Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Planning a wedding is stressful, and my daughter talked about it yesterday.  I assured her everything would go right enough and little glitches are to be expected.  Though I never had a wedding event my self (eloping the first time and having 12 people the second time), I've been through 3 with my kids.  And let me tell you, there is stress.  Thinking about all the pieces of the puzzle to fit them together, being unsure of what decisions to make and when, imagining how things will look and feel and discovering reality is a different experience. 

Girls are hyped up about this from toddlerhood.  The princess obsession turns into the bride/princess dream, and it's disconcerting to discover how crass and discouraging the real process is.  People are pushing you to buy more, that you'll be more beautiful, the pictures more lovely, your day more perfect.  No day is perfect, not even a wedding day.  There is the tear in the dress, the broken zipper, the heels that kill your feet, the drunk bridegroom, the touchy/feely guest, and hairdo that falls apart, the spilling of the wine on the mother of the bride, the flowergirl in tears:  need I go on?

I hope my daughter can hear right speech, which shares funny goofs and reminds her she'll still be married at the end of the day, and she can laugh about it later, instead of listening to greed and bad advice and judgement.  I keep reminding her to have fun, and for a moment yesterday, when she chose lingerie in a lovely pale pink,  I could see she was imagining her groom's pleasure when he saw her.  That moment was priceless.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We watched Antique Road Show last night.  There definitely is a right and wrong speech decernable as you watch.  There are people dissembling when asked if they have any idea of the value of grandma's table, and those who feign delight when hearing the value but you can see are crushed, their hopes of a vacation in the Bahamas dissolving into thin air.  I'd guess one in ten people is genuine in their surprise or delight.  The rest have lost the lottery, on camera, no less.

Right speech is admitting you had the clock appraised but didn't believe the shopkeeper, and were still expecting to pull a rabbit out of a hat.  Right speech is admitting you hoped for more, though no one ever says such a thing.  Right speech is disappointment that you were so nice to Auntie all those years and this is how she repays you!?  Kind of like "Little Women" when Aunt March takes Amy instead of Jo to Europe.  We all have our expectations.

Maybe "wrong" speech is too strong, but if you can't be honest on camera, just thank the assessor and hold your tears.  Though it would be fun if someone got a little bit irate and huffed off.  Or admitted, when the value is large, that they are putting it immediately on ebay, instead of insisting it's a family heirloom that has sentimental value and would never be parted with.

It helps to remember this is theater, just as a soap opera or a news program or a documentary.  Everyone strutts their stuff upon the stage and then departs, to privately break uncle's worthless pottery or have a pint and drown their sorrows.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband, our daughter and I saw "Into the Woods" this afternoon and we enjoyed it.  There is something to be said about singing instead of speaking, and I am a great fan of opera and musicals.  I used to sing everything to my granddaughters when they were little, making certain their names intertwined with the lyrics.  I sang as I push the swing, as we made sand castles, as we walked along looking for kitties and flowers and garbage trucks and other exciting things.  I sang of their beauty and how smart they were and how they were getting bigger and stronger every day.

We can say words in song that sound silly in prose.  We can gain attention and have an eager listener where otherwise no one would hear.  I sing to the dogs, and seranade them on dogwalks.  Sometimes I lower my voice if I see someone coming and sometimes I do not.  I think it's what my teacher Anam Thubten was speaking about in his dharma talk yesterday:  singing and dancing is a better conduit to our true hearts and minds.  The inexpressible slips easily out of the throat that sings.  When we sing we feel the vibration of our heart-mind and our body is speaking with us. 

I wonder if I'd ever have the nerve to sing responses to others for one whole day?  Of course people would look at me like I'm barmy, but so what?  The unexpected is so delightfully awakening.  Like a flash mob at a mall:  all of a sudden you hear Handel burst out the throats of people all around you  while you're waiting for your burrito.  What could be more sublime?

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Anam Thubten's dharma talk today had a lot of silence in it.  He told us he's been doing a lot of dancing in the retreats for which he's been the teacher.  What happens in speech is we get caught up in concepts and beliefs that are delusions our ego concocts.  To be free of them requires the space and quiet time to examine our thought process and see all the business we do to keep ourselves feeling important and "known".  I've been trying to practice, when I speak, saying "I feel" instead of "I think" or "I believe", because I get into less trouble that way.  At least "I feel" carries more of a sense of what I am feeling in this moment, whereas the other statements imply a solidity that is false.  After all, I often think one thing one moment, the opposite the next and round and round.  Whatever has the mark of solidity is false and delusional.  Many thoughts float through my mind in a day, an hour, a minute.

Today I was adamant when I was speaking to my husband about a relative.  Then I went in another room and noticed my thinking was the opposite of what I'd just stated.  Both or neither statement could be true, but, in fact, I was speculating about someone else's mindstream, so I really have no idea about what was going on with that relative.  I don't know.  I know I have strong opinions, but I forget that these opinions change often and contradict each other frequently, and don't have any real power to describe my thought process or what I am witnessing.  Words are inadequate.  What does this mean to me?  I better be super careful about what comes out of my mouth.  Because although I know that it's not writ in blood, other people take my words seriously, whereas they represent only that fleeting moment and not a definitive statement of where I stand.  Now there are exceptions:  the ten commandment kinds of moral codes.  But those dramatic decisions are few and far between.  Normally, we are just shooting the breeze, a good metaphor for the illusiveness of opinions and statements.  I FEEL that my concepts and beliefs are a false version of me, the complex contradictory me.  So I'd better shut up more or explain myself better.  Ah, a new year's resolution presents itself.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It's a bright sunny crisp clear day.  I walked the dogs then headed out for errands, and just returned home.  So I've not had much conversation today, unless you count telling the dogs to behave on the walk and our female dog to stop scratching her ear ( ear infections).  They don't often answer me back, but do a good job of expressing themselves anyway.  The female has perfected the art of the hairy eyeball, which she uses before dinner and when she wants me to make room for her on the sofa.  The male dog barks when he has been cornered by the female and needs to be rescued.

I will count a delightful video of my granddaughter, her sister and family with the dog in a ridiculous hat, and lots of tearing open packages and pointing out lights and running around.  Exuberance is contagious, and silently I got the picture quite well. 

I also received a text photo from my younger daughter who is in the east, and she looks glamorous and happy in her new coat we bought her for her birthday.  A glowing bride-to-be!

So all seems right with the world, my little world, and I picked up ready to bake pizza at Whole Foods, plus mandarin oranges, so dinner is going to be delicious, and without any effort on my part!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been mulling about the term "intervention" because I wonder about my brother, and if there is something more I might have done.  I had done interventions with him when he was drinking, and the last one led to his sobriety.  I also spoke to him right after the reading of our father's will, and that consisted of my explaining that all his blusteriness was a result of feeling guilty about not helping more with our father's illness and not being willing to help settle the estate.  He didn't speak to me for two years, but when he did begin interacting again he was warmer and no B.S.

Should I have told him what his notes seemed like when I read them?  They seemed like delusions, or an extraordinary embellishment of whatever his reality might have been.  I never said, bluntly, perhaps seeing a therapist would be helpful.  He was so afraid of being labeled or caught up in the medical system.  He was paranoid.  Honestly, he'd been hurt so much I didn't wish to hurt him further.  His self esteem was so damaged, and I thought it harmless to let him tell his stories of success and travels to me, the judgmental older sister,  the proverbial wet blanket.

I certainly know I could not have gotten him help without his cooperation, and he'd had our dad looking over his shoulder his whole life, and I honored his desire to cease having to please his family.  I hoped he was happy, and I don't know that he wasn't, but it was not enough.  I know I offered nothing he really needed, and I didn't know what he did need.  Could he have been helped?  I'll never have the answer to that.  Was I a person who could have helped?  No.  I was associated too closely with our parents, our childhood, his drinking twenty years.  I was not the answer.

But right now I regret not telling him one time that his tales sounded like fantasies to me, and I wished he would tell me something real about how he was feeling.  He didn't talk about feelings, not ever, and like our father, he thought them better left in the dark, like a shameful secret.  I cannot quite imagine how an intervention might have worked, or what it would have looked like, but it's elusiveness haunts me.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Ah, the best right speech ever:  Happy Hannakah, Christmas, Kwanza, Eid, Winter Solstice et al, and a wonderful new year!

I'm so happy my family is in good heath, all four kids have loving partners, our grandkids are merry and bright, the dogs and cats in the family doing well, people are scattered in great places like Long Island, Michigan, Sun Valley, and Canon Beach.  I've touched base by phone with all of them, and made a yummy breakfast.  My husband and I are going to the movies this afternoon and then to friends for the Christmas feast. 

We really wish each other a Merry Christmas and mean the words.  Maybe the eggnog helps.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our big plan for the daytime today is going over to entertain our daughter's kitties.  I have brought bribes, as they deign to accept food, water and litter cleanup, but not to socialize with us.  I will be armed with catnip and new toys.  Our daughter and her fiance are at his family's place back east, so they are counting on us to make up for their guilt at being away.  We'll do our best.  However, I cannot be responsible for the silly Christmas collar they put on one of their cats and then took a picture to humiliate her further.  For that they will need some form of divine intervention.

And this afternoon we go to our son's and daughter-in-law's for Christmas Eve dinner.  It's a big treat for me not to have to cook, plus they are both better cooks by far than I am.  And I hope we'll sing carols, my idea of right speech for Christmas, and I'll be bringing a trifle, and the joy of family is abundant for me.  There have been two baby boys born recently, one in October and one a week ago, and celebrating births is a symbol of renewal and the persistence of life.  My brother leaves the stage, but two little fellows enter.  It's beautiful.

Yesterday my friend and I had a day to celebrate our younger deceased brothers.  We each had a photo out, and talked about them and their importance to us.  We are now both lone survivors of our nuclear families.  We both felt adored by our brothers, and how fortunate that was for us.  We didn't have what they needed, but we were solidly planted where they could always find us.  They both suffered, but we were not the cause.  The missing will go on and on.  But we smiled and laughed at various interactions we'd had with them as children and men.  And as my friend said, they were our companions through the deaths of our parents.  We had their loving company.  We're both thankful for their presence in our lives.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Ah, the right speech of holiday cards.  First, the selection:  you want sentiments that sound like you, that are all inclusive to Christmas, Eid, Hannakah, Kwanza, and Winter Solstice.  Secondly, you must remember which UNICEF cards you sent the last few years, so you don't buy identical ones:  it sends a message of leftoverness.  Thirdly, you want news, but not too detailed and without invading the privacy of your grown kids.  Fourthly, bragging is not allowed.  Pictures of you with celebrities (not that I have any of those), achievements of grandkids as if directly attributable to you, floorplans of your new house, jewelry bought in the past year, awards, even ribbons, are in BAD taste.  Say something real, and specific to the person.  Remember, nobody cares who is coming for Christmas, not really.

Best wishes is fine for most friends, love is reserved for those that warm the cockles of your heart, and much love, while limited, is the highest expression.  Forging your husband's name is forgiven, and using address labels with just your name on them because you ran out of the joint ones.  Something funny is always nice, at least in my rule book.  Long, event filled picture included mass letters are not my cup of tea, but yet, I admit I enjoy them.  As for doing one myself, I cannot visualize that happening.  And I am clairvoyant.

Pictures, ah, pictures.  I LOVE to see the grandkids, the son-in-law, the extended family none of whom I know.  I save the pictures.  They go right into albums in January.  Thus, my big contribution is not verbal:  as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.  Now, one of my kids has expressed ire at sending photos without legal release, so I try to be careful.  I send her card without photo enclosures, just to be safe.  Often, my friends and family receive photos of our two dogs, but as they are dark and look the same year after year, I vary things.  This year I sent the grandkids photos and one that included me, where I didn't look too decrepit and grinned ear to ear.  The subtext was:  Hah!  Still alive and having a good time!

So, though card giving is a minefield, it can be negotiated.  And in the end, right speech is a wish at the holidays, and a reminder you are thinking of them.

Wandering Along the Path: RIght Speech

It's a jungle out there.  Searching for egg nog a gal could get injured.  But the road rage doesn't seem to translate to the stores.  The checker at Trader Joe's was extra nice, and complimented me on my bagging.  I know he was not sincere, since the bags were clunking and some heavy as a cement mixer and others light, but what he meant was:  I gave him a little break from bagging.  Another employee explained that they'd run out of egg nog, and always did by now.  My right speech was refraining from asking sarcastically why they didn't order more, instead of let us fruitlessly search the store for a Christmastime staple.  At least I found the rum. 

At the next grocery, where they had egg nog, the owner helped me find the cheapest limoncello, which I need for the trifle.  He apologized that I had to buy a whole big bottle for a few dashes in the trifle.  I said I hoped it tasted good, as we'd have a whole lot left over.  People were mellow, and they helped me find everything I needed that Trader Joe did not possess. 

Next I ran into my good friend, with whom we will be for Christmas day.  She thanked me for my thankyou card that referred to a gigantic box of cookies brought for my party.  They didn't actually bring them, so the cookies are a mystery gift.  Oh, well, someday perhaps I'll be able to thank the right person.  Anyway, we had a nice chat, and the sun is out, and all's right with the world as long as you don't get in a car.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night we had old friends over for dinner.  I'm learning to speak about my brother's death in a way that seems honest yet respectful, sad but not morbid or compulsive.  We began with catching up, then the woman and I talked about our childhood and mutual friends, and their recent move, and then I briefly brought up my brother and what was happening about gaining administratorship.  I had to do this as they are witnesses for the hearing.  But I didn't speak about it more than necessary.  They feel awkward because they were close to my parents, but not my brother.  They knew him only as a child, really.

So the evening was pleasant and I did not become upset.  I have some distance now from the events, and after spending the night before in the emergency room, a sense that I need to take care of myself and keep the stuff around my brother carefully tucked in a corner of the room in my mind.  Don't know is my mantra.  I'm never going to know what happened to him, what he was thinking, whether he was mentally ill or just fatigued with illness, if he had meaningful connections to others or not.  He kept the door shut to his life, and there is no key to open it.

I was happy and grateful to keep my guests at the forefront of consciousness.  I don't want to feel I'm "using" them in any way.  They are good people, with kind feelings and joy in the everyday of life.  I appreciate that quality more and more as I age.  My friend has had five surgeries in the last three years yet has no complaints.  She's attempting to overcome a dependence on painkillers, and is brave and open about it.  Her husband is her staunch supporter.  They love their daughter and respect her privacy and independence.  They are what are called decent people.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I spent last night in the emergency room checking out a throbbing in my neck.  I called the on call doctor first, and he suggested I go in.  It was the usual bizarre dreamlike atmosphere.  There was screaming, there was partying, there were police.  I was there seven hours, but the news was good.  Again, since I'm noticing these things these days:  nobody promised me a rose garden and the nurses, doctors and techs were minding their speech.  They've been well trained, and are sensitive.  So the doctor wasn't promising 100% probability, not that I'd have believed him if he had, and the nurses were not sure when the lab work would be back and then they did it all over again to be sure.  I did not have a heart problem.  What I did have was left honestly unexplained.  One of those mysteries that keep cropping up.

Throughout it all the monitor was beeping as if I was about to go into cardiac arrest, a nurse would come in and fiddle with it, it would be silent for a couple of minutes, they would leave and it would beep again.  I felt like I was on a submarine during World War II.  I finally suggested they hit it once, and the nurse agreed she'd like to.  I was released, awash with relief, and we came back, had breakfast and tried to sleep.  More trying to sleep will ensue, but I just walked the dogs, since they had no idea we'd been gone all night and do better if their routine remains the same.

I'm stressed.  And again I will attempt to take care of myself.  I consider going to the emergency room taking care of myself.  I spoke up, woke my husband, we looked in books and online, I had the nerve to wake up the on call doctor, I said look at me.  I come from a stoic family, so it took a whole lot of nerve, and not to feel silly when it was nothing serious.  I was delighted it was nothing serious.  I felt I'd been given a reprieve.  More life to live.  And treasure.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I took myself to the movies yesterday, to see "Wild".  I'd loved the book, and the film is a faithful adaptation.  Cheryl Strayed is an extremely honest and transparent writer, and a beautiful one.  Her saga of a journey to redemption is poignant and easy to empathized with.  I was struck by how like a Buddhist retreat it was.   The profound silence, the quick read of other people encountered without benefit of background or facts.  The horror of facing oneself and one's fears.  The trust that gradually develops that inside us we have that best self and can learn to access it.

Strayed's grief at the death of her mother was beyond words or fixing.  She had to face it.  I've been experiencing similar grief at the death of my brother, so I was really identified with her struggle.  But my big deaths happened at 29, when my best friend killed herself, and my parents sudden deaths when I was forty, and three deaths, all suicides, in the last couple of years.  I was older, and I had more skills so that I didn't choose self destructive paths.  I can see how someone as young as she was would become unmoored.  But she did have her ex-husband and a good friend who helped her remember who she was, and she found the strength of her mother to see her through.

But she needed to silence her speech, garner all her strength, rail at the world, and hurt physically in order to cleanse her psychic pain.  Sometimes right speech is silence.  The other night, at my writing group, when asked what was up with me, I said I didn't want to talk about it.  My group respected that.  What is there to say?  There is only feeling, and trusting our survival in the face of overwhelming grief.  Some don't survive.  But most of us, we turn towards the pain, experience it, let it wash through us, and appreciate being alive.  We're awake in the dark wide river of life.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

As my granddaughter is getting older, she's now nine, I tell her more, though gently, reassuringly.  I have not told her of my brother's death.  But yesterday, when we were discussing bunnies yet again, and visiting lops and dutch bunnies at the pet store, I told her of the bunny we'd brought from California to Colorado, and how it had been attacked and killed by something wild in it's hutch outside.  Before I'd only described the two bunnies we had later, neither of which we'd bought.  One my brother had given one to our older daughter, and our neighbor found the other in a farm field and gave it to us.  When we moved back to California, we found a home for both.  But I wanted her to know how careful she'll have to be and that her uncle needs to build a really strong hutch for the bunny.

As we were eating at a cafe, a strange incident happened where a man came in and said a boy outside had cut his head and the mother needed a person to drive her home.  This really worried my granddaughter, until she finally saw outside the window the boy with a towel around his head, but laughing.  I explained that we couldn't really give a ride to someone we didn't know, and that if it was an emergency, the thing to do was call the police.  My first impulse was to help, but then I thought:  I'm 69 and have a child in my care.  No way.  Let someone younger do it.  So I tried to balance concern and sympathy with common sense.  I told her stories of my trips to the emergency room with my various kids.  She relaxed.

Finally, yesterday was her chorus night at school, but it was pouring and I cannot drive at night because of macular degeneration, so I said:  "I listened to your chorus today recording your concert.  You all sounded great and your solo just gets better and better.  I'm not coming tonight because my husband would have to drive there and pick me up and the weather is awful.  I wish I could come, but at least I saw your piano recital and musical performance this week."  She was fine about it, and said she thought she'd sung the best ever that day.  She's entered the age of reason, and it's so much easier to explain my actions to her.

Age appropriateness is tricky and individualistic.  Before I speak, I try to gauge my words' effect on others to the best of my ability.  It's a skill in process, and probably without end.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm pretty shy socially in groups where I don't know people.  Last night was one of those events.  People were friendly, but the talk was about a new grocery store and kid's college choices and themes that reflected their ages:  about the age of my older kids.  So we were several generations removed.  I did my best, and in between, I toured solo the rooms chock a block with Christmas decorations, two huge trees, and sparkles everywhere.  There were enough dodads for a Christmas store.  All were beautiful and tasteful, but I kept thinking about the school in Pakistan.  Children dead.  Finally, my hostess came in and we talked a few minutes about that news.  I had burst into tears earlier when I saw it on my homepage.  So we had some genuine speech.

Then I found myself staring for a long time at the table of cupcakes, cookies, fruitcake, stollen, and all the stuff I cannot eat.  I appreciated how beautiful it all looked.  And I later realized not one thing was eaten until the end of the gathering, and then I saw a lady take one chocolate star shaped cookie.  All this food, that children would have been thrilled with, but us adults were avoiding for reasons of diet, sugar restriction, whatever. 

Holidays are hard.  We get into social conversation mode, and plaster smiles on our faces, but of course heartache takes no break, so underneath are the ironies, the memories, the truth of the darkness in the world.  Several of the women had just been through breast cancer treatment, as had my older daughter.  I came home and wrote in my gratitude journal, and then I thought and prayed about the children trying to get an education gunned down by evil.  It's a dark time of the year, when we put up lights and glitter to fight the winter cold and lack of light.  What is so amazing is how the two states of mind hold hands, the light and the dark.  We are survivors, and this is how we do it.

Waandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I was down.  I had that kind of silence in me that is not healthy.  I felt too depressed to speak much.  I attended both groups, but with a heavy heart.  I didn't want to speak about my brother, but I didn't feel engaged enough to speak of other things.  Perhaps I should have absented myself.  When asked in the second group to share any news, I declined. 

Everything feels like a slog right now.  I haven't planned a ceremony for my brother's ashes, I haven't resolved any legal stuff, I'm waiting for the death certificates and the hearing and yet I dread them.  I try to imagine beginning all the tasks after the hearing, and I feel exhausted.  I'm sad.

Still, I am getting out.  My husband and I are going to a movie today.  I'm attending a women's night at a friend's tonight.  I just don't feel like I'll be in the same mood as anyone else this evening, and I won't know them. 

I'm trapped.  What's on my mind is depressing, and it depresses me further to speak of it.  So I am silencing myself.  Wrong speech, but what is right speech in this case?  Time will heal, this I know.  But the holidays are rough, and in a few days a childhood friend and her husband are visiting, and they are witnesses for the hearing, and I will have to discuss everything with them, and that will be painful.  Ugh.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I went to see my granddaughter in a musical "Aristocrats".  It was a pretty adorable show, that is if you are a parent or friend.  While we were waiting for the show to begin, I couldn't figure out how to get my phone to silent, and the woman next to me not only showed me how to do that, but a bunch of other things as well.  I now know how to move photos from the texting section to the photos saved, and how to put my phone on vibrate!  I know, I'm an idiot.  I got the gift of a mini tutorial, and her kindness really made the event seem like a holiday special. 

I talked a bit with my granddaughter's grandfather, just out from New York, and said to him, "Next stop, Broadway".  He responded, "It's already off Broadway".  "Yeah, way, way off," I chortled.
A good time was had by all.

I sat there thinking it was not that long ago I was a young parent in the audience for my kids, and also I wish I lived closer to my other granddaughter, because I'm missing all her achievements, and I'd so love to be there.  But just for a moment, I imagined myself in the audience for her piano recital and school festivities.  I am with her in spirit, and love travels far.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had our holiday party last night, and we felt it went very well.  It was filled with right speech moments:  wishes for a lovely holiday, inquiries about grandchildren, compliments on the food and decorations, small talk about hip problems, and general "catching up".  I like to bring people together, and I enjoy watching other people have vibrant conversations as much as participating in my own.  I have to be light on my thinking feet, keeping and eye out for bringing out more salad and main dishes, making sure there are serving spoons, opening bottles of wine, and the surprise requests:  cold medicine, toys for a little fellow to play with, a four year old's quiet request of a flower from the Buche de Noel, and accepting offers of help. 

For me the party is the highlight each year.  I love that my son and I now share all responsibilities.  It's fun to have a buddy.  I enjoy that half the guests are now his, and I have a little window into his life and world.  I really love that he, and my other kids, want their friends to meet and socialize with us.  It's flattering. 

Now, on to see my granddaughter in her role in a musical.  Judy Garland II, with red hair and a lot of moxie.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I just looked at my email and there was a picture of a friend's grandson, newly born.  He was due on Christmas but arrived early.  Sharing such joy is the fundamental path of right speech.  We all thrill at the birth of new life, at the cycle of life and at the amazing coming and going on our planet.  At the point I found out about my brother's death, relatives welcomed a new baby.  It's comforting to know we are replacable.  We need all the stages and ages, but not particular people.  And the more we live, we also live in our families' memories.

I hope to express right speech tonight a our holiday party.  In other words, I want to convey welcome and joy in seeing friends, and encourage them to engage with each other.  Talking to them myself is less important than making sure they have others to speak with.  That requires suggesting interests they may share, connections they may have without knowing it, and making sure everyone feels comfortable.  I hope, also, to talk to our son's friends, and intertwine them with my friends for a little intergenerational comingling.

It sounds like work, but it isn't really, especially as the more we practice the easier it becomes.  I can't mind others' mindstreams, but I can consciously mind the party dynamic, or try to.  Then we can all have fun.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been considering my prayers at night, wondering about where they stand on the right speech spectrum.  I usually begin with all other sentient beings, though lately I've been first praying for my brother.  Then I move on to family, then the dogs, and finally myself.  That way if I fall asleep before the end, I've only left out my wishes.  I've noticed that over the years I pray less for myself, and more for others.  That seems like a good thing.  And health and well being come first, because without our health it's difficult to appreciate the other gifts of life.

I'm clearly making up my own rules and following my own instinctive guidelines, but it's comforting to reach out to the rest of the world at night and hope for everyone's peaceful, untroubled sleep. 

Before I pray, I write in my gratitude journal, which subtly adjusts my impression of my day.  I find the moments that are in danger of being obscured if I didn't have the journal to focus me.  Making lemon jest is a joyous moment, easily forgotten, and happily remembered in my contemplation.  The heavenly smell!  The sharp, lucid flavor in the soup or salad!  I could write an ode to a lemon, and it would be a love poem. 

Right speech is right focus.  Speak of the simple treasures of daily living.  Acknowledge the billions of people around the world getting ready for sleep or waking up in the morning.  Note that we are all equally precious, and take the time to breathe in all our of breaths, breathing in and out together.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It's a dark and stormy day.  A day for staying in and reading, if the lights stay on.  I'm hoping for no fallen trees and dire consequences.  In the meantime, Berkeley is in it's own state of unrest.  Demonstrations every night, and every night thugs disrupting the message and the plea for justice and fairness.  Under cover of well meaning people concerned for young black men's risks by simply being of that race, people intent on destruction and thievery grab and smash.

It's discouraging for those of us who would like to join a quiet, peaceful expression of concern and need for changes.  There is not enough solid organization or volunteers to monitor these aberrant acts.   These few thugs are silencing others.  I hope this deluge of rain washes the unclean from the clean thought and act.  Because children are dying, and everyone's being hurt by careless policies, monitoring and lack of options for youth.  The fear needs to be put out and constructive acts persistently pursued.  I'm praying for clarity and action that produces positive change.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

What a surprise!  The CIA used torture after 9/11.  I agree Dianne Feinstein is brave to have insisted this report be made fully public and I can imagine the pressure put on her from all sides.  But most Americans have known in their bones this was the case for many years.  There have been movies made about it, for heaven's sake.  Sometimes right speech comes way after the knowledge is generally known and understood.  Senator Feinstein is still a representative of right speech, because a wrong known but not acknowledged is still festering in a way that harms many.

Now perhaps policies will change, at least officially, and god willing, the CIA cleaned up.  Yes, the climate was fearful after 9/11.  Yes, we wanted to be safe it seemed, at all costs.  But the committee has discovered that the "all costs" were not necessary.  We didn't gain our valuable information from torture.  It was useless while being morally indefensible.  For those who had no boundaries, their one justification is gone.

The CIA has always been a netherworld.  It's been out of control and unaccountable.  Intelligence gathering could be done with international cooperation, and often is.  Countries make alliances to protect their citizens.  But the CIA goes rogue when it hides the truth from itself and our government.  How much harm has and will come from this period of torture?  We have yet to see the final cost.

Senator Feinstein has exercized right speech.  Let's see if a secret revealed can heal some of the wounding.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I just received an email from my cousin who has been so supportive around my brother's death.  His dad, my uncle, had a stroke and his left side is paralyzed.  I'm praying for him and the whole family, and this is another of those cases where words seem hopeless.  Yet, the words my cousin used to inform me immediately of my uncle's state were invaluable, and give me the opportunity to respond and have words he can show and read to the family.

That immediate impulse to reach out is the trait in my mother's family that I treasure so much.  There is a confidence in it:  he knows we care and will do anything to help.  He knows he's loved and that his family is at his back.  My mother's family, with her 12 siblings, was a resource to her throughout her life.  Her older sister nurtured her, and she in turn took care of my uncle.  The three of them ventured out as teenagers to work in town in a factory and live in a tiny hotel room.  When my mother had cancer that sister flew out to be with us.  When's my aunt's daughter married, my father walked with her down the isle.  I was a flower girl.  We are intertwined.  We breathe for each other.  a blow to one is a blow to all. 

Right speech is asking for help, sharing the sadness as well as the joy, and knowing this enterprise called life is a joint effort.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We picked up our Christmas tree yesterday, at a lot that is family owned.  They come down from Oregon and with a bunch of teenage kids.  These kids are well trained and sturdy, so that skinny or not, they can heft the trees with ease.  But I noted this time that they all are unfailingly polite and wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and offer help several times.  Yes, they are well trained by their parents and this is a business.  It works.  Customers get that few seconds warm glow and depart having positive feelings towards the lot and the family.  Is it fake?  I don't really think so.  They feel better when they receive the smile and reciprocal best wishes.  It makes them feel that what they are doing is in the spirit of Christmas, of gifting, of joy.

"Acting as if", the old AA standby, is a great skill to practice.  If you practice being friendly, before you know it, you feel like a friendly sort.  Politeness breeds politeness and the world seems a kindlier, friendlier place.  Manners get a bad rap.  They actually change our brains and hearts.  Most of the time, we can transform our little immediate environment if we make the effort.  I've seen it happen when I've accompanied friends to cancer chemo.  It's still cancer, there is still the fear and the pain, but manners warm up the atmosphere and connect us together in this enterprise of wishing the patient healthy, and of the patient feeling supported.  Engage.  Even a little engagement changes the world. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

For some reason last night I was remembering the early seventies, when I volunteered at the Women's Herstory Project run by Laura X in Berkeley.  I was in charge of the poetry section.  We were gathering all material about and by women throughout history.  So there were poems with marginalia from Andrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood, and many women sent in their unpublished manuscripts for our library.  I was excited.  Our story, up until then mostly silenced, was about to speak.

We felt like revolutionaries.  Our power was in our righteousness.  We supported each other and told others the precious names of writers that could and should be read.  I remember a paperback pamplet from the Boston's Women's Collective that listed women authors and titles.  I read through it systematically, from Black women slave narratives to Canadian, Australian and New Zealand writers of whom I'd never heard.  I read only women.  I was catching up.

Later, in graduate school, I pleaded successfully with a professor to include Gertrude Stein in the syllabus of 20th century American writers.  His was the class where I was introduced to Jane Bowles, a favorite of mine to this day.  I discovered Muriel Spark on my own. 

Right speech is speaking up for half the human race.  For our voices.  It was exhilarating and liberating in those days.  And today our daughters and granddaughters have a cornucopia of female voices to listen to and learn from. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I do the texting thing.  It is often helpful and easy, but the one word answer and briefness of the enterprise are often unsatisfying to me.  Say I send a package, for example.  I get a text back saying they got it.  But I never know if they liked it.  Say I text back "how did you like it?" or "Did it fit?"
One word response again.  Not gratifying.

I not only have to figure out what to send, I have to figure out how they might really feel about it and whether they actually liked it.  Mind reading, the inaccurate version!  Gift giving was loaded before, but at least you got information of some sort in a thank you note, and if you never received a note, you could decide not to send anything again.

Now, there is a hollowness to gift giving.  I enjoy giving to my cronies, because we all come from the thank you note generation.  I can read between the lines and know if the gift was a hit or a miss.  I am acknowledged:  my effort, the thought that went into my selection, the timeliness, etc.  It's fun giving gifts to each other.

But gift giving has lost its reciprocity and engagement for younger people.  It's something owed them, and barely acknowledged as their due.  I'm sure they have their own rituals and ways of enjoying gifting, but I can't quite figure out what they are.  I am, after all, a geezer.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We saw a play about Molly Ivins last night, and it touched me and caused me to see right speech as heroic, in her case.  She lived in Texas most of her life and wrote about hypocrisy and incompetence and fraud with panache and humor.  She made us laugh about our foibles, but she had points of view she wanted to convey, and voting and politicians mattered to her.  She was a liberal in a state that has few, and she spoke her piece in her own way no matter what the cost.  She was authentic:  authentically Texan, bigger than life, authentically outrageous, authentically passionate about this country.

I wish Democrats would take a swig of her juice and man up and say what they believe instead of what will get them elected.  They don't appear to have the core of beliefs she had. 

Her battle with breast cancer was as brave as the rest of her life, and she became a spokesperson for telling it like is is about diagnosis, treatment and facing death.

Speech matters so much.  When I think of all the people she influenced, the minds she probably changed, the perspective she offered, I see true power.  The power of the voice in the wilderness.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I want to be careful talking to my granddaughter about her hopes and dreams, especially as I know more than she does about her parents' limits and reservations.  Right now she wants a bunny for Christmas.  We have looked at the bunnies at the pet store multiple times.  She has persuaded her mother to accompany her there.  She had high hopes, and yesterday she told me her mom said maybe in June, for her birthday.  In the meantime, having experienced having two bunnies when my kids were small, I've been honest privately with her mom about the negative aspects of bunnydom.  I'm caught in between, as I want to be on my granddaughter's side, yet be fair with her mother as well. 

So while we were eating, I discussed the problems with a bunny:  they need to be in a strong hatch outside, as they poop a lot, they chew on furniture, that kind of thing.  None of these facts discourage the granddaughter one little bit.  But I've made my attempt to inject reality into the conversation.

The truth is my husband and I took care of the terribly neglected bunnies, felt awful about it, but were unable to guilt trip our kids into responsibility.  So this extra work is likely to fall on the parents.  I didn't even tell about the mystery animal who killed our first bunny.  The second was given to our daughter by my brother, and the third was wandering around the back yard about to get eaten when we saved it.  We never would have had another bunny after the first one died.

So, in other words, I'm torn.  I'm trying to be honest, and be a listener for my granddaughter, and she adorably thinks I'm on her side.  I am, in a general way, but I also know sometimes disappointments turn out to be blessings, and pet care is a fantasy that usually turns into reality not so happy.  Probably, she will get the bunny, as she is so loved, and like my kids, probably the novelty will wear off quickly, and the parents might as well join the 4H club.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Sometime this week the guardian ad liedem attorney for my brother will be phoning me to ask some questions about my brother.  It is his job to search for other heirs my brother might have to be sure I am next of kin.  This seems proper and right.  I know very little about his life the last few years.  I have only guesses.  This task is laying heavily on my heart.  I don't want to diminish my brother in any way, and must tell the truth.  But what is the truth?  Now there's the rub.  Buddhism has taught me not to be possessive of anything, not even the truth.  It's easier for me to think about not lying.  But the truth?  I've wondered about that since I was a teenager.

Every part of his life I may be asked to discuss is so painful, so pitiful, and gives no essence of who he was to be around.  He was funny and enthusiastic, easy to be with and good with people.  Yet he was a kind of hermit.  The facts of his life give every indication of a man not liking people.  I believe a truer observation is that he feared something about other people, maybe getting hurt, maybe their judgment about his life. 

I feel like I will be asked to speak for him, and anything I say will really be about myself and my emotions around him.  I'll do the best I can, but I'm afraid it's going to be deeply upsetting to me.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

There was an interesting talk about free speech on NPR this morning.  Evidently, the Supreme Court is hearing a case about what speech constitutes a threat and what does not on line.  And a caller pointed out that the men phoning in were more interested in protecting the right to make a threat, and the women were adamant that when someone says he's going to kill you, you take it seriously, as domestic violence is a familiar part of women's lives.

One woman said threatening, and verbal abuse, is often as harmful if said to manipulate, as it is if the purpose is to state an immanent threat.  Boy, I know this phenomenon inside out, having worked in shelters and many decades ago having been a battered wife myself.  What haunted me was his threat to hurt my whole family and to take the kids and disappear.  My behavior changed dramatically as a result.  And I did feel terror all the time.  After I left him, I wrote a will and hid out for a year.  At 27.  That's how seriously I took it.  Threatening to kill anyone is harmful, devastating speech, and there should be consequences for the person who feels he/she is "just teasing", "angry but would never follow through" and all the other excuses that people use when they are being irresponsible and careless.

Speech is powerful.  All of our rights are predicated on not harming others.  There is a balance that needs to be maintained not just for civility but for order and not chaos to rule.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We were up at our cabin last weekend, enjoying giant snowflakes and warm fires.  As usual, we went to the little store and chatted with the woman who runs the coffee stand.  My husband was explaining to our son's friend about how we'd known her since she was a young teen.  And I realized that these little "catching up" chats were precious to me.  We've known her as a teenager, a young married woman, a mother of three and now with her own teenagers, who work the stand after school and on weekends.  We check with her first about the weather, and analyze the A's baseball season and ask how the dog is doing (a lab like our two).  She's made an interesting life for herself, without leaving her tiny hamlet.  Her kids are good kids.  Her husband is kind and helpful.  She's a pleasure to be around.  And although we may not talk about world news or politics or music, we genuinely like each other and are happy to see each other doing just fine.

Talking to her has been a possible overlooked opportunity not missed, because we engaged where we might have been business like.  And these encounters are like hidden gems, glowing and warming our hearts.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Around the Missouri killing and subsequent events there has been little right speech evident.  It appears that everyone quickly, perhaps too quickly, takes a side, then pontificates.  In the silent center of all this chaos and rhetoric and violence is a young man, still a child, now dead.  He stands for a lot of African American teenagers, lost, trapped in cultural archetypes, symbolizing these youth with little or no future, no options, facing a terrifying future.  It breaks my heart.

I don't "follow" the news about this tragedy because I would hear people using his death.  I would hear righteousness and blame and all the speech that sets people against each other.  And I would hear the media, fanning the flames, keeping the anger alive by besieging the people of Fergeson, using hyperbole and exaggeration and breathless voices to keep all the wounds as alive as possible.

I am so sorry for his parents and family and friends.  I wish this incident could activate programs and plans that would help these lost boys.  I wish police had to face true accountability.  I wish all these people could be constructive instead of destructive, courageous instead of afraid, humane instead of combative.  I won't say, maybe something good will come of out of this, because we've seen this play out again and again without any creative ideas to help these kids and be responsible for giving them a future.  But I wish.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm really thankful for the writing group I belong to, as they practice such beautiful right speech.  They highlight positive qualities of a person's writing, encourage the writer, and don't nitpick.  Last night we problem solved a member's reluctance to write, and she felt better and so did we.  And I've experienced so many similar situations, where something I thought was below par I came out of the group feeling I could really work with this piece to make it better, and the suggestions were helpful and doable.

We want to write or we wouldn't be there.  Our lives are busy and we are distracted.  Yet we make the time for the group.  Our relaxation about attending, or having writing to share makes the group pressure free.  That is, we realize the pressure comes from ourselves, and examining that can be interesting.  I love that there is no competition, no judgment, and no envy.  We really are thrilled when another member writes something brilliant.

One of the reasons the group works so well is that we've known each other for decades, are friends in our regular lives, and we've gotten through all the stuff that sets us against each other.  We are FOR each other, deep down.  And in our own ways, we practice right speech, not necessarily from the official Buddhist point of view, but out of a shared belief in not intentionally harming others.  We are carefully respectful, and the tuning fork has been pitched to all our hearts.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

All weekend I practiced right speech by not cursing and getting angry at my phone company, which couldn't get my phone line fixed and somehow screwed up my internet connection on my computer.  Hence, no blogging etc.  I spent the weekend waiting for repairpeople who did not show up, and my nerves frazzled to a fine point.  By today, when the guy came to deal with my computer, I was in tears and ended up telling him about my brother's death.  All my boundaries dissolved in broken strings around my ankles.

He was kind, and listened and made me feel better, even though he's a young guy, and I guess I'm just going to forgive myself for falling apart.  My speech was grief.  He got that. 

Now that I got out of the house today and will have my writing group tonight, I'll get myself back up on the balance beam and hopefully will not fall again anytime soon.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I love Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire mysteries, which have been also made into an A & E TV series.  Set in Wyoming, they feature best friends Sheriff Longmire and Henry Standing Bear.  Henry calls Thanksgiving Thankstaking, and though he cooks a mean turkey is grumpy for reasons of indigenous rightousness.  I love that play on words, and it's right speech in that it corrects history and sets the record straight.  Who fed who?  Who was starving?  Who knew how to grown an abundance of crops?

A little humor in right speech takes the edge off anger and replaces it with irony.  Indians have been doing this for a few thousand years.  They play with speech, naming people and things and generally enjoy speech as an inside joke.  We like to tell a tall tale, but everyone is in on the joke.  And the butt of the joke is usually the teller, or a cousin who has a great sense of humor.  That's how we survive.

So I'm thinking, yeah, I like the meal, the whole nine yards, but I like remembering the REAL story as well.  And if they changed their minds after the first Thanksgiving and decided we were in the way, well, the joke is on them.  We're doing just fine, thank you very much.  Happy Thankstaking everyone.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I just finished trying to clear up a misunderstanding with a friend.  Even with the best of intentions, these things happen.  And right before, I was on the phone with my brother's insurance person, trying to understand clearly what repairs were going to be paid, and the deductible and all the convoluted ins and outs of the estate.  And, though headache producing, nothing can really be done until I have a court order declaring me next of kin and the death certificate.

The ray of light is the kindness and sensitivity of this claims person, who has been helpful, patient, and supportive.  He really seems to be on my side, and trying to make everything as smooth and stress free as possible.  He acts like a friend.  So there are these glimmers of Buddha nature showing up and officials and others who would not have to take so much care to do their jobs, but are choosing to work with the utmost sensitivity.  Wow.  There are Buddhas everywhere.

I, in turn, am attempting to call up my own Buddha nature, and be patient, kind and appreciative for all the hard work, and thankless, often, that they do with the public.  The tone of voice is so crucial, especially to me right now, when I'm very fragile, and I'm blessed with these encounters which could so easily be upsetting, but are instead comforting.  I am comforted by strangers, and blessed by their kindnesses.  Tennessee Williams rules!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

How do you handle phone solicitors in a kindly manner?  It's a dilemma, especially when I don't feel kindly, but exasperated.  But I don't want to kill the messenger.  Yet I definitely don't want to listen to a spiel.  What to do?  Yes, I have call waiting but it often doesn't identify enough for me to know it's a business.  It may say private caller, out of area, all kinds of misdirections.  Right now I'm dealing with my brother's estate and so unfamiliar numbers are the norm.

I have stock phrases I say quickly and then hang up:  "I'm sorry but I'm unable to give at this time", "I'm sorry but I can't talk right now", "This is not a good time.  Good luck", and "No, she's not in right now".  This last is a lie, but a kind one.  Metaphysically, I'm not in, because I don't choose to be.

Why bother over such a little issue?  Because it happens every day, and learning not to allow a reactive flareup of anger is good training.  So is showing compassion for the poor saps who have to make these calls.  They'd do something else if they could, and at least they are struggling to support themselves.  It's the little things.

Of course, I'll continue to attempt to screen my calls, but you've got to kind of admire the sheer deviousness of these phone IDs.  Entreprenership at it's capitalistic finest.  And the quick hang up still works beautifully, if you are fresh out of compassion or equanimity.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday I went to the quilting group.  It was soothing to talk about fabric and patterns.  The four of us could do it until the cows come home.  During the conversation, I thought perhaps my friend hadn't told the others about my brother's death, but after a couple of hours, when we were planning the next meeting, I said it was good unless I had to go to a hearing about his estate.  Then I realized everyone knew, but had kept to our topics and waited to see if I wished to bring it up.  Now that is right speech.  They held in their curiousity to wait for my signal.

Quilting has always been about women supporting women, talking about their joys and worries, gaining strength from each other.  So I had the relief of focusing on beauty and planning:  a baby quilt for one, a granddaughter's quilt for another, backing two beautiful quilts made many years ago, and just playing with patterns.  One person showed us how to do the pinwheel pattern, and there was a kind of magic in it that we all adored.  We talk about our fears that we won't finish a project we have begun, we admire fabric choices, we encourage each other to enjoy the process and not worry about the result.  Scraps not used in one quilt become part of another.  Fabric bought without any idea what to do with it years later becomes the piece de resistance in a new idea.  Nothing is wasted, and each quilt becomes a history of the quilter.

Is it any surprise that right speech flourishes in such an atmosphere? 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

This morning I saw my dermatologist, and I'd scratched a mole on my forehead.  It was when I first heard of my brother's death.  I told her my brother had died, and she gave me a hug and all the space I needed to talk if I wanted to.  I briefly did tell her he was younger, and he'd killed himself over health issues.  Her right speech was saying she was so sorry and encouraging me to be strong and take care of myself.  And then we had this strange little conversation about males and how the culture tells them they should be independent and not ask for help and how much that hurts them.  I said I felt sorry for men, who think they are not interconnected and don't need others.  It seems so lonely.  And that caused me to have even more empathy for my brother, who was a football player, an athelete, a tough guy.  He was scared and lonely but felt he couldn't admit those feelings to anyone.

My dermatologist is also my friend, and we laugh together and catch up every three months when I come in.  Right speech requires trust, and I trust her and I believe she values me as a person.  So, surprisingly, I was able, with her help, to open a little window on my brother and see a bit more of his struggle and suffering.  It's a gift, this right speech, right connection, right honesty.  Practicing it enlarges my view and my life.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've just returned from hearing a dharma talk from my teacher, Anam Thubten.  His subject was the human impulse  toward the divine.  He discussed how we evolve individually and collectively.  Sometimes the changes are sudden, sometimes slow.  He talked about our spiritual autobiographies.  I thought of my brother's note, and my surprise at how unangry and generous it was.  Loving and kind.  It is a blessing to know he had evolved enough to write such a note, and to be able to express love.

Sitting next to me was a woman I'd not met before.  She asked me a lot of questions about Buddhism, what the different kinds were, and how I'd found Anam.  My first reaction to her was negative, because she said she was having "difficulties".  I was angrily thinking about my brother having just shot himself, but I let that unworthy thought go.  I answered her as energetically as I was able, and slowly began to feel a compassionate response.  Who was I do judge our levels of distress?  As Anam had been saying in the talk, each person is a mystery to us and we to them.  Our complexity is infinite.  By the time we'd parted ways, I liked the woman, and we exchanged names, and she lives in the town next to mine, and I'd forgotten my impulsive reaction to her first words.  Words, words, who cares?  I "acted as if" (as they say in ALANON) I were friendly and open, and soon enough, my thoughts and feelings completely changed.  So for a few minutes I evolved toward the better.  And it felt good.  I kept my lips zipped through my first thoughts and opened my mouth and heart at the same time.  Amazing!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a peaceful walk and talk with my friend recovering from a major illness that kept her in ICU all summer.  She was in a coma many weeks, and yesterday she asked about some aspects of her care while she was unaware.  She said her mouth was bothering her and told her I wasn't surprised, as the respirator and tubes had really torn up her mouth, as well as her face, arms and anywhere there were tubes.  She doesn't remember, because after she turned the corner towards wellness, they began taking tubes out, putting in a trach, healing her skin and by the time she woke up, she looked much better.  It's difficult for her to believe she was that sick or that damaged.  It must be hard to take someone else's word for it as well.

She said her husband hadn't told her about a lot of this.  I suggested he probably has post traumatic stress and cannot bear to relive or describe some of the terrifying moments.  Her grown kids were stunned and devastated as well.  I told her again how brave and faithful and tender they were with her.  Now that she is better they are relieved, but exhausted from mental and physical fatigue.  Just being in ICU is trauma.  And they were there for weeks.

I hope that I am filling in some blanks and saving her family from reliving the summer.  I was deeply upset myself, but I didn't bear the responsibility of her care.  Now I am experiencing the responsibility of my brother's affairs being settled, planning a ceremony, selling his house, possessions and car.  I find myself exhausted, as my friend's family was a few months ago.

Ironically, there is no one who can fill in the blanks about my brother.  He was extremely isolated.  I have a feeling sense of his suffering, but am spared the details.  We do what we can to listen to the truth.  But in the process we must protect ourselves and only take in what we are able to at the time.  A delicate balance, to say the least.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

One way I like to think I'm speaking rightly is when I share with certain friends my enthusiasm for books I've read.  Yesterday, my friend and her partner had lunch with my husband and I, and afterwards we browsed in two bookstores.  I was pointing out some books I'd read recently and loved.  Books like "Far from the Tree" and "Thinking Fast and Slow" and "The Trauma of Ordinary Life".  Reading them affected me profoundly, and caused some aspects of living to be illuminated for me. 

What is even better, is when a friend turns me on to an author or book and we can discuss it after I've read it.  One friend and I have done this for years.  No book club, just a talk on the phone or while walking.  We enhance the reading experience further and connect it to our lives.  Thus we can be in raptures over Murakami's new novel or James Lee Burke's latest mystery.  It's fun, it exercises the mind and it gives a framework for examining life's mysteries.

Right speech enriches our lives, our connections to others and our behavior.  A little reading nudge is often in that category.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My granddaughter and I browsed in a used toy store yesterday afternoon.  She scored, because she found some PetShop animals she collects.  And I found an Elmo puppet for her toddler sister.  When she asked me if I thought the owner would sell two PetShop animals without the lighted stage, I told her to ask herself and she did.  The owner said no, I offered to buy the set for her (we're talking $12 here) but she made the decision not to waste the set since she didn't want the stage, and then carefully selected two loose animals in plastic bags.  Again she asked the owner if the one, a dog, had stuff that would come off.  The owner told her they were used so there was certain wear and tear, but it might wash off.  My granddaughter took a chance, I paid for the two animals at $2.50 each, we returned home and the stuff washed right off.  She kept saying how pleased and excited she was.

I praised her careful assessment of what she wanted, her restraint in not picking the bird and another dog as well, and her not wasting the stage, since she said she'd never use it.  I also said I admired how careful she was in building her collection.  She now has 8 animals, when she could have many more from her savings.  She doesn't like the birds, so she avoided the temptation of the one in the store that was in great shape and I thought was adorable.  I said I liked her thinking process.

This is right speech:  to encourage her to ask the awkward questions of the owner herself, to see the owner treated her seriously and with respect, to be able to articulate her decision making. 

My right speech:  Being a witness to her shopping, curious about her thinking, interested and not judgmental about toys I actually think are plastic junk.  I was respectful.  And fascinated by her mind.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

So much loving right speech has surrounded me by friends and family.  I'm trying to respond in kind.  Even busy-bodies where my brother lived sounded good.  I responded to them as if I believed their rhetoric, because I felt they believed it.  My brother's note warned me of trusting them.  He could have been unfair, but I've been cautious.  With two neighbors I've thanked them for their offers of help and given my name, address and phone.  I won't call but they can.  The neighbor with whom my brother exchanged videos and occasionally talked outside, I answered her questions forthrightly, gave her a vase of my brother's and called when the note was found to tell her killed himself over health reasons.  I'm grateful she talked to him and made some of his days a little brighter.  I deduce she complained to him about little things:  the light in the back yard if it was on at night, maybe his garden sculptures, who knows?  Since she managed to complain to me of similar things, probably he stopped speaking to her, and that is why she didn't notice when she didn't see him for six weeks.

I want to be elegant in my interactions with people there to honor my brother and represent him well.  Now I'm, in effect, speaking for him.  My words and actions influence memories of him.  So I've not been saying what I think, but what I feel will protect him and his memory.  These are complicated social interactions, where there is a script which keeps people from intruding too much, and me from expressing my heartache.  I have my friends and family here for that.  Thank goodness.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I returned Sunday night from a week in the town where my brother lived.  We talked to police, lawyers, neighbors, insurance companies.  We had my brother cremated and brought the ashes back.  There was no will, so I'll have to return for a hearing to determine if I am the next of kin.  So there was and is a lot to do.  But I tried not to get too busy, not be numbed to what was happening, though I was in shock.

I saw the scene.  My brother shot himself between the eyes.  The house took a week to be detoxified, because the body was there for possibly six weeks.  It was the post office that notified the police.  No one missed him.  I feel great sadness about his aloneness.  But his note to me explained he was deteriorating in health and feared being an invalid.  His note was amazing.  The model of right speech, as it was distinctively his voice, he was able to joke and be business like and generous and loving.  There was no anger anywhere in the pages.  He told me he loved me.  He was lucid, at least when he wrote the note.  He took full responsibility for his life and death.  He lived independently, which was all important to him after twenty years long ago as an alcoholic.  There was no sign he drank in the last 30 years.

I've been grieving for him since I was 19 and he was 16.  Our parents tried every way to help.  I tried.  He had so much potential and I hope he had joy in his life.  He never lost his sense of humor.  And if his notes and letters were mostly fantasies, they harmed no one and perhaps gave him a door into the life he wished he had had.

We'll have a family ceremony here down the road.  We will treasure our memories of him.  He was a courageous man.  He woke up every morning and chose not to drink.  He chose not to hurt others or ask them to draw into his pain.  He blamed no one.  He didn't even blame bad luck.  He deserved better, as we all do.  He will be missed.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I learned this morning that my brother, my only sibling died.  The police officer on the phone was gentle and kind.  I knew right away when I saw the ID number on the phone.  He was skilled and practicing right speech, and as far as I'm concerned everyone I've talked to was speaking rightly, because they were trying to comfort me, and anyway I wasn't paying much attention to the words, just their intentions.  Right speech in such a case is just calling back and letting me know they care and are thinking about me.

I now will fly far away to try to arrange burial or cremation, and again, the words won't matter.  My grief is beyond words, inexpressible, and for a while there will be little comfort.  This was a dear man who had a tragic life and deserved better.  He stopped speaking to me 13 years ago, though we exchanged cards on birthdays and at Christmas.  His silence was a kind of speech, and came with a long letter to me saying he loved me but would not be communicating again.  I waited.  He'd stopped speaking to me once before for two years when our father died.  I respected his wishes, prayed for him, and tried not to take it personally.  I'll never know why he cut off communication with any of the family.  Some of my aunts and uncles attempted to call him, but no picking up. 

Now he will go to his grave a complete mystery to me.  But maybe everyone is a mystery to everyone else.  There will be no final words or healing, as there was when my Dad was dying.  My brother lived alone and died alone.  It breaks my heart. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

One week before an election there is a ton of wrong speech floating around.  I don't watch TV, so that buffers me, and when I get the flyers in the mail they go straight into the trash.  I like to hear from friends about candidates in local elections, and I read some of what is available, but not from the candidates, but from League of Women Voters and assessments that are more detached or show both sides' arguments. 

I try to assume everyone's intention is good.  I'm not out to see behind a facade.  In their language and that of their advocates, I'm looking for common sense.  Sounds easy, but it's as old fashioned as depression glassware.  So if it's a local candidate talking about international or national issues, I'm repelled.  I mean, I just want better lighting and safe streets and the usual.  I don't need someone to take a stance about free trade or immigration reform, unless he/she is in a position to affect that problem. 

Are they demonizing the other side?  I like to see them talking about themselves and their ideas, not putting the focus on the adversary.  That is usually a smoke screen.

And I'm a bit blaise, because the structure they are attempting to insert themselves into is so much stronger and more rigid than they think.  What's likely to be changed is them, not the government they represent.  Yet, I'm hopeful every election, because I've seen nobodies rise up and discover their greatness, even take stands against the majority of their party or backers.  I had a political science professor long ago who said in England they call the subject "the art of politics", not science.  He saw it as a grand drama of emotions and feelings and hopes and dreams.  Not rational, not even close, but very reliably human. 

I watch for the blaming and side stepping and overblown rhetoric.  And then I vote for the other guy.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In our Buddhist study group, our teacher often reminds us not to ask "why" questions.  She is including not asking ourselves even, probably because we get caught up in analyzing instead of feeling, and detach ourselves from our moment to moment experience.  Asking another person why is even more loaded, and when I've made that mistake, or someone's asked me why I did something, I've gotten lost in the story, and not been satisfied with the answer.

 I had a friend, many years ago, with whom I had an argument, and we stopped seeing each other.  When she suggested we meet halfway between the towns where we lived, I agreed, and felt closer to her when she explained how she now realized, through the help of her therapist, that she wasn't angry at me, but that somehow I represented her mother in some nebulous way.  We parted amicably, and I soon moved out of state, but when I returned seven years later, and ran into her on the street, we set a date to have dinner and catch up.  She asked me why we hadn't kept track of each other.  I reminded her of our dinner right before I left and what she told me.  She didn't remember the dinner at all and was upset that in my version she blamed herself.  It had never happened, she stated.  Needless to say, we've not met since. 

We would have been better off avoiding the whys both times.  The issue had been simple.  Many times she came and stayed with me and my family for the weekend, and I prepared meals and welcomed her.  But when I visited her, the refrigerator was empty, I was on my own for all meals, and the last time she announced she was going out to dinner that night, though  I'd come up to see her.  She didn't invite me or apologize.  I told her the relationship seemed uneven.  She expected attention when she came to me, but ignored me when I saw her.  It didn't seem fair.  Her why assumed if she gave an excellent reason, I would feel better.  But I didn't.  The whys obscured some real straight talk that needed to happen but didn't.

When a friend of mine killed herself, I worked myself up into a frenzy of whys.  Hers and mine.  A few days later another friend asked me "What makes you think you had the power to save her?"  I stopped compulsively analyzing and let myself feel the grief.  She was gone; I was devastated.  End of story.  The story could not be rewritten.  I knew some of the whys automatically, but I would never know them all.  That knowledge of "don't know" is hard to sit with.  But life has it's mysteries, and we cannot find any answers through questions but through experiences, observations and being a witness to our own mindstream.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Lately, I've upset several friends by not replying to an email or text quickly enough.  I have a practice that I don't respond to email for twenty four hours, though with texting I do respond fast if I'm not busy, hear the ping and have my cell phone nearby.  It's not exactly wrong speech I'm practicing, it's slow speech.  I don't carry my cell phone on my person unless I'm out and might need to be available, and if I'm driving, it has to wait.  At home my phone may be upstairs in my bedroom, and I'm downstairs or outside or in my studio.  I can't even hear it.  When I got the IPhone, I swore not to be chained to it.  And I only check my email once a day unless I'm expecting some communication. 

This detachment annoys some friends, and then there are the friends who are offended I'm not on Facebook.  I feel like I'm fighting for meaningful communication.  To them it feels like I'm hostile, uninterested in them or feeling superior.  I've tried explaining my point of view.  I would rather have a phone conversation or be in the same room at least some of the time.  Virtual reality doesn't do anything for me.  I'm sure they're grumbling about what a Luddite I am, and so old fashioned.  I can only pray they hang in there with me.  I respond to everything, just not instantly.  I do have fears that I will lose friends because of my stance, but if all I'll have otherwise is a Facebook page to read, I feel like I've lost any connection already.

I wonder if others are having this struggle.  Slow speech is more careful, but maybe I become less spontaneous.  My language may be duller.  Even I doubt at times I'm worth the effort.  But at least I don't have 500 "friends" that look good on paper, but I barely know.  I prefer deep to wide.  It probably is just a matter of taste.  But it's a real divide.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I can lose my right speech really easily when describing myself.  My Buddhist teacher caught me at it today during our monthly study group.  I said was blind to something, when it would have been better to say, "Up until now, I've been unable to see the correlation between moving a lot as a young kid and being all too willing to accommodate my schedule to a friend's, even when it causes me stress or inconvenience".  She urges us to be specific, and doing so often restrains us from generalizing and judging ourselves. 

I have a habit of calling myself an idiot, mostly to amuse, but it is unnecessary.  I'm amusing anyway, ha ha ha.  I also describe myself as graceless and chubby and clueless.  Some of these adjectives are close to accurate, but I'm not telling you which ones, because, really, if I don't respect myself who will?  I'm so careful not name calling others, and pretty sloppy about myself.  I'm not a clown.  I don't need to pretend to be one to be engaging.  Yet the old habits persist.

Lately, I'm trying to describe myself as complicated.  I say I have a lot of interests and know how to entertain myself by myself.  I like a certain amount of privacy, but I also am very social.  I love kids but not for long periods of time.  I will watch almost any movie, but am snobbish about some films.  I don't want to waste my time and I thoroughly enjoy wasting my time.  If you want to get to know me it will take some time, and I'm a cautious person, so I won't reveal myself quickly.  But I'm worth the wait.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Weekly I come up against a dilemma about scheduling something with a friend.  I have this lifelong habit of agreeing with the friend about a time for a movie, say, when it is actually inconvenient for me.  I go, build up a bit of resentment, but seldom am able to speak up for myself.  My inner grumbling kicks in.  My friends usually pick times and dates that really work for them, but that amount of assertiveness makes me nervous when I try it.

So I've been thinking:  what is at the bottom of this?  I have perfectly delightful friends, and all of them are able to be flexible.  Yet I somehow cannot ask that of them.  The other day, my husband was asking me where I'd lived as a child and how long in each place.  I noticed that after 5 years in one city, I next lived two years in the south, then two years in California.  And for the first time I realized fully that not only was it traumatic to have moved in my sophomore year of high school from a one building 1-12 school to a high school of 5,000, but that these early moves, when I was five, then seven, then nine, caused me to be friendless and be pretty desperate to make friends.  I had to be the flexible one, to stand out, to be so engaging that kids wanted to play with me.  It was part of my survival technique, to be accommodating.

But like a lot of old habits, it's not doing me any good now.  I need not fear rejection because I don't accept the first good date for a friend.  I can speak up and we can work out a time mutually beneficial.  My friends have mostly been friends for decades, and we've weathered disagreements, cooling off periods and great talks when we cleared up misunderstandings about who we are.  It's pretty crazy to think I need to continue to fear rejection.  For that's where it began:  in fear of not having friends or losing them.  I've been going around with a mental age of about five.  Oh, dear.

I'm going to practice being assertive more.  In a pleasant way.  I'll just say, "I could possibly do that, but it makes my day very tight, and I'd rather enjoy our time together without the stress.  Is there another time and day that would work equally well for us?"  There.  Now that wasn't so hard.  We'll see how it goes when I'm really speaking to another person.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

With some friends I attended a conference last night about breast cancer prevention.  The two women speaking were doctors and researchers from our area, and they head an organization that looks at environmental factors in developing breast cancer.  They were articulate, passionate and determined to reach as many women as possible, to warn them of dangers that might be avoided, if we knew about them.  I was struck with how noble this kind of speaking out is.  They are attempting to lessen the harming that chemicals and other controllable exposures can effect upon us. 

The evidence suggests that we are most vulnerable in the womb and as small children to harm that decades later shows up as breast cancer.  These women were speaking for the pre-verbal.  They give voice to ourselves when we are at our most fragile. 

I was amazed at how much we can do to protect ourselves.  Right speech encourages more right speech, and I will be telling my friends, family and neighbors about websites to see what chemicals in shampoos, cleaners and other products are suspicious.  There are sites to tell us about foods and work dangers and harmful foods in our diets.  Avoiding alcohol and red meat are two of the simple substances to deselect.  We can pick organic foods and not buy cans and plastics.  Being sure radiation exposure is minimal is easy enough if we can speak up and ask our doctors about risks and harms.

So at the same time these doctors were speaking, they were empowering us to speak up for ourselves.  After their presentation they took every single question in the room.  What a compassionate and generous gift to us.  And we now have tools to do our own research, and ingredients to look up and choices we can make.  It makes us grownups, not helpless victims.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In the New York Times yesterday there was an article about the Metropolitan Opera's production of John Adams' "The Death of Klinghoffer".  People are protesting the portrayal of the terrorists on board the ship as having a sympathetic side in that particular tragic incident.  This is a huge issue of art and free speech and fairness in history.  I admit to being sympathetic to the protestors, as the event didn't happen that long ago, and people who are alive were traumatized, and an innocent man's life was destroyed.

Yet I never heard of protests about "Nixon in China" and "Dr. Atomic",  though both of those operas take liberties to discuss true events in symbolic and inaccurate ways.  Adams saw an opportunity to focus on tragedy that is modern not ancient, and in the process made us think more deeply about iconic public figures.  In the 1930's, Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein used the historical figure Susan B. Anthony to great advantage and in the process made her come alive in an all new way in their opera "The Mother of Us All". 

I'm proud of the protestors and proud of the artists.  It takes courage to revisit an event that is codified in our history and make it disturbing enough to come alive again.  I haven't seen "The Death of Klinghoffer", but I've listened to the CD.  It's serious and haunting and trusts the audience to grapple with what the ultimate meaning of the event is or was and more importantly, how each person participating feels about the subject.  We are not talking about made up, gratuitous violence here, but real actions in a real world that perhaps doesn't pause often enough to think for themselves about news.  Adams makes us work.  The reopening of a closed discussion is painful, but may ultimately be illuminating.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Right speech often is a sticky subject.  I'm grappling right now with an elephant-in-the-room situation in a group I'm in.  I want to discuss it, but others don't and feel that it might be harmful to talk about the person involved.  Since I am not queen of right speech, I  hesitate, since knowing what will be harmful, is at best, guesswork.  So I've said nothing.  I've described my concerns to my therapist, but her response has me thinking I should respond within the group as well.  Yet, while I was away the group did discuss the situation with the person involved and decided to keep the status quo.  Fine, except I feel there is danger not addressed honestly in the group. 

My heart feels wrong about this.  But I don't want to rock the boat.  This is how it feels when someone says something racist, or denigrates a person with me as a witness.  It's wrong not to speak up, but speaking up will be so painful for the person and possibly damaging to the group and our closeness over decades. 

I'm fearful.  I don't have a lot of courage.  I've done courageous acts, as have most people, but I generally don't want to stick out.  I don't welcome CHANGE.  I'd like to stick my head in the sand.  That works, unless something bad happens and I know I might have prevented it.

I'm going to grapple with this some more.  Hopefully, some wisdom will surface.  My therapist says I could quit the group and therefore not be a party to the disfunction.  That is a scary step.  It feels like judging them all.  And I love them all.  But as I describe my dilemma, I think of my Al-ANON meetings.  Am I enabling the group to remain willfully blind?  Oh, dear.  I'm waiting for more clarity, because no one else can answer what action I should take but me.  At least I'm pausing, reflecting, hearing all sides. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In Jane Austen's novels, there is a propriety about "safe topics", usually the weather and the family's health.  Austen teases the reader with the high level of restrictions placed on people speaking in public, but look what happens when people cross the boundary:  you end up with Mrs. Bennett, who embarasses her daughters, at times even humiliating them, and in "Sense and Sensibility" the younger daughter's emotions, unchecked, expose her to ridicule and gossip.  There is grave danger in speaking in Austen's world, and though it appears to us today to be stuffy and rigid, I wonder if we have plunged too deeply into the alternative:  private thoughts and feelings made public through cell phones and a lack of manners.

Superficial manners are probably justifiably eliminated.  But what about courtesies like not interrupting, speaking respectfully to teachers, answering the elderly politely, and wishing others well when they wish you well.  Do we have to give up the rules of engagement so completely?  The exposure we see on TV with reality shows and Judge Judy and Dr. Phil are created for drama and are "shows" not reality, yet we often model them in our real lives.  In real life, people don't usually want complete honesty.  We want sensitivity to ourselves and kindness.  Bluntness hurts as much as it always did.  Yet somehow it has become cool to tear another apart, with as many witnesses as possible.

Keeping council with oneself is as wise now as it was then.  Thinking long and carefully before speaking still results in a better outcome.  In Buddhism, we talk about reactivity and response.  The first is impulsive and may lead to hurting others or shooting ourselves in the foot.  The later gives us that pause that may allow experience and consideration to inform our speaking.  Unintentional harming is less likely after a couple of deep breaths before we speak.  Do we really need to comment on another's weight, even if asked.  It's a minefield, as we know from experience.  Do we really want to slash back in anger when a friend judges us?  We may end up with an ex-friend and a lot of regret. 

You can read Miss Manners in the newspaper as I do, or pick up an Austen book to get a little perspective.  Because she skillfully shows you all the harm that speaking may entail. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Recently, I've been a witness to honesty in the medical realm.  A friend spent many weeks in ICU, and I was wowed by some of the doctors' ability to say "We don't know, we may never know" about her illness.  Younger doctors may be trained differently, and seem more comfortable being human instead of omniscient.  The doctors and bankers as gods thing is no longer the culture for most people.  Paradoxically, for me and others, the admission of not knowing all the answers makes us trust them more.  This is truth telling when anything else increases the terror.  Now, several of the friends wanted, demanded, answers or transferring the patient or consulting other doctors.  It's always worth listening to those people, because examining all the options is responsible.  But often these people are uncomfortable with uncertainty.  We all wish for certainty, but promising it is delusional.  Nothing is certain, except, as they say, death and taxes.  What this medical team did is honestly tell us they were doing everything in their power to keep her alive while she fought off the virus.  That statement told us she was in danger, that medicine could only do so much, but the team was passionate about fighting for her.  And she's home now.  If the outcome had been otherwise, there would have been a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking, guilt and agony, but us grownups know there is serendipity and luck and mystery in medicine, as in everything else.

Yesterday I went to my own doctor for knee pain.  I waited 10 days and ignored a friend's advice to go immediately because it might be a blood clot and another who thought it was a pinched nerve.  I gave it a chance to get better.  It seemed to, then felt worse.  My doctor was matter of fact.  I am getting older and there is wear and tear on the knee.  This makes sense.  She also told me I could take Tylenol and use BenGay or some other product, but they would not fix anything, just ease the symptoms.  The best thing was to lose some weight.  Ah.  Painful to hear but true.  The one real thing I can do to protect my knee is take the load off.  I appreciated her candor.  I didn't want medicines or cover ups, I wanted to hear the one helpful statement that I could really affect.  So now, I know I need to lose weight for diabetes and for my knees.  She treated me as an actor in my own life.  That's respect. 

I don't think my mother's doctors made an effort to tell her honestly what she needed to do.  She was a smoker and an alcoholic.  Her doctor might  have called up the nerve to give her the names of clinics that could help.  He needed to call my dad and urge him to get her in a program.  But nobody liked to rock the boat in the old days.  Maybe he thought it futile, but it wasn't his call to make.  It was hers.  So she died instantly of her first heart attack at 61.  She was on no medication.  We begged her to quit smoking, her grandkids begged her, but she didn't think it was our business.  I told her how worried I was about her drinking, but I was just her daughter.  She pretty much didn't listen to anything my Dad said.  So she died, and maybe she would have anyway, it was too late.  But her doctor should have cared enough to try at least once.  Right speech is not harming.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In May, I visited the town where I lived for six years as a kid.  I'd seen some of the people since then, but not in that town.  I stayed with my friend.  Now this town is in the South, and politics and viewpoints differ but generally don't coincide with my own.  I got baited a bit for being from a liberal state and town, and was teased I was a hippie, and about the current President.  That kind of thing.  I laughed and didn't engage.  I had determined before I set out on the trip not to argue.  What is the point?  I wanted to respect them and their different environment, which has it's plusses and minuses.

I sat silent when no one had seen the movie "Lincoln".  He's not generally a hero there.  I'd kind of forgotten that.  I heard about Grant's drunkenness, as if that was the only thing he brought to the table.  I listened to a strange convoluted excuse for slavery in the South.  I did not take communion at the church where I attended a funeral, but I wasn't the only one to stay seated.

When I returned home I felt I'd stayed on the road to right speech, without straying into road rage.  I was proud of myself.  I wanted to hear what these other people had to say, not what I already knew I thought.  And yet.  A lot of talking was required to get the disturbance I felt inside out of my system.  I talked at length to friends and described what had happened.  I spent a session with my therapist.

There was a cost to all that detachment and disengagement.  I was chock full of feelings.  I was angry at some of the speech I had heard.  I really had to talk it all out later.  Maybe I was able to stay on track while away because I knew I had a safe sounding board when I returned.  I didn't live there so why upset people? 

If I had been more skillful, I might have responded in a way that didn't shut down the other person.  I did try humor whenever possible.  When they asked me if I was a Republican I replied "Absolutely" with a grin.  I said another time if a hippie was a dress code, then yes, I'd been one, but otherwise I was married with two toddlers and too busy for parties and drugs.  I didn't say I wasn't too busy to demonstrate with King and Chavez and begin a Nuclear Disarmament group.  Why go there?

The trip was a deep experience, delightful and challenging, insightful and full of friendliness and beauty.  And I'm still thinking over my behavior, not anyone else's.  So that I can become more skilled at being as honest balanced against  kind and non-harming.  And I can practice right here at home.