One of the great pleasures in my life is sitting here at my desk in Colorado and looking out onto our front yard. Currently it's snow covered. There are some evergreen trees and bushes, green against the white snow and light blue sky this morning, but the aspen and tall cottonwood branches are bare and brown. Our juniper shrubs protect a myriad of critters, from raccoons to cottontails and the occasional toad. Even though I don't spend much time outdoors, it's a feast for my eyes and my spirit to look out onto the scenery.
Another simple pleasure that I enjoy almost daily is a pot of decaf coffee brewed in my Krups coffeemaker. Mom prefers her little Mr. Coffee. She brews caffeinated hazelnut flavored coffee to which she adds Coffeemate and Splenda. One of these days I'll find another Chemex coffee pot, which got lost along the way with a former relationship some years ago. I gave up caffeinated coffee in the spring to prepare for the 12-day marathon of General Convention, and I find that I do sleep better drinking only decaf.
Petting Tink and listening to her purr are high on the list of simple pleasures, although she doesn't do a good job of keeping her claws pulled in. Yesterday night yielded two forearms of scratches along with some on the front of my thighs after she jumped on and off my lap. What is it about our companion animals that causes us to give them such forebearance, which we probably wouldn't give to our human companions? That is certainly something for us to ponder. What is it that our human companions "do" to us that makes us so hard-hearted towards them?
For Herb, the greatest simple pleasure is the opportunity to take a long steam shower in our newly remodeled master bathroom that was finally completed after almost a year of disruption. As Herb's anemia has become more pronounced, a by-product of his advancing kidney disease, his desire for warmth has increased. A steam shower is just about the ultimate creature comfort for someone who's cold all the time. Our biggest arguments these days arise out of control of the thermostat. Herb prefers a temperature somewhere over 80F, and I'm firmly in the 70-72F range. So, you'll find me in tank tops while Herb is in sweats.
I really enjoy just sitting a lot these days in all the different ways that one can just sit, by one's self or with others. Sitting and thinking is an activity that gets short shrift in the midst of our busy, purpose-filled lives. That's another thing to ponder - why we think it's important to be so purposeful all the time. Yet sitting and thinking is perhaps the single activity that most renews us for the next task, the next encounter with loved ones, or the next adventure. Sitting and observing our setting, whether it's our living room or a sidewalk cafe in Paris, can afford rich inputs for reflection.
People watching in particular is a delightful occupation for leisurely afternoons. I like people watching best on a sunny day when the air is crisp and the clouds are moving swiftly across the sky. There are benches staggered around the lake down the road, where I sometimes spend an afternoon, watching dog owners and their canines stroll by. The dogs swim in the lake when it's warm enough, and their people throw sticks and balls into the lake for the dogs to fetch. I have to be quick to step aside as the wet dogs come charging out of the lake to shake themselves off, attracted to unfamiliar humans in their overly friendly way.
There are lessons to be learned from our companion animals. They really know simplicity and its blessings. Something good to eat, someplace warm to sleep, someone loving to snuggle up with, and a good run in the sun and a swim in the lake, what more can a simple soul want? Their only purpose in life is to just be, and if you're lucky enough to be a dog or a cat's "people," then they're happy to just be with you.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Family Through the Ages
Today is the day after Christmas, and everyone in the house is still asleep at 8:08 AM except for Herb and me. We tend to be both the late-stayer-uppers and the early-risers in this household, currently consisting of my mom, Frances, who lives with us here, my brother, Jon, on a 3-week visit, and our daughter, Cece, and her fiancee, Jamie, who live in Springfield, Mass., where Cece is half-way through law school.
Tink, our 10-year old Devon Rex kitty, has been up long enough to yowl for treats from both Herb and me, and is now back on the heating grate in the front hallway, sleeping. Tink always reminds me of the simple pleasures, like a nap at any time someplace warm. Given the extreme cold of this Christmas season and the multiple snowfalls and snow storms, I am also reminded of the homeless and the poor, because a home cannot be taken for granted nor heat on a cold winter's night.
It started snowing again at about 7:00 AM, and it's coming down steadily. That should make for a good day of skiing and snowboarding for Cece, Jamie, and my son, Corin, and his boys, Tristan and Aidan, at the Eldora Mountain Resort, a mere 45 minutes away, assuming the sun makes an appearance to brighten the day. Back in the day when I ventured out on skinny waxed sticks, I only liked to ski on bright, sunny days. It was often icy in spots and felt depressing on the gray days even if the powder was fresh. Bright, sunny days always make me feel glad to be outdoors, high up in the mountains, breathing fresh-smelling air, the hairs in my nostrils icing up, and seeing for miles to the next mountain peaks in these beautiful, dense Colorado Rockies.
My favorite Christmas gift this year came from Herb. It's a flower decorated collapsible cane. That's right - a cane! My trick right knee has become more temperamental in recent months, and the cane, when I do use it, will give me an extra measure of confidence in rising from my computer desk. I confess to sitting too many hours without moving, the curse of being addicted to the online delights of reaching out beyond my physical locale to the larger world. Multiple online friendships are irresistible to an extreme extrovert.
The most extravagant gift came from Steel - a Flip video camera. As Steel says, he has asked me numerous times to record some video when I've been traveling, and he has now given me the tool to do it. Video is an interesting subject to me (and Herb), because we never videoed any of our daughter's growing up, unlike many other parents. In the past, we felt the video camera interfered with the actual living out of the moment.
Plus even now, I have little patience for viewing videos, whether they're YouTube videos recommended by Facebook friends or videos of family and friends and their memorable moments. Likewise, I have always favored reading - whether it's a book, a magazine or an online article - rather than listening to a podcast or books-on-tape. I suppose you could call me a dinosaur in terms of video media. I'm a visual learner, but listening to or watching electronic media feels slow to me, or maybe narrow is a more accurate assessment, in terms of capturing only the recorder's perspective.
I'm actually very grateful and delighted to receive this Flip video camera, because I now have a purpose for it. Just two days ago, Jon and I were talking with Mom about recording her reflections on our family's history. Neither Jon nor I read and write Chinese, and it would be virtually impossible for us to trace our family's genealogy after Mom dies. We know our grandparents and great-grandparents as characters in stories, but we don't know them as links in a family history that spans 25 generations on my mother's side. (Following up on Dad's side would be even harder, because his remaining American siblings don't read and write Chinese either, and we don't know the sibs in China and Hong Kong.)
Mom actually has a copy of a written genealogy, which she brought out to show us. What's interesting to note is that only the sons and their male children are reflected on the chart. We don't even know how many daughters were born into each generation. In the Chinese culture, the children belong to the father and his family. Thus, children of daughters are not part of the mothers' families, but are part of their fathers' families. So, the girls disappeared not only due to infanticide and second-class treatment when nurture and medical attention were dispensed, because of a historical cultural bias favoring male offspring, but also by just not being counted and accounted for.
What is remarkable about my mother and her family is that her grandfather was the sole Christian in the family, who were Buddhists, and he mandated that both girls and boys be taught to read and write. Without my great-grandfather's leadership and example, our history on my mother's side would surely have been lost to our branch of the family, because there would have been no one to note and record it.
I feel like I owe it to my mixed ethnicity children and grandchildren to capture some of our Chinese family's history for them, because as each generation intermarries, more and more of our ethnic heritage becomes diluted and is lost permanently. Assimilation may not happen by choice for one's self, but it does happen through the choice of whom we fall in love and have children with. Like the Borg say, resistance is futile when it comes to assimilation, which happens even when we're paying attention.
Tink, our 10-year old Devon Rex kitty, has been up long enough to yowl for treats from both Herb and me, and is now back on the heating grate in the front hallway, sleeping. Tink always reminds me of the simple pleasures, like a nap at any time someplace warm. Given the extreme cold of this Christmas season and the multiple snowfalls and snow storms, I am also reminded of the homeless and the poor, because a home cannot be taken for granted nor heat on a cold winter's night.
It started snowing again at about 7:00 AM, and it's coming down steadily. That should make for a good day of skiing and snowboarding for Cece, Jamie, and my son, Corin, and his boys, Tristan and Aidan, at the Eldora Mountain Resort, a mere 45 minutes away, assuming the sun makes an appearance to brighten the day. Back in the day when I ventured out on skinny waxed sticks, I only liked to ski on bright, sunny days. It was often icy in spots and felt depressing on the gray days even if the powder was fresh. Bright, sunny days always make me feel glad to be outdoors, high up in the mountains, breathing fresh-smelling air, the hairs in my nostrils icing up, and seeing for miles to the next mountain peaks in these beautiful, dense Colorado Rockies.
My favorite Christmas gift this year came from Herb. It's a flower decorated collapsible cane. That's right - a cane! My trick right knee has become more temperamental in recent months, and the cane, when I do use it, will give me an extra measure of confidence in rising from my computer desk. I confess to sitting too many hours without moving, the curse of being addicted to the online delights of reaching out beyond my physical locale to the larger world. Multiple online friendships are irresistible to an extreme extrovert.
The most extravagant gift came from Steel - a Flip video camera. As Steel says, he has asked me numerous times to record some video when I've been traveling, and he has now given me the tool to do it. Video is an interesting subject to me (and Herb), because we never videoed any of our daughter's growing up, unlike many other parents. In the past, we felt the video camera interfered with the actual living out of the moment.
Plus even now, I have little patience for viewing videos, whether they're YouTube videos recommended by Facebook friends or videos of family and friends and their memorable moments. Likewise, I have always favored reading - whether it's a book, a magazine or an online article - rather than listening to a podcast or books-on-tape. I suppose you could call me a dinosaur in terms of video media. I'm a visual learner, but listening to or watching electronic media feels slow to me, or maybe narrow is a more accurate assessment, in terms of capturing only the recorder's perspective.
I'm actually very grateful and delighted to receive this Flip video camera, because I now have a purpose for it. Just two days ago, Jon and I were talking with Mom about recording her reflections on our family's history. Neither Jon nor I read and write Chinese, and it would be virtually impossible for us to trace our family's genealogy after Mom dies. We know our grandparents and great-grandparents as characters in stories, but we don't know them as links in a family history that spans 25 generations on my mother's side. (Following up on Dad's side would be even harder, because his remaining American siblings don't read and write Chinese either, and we don't know the sibs in China and Hong Kong.)
Mom actually has a copy of a written genealogy, which she brought out to show us. What's interesting to note is that only the sons and their male children are reflected on the chart. We don't even know how many daughters were born into each generation. In the Chinese culture, the children belong to the father and his family. Thus, children of daughters are not part of the mothers' families, but are part of their fathers' families. So, the girls disappeared not only due to infanticide and second-class treatment when nurture and medical attention were dispensed, because of a historical cultural bias favoring male offspring, but also by just not being counted and accounted for.
What is remarkable about my mother and her family is that her grandfather was the sole Christian in the family, who were Buddhists, and he mandated that both girls and boys be taught to read and write. Without my great-grandfather's leadership and example, our history on my mother's side would surely have been lost to our branch of the family, because there would have been no one to note and record it.
I feel like I owe it to my mixed ethnicity children and grandchildren to capture some of our Chinese family's history for them, because as each generation intermarries, more and more of our ethnic heritage becomes diluted and is lost permanently. Assimilation may not happen by choice for one's self, but it does happen through the choice of whom we fall in love and have children with. Like the Borg say, resistance is futile when it comes to assimilation, which happens even when we're paying attention.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Walking Prayer
Everlasting
Father,
We
are unworthy to speak your name,
unworthy
to be your children,
always
and in all ways.
always
and in all ways.
sorrow
filled amidst our worldly woes,
always
and in all ways.
always
and in all ways.
King of creation,
grant
us your peace,
always
and in all ways.
always
and in all ways.
[Written 1-17-96 as a prayer to be recited while walking in a group.]
Friday, December 18, 2009
Point. Counterpoint.
Point
In a foreign dimension
unencumbered by
a Ministry of Tourism,
Transportation or Travail,
there is a Ministry of Love
its counterpart
a Ministry of Sorrow
in this land I call home
bureaus
separated by time
whose undulations
warp and fold
marrying time to space
love is the gentle glance
that seals our fate
Counterpoint
In the beginning
your fingers barely
touched mine
as we exchanged
business cards
and repartee
I wrote you letters
You littered your conversation
with futurity
bouquets
arriving each Monday
Point
Entwining love and sorrow
weaving mystery into romance
surety into loss
remorse into compassion
discourse into silence
gleaning redemption
from end pieces
a taste is all we're given
Counterpoint
Your bid meted out in public
all in, doubling down
a gambler's calculated risk
I always liked
the thrill of the die
rolling out of your hand
your eye sweeping the board
seeing invisible moves ahead
Point
Oracles
of unknown provenance
kidnapped from Hell
perform orations of fate
Secrets within lies
within unsettled histories
foretell the collected works
cross-dimensional collaboration
of the Ministry of Abandonment
The sands have dissipated
the bolt unraveled
the loom smashed into bits
Counterpoint
At the end of the day
I hold your hand
your skin fitting loosely
like snakeskin
shed
while its owner
lies vulnerable
enduring the
passage of time
End Point
All nights are difficult
all days hard
Missing you
before you've left
leaves me bereft
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Lessons from Disappointment
Shikata ga nai is a Japanese expression that means "nothing can be done about it," "it can't be helped," or, at its worst, "it's hopeless."
Being an optimist to the tips of my toes, in fact, being someone who sees the cup as not just half-full, but full to overflowing, I am reluctant to subscribe to such a notion as Shikata ga nai. I prefer, instead, to think of occasions that cause such feelings to arise as "Lessons from Disappointment" as compared to "Lessons in Disappointment."
Surely none of us needs more lessons in disappointment; they come unbidden and unwanted. Dreams not only haven't come true; as we grow older, we learn that some dreams will never come true. Those dreams weren't bad or unrealistic dreams. Their time has just passed. I will never be fifteen again no matter how hard I wish it. How we relate to the world is very much about how we frame our perceptions of what we see and experience. Our choice of language to express our perceptions matters.
I wasn't always an optimist. In a recent conversation with my training partner, we talked about our bouts with depression. I can enumerate mine, dating back to ages 15, 19, 23 and 27, and thankfully, stopping then, I hope, for good.
The bouts with depression at ages 19 and 23 were severe enough to make me contemplate suicide more than once. Having a child to consider, not wanting to burden my son with a mother who killed herself, was enough to hold me at the brink of despair. I have since met several people who have had mothers who suicided, and you can tell that there was a gaping hole in their growing up that left their personalities truncated. The sense of these people is quite different from other friends whose mothers died from accidents or illnesses when they were young.
My first major step to coming to health was a decision at age 26 not to retreat from Hawaii back to the mainland, from "exile" back to friends who loved and supported me, just because my husband dumped me. As I have since reflected, he never loved me anyway. He only loved the idea of me, which he wanted to capture and own, like I would somehow be an amulet against his demons. That was a problem of mine: to allow others, men in specific, to use me as a soporific for their own issues of inadequacy.
I remember thinking, "I'm an adult, I have a good job, and divorce is not a good enough reason to quit my job and run away." I was interviewed soon afterwards by the bank's CEO/Chairman of the Board as I was about to launch a new retirement savings department. His comment, which I took as a sign that I was claiming my own ground successfully, was that my divorce didn't seem to have affected my job performance. Indeed, not, since I was also going to school full-time in the evenings at the University of Hawaii, traveling by bus, bike and foot. Hard work, I contend, never hurt anyone, and it certainly fills the empty days and nights while one is regrouping from disappointment.
The second major step, which I think of as a turning point in my life, was a conscious decision at age 32 to become what I characterize as a "good person." Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a bad person before then. I just hadn't been consciously focused on making choices that represented being a good person.
The active decision to be a good person was like embracing a personal mission statement to be a good person, to be someone who intentionally turned towards the light and uplifted people, rather than someone who thought of herself first. Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World talks about "reverencing humankind," of paying attention to humans, created in God's image, and their relationship with all of Creation. It is this kind of attentiveness, focus and enfolding within myself and my life of others that my decision to become a good person was all about.
The major lessons that I have learned from disappointment are simple:
Being an optimist to the tips of my toes, in fact, being someone who sees the cup as not just half-full, but full to overflowing, I am reluctant to subscribe to such a notion as Shikata ga nai. I prefer, instead, to think of occasions that cause such feelings to arise as "Lessons from Disappointment" as compared to "Lessons in Disappointment."
Surely none of us needs more lessons in disappointment; they come unbidden and unwanted. Dreams not only haven't come true; as we grow older, we learn that some dreams will never come true. Those dreams weren't bad or unrealistic dreams. Their time has just passed. I will never be fifteen again no matter how hard I wish it. How we relate to the world is very much about how we frame our perceptions of what we see and experience. Our choice of language to express our perceptions matters.
I wasn't always an optimist. In a recent conversation with my training partner, we talked about our bouts with depression. I can enumerate mine, dating back to ages 15, 19, 23 and 27, and thankfully, stopping then, I hope, for good.
The bouts with depression at ages 19 and 23 were severe enough to make me contemplate suicide more than once. Having a child to consider, not wanting to burden my son with a mother who killed herself, was enough to hold me at the brink of despair. I have since met several people who have had mothers who suicided, and you can tell that there was a gaping hole in their growing up that left their personalities truncated. The sense of these people is quite different from other friends whose mothers died from accidents or illnesses when they were young.
My first major step to coming to health was a decision at age 26 not to retreat from Hawaii back to the mainland, from "exile" back to friends who loved and supported me, just because my husband dumped me. As I have since reflected, he never loved me anyway. He only loved the idea of me, which he wanted to capture and own, like I would somehow be an amulet against his demons. That was a problem of mine: to allow others, men in specific, to use me as a soporific for their own issues of inadequacy.
I remember thinking, "I'm an adult, I have a good job, and divorce is not a good enough reason to quit my job and run away." I was interviewed soon afterwards by the bank's CEO/Chairman of the Board as I was about to launch a new retirement savings department. His comment, which I took as a sign that I was claiming my own ground successfully, was that my divorce didn't seem to have affected my job performance. Indeed, not, since I was also going to school full-time in the evenings at the University of Hawaii, traveling by bus, bike and foot. Hard work, I contend, never hurt anyone, and it certainly fills the empty days and nights while one is regrouping from disappointment.
The second major step, which I think of as a turning point in my life, was a conscious decision at age 32 to become what I characterize as a "good person." Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a bad person before then. I just hadn't been consciously focused on making choices that represented being a good person.
The active decision to be a good person was like embracing a personal mission statement to be a good person, to be someone who intentionally turned towards the light and uplifted people, rather than someone who thought of herself first. Barbara Brown Taylor in An Altar in the World talks about "reverencing humankind," of paying attention to humans, created in God's image, and their relationship with all of Creation. It is this kind of attentiveness, focus and enfolding within myself and my life of others that my decision to become a good person was all about.
The major lessons that I have learned from disappointment are simple:
- I get to choose how to think about the disappointment, how to frame it, and to decide its relative importance in my life.
- Don't let someone else's angst about my disappointment become my angst. My feelings are valid just as they are.
- There are very few decisions that must be made right this instant, and I can take some time, maybe sleep on it, before deciding.
- Walking away from a disappointing situation, person or event is a valid choice, and I don't have to explain my choice.
- I'm not required to be consistent, logical or right. I am required to own my choices.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Cheaters and Cheating
Okay, I admit it. I am somewhat addicted to the latest news/gossip about Tiger Woods and his beleaguered marriage. I am fascinated by his cheating ways and the lengths to which he went to cover up for himself. Woods certainly has enough money and sycophants on his payroll that covering up for him was done automatically without a care for its morality or legitimacy within the context of a marriage with two young children or the bounds of what comprises an appropriate business relationship.
Really, was the pay so good that the legions of lawyers, managers and agents were able to engage in the cover-ups without feeling any sense of distaste that was strong enough to cause them to declare, "Enough," and refuse to do the deeds anymore? How did they face Woods' wife, knowing what they knew? Is this what "work" and "professionalism" are supposed to be like?
Now I have some experience with this subject of cheating. The sense of betrayal is like a first degree burn received in your burning house, from which you think you're not going to escape. Just like in a fire, you find yourself struggling for the next breath, and the sense of panic rises as the taste of bile in your throat threatens to suffocate you. You are paralyzed as to which way to go, how to get out of the burning house to safety. From where you stand, you can see no safety, no higher ground where the flames won't pursue you.
Somehow though, miraculously, you get out of the house, you get out of the marriage, you get on with your life, but you're not the same person you were before the fire consumed your home, your relationship or your sanity.
Even after the burns have scabbed over and the scabs have fallen off, years later, the pain and the sensation of being burned remain, vivid as the darkened patches of skin where the scabs once marred your body. Because of the children, you don't talk about the betrayal in your marriage. It smoulders within your psyche, and you find yourself sensitized to cheaters.
Let me be clear, I know of wives who have cheated as well as husbands. So, it's an equal opportunity transgression, not limited to a gender.
For me, things changed and my life opened up again when one St. Andrew's Day at church, amidst the congregants all dressed in red and plaids, amidst the bagpipes and the singing of Amazing Grace as we filed out of the church nave, forgiveness for my ex flooded my being. It was a gift from God, an invitation to live again in hope and in reconciliation.
I had not known how to forgive. It was beyond my ability to reach that level of generosity to my ex. Now, years after that fateful St. Andrew's Day, I am so very grateful for the forgiveness that entered my life, because reconciliation has been a wonderful building up of familial relationships that bless us all.
What once was lost was found, a willingness to be vulnerable and to trust another person, to allow another person close enough to have the power to burn me again. The difference is that this time, I know that cheating is about the cheater and not about the one who's been cheated on. This time, I can see the woundedness in the cheater, the hole in his soul that gapes and yearns for filling up.
I am so profoundly sorry for billionaire golfing genius Tiger Woods, who feels so unloved and unlovable that he has to lie to himself about his marriage in order to lie about cheating with other women. I pray that he and his wife Elin and their children Sam and Charlie find forgivness and wholeness in the days and months and years to come. It will be a tough journey since it will be traversed in the glaring spotlight of celebrity, money and excess. Pray for them, because they need our prayers.
Really, was the pay so good that the legions of lawyers, managers and agents were able to engage in the cover-ups without feeling any sense of distaste that was strong enough to cause them to declare, "Enough," and refuse to do the deeds anymore? How did they face Woods' wife, knowing what they knew? Is this what "work" and "professionalism" are supposed to be like?
Now I have some experience with this subject of cheating. The sense of betrayal is like a first degree burn received in your burning house, from which you think you're not going to escape. Just like in a fire, you find yourself struggling for the next breath, and the sense of panic rises as the taste of bile in your throat threatens to suffocate you. You are paralyzed as to which way to go, how to get out of the burning house to safety. From where you stand, you can see no safety, no higher ground where the flames won't pursue you.
Somehow though, miraculously, you get out of the house, you get out of the marriage, you get on with your life, but you're not the same person you were before the fire consumed your home, your relationship or your sanity.
Even after the burns have scabbed over and the scabs have fallen off, years later, the pain and the sensation of being burned remain, vivid as the darkened patches of skin where the scabs once marred your body. Because of the children, you don't talk about the betrayal in your marriage. It smoulders within your psyche, and you find yourself sensitized to cheaters.
Let me be clear, I know of wives who have cheated as well as husbands. So, it's an equal opportunity transgression, not limited to a gender.
For me, things changed and my life opened up again when one St. Andrew's Day at church, amidst the congregants all dressed in red and plaids, amidst the bagpipes and the singing of Amazing Grace as we filed out of the church nave, forgiveness for my ex flooded my being. It was a gift from God, an invitation to live again in hope and in reconciliation.
I had not known how to forgive. It was beyond my ability to reach that level of generosity to my ex. Now, years after that fateful St. Andrew's Day, I am so very grateful for the forgiveness that entered my life, because reconciliation has been a wonderful building up of familial relationships that bless us all.
What once was lost was found, a willingness to be vulnerable and to trust another person, to allow another person close enough to have the power to burn me again. The difference is that this time, I know that cheating is about the cheater and not about the one who's been cheated on. This time, I can see the woundedness in the cheater, the hole in his soul that gapes and yearns for filling up.
I am so profoundly sorry for billionaire golfing genius Tiger Woods, who feels so unloved and unlovable that he has to lie to himself about his marriage in order to lie about cheating with other women. I pray that he and his wife Elin and their children Sam and Charlie find forgivness and wholeness in the days and months and years to come. It will be a tough journey since it will be traversed in the glaring spotlight of celebrity, money and excess. Pray for them, because they need our prayers.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
The Duty of Lovers*
What is the duty of lovers
when faced with reports of death
loss
suicide and worse
How do you comfort the mother
whose soldier son succumbed
to a mortar blast
while on the phone with Dad
What liturgy makes sense
to one who knows no god
whose prayers lie dormant
in an undiscovered room
Lovers bereft
unable to surrender
the loved one to fate
prolong the inevitable
Dying is a process
for novices
Those with experience
want the unvarnished truth
They find no comfort
in prolonging the inevitable
Death
in the end
marks days and nights
with a period
Silence permeates
the final curtain
Your head turns
listening for
your name
spoken by
the loved one's voice
Yearning
intense as the yucca's thirst
Your need flows between
the interstices
of each day's moments
weaving a net of desire
that will remain
unrequited
*"The Duty of Lovers" is a phrase from a Leonard Cohen song.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Random Thoughts on a Cold Day
- Keeping up with email can be wearying even for extroverts. As much as I like stimulation and contact with friends and acquaintances, it's not the volume of the emails, but their noise that wears me down. A couple of the lists to which I subscribe have some loud and persistent voices that object to lots of things, often with righteousness and justice on their sides. I've got to admit that sometimes I just need a break.
- Why do they advertise movies with dogs that way? I finally viewed "Marley and Me" on cable and was surprised to discover that the movie is based on a book and about more than just a difficult dog. There was a story about a real family that you could care about. You wouldn't know that from watching the previews, which were a complete misrepresentation of the movie. The same thing happened a number of years ago with the Tom Hanks' film "Turner and Hooch," which was actually a good detective story, but was advertised as a movie about a slobbery dog.
- Where is the sun when I'm ready to go for a walk? I've been getting up at 5:00 AM everyday since arriving in Washington last Saturday. But it takes me a while, actually a long while, to gather myself and to slog through the emails, till I'm finally ready to face the outdoors and a walk, say, around 2:30 PM. By then, the sun has circled halfway 'round the front of the apartment, and it's not blazingly bright like it is at 9:30 AM. I suppose I will have to adapt my schedule to get outdoors by 9:30 AM and come back to do the emails. This is when I miss the caffeinated coffee that I gave up back in the spring of this year, in preparation for General Convention in July. Two pots of decaf do not equal a cup of regular coffee.
- A container full of chocolate macadamia nut caramels is a dangerous thing. My brother Jon says that a bag of chips, regardless of whether it's the one ounce individual snack size or the two pound party size, is a one serving bag. The same could be said about a two pound container of chocolate macadamia nut caramels. It's a one serving container, and I'm in trouble because I don't want to share either!
- Christmas specials at the liquor store. I discovered something new on a visit to the liquor store to purchase a birthday gift for a scotch-drinking friend of Herb's. There were many variations of liquor and liqueur filled chocolate candies in gift bags and boxes for sale, obviously packaged as Christmas stocking stuffers. I like it--some gift ideas for the hard-to-buy-for folks on my list.
- Condiments at the Sterling's restaurant in Kennewick. I had noticed the quart size bottle of Vietnamese chili sauce on the table of our booth, as well as three kinds of Tabasco sauce plus Worcestershire sauce, but didn't realize what was actually in the peppery looking shaker until it was too late. I shook its dark contents generously onto my clam chowder only to taste soup that was too salty to eat. The waitress very kindly brought me another cup of chowder and explained that the concoction was a steak condiment.
- Rain is the new Bruce Lee. Korean singer, dancer and actor Rain is the new Bruce Lee. We saw him in the very graphically violent film "Ninja Assassin" on Sunday night. Rain is a gorgeous twenty-something Korean man, with piercing eyes, charisma to spare, and a great body built for martial arts. I look forward to seeing him in future American films and hope that he has a long career. It was a bonus to see Randall Duk Kim as the tattoo master in "Ninja Assassin." I first saw Duk Kim at the American Conservatory Theatre performing the lead in Shakespeare's Richard III back in 1975 in San Francisco.
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