Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, upon further clarification, namely that I got to speak to the physician's assistant who normally sees me for skin cancer issues, I feel reassured that the procedure can wait until the end of March, and my chances for M developing are 20%, since the lesion isn't big.  So heck, my chances are good.  Now I can relax more.  I told the PA that the office person had been a bit too vague, and thrown the decision about having the procedure sooner back on me, which disconcerted me.  So I spoke up for myself and a clumsy process of revealing biopsy results, and yet did it in a non-judgmental and kindly manner.  But what really helped was my husband getting on the phone and explaining I was worried and unclear after speaking to them.  Hooray for deep voices!

Right speech in biopsy results reporting is clearly very, very important. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Bad news yesterday about my skin cancer.  It's not surface and will need surgery, so I was low.  I might have handled it better if a doctor had called instead of a technician, but who knows?  She was not the most skillful and mentioned the M word, and then couldn't book me until the last day in March.  When I asked if that was okay, she threw the decision back at me, and then, when I said "How do I know what is best?" she said she'd ask the doctor and get back to me.  Which she has not of yet. 
Luckily, I called my dear friend and she left a voice mail that reassured me, and I did what I've been practicing for:  I enjoyed moment by moment the rest of the day.  We went on a walk and then my Irish relative and I shopped at REI, which she worships.
I told my relative and husband I was going to take a few moments to feel sorry for myself, and then I'd be ready to roll, and I was.  I'm grateful I was not alone when I got the call, and had my backup band.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The seating plan for a wedding is to facilitate right speech, or happy speech, or friendly speech.  Those figuring out the seating plan are attempting to orchestrate engagement and inclusion in the event.  It's a tough challenge, and you can't really control people having a good time or not.  But we try.  Our family is hoping for the two families to meet and learn about each other, and that, basically, everyone will feel comfortable and have someone to talk to.  This takes a lot of luck, and in the end, a letting go.

Only one guest has so far demanded to be seating next to a friend.  Each set of parents has made suggestions, but, at least on our side, we're trusting the bride, since she is our daughter.  We know that her primary concern is to keep us happy but to really, really keep her friends happy.  Since my husband and I plan to roam all the tables and talk to as many people as possible, we will keep an eye out for anyone who seems bored or lonely.  But we also be pulled many directions, so we'll just do the best we can.  Being forgiving of oneself is essential in a situation where 100 people need attention.

I'm trusting the joy of the occasion puts people in a right speech frame of mind.  I feel that will aid me in my quest to be mother protector of the universe.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our relative from Ireland has arrived, and I realized that right accent is a key to right speech!  I could listen to her saying anything and be enthralled and delighted.  Her voice has that lyrical quality, and a lilting softness that is so pleasant to the ear.  But that also reminds me that tone is awfully important.  If we are conscious enough we can modulate our voices to be more soothing, less threatening, and therefore easier to listen to the content of the speech.  I do this every day with my dogs, and yet I forget I have this ability when it comes to humans.  It takes extra effort, but it's worth it.  I did it when I read to my children, because I wanted to engage them in the reading process.  It's a skill in my toolbox I sometimes forget about.  Now if only I could get the Irish accent down!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I argued early this morning, about money, what else?  Even after four decades of marriage, sometimes we need a mediator.  We need a Jimminy Cricket like creature in the closet, for emergencies.  Luckily, we usually back down, take a time out and revisit the issue later, but I wish this dance was not necessary.  I feel like my Buddhist training helps me see what is patterning and old stuff rising to the surface, but my husband doesn't have those skills, and he feels at the time that he must speak right then, in the heat of emotion.  I try to hear him out, respond and then postpone any decision.  But I then have to live with what he's said in anger, and it's disturbing.  Even in a good marriage, sometimes there is no resolution totally agreeable to both people.  Because we don't always change our minds, there are bottom lines for each, and even with a mediator on call, not everything will get resolved.

I'm more sanguine these days about such disagreements because I am more realistic about how partners negotiate and compromise.  There is no platonic ideal.  There are just two people doing the best they can who have different histories and some priorities that are in opposition and  distinct personalities.  There's no good and bad, just all that vast, skylike gray area.  We float in it trying not to bump into each other in a harmful way.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My daughter and I got a lot more done yesterday, and the only part bothering me is the florist.  He won't send the bill.  Probably he thinks he's being tactful or something, but it makes me afraid he won't show up.  He's actually stressing me out.  When my daughter contacts him he says it's in the mail this week, but that has been happening for several weeks.  Sometimes right speech is just communicating to people what you're doing and why.  Ever since my therapist told me about her son's wedding, when the florist turned out to be a drug addict and flaked, and the family was making bouquets in their back yard the day of the wedding, I've been haunted by that image.  I suppose the florist could have taken the money in a timely manner and also skipped, but somehow I irrationally feel his being paid cements him to the event.

It's like the waiter at a restaurant to holds back from presenting you with the bill, out of sensitivity and not to rush you.  Mostly, it feels awkward to me to have to motion him/her over and ask.  Maybe this is more my problem than the florist's.  I've got a European style florist and I'm a midwestern American!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday was so busy my brain was fried before I was able to blog.  This pre-wedding planning is a monster.  I am attempting to think before I speak and use right speech, but I'm also rattled and definitely over-emotional, which is dangerous.  My daughter has been a beautiful example of measured speech, except, when she's pressured she tends to criticize herself, which is wrong speech.  She harms herself and, though I don't think she fully understands this, harms the rest of us because we love her and feel disturbed when she's hard on herself.  But mostly, we are treading kindly and gently with each other, and last night we took a much needed break to watch a movie, "The Hundred Foot Journey", which relaxed us.

A lot got done yesterday.  But it was so much, maybe too much, that this morning I feel differently about the flowers for the buffet table, and maybe I will not take the advice from the caterer.  I'm going to give myself a day or two more to mull it over.  Pausing is essential, if I'm not going to have regrets.  And no looking back like an armchair quarterback when things are finalized.  It will be what it will be.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I feel relieved I have a temporary filling on my tooth and my daughter and I made pillows for the rings for the ring bearers, and I've driven my friend's mother to the doctor to check her leg, and then we went out to lunch, her treat.  I'm a grown up now, so when she offered I said sure.  I know how to accept a generous offer.  And graciously, I might add.  I used to protest, which I now think is wrong speech.  It's phony, it hints at unease of being in another's debt, and it's false politeness.  I can be the recipient of generosity these days with equanimity. 

Talking to this ninety one year old is sheer delight for me.  She's wise, she's funny, she's empathetic, she's appreciative of all the little things that make life worth living.  She makes me realize growing old is not so bad, in fact, it's just a different stage of life, and therefore interesting and exciting.

Clearly, I'm getting more out of the act of driving her to the doctor than she herself is.  Now that's a deal!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, I went to the dermatologist and had to have a biopsy.  Never good news, and one more thing to worry about.  I'll probably have to have a hunk cut out after the wedding.  But I didn't get upset, and that is because my dermatologist is so skillful about how she tells me things, and her calmness rubs off on me.  We ended up joking about the wedding while she was slicing a piece of skin for the biopsy.  She's good natured and upbeat, as is all her staff.  Yet she never "protects" me from the truth.  I trust her.  Is it the words she uses?  Could be.  But it's probably more tone, expression and an unflapability that makes it easy for me to hear what she says without panicking.  She's intuitive, and you feel she genuinely likes you cares about you. 

So maybe this right speech thing is about something deeper:  intention.  She seems compassionate and focused on me because that is her nature.  She's not thinking of something else, distracted or dismissive.  And probably it is true that holding that intention for attention and compassion causes what comes out of the mouth to be more skillful and kind.  I'm not saying she's a practicing Buddhist, because kindness and compassion aren't owned by one practice or religion.  Many people throughout the world are attempting to treat others kindly, as they would wish themselves treated.  But to me she's a Bodhisatva of compassion, and she makes the pain feel bearable and that I am not alone on my journey.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I picked up a friend for an event and when she got in the car she didn't buckle her seat belt so I said, "I'm waiting for you to buckle your belt".  She did, but told me she never buckles her belt when she's a passenger.  I was startled, but we went on to the event, and then when we got back in the car afterward to return home she again didn't buckle.  So I said, "Would you please buckle up?"  She turned toward me angrily and said since it was my car she would, but she never did otherwise.  I said I was surprised.  I had never had a person not buckle up.  That made her really mad.  I replied that I really just meant surprised.  I was not judging her.  I added, it's against the law, and I'm responsible for you, and I've seen people after accidents who had on the belt, and they were pretty banged up.  I reminded her her head would go through the windshield otherwise.

She calmed down, but said people were always telling her to put a helmet on when she biked as well, and she never did.  She reiterated that she only was wearing the seat belt because I insisted.

I was beyond surprise by this point and we changed the subject to lessen the tension.  When I returned home after dropping her off, and related what had occurred to my husband he quickly looked online for California law, and sure enough, every passenger in the car by law must wear a seat belt, and if not, they can be fined.  They need a medical excuse not to comply.

So what happened?  I was friendly and easy both times I requested she buckle up, and had no idea it was a hot button issue for her.  I clarified what I had meant by the word "surprise".  I also feel pretty certain I was not judging her; I simply thought she had spaced out buckling up.  But now, privately, I'm in a still greater state of surprise, because clearly something else is going on with her beyond being a rebel with or without a cause.  I'm curious, but not enough to bring up the subject again and receive that flash of fury from her.  What she said gave me information, and what she didn't say gave me still more.  I won't be so relaxed around her next time, or so accommodating about being the driver.  I don't wish to be driving Yosemite Sam around town.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

One simple, everyday example of right speech is embodied in a call made to us at eleven pm last night.  Our son was going to the cabin with his girlfriend, and he did absolutely the right thing by first saying to me that everything was fine when I got out of bed, having been asleep, and picked up the ringing phone.  It turned out the shower wouldn't turn off, which is puzzling yet right up the alley of the tone of the week, with something surprising and aggrevating happening every single day.  But I never had a chance to be afraid they'd had a car accident driving up, or the cabin had been broken into, or someone was in the emergency room.  I am, after all, a mom, and my heart accelerates when one of the kids calls in the night.  I'm programed to do so.

Our answering service got the first part of his call, and this morning I replayed it, and was struck with how swiftly he reassured me before I had a chance to catastrophize.  He cut me off at the pass.  This easy practice of right speech can save a lot of blood pressure spikes, and put not doing harm at the beginning of speech, before the problem is described or help requested.  He was thinking of us first.  It's a little but profound act of love. 

So that's my Valentine's story.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had an incidence this morning of keeping my focus on right speech.  A friend's 95 year old mother is visiting, and I went on the deck to say hello.  The weather was the first topic, safe enough.  But then she said she was ready to go, meaning to die.  I responded that I could understand that, as she's had a rich life full of blessings and children and grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Then she stated how horrible the news was, and I was going to say that's why I don't read or watch it, when she went on a rant about Muslims.  Quite ugly and out of the blue.  Well, since I have a lot of Muslim relatives, I said I thought my tea was ready and went back inside, rescuing my own ears from burning.  She's 95, so I'm not going to argue with her, and she had a fall on the stairs a few days ago and is all banged up.  I stayed inside with the 91 year old whom I'd just taken to a doctor's appointment, and left after a reasonable amount of time.

I cannot help but think her watching the news contributes to her prejudicial opinions about people and a religion she knows little if anything about.  She's weary, and in World War II fighting mode.  Things seemed simple back then.  But if she talks like that to her California relatives, it must get mighty uncomfortable.  They shouldn't have to be listening to it.  And after the first couple of minutes I exited the fray and escaped.  But I admit, I wasn't entirely sanguine.  I'm a bit disturbed, and she doesn't seem quite so adorable to me now.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I lost the filling out of my bottom front tooth last night, which caused a lot of worry and little sleeping.  When I got through to my dentist this morning, I was given an appointment for next Tuesday.  It's a tiny thing, but the receptionist said:  "I know it's hard over a long weekend, but she can do a better job on Tuesday."  Long weekend.  I counted up the days and it will be the sixth day from now before I get this fixed.  That is more than a long weekend, it is closer to a week.  They never work Fridays or the weekends, and Monday is a holiday, so I was praying they'd get me in today.  But just stating:  "I know that's a lot of days to wait, and I'm sorry we can't get you in sooner" would have felt more like empathy to me.  If this tooth breaks off further I may not even be able to do a crown. 

But, hey!  Why not obsess about my tooth for a change instead of my brother's estate issues, his death and my grieving, the thousand wedding details yet to finish and the state of the world.  I know, I'm getting really picking about right speech and judgmental and crabby.  I had the sense to keep my feelings to myself, at least, and not lecture the receptionist.  Besides, she has the POWER.  Kind of like Bruce Almighty.

Wandering Along the Path: RIght Speech

Two days ago I had such an experience with wrong speech that I was shaken and crying a lot afterward.  It involved a bank and the investment firm that I was contacting about my brother's estate.  Both entities were abrupt, insensitive and callous with me, even though I have been a client of both for about thirty years.  I was apalled.  Neither offered condolences for the death of my brother, and acted as if I was a shady criminal out to trick them.  I never got the signature guarantee from the bank, after three tries and numberous private paperwork they insisted on seeing.  I've heard nothing since from the investment firm, though they promised to call me.  At one point I said, "I'm your client.  I've been your client for thirty years.  Why are you treating me like a stranger?"  The whole experience felt Kafkaesque.

Contrast that experience with the kindness and and compassion of everyone in Texas, and it sheds a new light for me on what's important.  I may live in a cosmopolitan area, but it's also ruthless, bureaucratic and greedy.  Here's it's "What can you do for me, and if you can't, I don't want to do anything for you, or even pretend to."  I'm appreciating the down-home quality of Texas, and repelled by the lack of service to clients in my own back yard.  I spoke up for myself, but I felt attacked, as if I was a criminal perpetrating a fraud.  At the least, the phone people should have a little more training in right speech.  Instead of right greed and right bullying.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday afternoon my friend and I saw "Beautiful When She's Angry", a documentary about the seventies feminist movement.  It brought tears to my eyes, to remember how it felt to be in a consciousness raising group, to march for women's rights, to read and listen to women writers, to speak out for myself and others.  I first encountered the movement when I was in graduate school, and my best friend in married student housing was attending a group.  She was also meditating, which I'd never seen anyone do, and building furniture, baking whole wheat bread and insisting her husband do the dishes and childcare.  My mind was blown, as we used to say.

When I left my husband, I joined a consciousness raising group, volunteered at the Women's Herstory Center for Laura X, went to readings, hunted for books written by women and tried to follow "A Guide to Non-Sexist Child Rearing".  I was hungry for women's voices and soon was working in a safehouse encouraging battered wives to write about their truths.  I learned to speak out and up.  I wept over Tillie Olson and Adrienne Rich at readings.  Their truth was mine.  I joined a poetry writing and publishing collective, and one time we went to the city to see Judy Chicago's "The Dinner Party".  The world was opening up to us.  Why?  Because in safety and privacy we spoke of our lives honestly.  We spoke of our mother's lives.  We spoke of what we wished for our daughters.  My little girl was riding a horse and taking self defense.  I wanted her strong, powerful and free.

Right speech can blow open a secret world and make demands for justice.  It can speak of what it feels like to be a second class citizen.  It can change the world, and it did.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, right speech was difficult, because my husband and I were stressed about booking a place back East to stay for our daughter's fiance's parents' party six weeks after the wedding.  It turns out there is a big race that weekend, and everything is booked in the areas of the city that we would want to be in, and we didn't want to stress the bridal couple's already stressful situation:  he has been sick with a flu all week, she has been doing all the wedding appointments without him.  But we were stressed as well, with the wedding details, but also all the business to take care of around my brother's estate, our son-in-law's injury to his hand, my aunt's death and my uncle's recovery from a stroke.  We were all on edge.

Finally, I suggested our daughter play a game of scrabble with us while we waited for her fiance to get back from work.  Yes, we were dealing with words, but in a playful way.  We needed the distraction, as my daughter said.  When the fiance arrived, he offered to look up places for us, and we just took a break without worrying over the situation any more.  Sometimes quitting is the best policy.  Maybe something will open up, maybe we'll have to have a room by the airport and drive a lot, maybe we'll cut the trip short or replan the whole time.  But not this weekend.  Our nerves are frayed.  As my husband got in bed last night I told him, "Let's not say a word.  No talk." 

I thought of the old movie we'd seen on TV last night, "Meet Mr. Jordan" with Robert Montgomery, Claude Rains and Evelyn Keyes.  It was a charmer, and Montgomery was delightful as a boxer who dies and heaven's Mr. Jordan tries to find him a new body, as there has been a mistake.  Well, now that is a problem to talk about.  It no longer seemed like booking a room in April was such a crisis.

Wahdering Along the Path: Right Speech

Brian Williams is at the center of a controversy about right speech.  He, over the years, told a story about Iraq that is untrue, and recently he got "caught" in the tall tale.  Since he's a broadcaster, everyone is up in arms about his integrity, though I think we all know that television broadcast news is not a pillar of accuracy.  These anchors are entertainers more than journalists, and what they are asked to do must compromise most journalistic standards.  Still, Williams cast himself at the center of war action, risk and imminent danger, when actually, it was the soldiers around him who risked themselves for him.  Too many movies, perhaps, or the temptation to tell a really good story led him astray. 

We know from research that the more times a story is told the less accurate it becomes, and our brains store the latest false memory as true.  So Williams is like the rest of us:  he gets further and further from the truth the more he describes the event.  I don't much care if he loses his job or not, as I never watch broadcast news anyway, but the self righteousness displayed by many seems disingenuous or hypocritical to me.  Our brains like to sit by the fireside and entertain our fellow humans.  We don't need to turn on a switch to do this, it's automatic. 

Now I understand veterans taking umbrage over this situation.  Nobody really wants to hear what they went through, but this guy gets the shock and awe response.  Real heroes don't brag.  And usually they don't talk about what happened at all.  My dad didn't talk about World War II.  He wanted to get on with his life and forget all the fear and pain and suffering.  Williams somehow hasn't understood the nature of war or the people who fight in it, and that is the tragedy.  He's failed at empathy, and a good reporter has to have that quality in spades.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, right speech is the weather channel, as it has just begun raining.  Boy oh boy do we need it.  I'm in a holding pattern as I am picking up my dear friend's mom from a surgical procedure sometime today.  I'm awaiting the call.  Her mom is a character.  At 92, she is feisty and stubborn, and had to be tricked into living with her daughter.  She is happy here, but will she admit it?  No way.  So the subject of going back is never broached, as she bristles at the thought.  Yet it's been over a year, and she hasn't left, and actually can't without help.  You can tell from the twinkle in her eye she's relieved and enjoys the lively activities around her.  But gratitude?  No way Jose.  She's not about to concede defeat, and everyone else avoids the topic, as it makes her so anxious.  It's as if speaking the words:  "I live with my daughter now" would be a battle lost, instead of a statement of good fortune. 

So our right speech is not to refer to the fact that she lives in California now, and to let her tell her story as she wishes.  I guess in her mind she's just visiting.  It makes her feel safer and not so dependent.  She's a tiger, and I like that about her.  I stay on safe subjects with her, such as old movies, details of my daughter's upcoming wedding, and idle chat.  But last Sunday, since the bridal shower was at her daughter's house, she got to be in the middle of the fun, and after everyone else left, my daughter opened all her presents there, because my friend's mom had voiced an opinion that seeing the gifts was half the fun.  My daughter opted not to open them while the party was going on, but she conceded the Mom's point by making sure she saw all the presents.  And there she was, right next to my daughter, having a ball.  But not saying a word to admit it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're all waiting for rain here.  Today's possible rain has moved forward to this evening.  We've had humidity, damp looking skies and fog.  The topic of conversation is our desperate need for rain and the anticipation.  Do we water our plants?  Is there a storm coming and we should prepare?  Should we cancel an outing or go to the movie another time?  Uncertainty, thy name is weather.

There are plenty of reasons to obsess about weather, but sometimes I think it is a code.  Our general or specific anxiety gets wrapped up in a digestible wrapper of weather.  Then we can speak our minds, our worries couched in an acceptable topic.  Uncertainty is the basis of our lives, but we seldom get comfortable with it.  Randomness is scary to us generally.  We want events to have a purpose, and we want to blame our actions or others for events that are unpleasant.  With weather as the topic, we can criticize global warming, fossil fuels, whatever we feel makes the event make sense.  I'm not saying these are not contributing factors, and we should be working to eleviate them, but let's face it, the weather is unpredictable and cyclical.  Our drought here is part of living in a mediterranean climate.  I've seen us hysterical before.  We live in a dry climate.  But we want it to have the gardens of Ireland.  No can do.

We also want to know what's ahead for us.  Well, on that front, old age, illness and death are definitely predictable.  But we don't mean that.  We don't want to prepare for such "far off" things.  We want to know about our children's and grandchildren's futures, how our investments will fare, whether we will sing well at the wedding or have people to talk to at the party we're attending.  No one can predict our little or big future, except that surprise and unexpectedness will play a major part. 

So let's talk of the coming rain or not, it will happen or it won't.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Righteousness is the enemy of my right speech.  When it rises, I know I'm being judgmental, and what follows is me posing for me.  So when someone is gossipy, or snoopy, I no longer make some statement like:  "I prefer not to talk about that" or "Let's not go there".  I just change the subject abruptly.  I'm sure people think I'm weird, but I ask them something about themselves, and usually that is irresistable.  I do not get on my high horse, or even on my pony.

Last night I did it so quickly I think the other person didn't notice.  I'm thinking:  I'm not going to jump in that pool, and then I switched to a question about a visit she'd had, and then we got on recipes.  Now, food is always a good subject.  I also ask about the kids, how a volunteer job is going, that kind of thing.  But what I am really doing is avoiding temptation.  I like to gossip as much as the next gal, and I was raised by a master, my mother.  It's quicksand for me.  So I'm not judging the other person, but rather guiding myself to the far shore.  What happens when I indulge?  I feel terrible later.  This I know.  I have regrets.  I look in the mirror and don't like myself.

Not to say I don't listen to a friend's fears and anxieties.  I just don't analyze so much any more.  I miss it, because while I'm doing it, it makes me feel superior, but then it feels crappy.  After all the years of analyzing literature as a professor, I miss taking texts apart.  But a person is not a book, and I am definitely not a reader.  My new mantra is that people are too complex, and simplifying is insulting.  Summation is idiotic, when it comes to other people.  Now I prefer to admire how a person can be many contradictory things and is also constantly changing.  So I'd rather give an appreciation of another person, not a reduction.  I'm on safer ground.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a little incident here in a local cafe where an interracial couple ate breakfast together, then later the husband who is black, stopped by as his wife and three friends were having lunch at the same cafe, and the waitress tapped on the window and told him to scram, evidently thinking he was pandhandling.  The guy was deeply upset, as he had every right to be, the waitress was fired, and our little pocket of the woods is in an uproar.  The waitress didn't have much speech, one word, but it was enough to cause a hellaballou. 

This event is a good example of impulsive judgment arising before all the facts are in.  She stepped in when no one had requested she do so.  She was minding someone else's mindstream, and reading it very, very wrongly.  Because she acted impulsively instead of responsively, all her prejudices and preconceptions arose to choke her.  She probably thought she was being proactive, but she was in the wrong town in the wrong era.  She might have made a lot of tips in Selma, Alabama in the sixties.

This extreme case reminds me that great harm can be done with one unthinking impulsive action.  The waitress lost her job.  The black man and his family were shocked and hurt, and the surrounding community has been forced to face racism in a place where it seldom shows itself so nakedly. 

Pausing might have saved the day.  Not doing what hadn't been requested would have helped.  Making assumptions revealed a prejudice that possibly the waitress didn't even know she possessed.  She learned something about herself, and she may be wiser now.  But the family has been rendered feeling unsafe and their world is askew.  The one word hurt them and changed their lives.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday, at my daughter's bridal shower, we sat in a circle and spoke about our parents' weddings:  what we had been told and how we felt about the story.  It was a lovely moment of right speech, with everyone listening intently to each story, and marveling at the variety and circumstances of each.  For some of us my age, our parents married in wartime, and that seems strange to us now.  For my daughter's friends, some of them knew a great deal about the wedding, some very little.  I wonder if it will spur them on to asking details while their parents are still alive.  I wish I'd asked questions of my parents.  Did my mother have a coursage?  It's not in the photo.  Were they married in the midwest by their families or on the border where my father was stationed?  Did any family attend?  Did they get any honeymoon?  I have a couple of aunts and uncles I could ask. 

What does it mean to speak of the origin of your family?  Why are these stories important?  We sense the import, but maybe cannot articulate it.  One of my friends has already written about how much it meant to her to speak about her parents and hear others.  She's gone on to write about it at some length.  I hope she saves it for her two daughters, because they will want to know, either now or as they grow older.  It's wonderful to have a record of life's markers.  Our stories are what we pass down and they keep us alive in memory.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is my daughter's bridal shower, hosted by a dear friend of mine.  It's a day for gratitude and the expression of it.  I'm grateful for every participant, who will be making this afternoon special for my daughter.  I'm grateful for my daughter, who is so special to me.  My friend is making all this possible, and it yokes me to to her more deeply.  And there will be several women there who are the age my mother would be, so that makes me feel her presence and the generational nature of this ritual.  I trust in the many kind words that will be spoken.  One of the activities we're going to do is describe what we know of our parents' wedding day.

I know it was wartime.  I know my parents met when my mother was 15 and my father nineteen.  My dad was cutting bolts of cloth at a pants factory and my mother was a seamstress, working along side her older sister.  So they were employees, then friends.  My mother lost her beau during the war, as he was a pilot killed in action.  My father became an army pilot and was stationed at the border.  They fell in love, married, and had me right at the end of the war.  In their wedding picture, my dad is in his uniform and my mom in a dark suit with a crisp white blouse.  They were poor, but staking their lives that they had a future.  Probably all they spent on the wedding was her coursage and the photo.  Their marriage spoke hope and future and love against the terror of war.  They did what so many did:  they chose life.

And now my daughter is choosing life and future and marriage and kids.  She is affirming the joy of living, and we are all witnesses to her choice.