me with respect, as a peer.  That has not historically been the norm in the doctor nurse relationship. Of course still there are outliers, many of which you'll find in cardiology.

This brings to mind an image of an open chest cavity, lights shining down upon it and a gloved hand reaching under the beating heart. I can see how that could lead to hubris. Then again when I imagine that the gloved hand is mine, a sense of my own insignificance, of humility surrounds me.  What an honor to be in that position, to be entrusted with someone's life, to be holding God's handiwork, a miracle of nature, this thing we call the heart.

I guess it makes sense. It makes sense that some people, when faced with their own insignificance, respond with hubris.

On now

Liquid runs warm inside my abdomen, a tingle in my right toes. A bare perceptible pulsating in my left lower back reminds me to sit up straight, but still I do not.  The quiet in this darkened break room makes me linger.

I'm knitting a sleeve for a sweater, the first of my own design.  It waits in a plastic bag, on the shelf to my right. I do not look in it's direction. There is no time to take it out to play right now, not right now.

On Parenting

"As a parent it is our job to protect our children."  We've all heard this before, haven't we? But do we agree?  For many of us this was the parenting style we go up with, but does that make it a universal truth?  I think it is a well-meaning, but misguided belief. I believe that when we tell ourselves that our actions are for the protection of our children or for the protection of anyone else, we are fooling ourselves. The person we are protecting is ourself.

There is a line from a song which says, "your strength makes me feel less strong". Indeed. My role as a parent is not to protect my children, it is to prepare them to protect themselves, to handle their own lives, to equip them with the tools to make self respecting choices when faced with life's stressful moments and disappointments.

How do we do this? I suggest we look to the practice of medicine for ideas. We have discovered that protection from certain illnesses comes from exposure.  We need only reflect on polio or pertussis to name only a few of the many examples to know this is true. To provide protection, we must be exposed to that which we want protection from. We protect by not protecting.

A primary role of my parenting then, is to inoculate my children to difficulty by allowing for their exposure to the setbacks, disappointments and grief which occur naturally as a consequence of their own choices and actions. I must not hinder their experience of hardship, in situation or in emotion. Instead of meeting these experiences with grimacing, I can choose to greet them with grateful anticipation for the learning and growth they may bestow.

On shortcomings

It's a funny thing how the compulsion to argue with someone who is hurling insults at you is transformed once you have become aware and accepting of your shortcomings.  Then it is like they are telling you that the sky is blue, but angrily.  It's kinda comical.  Only, I recommend you don't laugh at someone who its angrily criticizing you.  Yeah, that doesn't go over too well.

On Love

I used to think I'd never loved or been loved.  Now I see things differently.  I see that there is love and loving action.  For instance, there is no question.  I love my children, but I do not always take loving action.  Part of this is because I had not known what loving action was.  I'd simply behaved as was modeled for me in the home of my childhood.  However, as is typical in an alcoholic home, the behaviors I learned to associate with love were just the opposite and what I learned to associate with helping was actually harming.  No wonder I have been confused.

When my thinking began to untwist, my perception of love became more confused.  I could identify loving action, but as I reflected on the people in my life who had said that they had loved me, few loving actions were displayed by them or me.  I concluded that none of us had known love.

Today I see that both are true.  I see love as a paradox.  I can love someone and simultaneously act unloving towards them.  The unloving action stems from childhood learning, the behaviors modeled and the defense mechanisms I'd learned to employ for self-protection.  Perhaps the key to finding a satisfactory love relationship is in finding a partner with the insight to recognize and the humility to admit to their unloving actions when they arise, as they will.

Since coming to view love in this manner, I feel some relief - relief of sadness, relief from resentment and the removal of obstacles to accepting others, others I had hardened myself to.  I can trust that their love is or was true, even if our unloving actions made a close relationship untenable.  I can simultaneously love them and accept the depth or shallowness our unloving actions allow.  I have come to see the act of loving as the act of accepting another exactly as they are right now while maintaining the boundary appropriate for self-respect.

On traffic

As a passenger in a shuttle today, I realized that traffic jams don't bother me when I am a passenger. So I ask myself, why should it bother me when I am the driver? 

I am bothered by traffic when I am running late, as if the traffic were to blame. "If only it weren't for the traffic, I'd make it on time!" Nevermind that traffic is the norm, not the exception. 

I am also bothered by traffic when I have passengers because I am worried about their discomfort. It never crossed my mind that they may not be bothered by it or that I am not responsible for either the traffic or how they feel about it. What a relief to know that there is no reason for me to be disturbed by traffic. I can look at it as a reminder that I am not in control.

On Being Me

I was shopping in the downtown Seattle Goodwill last year, which is the biggest Goodwill I've ever seen.  The cart I was pushing had a messed up wheel.  You know, the type that doesn't spin correctly cause it has a shit-ton of thread caught up in it?  So I take out my handy plastic handled pocket knife I bought at my neighborhood corner store and start cutting away the tangle of threads.  My girlfriend at the time walks over to me and asks what I'm doing.  I tell her the problem and explain how I keep a knife in one of the zippered pockets of my purse for an occasion just as this.  She says, "That is so lesbian."  I couldn't have felt more proud.  Identifying that certain of my characteristics are typically lesbian has been a source of pride and validation.  I had no idea that carrying a pocket knife was a lesbian trait.  To me, it was just practical, but it makes sense. 

When I reflect on those aspects of myself that made me feel like an outsider, off, not quite right, and can connect those those attributes to the fact that I'm gay, it gives me a sense of place, of fitting in, that I belong.  I am proud of who I am.  I like that I can fix things, that I installed my own car stereo, that I have repaired my lawn mower and a broken clothes dryer.  I have replaced my own head lamps, brake lights and hatch lifts on my car.  I like that I can pitch my own tent, start my own fire and camp solo.  I like that I am athletic, good at math and science, and don't have to wear makeup to feel complete.  Most of all, I like that I can now fully embrace who I am.  For the first time, I like being me.

on a moment

Photographs. People. Faces. Curves. Emotion. Desires. Hopes. Losses. Captured in a still frame, a moment in time.

Move with me now. A dance. A feeling. A touch. A moment in time.

In my bed. Blue sky. Bird calls. Cool breeze. Hunger pang. A moment. A choice.

Reflections on stuff

Stuff. Stuff in my house. Stuff in my yard. Stuff in my car. Stuff in my mind. Stuff on the counter. Stuff in my room. Laundry waiting. Stuff.

Calls to return. Cars for repair. Cars to be had. Groceries to get. Fridge to be cleaned. List to be made. Meals to be planned. Stuff.

"K. I'm gonna have to use that. For recreational purposes," my son says referring to the computer and grinning from ear to ear. Stuff.

Reflections on self-respect

When I am hurt, it is because I am not accepting the other person for who they are.  I want them to be how I want them to be cause if they were, they certainly wouldn't have done or said what they did.  I set myself up by expecting others to be a certain way.  Then they act as they will, according to exactly who they are, and I am somehow offended by this.  

Truly, nothing someone else does is about me.  People do things.  They do not do things to me.  What people do is an expression of who they are.  Their actions say nothing about me, about my value or about my worthiness.  If someone does not appreciate me, it does not mean that I am unworthy of being appreciated.  If someone is not considerate of me, it speaks nothing of my being deserving of consideration.  If someone is not interested in me, it does not mean that I am uninteresting.  So why should I place such importance on their opinion of me?

Instead of thinking, Why don't they value me?  I can think, Hmm.  They under value me.  Instead of, How could they be so inconsiderate of me?  I can think, They aren't capable of treating me with the consideration I deserve.  Instead of being hurt, I can be grateful for the information that their behavior provides.  It allows me the opportunity to make a more informed choice and to demonstrate self-respect.  I show this by how and with whom I choose to spend my time and energy.  We value what we give our attention.  Perhaps I could benefit by being more thoughtful about where I place my attention.

Reflections on Anger

I heard someone say that anger is not accepting what is.  When we don't accept what is, we usually fight what is.  We try to change it which adds to our frustrations, for how often are we successful?  Perhaps we are successful temporarily.  Perhaps we have created the illusion of success.  In the end, we tend to find ourselves back where we started, angry and frustrated over the same situation.

When we fight what is, we are exerting our will over things we have no power over.  We may even plead with God to change the situation or the person into how we wish it to be.  This sounds to me like what is described in the stages of grieving as related to the death of a loved one. Perhaps this definition is too narrow.  Perhaps we ought to look at angry people as grieving people. Perhaps we can look at ourselves in the midst of our anger as a person struggling to come to accept the reality of the situation, coming to accept what is, and our powerlessness to change it into what we would have it be. 

In our disappointment, sadness is appropriate. Ultimately the purpose of anger is self protection, but when it protects us from the reality of our grief, it keeps us from accepting ourselves.

Reflections on god

You know the honeymoon phase with new music?  You've listened to the album a few times.  You're becoming familiar with the tunes.  You may start singing along to some of the choruses and certain tracks resonate with the heart of you.  You may even replay a track after it has just ended because of how it makes you feel.  You haven't really listened yet to the song but it touches something inside of you. Then, at some point, you have to know more about that song.  What are the lyrics? What is it saying?  Why does it move me so?

I have been surprised to find that it is not just the music lyrically that resonates, but additionally it is the words, the message, the story that resonates.  I think, How cool is that?  There is part of my consciousness that is listening and processing this sensory information without my directing it to do so!  It is in these intricacies of biology that I see and experience god.  Well, this is one of the ways I experience god anyway. How about you?

reflections on relationships

In a romantic relationship each partner has needs.  The difficulty comes when our partner can't meet our needs.  Letting go is hard. We recall all of the good things about the relationship and yet we cannot deny what is lacking. That is not to say that we should expect our partners to be everything we want them to be.  It is to say that those qualities we must have, must be present. All other desires are optional. 

In our heads we argue, stating all the things that are good and shouldn't that be enough?  This part of us does not want to let go.  This part of us wants this to be enough.  This part of us wants to live in denial.  This part of us does not want to be alone.  This part of us would rather accept less than what we deserve, would rather live wanting than to live alone. 

Paradoxically to stay in this type of relationship we live feeling more alone than we feel living single.  So why do we stay?  In this type of relationship we can focus on the shortcomings of the other.  Living single, we have only our own shortcomings to look at.  Perhaps this is the real reason why we hold desperately on to these lonely relationships.  We don't want to face ourselves.

Reflection on resentment

I had a thought this morning regarding compassion versus resentment and retaliation. When there is a conflict and I'm bothered because the other person isn't owning what I perceive to be their part, I can remember that I have been there too and that likely what is keeping them from owning their part is a sense of shame, guilt or embarrassment rather than a desire to hurt me. This then, can help me to be compassionate, to let go of any building anger and resentment or desire to retaliate. I can remember to let it begin with me.