The joys of imperfection

My husband, though he occasionally breaks his own rules, has always resisted giving me flowers; something to do with cutting them off in the prime of life... or so he says.

So of course I would love to have a garden, a really big and colorful one, mostly wildflowers, I think -- just to get those wonderful textures, colors and scents into my life.

Instead we have a yard populated almost exclusively by dune grass -- though we do have a bush of beach roses -- and every time I've made the effort to plant things a high tide would come along and inundate them with salt water.

I'm not complaining, mind you -- I'm mostly just explaining why I kept coming back to this picture, taken on our tour last week.  It's not a great image, not beautifully composed, not even perfectly focused.  But I LOVE the color; it feeds my soul.

So on the off chance that color feeds your soul, too, I'll risk publishing an imperfect image.  Because it's a wonderful reminder that NONE of us have to be perfect.  Sometimes what appeals to us is not perfection but energy -- the kind of warm, positive, chaotic, joyful energy this picture captures.  It may not be tidy, but it really is just full of joy. 

And really -- on a cloudy day, what more could you wish for?

Starting here, starting now

When things seem to be changing rapidly -- especially when those changes are out of our control -- there arises within us a deep craving for "how things were," for some former (and largely imaginary) time when things were simpler, easier than they are now.

Which is why a visit to the countryside, with its rolling hills and rural landscapes, can be so soothing and refreshing.  Aside from the visual pleasures afforded by a landscape free of tall buildings, neon lights and other artifacts of urban life, there is a reassuring sense that life as we once knew it, or as our parents or grandparents once knew it, still goes on.

I think this picture -- bucolic though it may be -- is a gentle reminder that the past, like the future, is just an illusion.  This is not a real windmill; it's powered by electricity, and set up specifically to foster that illusion.  The fence serves little purpose other than beauty, the carefully manicured tree is maintained by a Mexican immigrant with a rattling old truck and a small timid dog, and right next door is a souvenir shop.

But understanding that that is the reality of now; that in the moment I took that picture I was warm and dry, surrounded by friends, admiring the view and enjoying the day -- well that, in the words of all those mastercard commercials -- is priceless.

Welcome to now!  What's going on for you here, right in this moment? What gift does the present have to offer you right now?  Stay with it, stay here, and let the present deepen your understanding of your connection to the universe.

You Reading This, Be Ready
by William Stafford

Starting here, what do you want to remember?
How sunlight creeps along a shining floor?
What scent of old wood hovers, what softened
sound from outside fills the air?


Will you ever bring a better gift for the world
than the breathing respect that you carry
wherever you go right now? Are you waiting
for time to show you some better thoughts?


When you turn around, starting here, lift this
new glimpse that you found; carry into evening
all that you want from this day.  This interval you spent
reading or hearing this, keep it for life --


What can anyone give you greater than now,
starting here, right in this room, when you turn around?

Too much voltage

It's 4 am, and I find myself tossing and turning in bed, haunted and humbled by the images and events of one of those high voltage days.

I call it that because the intensity of events sometimes gets to me -- though perhaps it's just my superego kicking in with criticism when I've had too much wonderfulness.

The day began inauspiciously: I'd taken an early ferry in so as not to be late for an 8 am meeting, but that meant I was an hour early with nowhere to go (school was closed). 

So I sat in the parking lot and reviewed my notes, shivering a bit in the cold car and uncomfortably aware of a homeless person sleeping on the ground by the fence on the other side of the lot.

Class was good -- educational, thought-provoking, entertaining -- and I struck up another new friendship before leaving early to catch the 5:30 boat home.

I'd arranged for my younger daughter to meet me at the ferry because I knew I'd get there too late to put the car on the 5:30 but I wanted to be back on the island in time to attend the opening of the new exhibit at my gallery, as they would be showing my new metal pieces, about which I was very excited.

My daughter met me at the car with not only a walk-on ticket, but also a gift certificate to a favorite store and a chocolate starfish -- both amazingly thoughtful gifts.  She stayed with the car (and, sure enough, it missed the 5:30 by 2 cars) while I walked on the ferry.  It was an awesome gift for her to do that, to wait with the car and drive it onto the 6:20 so I could attend the opening, and between that and the other gifts I was feeling just ridiculously blessed.

Walking up from the ferry I got a text from my friend M who had broken a previous engagement to come to the opening -- another delightful blessing -- and I arrived to find two of my images in places of honor, one just outside the entry to the main room of the gallery, and the other on what I think of as "the primo wall," the wall that gets the most attention. 

It was thrilling to see that, and doubly so to hear all the positive comments; people loved them, and loved my new direction.  To top that off, I'd arranged to have dinner with G, another artist friend, and to celebrate the evening my daughter and M and another delightful couple I'd just met decided to join us. 

So we all went over to the little restaurant next door  -- which I'd never visited before -- and it turned out to be surprisingly pricey; something I hadn't anticipated.  Spirits were high (though my daughter and I weren't drinking as we'd both be driving home), service was a bit slow, and by the time dinner arrived my husband, who'd been at a meeting, was able to join us.  G had ordered a duck confit, and when it arrived, a tiny circle of very elegant food on a large white plate, she began complaining rather loudly about the conspicuous consumption it represented --too much money, not enough food, and no vegetables to speak of -- and how dreadful the island can be, that it supports this sort of thing when people all over the world are starving.

Which of course reminded me of that bundle of rags I'd encountered in the morning, the homeless person sleeping in the parking lot while I shivered in my car.

We all managed to play through: the restaurant gave her a lovely plate of squash treats, my new friend's husband kissed G's hand, applauded her outspokenness, and paid the bill for all of us.  We all thanked him profusely and headed home. 

But, as I said, the voltage was too high for me, and so I woke at 3:30, humbled by my own conspicuous consumptions, by the gift of my daughter's generosity, and by the images of all the people flowing through the gallery, the bright lights and the wine, the elegant restaurant -- all vaguely reminiscent of images from books and movies over the years of the aristocracy partying while the hungry and homeless stagger through the streets desperate for food and shelter.

I am trying to stay with it, to hold it in my heart, to breathe in the shame, the hunger, the shock of the cold pavement through a threadbare blanket, and breathe out the sheer joy of loving family and friends and the beauty of all the images in the show (oh, the quilts in the show are just GORGEOUS).  And now I see that the only way through the intensity of that contrast is to hold my breath a bit at each end of the breathing pattern. 

Breathe in the pain, wait. feel. acknowledge. ache.

Breathe out the joy, then wait; hold. feel.  acknowledge. ache.  Allow the learnings to flow in, love the good parts and the hard ones, the friends within and the lost ones curled aching and chilled in the corners of my soul.

But I don't think sleep will return anytime soon. Not for me, anyway.  And probably not for that man in the parking lot.  He's just too cold.  And now, of course, it's raining.

Breathe.

Reflections on an empty boat

As you may have noticed, I've been railing a bit against circumstances lately.  So I just want to share a passage from Pema Chodron's  Comfortable with Uncertainty that really helped me get to a more comfortable place this morning:

"There’s a Zen story in which a man is enjoying himself on a river at dusk.  He sees another boat coming down the river toward him.  At first it seems so nice to him that someone else is also enjoying the river on a nice summer evening. 

Then he realizes that the boat is coming right toward him, faster and faster.  He begins to yell, “Hey, hey, watch out!  For Pete’s sake, turn aside!”  But the boat just comes right at him, faster and faster.  By this time he’s standing up in his boat, screaming and shaking his fist, and then the boat smashes right into him.  He sees that it’s an empty boat.

This is the classic story of our whole life situation.  There are a lot of empty boats out there.  We’re always screaming and shaking our fists at them."

Reading this, I came to realize that most of what was snarking at me was simply that: empty boats. Events were just playing out in natural sequences.  There was no point in shaking my fist; the only difficulties were the ones I was creating for myself with the stories I was building around them.

In staying with that, understanding it was my story, something released in me; something came to peace.  It's not really that the situation has changed appreciably; it's more that I'm coming to accept responsibility for my part in it.

It's a bit like a divorce: it's so easy to want to throw stones and blame your partner for all the messes that drove you away.  But in a lot of ways the things that came along to rip the marriage apart were empty boats; old patterns and needs playing themselves out and wreaking destruction on both your lives.

And now I'm wondering: if we are not fully present, aware, conscious, mindful, in the moment -- might we not also be empty boats, wreaking havoc in other people's lives?

Hmmm...

Share the joy

I don't know about you, but for me the words "Field Trip!" have been a sort of siren call ever since I was young enough to go on one.

So despite the driving wind and rain, I joined a few other intrepid souls on Monday for an excursion to one of my favorite parts of Washington State: the Skagit Valley.

I did this particular trip (an annual event) a few years back, but this time -- despite the rain (which did eventually stop) -- was even more wonderful.  I came back with a lovely new painting (now hanging by the front door), a new friend, and a camera full of photos -- including this one.  Doesn't it look like I've just been back to Italy?

Joy, I think, is where you find it.  And where you find it is pretty much wherever you choose to look; it's more an attitude than an event. 

And this morning, in my reading from Pema Chodron's Comfortable with Uncertainty, I was reminded that one of my most important jobs is to share what joy I find.  "The joy that you feel, the sense of being able to open up and let go, also becomes a way you connect with others.  On the out-breath you say, 'Let me give away anything good or true that I ever feel, any sense of humor, any sense of enjoying the sun coming up and going down, any sense of delight in the world at all, so that everybody else may share in this and feel it.' "

I've been so tangled up lately in concerns about what I am or am not called to do and be in the world, whether I should be in school, whether I'm on the right path, whether or not I still have or still could or should use leadership skills.  It's lovely to just step away from all that worry about the future; to step back into now, enjoy the moment, and share.

Yes the economy has gone to hell in a handbasket.  Yes, all of my household is still unemployed and our savings are dwindling.  Yes, I should be considering returning to work.  Yes, I should maximize my skills and experience.  But yes: now is good, too, and while I'm here and feeling it, I can share the joy.

Whew!  Let's just try and take it one day at a time, and let the rest fall into place in its own time. 

Trust, my friends.

Just trust.

Staring at the gap

I know, I know, it's a trash can.  But it does have a certain amount of stark appeal.

I shot this yesterday on the ferry coming home, (I just liked the reflections) and I think it jumped out at me this morning for several reasons.

1.  My ex used to say "Throw me in the trash"  and blink his big brown eyes at me as a sort of endearing, defusing apology when he had screwed up.

2.  As a child, in second grade, when I would retreat from all the playground activity, there was a comfortable and solid trash receptacle beside the playground that I would sit on.  And I remember the kids taunting me (to the tune of the theme song of Cheyenne, a cowboy TV show popular at the time) "Diane, Diane, sittin on the garbage can."

Sad, isn't it, that we can still hear those tunes in our heads 50-something years later?

and 3.  I've always regarded the telephone as an instrument of torture -- perhaps because I'm a visual person and need visual feedback, and at least partly, I'm sure, because I'm deaf in one ear.  So all of a sudden I'm thrust into a milieu where all the decisions need to be made in phone meetings.  And I'm really really struggling.  I don't know who to throw in the trash first: me or my #$%&* phone.

It will resolve, I'm sure.   But in the meantime a lot of childhood shame issues seem to be surfacing. The gap between who I try to be and who I appear to be seems huge, and it's pretty uncomfortable.

Which I'm told is good.  Uncomfortable is good.  Stay with it.  Learn from it.  Feel the pain and let it help you grow.  As Leonard Cohen says, "There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in." 
Rumi makes it even clearer:
Don't turn your head.
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.

But still, mostly I've just been feeling frustrated with myself and exposed. And anxious.

So it was really a blessing to receive an email offering from my friend Cheryl (ccwriter14@verizon.net), who wrote this wonderful poem.  It helps, and offers a little more insight into that crack, that bandaged place, that wound, that gap::

In the Gap

by Cheryl Cease

Every moment

these days

is a poem

a whisper of words

~ or perhaps a Shout.

No matter.

their Source is

the same.

Whenever

I pause

to just be,

God

senses

an opening

and fills

my soul space,

breathing

syllables

into

Life.

The longing to be found

"Don't aspire to be a general

or a minister of state.

One is a boredom for you,

the other a disgrace.

You have been a picture 

on a bathhouse wall

long enough. 

No one recognizes you here."

-- Rumi  

A Year with Rumi (Oct. 29)