That Competitive Thing

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm now utterly convinced that in the future, I will look back at the spring of 2017 as the time that everything became clear. Piece after piece of the puzzle is falling into place. And the catalysts for these realizations are...unexpected.

Regular readers of this blog have figured out by now that I seem to have no stomach whatsoever for competitiveness, much less conflict or violence. Even the prospect of hunger or homelessness isn't enough to propel me willingly into the world of the "profit motive." When I was involved in sports like tennis or rowing, I never really cared whether I won or lost. Indeed, I often actively wanted the other person/team to win, or just to forego the competition altogether. It was all about the learning journey. In the end, it has been less a case of judging this competitive model as wrong as it has been a case of simply not understanding. I just cannot seem to grasp the need to be best, have more, beat others, win the race.

But this weekend, I found my exception, or to put it more accurately, re-discovered it. I happened upon the TV coverage of the early heats of the America's Cup (sailing). Now, first and foremost was my astonishment at the nature of the modern boats themselves, catamarans (with slim, trailing "foils" like fins or rudders) that literally race above the water. I had never, ever seen such a thing before, and it was utterly magical, miraculous.

The starts of the races, however, have brought out the competitor in me for the first time in over forty years. Back when I was a teenager and our family had a summer cabin on Lake Champlain, I sailed quite a bit. I raced solo in Sunfish races with other teenagers, and then crewed in the adult races which took place in old, 18-foot wooden "knockabouts." I mentioned in an early blog that in these latter races, the "captain's word was law." The skipper was almost always a man, and you simply did not question his decision. If he said, "come about," you immediately released the jib line, threw yourself across the boat, and tightened the line on the other side.

But the starts of the races were particularly thrilling, and were the test of a skipper's talents. For about ten minutes, the six or eight boats would meander lazily around the starting area, but at the five minute horn, things started to get very tense. All the boats would start to jockey about, with the skippers trying to figure out, based on wind strength and direction, wind gusts, and what direction we would be heading in after crossing the line, how best to time getting to the starting line. This was all done with multiple other boats also coming about or jibing over and over, and there were always near misses. Boats on starboard tack (wind coming over the right side of the boat) had the right-of-way, and in the heat of the moment, it was a challenge keeping that straight. In those last few seconds, especially in a strong wind, the margin between beating a competing boat over the starting line right at the horn and crashing into him was extremely thin. I remember that I had a passion for these starts...my eyes jumped up and down from my watch to conditions on the course and I had really good instincts about how to get to the start at the right moment, instincts that, as a crew member, I had to keep to myself. Sometimes when we got a bad start, I knew in my heart that I could have done better, but my family didn't own a boat and women rarely skippered anyway. In those days, I just didn't have the assertiveness to ask for the opportunity, yet another example of keeping my power under wraps.

So it was this weekend that, when I found myself literally screaming at the television screen, "Come about, come about!!!!" and cheering the skippers who pulled tricky maneuvers to cut off the other boat at the start, I realized that "that competitive thing" is not, in fact, completely dead in me. Dormant, perhaps, and limited to one small field of endeavor, but not dead. I'm not quite sure whether this is all metaphorical or a message that it would be nice to return to sailing. And I'm a little embarrassed to have been caught in an inconsistency. But I console myself that if the most "violent" things that ever happened on this planet were sailing regattas, this would be quite a nice world.

A Festival of the Little Things

When you are yearning for big things but they don't seem to be coming, and you are daily saddened by the world outbreak of hatred and corruption, it's very easy to lose heart. Thus it was that Thursday turned out to be a Festival of the Little Things, and it was a day to be thankful for.

A little money was direct deposited into my account, and early in the morning I also received a newsletter about spirituality written by a dear friend. The letter has a donation link, and so I sent her a small gift. It felt good. I'd like to do that more often for more people, not to mention the dozen or so huge things that I need or want to do. For the millionth time perhaps in the last few decades, I begged whatever gods there be for guidance. Please, lead me to more money or a physically, emotionally and ethically tolerable way to make it! And I swear, within about twenty minutes, I received a call from the place where I am a part-time receptionist, asking whether I'd be interested in more hours the next few months. Yes, yes, I said. Thank you.

Later in the afternoon, I went downtown and withdrew $20 from a cash machine. I went for a much needed hair trim, then went, yes, to church for Ascension Day. Theologically, I can tolerate the ascension a whole lot more easily than Holy Week/Easter, and the music is good too. To my great surprise, I was invited to a pot luck dinner party after the service, and really enjoyed myself. Because no one was driving back to my part of town and the buses were no longer running, I called a taxi, and I didn't have to wait for it. The minute I walked out the door, the taxi was driving up the street. And, because of having gone to the cash machine, I actually had $10 in my wallet for the ride. Things were simply flowing.

The festival continued yesterday, when I came "this close" to pouring an entire glass of ice tea on this dear computer, which would not have been a good thing. I almost literally felt an angelic hand push my hand in the other direction at the last minute.

Some people will say, it was the giving. Some people will say, it was the asking. It is probably both. Throwing off some old constrictions around my heart in the last week or so must also help. All I know is that each day is potentially a festival of the little things. May I stay mindful of how great that is!

What was I thinking?

There is nothing even remotely funny about almost anything that is happening in the news right now. And yet there is one thing I keep coming back to that makes me chuckle.

I am old enough to remember actively being told that we women could not serve in positions of power in the world (President, Congress, corporate leadership, spiritual leadership) because we were too emotional, too "hysterical." Particularly at the time of our periods, we couldn't be trusted to make rational, thoughtful decisions.  Not born to be leaders, we were expected to remain silent, passive and in "follower" mode. Yes, kids, we women of the 1950's got that message loud and clear.

The last 48 hours or so has surely been the final death knell of that belief. There is a lot of "wigging-out" going on, and relatively little of it seems to be by women. Why do I chuckle? Because I cannot help laughing, just a little, at the irony.

Yes, I bought into that lie, and so many others. I loved the 19th century paintings of women in white dresses, languishing on window seats staring out into manicured gardens. I resonated with the notion of filling my time with such rumination, along with art, music and writing -- but the Victorian, dabbling, take-the-paint-box-out-into-the-garden version, not something empowered and visible. I bought into the idea that, if I wasn't fortunate enough to live in that milieu, I was destined to be a slave, working myself to exhaustion for menial wages. Either that, or I could chose just to bypass it all and wander. I bought into the notion that even though I wasn't "strong" enough to engage in the kill-or-be-killed male world of business, politics, and leadership, that was entirely my deficiency.

What was I thinking?

I won't lie. I wouldn't mind the white dress and the garden, and spiritual contemplation, art, music and writing are "what I am." But the genie is out of the bottle. I do them now because they are "me," and they are powerful. They are my form of leadership, my way of creating a new paradigm, not passively escaping an old one. Many people are saying this in different ways, and I'll keep singing the chorus: all of us must claim our unique, loving forms of leadership now. Yes, it will be something we adore doing, even something that makes us smile. But the time is now. We cannot wait. There is nothing "funny" about it.  

Again

Again.

I guess that's about all I can say today.

So much out there is so heartbreaking, it's a miracle that so many of us have tender hearts when we could be numb by now. I don't think we can stop what is happening. I don't think we can change or push back other people. It will take all our energy to stand tall and keep opening our own hearts further every time, to become more vulnerable, to become even more open and fearless.

Again and again, if need be.

Something in the Air

There must be something in the air. Last week was just about the most intense of my whole life (and that's not even taking into account anything in the news!) Somehow, Mother's Day opened up a previously blocked channel to my heart, and revelations and emotions have come rushing in.

One was major. Big. Huge. It was almost like walking onto Times Square, looking up at a billboard, and seeing three words large as life and knowing instantaneously that they are the belief system that has held you back, probably throughout this lifetime and even earlier ones. I could see how this belief has steered many decisions I have made, and magnetized most of my life experiences. It is so big that some of the things I was on the verge of talking about in this blog may have to wait; I know I am going to need some help from a compassionate counselor or spiritual advisor to walk through upcoming weeks, and articulate a new, more constructive and self-loving core concept. I also want to give thought to how this discovery might help me help others.

The gift of it is that I already feel lighter. I know I can change the belief, and I am already catching myself just as soon as I fall back on it, Eeyore-like. As a first step, I'm just gently reminding myself that this belief is being updated. New "site" under construction.

If this revelation had come to me in time, I could have gone to reunion after all, and proudly held up a sign saying, "I've finally identified the personal belief that has been holding me back all these years!" For a lot of alums, that might have been considered just as tangible and desirable as a house, a career, and a car. Ah well, just wait till our 45th or 50th... 

When I can, I'll tell you the three words, and, more importantly, the re-write.

Alma Mater

In a case of intriguing timing, just at the moment when I am grappling with previously unrecognized emotions over having not been a mother, my alma mater (Smith College) is about to hold its graduation/reunion weekend. "Alma Mater" literally means kind mother, and Smith was kind to me. I am eternally thankful that I made that choice, that I received scholarships to make my education there possible, that I had fabulous courses and musical training, a great house, and that I made excellent friends. It was a safe place for me during a particularly hard time for my family, and even though I think it was more my mother's choice than mine (most of her friends were Smith graduates; she had attended two-year college), I am proud to be an alum. This is my 40th reunion, and I should be going.

I guess the short reason that I am not going is that I had promised myself that the next time I attended, I would have some tangible achievement to present. Smith knows my "old story" all too well; I lived it while I was there, they've heard about it at a few reunions, and in a sense I have never broken out of it. I want to be able to go back and say, look at the book I published or the dream fully realized or the late love of my life, the respect I'm garnering in such-and-such field, or the money I've earned and can share with the school. I still believe these things will happen, and for years I've been "faking it till you make it," but my energy for getting out "ahead of my skis" is lagging. It worked when I was 40 and 50, but not so well at 60 (!) Plus, I just did that to some degree on my trip to New York. To be in the presence of many hundreds of brilliant, white-clad, high-achieving Smithies just might be too much for the tender place I'm in right now. I know it will be a beautiful, blessing-filled event. I'll make a commitment to attend our 50th, no matter what life brings these next ten years.

Thank goodness, again, for Martha Beck, whose daily words of inspiration today seemed to hit home: "What should you do now? Find a new way. A better way. Your way. The unknown, uncharted path through this wild new world that allows you--yourself in your uniqueness--to reclaim the full measure of your true nature." That's pretty much what I've been doing all along, walking uncharted paths. I suspect that this is about as "tangible" as we mystics manage to get!

Mommy

On a day such as today, there is a lot to talk about. But I'm still kind of reacting to Mother's Day on Sunday. A year ago, May 7, 2016, I posted a blog about Mother's Day which kind of says it all.

But not quite. In this last year, I have tried hard to focus less on who I am as I relate to the various past influences in my life, and more on who I am currently and essentially.

So Sunday, this year's reaction to Mother's Day was less, "may I put a bag over my head?" and more an outpouring of grief. I am not a mother. It finally hit me that, in this lifetime, I will never hear anyone call me "mommy." I (probably) will never have a child jump in my lap and hold onto me for dear life. My housemate has grandchildren, and several times a week, I can hear them call out to her and say, "grandma..." That, too, I will never hear. This was subtly my choice, I guess, but not an active choice. Life went on. I didn't realize that this hurts, but it does.

I don't remember any moments of jumping into my own mother's arms and calling her "mommy." It may have happened, but I don't remember. Mom did not really like being hugged and would back away from friends who tried to do it, so it's possible she did that with us too. (I do remember her sitting next to me and reading "Winnie the Pooh.") Since Sunday, I have had a few moments of just crying out for my mommy. She passed away in 2001, and I can't say I feel her "presence" but I definitely feel her absence. I miss her. We became pretty close in the eighteen months before she died. She needed a lot of help from me and others, but her mind was sharp as a tack, and we talked about politics, religion, science, you name it, until about one day before she died.

This is one of those things I know I will need to move on from, but you can't move on from the things that you didn't know were bothering you under the surface, so I am thankful for this clarity, and this understanding that there has been a gaping hole in my experience that I am still alive to fill. I know that motherhood is complex and often painful, but if you have ever had even one "mommy" moment, one sweet, hugging, "mommy" moment on the giving or receiving end, treasure it.

Spoons and tunes

I had to look up to see if I had borrowed from Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now," but that was "moons and Junes..." However, Wednesday/Thursday's full moon did seem to shed bright light on almost everything, didn't it?

Discovering great pearls of wisdom from the mouths of some of my favorite wise women. Martha Beck offered a free online class this week called "Paths to your Purpose," where she spoke about spoon theory, the concept that if you are suffering from a chronic illness, you have fewer "spoons" of energy with which to get through the day. Beck, in discussions with friends, has elaborated on this, suggesting that there are activities or passions in life that give you new spoons. You can feel fully drained and yet when something you love enters the picture, energy is miraculously restored. She says, not surprisingly, to pay attention to this, this is your life purpose asserting itself.

I experienced this almost literally this week. I wouldn't call 61 "an illness," but there is no question that one's energy and patience levels are so much lower than at 21 or 41. It has taken me almost a week to feel back on slightly solid ground after the previous week's nonstop train, subway and bus travel. And yet as we all know, it was a shocking, draining week on the news front and additionally, several of my anticipated work "gigs" appeared to have gone up in smoke. I felt exhausted by yesterday afternoon, battered, abandoned, even uncharacteristically tearful.

Enter another wise woman, less than half my age, to whom I presented my disparate passions of England/English church music, women's spirituality, mysticism, art and writing. She saw enormous creative potential. Some of the "crazy" ideas I've had about how to bring these factors together didn't seem crazy to her, and she was able to share some feedback and resources that could help me move forward with one or more of them if I can drum up the courage to learn some new things about technology. I walked into the meeting spoonless and nearly lifeless, and walked out with spoonfuls of new energy and purpose. Thankful, thankful, thankful to her, and to God/Goddess/Universe/Source. Just hearing one little voice say "that sounds really cool" changes everything. "That sounds really cool" is a new tune for me.

I may be trying to move beyond duality, but by the same token, what Abraham-Hicks calls "contrast" can be enlightening. I literally looked at life from "Both Sides Now" this week. In the bright light of that full moon, it's pretty clear which side is preferable.

Gates

I remember Watergate well. In May 1973, when the televised hearings began, I was about to graduate from high school, and I watched some of them on my family's small black-and-white television. My freshman year at Smith, the hearings continued, and for an hour here and there I would gather with other young women in the living room of our house and watch as Howard Baker asked, "What did the president know, and when did he know it?" I had kind of a crush on Baker, as I did with the fictional Atticus Finch (played by Gregory Peck) and Sam Waterston's Jack McCoy, on Law and Order. It's the kind of lawyer I would have been, crusading, righteous (at times a little self-righteous?) and yet detailed, exacting and hard-working. It was a grave disappointment to me, when I finally worked as a paralegal, to find that there didn't always seem to be a "good guy." I knew I could never represent ("re-present") the bad guy, no matter how much I understood our legal system's rationale for it, and I did not follow my pioneering lawyer grandmother into the field.

Bits of these characteristics have oozed out into my life in interesting ways. Answering letters at Time Magazine, I checked and double-checked my research for accuracy, making me a little slower at getting through piles of World and International mail than I probably should have been. And in my community college teaching of writing and research skills, I underscored correct citation of sources almost ad nauseum. When a final paper was subsequently handed in with plagiarized material (and I was able to locate the original source), my first inner reaction (I am sorry to say) was, "Gotcha!" I was terribly sorry that the student had made that choice, but I couldn't let them think that was an appropriate way to go through life, misrepresenting things. I guess I never understand...it takes as much energy to do things right as to do them wrong. Why not just do it right?

So we appear to be going through another "gate" or series of them. OK, after that week away from the media, I'm semi-riveted, and little "Gotchas" are going off in my head. But I have studied the law of attraction just a bit too long to fully engage with it all. I think this is all happening as a death throe to the idea of duality and conflict and "good vs. evil." What is a post-duality/evolved/visionary woman to do right now? Just persist. I think we stay informed, but try as hard as possible to keep using our positive gifts of beauty, love, wisdom and healing. In the new paradigm, I'll bet there is no "Gotcha!"

It's poetry

I don't read much poetry. I should. I think there may be a poet within me, but I just haven't gone there...yet.

But the following quote from poet Muriel Rukeyser (who up until now I had never heard of) has come to me, and it pretty much says it all: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."

It may not rhyme, but it is poetry to me. Maybe it explains why so many of us try to keep our journeys at arm's length. Thank you for your inspiration, Muriel.

Rainy Saturday

There has been persistent rain in the northeast, leading to flooding, grey moods and a sense of spring interrupted. Buds are waiting to bloom, but there just hasn't been enough sun to persuade them. I've returned to my current home base from the road, feeling mightily changed. And yet the physical environment seems to be frozen at "almost spring," much as it was over a week ago.

During my trip, I saw very little news online or on TV. It was beyond disheartening, then, to observe the celebratory back-slapping in the Rose Garden by a group of white men and a few white women who know perfectly well that the health care plan they are proposing will hurt their diverse nation. The heartlessness of it was sickening. I am white, yet I cannot resonate with any of these people or how they think. The hubris of it is so monumental, and I suspect that historians may look back on that moment, and that image, as pivotal.

I'll talk about the trip a little more in coming weeks, but ironically, one of the takeaways from it is how, given two days in New York City, my magnet drew me to the world's finest church music, John Singer Sargent's paintings of the "aristocracy," the Upper East Side, and some of the trappings of my supposed WASP heritage. I say "supposed," because most of my actual formative experience was far from coming out parties and the Social Register, more like returning home from college to find no food in the refrigerator or gas in the car. I've always lived between worlds, and continue to. These old constructs are in the process of being upended, clearly, and it's a good thing. But to the extent to which I actively tried to abandon my family's heritage along with church music, and to live in a sort of "opposite-land," I yearn to come home, even in some kind of new paradigm way. These two days felt strangely like a homecoming. Ultimately, it is a particular form of beauty that I still love and prefer. It's very, very confusing. I returned north to find mail from various worthy institutions asking me to add them to my estate plan. Little do they know that my "estate" is the $35 or so dollars I have to my name at this moment.

On this rainy Saturday, I should be gloomy, but I am not. Once again, I managed to get where I wanted to go, to see my choice of beauty, to hear my choice of music, to embrace my choice of loving friends, and to do it safely and happily. I lived my priorities for a little over a week, with a few dollars to spare. I am thankful.

Springing and slinging

I've graduated from New York City to upstate, way upstate, where the grass is green but the trees haven't come out yet and greyness persists. My spring break may not be what the college kids would recognize, but it was necessary after a winter to remember. Time to think (on train and bus), two gorgeous choral evensongs in the City and another service in Albany, jazz, and friends. What more do you need?

When you are a mystic, you can tell when time has been well spent if there are revelations, and there have been. Big time. I am still trying to sort them out, and a few others over the last few weeks. I realize that when I changed course at about 27 (and my astrologer friends would call this my first Saturn return), I tried to thoroughly forget my real self, and it was like taking apart a jigsaw puzzle and scattering the pieces across the table and swirling them around to thoroughly mix them up. For nearly thirty five years, I've been putting the pieces in, one at a time. And as with any jigsaw puzzle, once you get closer to the end, there are fewer mystery pieces left, and the process gets faster and faster. (Of course, the interesting thing is that back then, I thought I was working on an entirely new puzzle, and it's only a few years ago that I realized that I was putting together the old me.) It's fascinating, too, that it is at the second solar return that I'm nearly done -- the last few key pieces are fitting into place. You know they are "key" because they buzz. Literally. When you are in a certain setting or with certain people or doing a certain activity, you resonate. You can feel it, almost like the urge to speak in a Quaker meeting. I suspect that there could be moments of this resonance every day, and I'm going to make sure I feel for them from now on!

The other day, I spoke of artificial intelligence, but this trip has made me wish that science would focus on another type of development. I had decided against using a roller bag, and instead put my few things in an over-the-shoulder canvas bag, envisioning just being able to sling it easily over my shoulder as I tripped lightly up bus and subway station stairs, in and out of trains, etc. Um, what was I thinking? My computer alone (a rather heavy older laptop which thankfully still works) makes easy slinging impossible; add in two changes of clothes, an extra pair of shoes, a book, a few toiletries, a water bottle and snack, and it might as well be a bowling ball or two. Being "of a certain age," backpacks hurt my back. So it's like, forget virtual reality games. Could we come up with some way for all of these basic belongings to weigh about two pounds?! Thank you!