Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is our dogs' eleventh birthdays.  We sang happy birthday, gave them birthday bisquits, a sqeaky toy each and put birthday bandanas on their necks.  I memorialized it with a photo.  In their case right speech is not as important as right tone and right tone is nothing compared to a bisquit.  But put it all together and they seemed excited and perky, and when it began to rain on our walk, they took it in stride.  Dogs don't seem to need speech much.  They are attached to our heartstrings and feel everything first.  Which means they see through the words to intention.  It's an admirable quality, and maybe why Tibetans believe that dogs are the highest reincarnation next to humans.  Loyalty, protectiveness, compassion for their humans, they will give up their lives for those they love.

Their devotion is an example to be followed.  And they are the best snuggle buddies in the world.  Today, I will try to live up to my dogs' example.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The sweetest speech in the world is the news of a baby born.  My friend's granddaughter was born yesterday before dawn, and she's lovely and healthy and the whole family is joyful.  I've already seen three pictures of her, thanks to IPhones, and feel I am sharing in this happiness.  And soon my son and daughter-in-law will have a baby boy.  I'm excited and nervous and waiting, just waiting.  I really don't want to do anything else, so I distract myself but in the back of my mind is anticipation.  Being in the present moment is difficult.

But last night at our writing group, I experienced such joy because everyone's piece was just so terrific and I had this epiphany of how skilled the group had become through hard work and supporting each other.  Their speech was my joy.  We were telling important stories, sending them out into the world to share.  It felt so good.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had dinner at our younger daughter's and son-in-law's place last night with his parents who are visiting them.  I like them more as I get to know them, though we haven't much in common.  We got along well last night, and watched the blood moon/eclipse together in front of the flat.  But when we went home my husband had really had an awful time.  Nothing bad had happened, he just had a completely different experience than I had.  It was a wake up for me.  He and I are very different people.  Socializing is stressful for him and I enjoy it (excuse the generalizing, sometimes it's the opposite).  His reaction reminds me that my world is subjective, and not "the truth".

I've learned not to argue him out of his own opinion.  I try to respect his viewpoint.  But it is the Mars/Venus dilemma, and I'm afraid he gets discouraged if I don't see the interaction his way.  It makes him feel worse, as if he has no right to his opinion unless I can be persuaded to his "side".  I don't believe in sides, and I'm certainly too old to pretend to agree with my husband of 41 years.  It's like we inhabit parallel universes, as in a Murakami novel.  But it serves to remind me that everyone is subjective and not to assume people are in agreement about what they see and hear.  We all filter reality through our unique prism.  It's really pretty fascinating.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My Buddhist teacher talked today about thorns in the heart and how they keep us from being the person we wish to be.  He said no one is evil:  if you look deeply enough, you see the thorns in the person's heart that have hindered him/her from kindness and compassion.  They are in a cloud of confusion, striking out or mimicing something done to them.  The more you understand the easier it is to forgive.  This includes ourselves.  Those sharp hurts in our hearts are keeping our heart from expanding and embracing others.  If we ease these thorns out by examining them and speaking of them to a witness, then our heart no longer hurts.

Speaking of and acknowledging these thorns is difficult.  And we are often unaware of them, unaware that are actions are resulting from a long ago hurt, a grudge, a wound.  An invisible wound cannot heal, but we can take action to heal ourselves and turn to others to heal us if we make it visible.  And after we've undergone this process, our compassion and ability to see thorns impeding others is enlarged.  But the speaking must happen.  Teachers say a Buddhist practice needs one witness, at least.  Usually, the teacher is that witness.  I also have several friends who are my witnesses.  I'm blessed.  It takes my admission of the thorn to pluck it out.  I must speak of the unspeakable.  And I must have a listener.  I am engaged with others to be able to practice.  We are interdependent.  And we have the opportunity to heal each other by our speech.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our dogs woke us up early this morning, and since I had something planned with a friend at 10, I cheerfully fed them, made breakfast, walked both dogs and then my husband and I drove to our son's place to feed his girlfriend's cat and check on him.  We even whipped over to the bank to get some money out.  I was back home in plenty of time and waited first inside, then outside, for my friend to pick me up after her Pilates class.  When she was late I called and she had forgotten all about it.  She felt terrible and apologized profusely, and I was gracious.  But I was disappointed.  I could go by myself but a quilt show needs a friend to share reactions and likes and dislikes.  So I'll wait until we can see it together. 

We're both at the age when forgetfulness is rampant.  It could have been me.  But now I have a weekend with no plans, no baby in sight, and I have to scramble around for an outing.  Am I angry?  No, just, as I said, disappointed.  There is no blame.  Which is an improvement over the past, when I'd have judged my friend, or decided she didn't value my friendship enough and feel sorry for myself.  Today it was clean.  I named what I was feeling accurately right off the bat.  And what happened then was the upset went away in a minute or two.  Amazing what practicing no judgment can do!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is the anniversary of my father's death, and I want to speak of it even if only on this blog, because I value memory and the special place in our hearts for our parents.  He's been gone exactly 30 years today.  So much has happened that he "missed", both good and bad.  He was a powerful presence for my kids, and I regret the youngest doesn't remember him.  She grew up without grandparents, since my mother died 10 months before my dad.  At 40 I was an orphan, and "on my own".  It felt terrifying and liberating.  I grieved heavily for a year, then gradually life took over, as it does, and though I still thought of them frequently, the pain subsided.  The pain was partly feeling they were cheated by dying so young.  The pain was also how badly they cared for themselves and how their deaths were attributable to that lifestyle.  They both smoked from the time they were kids.  They drank too much.  They ate poorly at times, and with too much fat and sugar in their diets.  They did exercise regularly, and had friends and support systems and financial security and travel and all things that make life interesting.  With my mother, the smoking and drinking caused a fatal heart attack.  With my dad, the smoking and working in the textile industry and breathing all that air in factories filled with fibers eventually killed him. 

I've passed the ages they both died, which feels very strange.  I see them both in my kids and in myself.  Their love for me was never in doubt.  We didn't agree on a lot of things, but they had my back regardless.  That is my legacy to my kids.  I'm there for them.  No matter what.  My mother used to say even if my brother and I were in prison she'd love us.  It annoyed me at the time, but I get it now.  Love doesn't judge, it just is.  And I still feel my father's love and appreciate his spirit being with me.  Hi, Dad.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night I felt I floundered a bit when I was sewing with our younger son's girlfriend.  She and I have tried several baby gift projects.  The last time it was quilts and this time it's an owl pillow.  I'd lost the pattern so I'd drawn one on parchment paper, and as she worked on cutting and sewing, I realized I'd done a terrible job and also didn't know how much to redo or if I should tell her we should start all over. 

How to be encouraging while constantly adjusting the owl?  I had no instinct for the balance.  I'm a retired teacher, sure, but nobody would ever hire me to teach sewing.  And I'm not so good at following directions or stating the steps to follow.  I felt lost.

I wrote her an email this morning apologizing, and she denied she'd been frustrated.  She said she thought she would pull apart and resew or make a new pattern herself.  She is so completely kind that I'm not sure I believe her about the frustrating part, but I realize that what she described is sewing:  you try it, it doesn't look right, there's too much material or too little, the sides aren't the same, and you redo and redo until you are satisfied with what you're looking at.  I wanted to protect her, but she IS learning a lot by the old standby:  trial and error.

I'm glad I apologized.  I'm sure that was right speech.  I just wish I'd had some right speech flowing last night when I was trying to help!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

For me right speech includes what I write, as I am so oriented towards expressing myself in writing.  Yesterday I wrote the beginning of something new and it felt so good.  I was telling about a visit to India 15 years ago to visit my daughter, and the funny things that happened during the visit.  It's liberating to be writing something new, and I'm not sure why.  I deepest aspiration was always to be a writer.  As a child I kept diaries and wrote poetry.  There has never been a time in my life when I wasn't at least writing in a journal.  In my twenties I wrote poetry, and was part of a poetry collective.  When a friend died I wrote a book about the experience and my attempts to "save" her.  In my thirties and forties I tried my hand at novels and a memoir.  I've usually been in a writer's group, and I've done workshops, retreats, writer's conferences. 

I feel at home writing, whereas with speaking aloud there is an accompanying anxiety at times, and a judgmental voice in my head criticizing what I say.  I over analyze and over inflate the importance of what I say.  My comfort zone is pen and paper, well keyboard and computer.  In my group, I often forget my fellow writers feel more at home speaking than writing.  I guess the habit of writing has relaxed me about what I write.  Habit, both in my Buddhist practice and in my daily writing habit, gives me a sense of peace.  So much so that perhaps I need to be carefully awake instead of drowsy and slumped when I write or meditate.  But mostly, the joy of both practices keeps me fully engaged.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It was my turn to facilitate our writing group last night, and I'd emailed the agenda, and thought I HAD IT ALL UNDER CONTROL, and then one of our members didn't want to go along with a plan and I saw all this junk arise in my mind:  she doesn't like me, she's angry, she is going to back out, she will quit the group and so will everyone else, oh my god.  As we all listened to her objections, I flashed on me as a bulldozer, a shiny red one, an image which I don't find flattering.  We ended up working out a better understanding of the plan, and are going to revisit it next week when we meet, but for me it was a wake up call:

I am in control of nothing.
Things that seem easy to me might be terrifying to others and vice versa.
I want to be liked, but disagreement doesn't mean I'm not liked.  Everybody's different.
If I can't persuade others to my plan, I need to proceed on my own.
I'm often not as persuasive as I imagine.
Listen much, much more than talk.
The plan doesn't really matter, it's just an idea.  No doubt something better will come along.

Ah, the mind.  The ego.  The delusion.  IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT ME.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We really were delightfully surprised yesterday by the opera we saw:  "Sweeney Todd" by Stephen Sondheim.  The music was wonderful, the opera well cast and the voices perfect.  The acting was even terrific.  I had tears in my eyes at the end and my husband said he had chills up his spine.  Opera is wonderful speech for emotion, and the suffering of Sweeney was elevated to universality by the singer.  Yes, he was a murderer, but because he'd gone mad from the loss of his wife and daughter.  Mrs. Lovett had no excuse, but she was Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth.

I adore opera.  It transcends it's lyrics, whether they are sublime or ridiculous, because of the music.  Simple words become profound with the right musical setting.  As teenagers, when we're at our most hormonal and filled with a spin cycle of emotions, only our favorite songs speak for us.  We play a CD over and over and let the emotions be sopped up in the song.  I remember sighing to Elvis' "Love me Tender' and the Everly Brothers "All I have to do is Dream".  Later, Bruce Springsteen's "Down to the River" and "I'm on Fire" sent shivers up and down my body. 

Now my emotions mainly get engaged in opera and classical music, but the other day I listened to a Sam Cooke disc and it brought me back to sock hops and sweaty hands and dancing with a boy with dimples.  Ah.  Shortcut to being a turbulent teen again without undergoing the suffering involved.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was chatting with a friend on the phone this morning and we covered a bunch of topics, including weddings, quilt shows and her granddaughter's birthday party later today.  We will see each other tomorrow night, but it will be at a writing group, where there won't be time for chitchat. 

Chitchat is right speech.  Not meaningful, not important, but satisfying, like birds chirping for joy.  We were comparing and contrasting wedding stories, not to harm, but openly and curiously, to discuss how tricky weddings can be and how something seems to fall through the cracks no matter how diligent we are.  So we were noticing there is no such thing as a perfect wedding, forgiving ourselves for lapses and goofs.  The talk was a kind of support for each other and also an affirmation that we both noticed some of the same things.

Trivial is not automatically bad.  It can be a method of bring each other closer, as long as it harms no one and we are not talking about a third party behind her back.   Maybe it's blowing off steam in a harmless way as well.  There must be some good reason we feel so good after we hang up!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend has a bad flu and has texted me that she's not up to phone calls and the like.  I appreciate her boundaries, and it means I don't have to imagine some estrangement or other problem.  I'm just waiting until she contacts me.  And her text reminds me that talking to others is an EFFORT.  It requires lucidity and intention and careful choice of language.  Sure it happens without all that, but sometimes the results are disasterous.  My friend knows that she needs her wits about her to be not harmful.  Sometimes we forget the power of words and the carelessness that can get us into trouble.

When we go quiet, it might be to think something over before we speak to that person, or to figure out what it is we are feeling, or orchestrate the right speech before we actually open our mouths.  This is awareness, and it shows a profound respect for the person we are going to address.  And, as Suzuki Roshi said, "It's never to late".  Never too late to say what it has taken us a long time to formulate, or revise something we've said before and regret.  It's never too late to express gratitude or love or appreciation.  Whenever it happens, go for it. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading a fascinating book titled "NeuroTribes" about the history of autism and it's theories and treatments.  A lot of wrong speech harmed many families struggling with children who were along this spectrum of behaviors.  Now we know it is genetically programmed, but in the 1930s and beyond it was blamed on the mothers of these children, who were accused of being cold, not wanting these children, and often the treatment was to wrench the children away from their parents and put them in institutions, where most often they regressed and suffered and died.  Blame was cast without any solid research or evidence.  Doctors became famous as healers of this disease who were out for glory and financial gain.

Nowadays, autism is better understood and many people with it adapt as they grow up and find professions where they can be successful and respected.  Those who are on the more severe side of the spectrum can be helped by patience and kindness.  But the problem of being more fascinated with the presentation and puzzling it out than with seeing the child and interacting with him is still a threat.  It's the scientist vs the pediatrician.  Theories don't help patients, only engagement and seeing the patient as fully human really gains insight and healing. 

This book, though I'm only half way through, seems to be about compassion over ambition.  Where kindness wins out, the true insight into the nature of autism is revealed. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

In order to observe right speech I avoided the debate last night like the plague.  My husband watched, but I told him I did not wish to hear about it.  Why put that nonsense in my head?  I know it's not a pristine head, and is filled with trivia and bad speech I've heard or read, but at least I have control over this.  Instead, this morning in the paper I read about a woman with three horses who risked her life to walk to the barn and save them and stay with them until the fire had passed by.  I read another article about an organization that is bringing supplies for animals to one of the fires where the animals are sheltered, so that they have enough food and water and first aid supplies.

There is news out there that is uplifting.  In the same paper today someone wrote about a Cooper's Hawk that landed in their back yard and hung out a while.  The animal expert said it probably was attracted by thirst and was a bit afraid of their fountain.  This story brings compassion and attention to detail about the ramifications of the drought, as the other articles do about the effects of the fires.

And in each case there is something we can do, an action we can take to help the animals.  We can write a check or put out water in our yards for wild animals. 

And while we feel for the animals affected by these events, we can also truly help.  Now with the Republican Party, not so much.

Wandering Along the Path; Right Speech

I went to the post office this morning to mail wedding photos I'd printed out.  Better late than never and a picture is worth a thousand words, I hope.  I had a chat with the guy who mans the counter.  This is a young man who is friendly, even chatty, and super efficient at what he does.  He gets you another box if he can save you money, has advice that gets the package there quickly, and also remembers people.  Today he was talking about a new manager and how he's trying to remind the manager that if they have new procedures they need certain supplies.  He's covering his you-know-what by sending several copies of each memo to different people.  So there is pressure, and yet he's real.  Not false friendly but genuine and without sacrificing speed and efficiency while engaging with customers.

He's a Buddha in my world.  I look forward to talking to him, hearing his tips on saving money, and his take on stamps I select.  He likes the Elvis ones too.  Right speech is here all around us, if we take the time to really listen.  It's not in a zendo or church, it's out in the world where people attempt to do their work with a sense of service to others.  So look around you and learn.  Then you'll find your dharma.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

There seems to be a kind of freer speech floating around in films right now on the subject of grandparents.  First I saw "Grandma", which has not a cosy, loveable grandma, but Lily Tomlin as a nasty, wisecracking, break all the rules grandma.  Her life has been a minefield, and she has hurt a lot of people blasting her way to her own personal drummer.  And yesterday, we saw "The Visit", where Shymalayan turns every cliche about grandparents up-side-down and brings us the grandparents from hell.  With references to Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel, he reminds us that crones are terrifying, especially to children.  The act of a mother entrusting her children to her parents becomes child abuse.  The director/writer has a lot of fun with the horrors of age as seen through a child's eyes:  crepey skin, incontinence, odd behaviors and the mysteries of old people.  I was not offended.  I remembered clearly how I felt when I was a child around my grandparents.  I loved them, but their skin, their breath, their funny ancient ways! 

For the first time, I thought about how being handed over by your parents to your grandparents for a visit can seem terrifying, and this is just when the grandparents adore you and want you to feel safe and loved.  Their house, their rules.  Too early bedtime perhaps, no nightlight because you are a big girl now, hating the food they put on your plate, wanting to watch TV.  It's disorienting, and your parents are where? 

As a grandparent, I welcome the breakage of the myth of cuddly grandparents.  There are as many types of grandparents as parents, and we welcome being fully humanized.  It's a lot of pressure baking cakes and wearing an apron and humming while you knit.  Sometimes we'd rather be dancing to rock and roll with our grandkids, and screaming on scary rides at the boardwalk. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

When I went to hear a Buddhist Abbott two days ago, I thumbed through the index to his book, to see if my teacher in the same Soto Zen tradition was listed.  She studied at the same time as he did, with the same teacher and she also graduated from the same University.  They must have known each other pretty well.  Yet her name was not there.  It felt to me like a kind of erasure.  She was a woman in a man's spiritual world, and she broke off and had her own zendo nearby.  She keeps getting written out of the history of the surge of meditation practice in my area.  Her stories and experience are amazing.  But she didn't have the luck to have a student who wanted to be her assistant, and compile her talks into a book, as so many other teachers have had. 

At one time, I considered helping her, and offered, but she wasn't willing or ready, and then she moved three hours driving away, and I decided not to take on that challenge of distance and time compounded.  I thought and still think she has so much to say about right speech, but instead of guiding her through a manuscript I'm writing this blog.  Why?  She has slipped cognitively and is unable to organize her thoughts or papers.  I could do a biography of her, but again, it would be time consuming and difficult, though her long term memory is in pretty good shape.  The short term memory, however, is agonized.  It feels like it's much too late to get accurate information from her, and therefore, I'd have to rely entirely on interviews with colleagues and friends.  Lots of time and travel.  And I'm no spring chicken myself.  I'm ten years younger.

So regret arose when I went to the reading, and sadness for my teacher.  Perhaps she will have the recognition she deserves, but I won't be a part of it, other than speaking of her to friends.  I'll always be grateful for her teachings, and pray for her now that she suffers from confusion and debilitation, but I've given up the idea of rescuing her place in the history of Buddhism in the west.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I saw the film "A Walk in the Woods" today, and it reminded me of how much a walk with a friend can open up conversation.  The physical exercise, as with walking meditation, can loosen the body enough to relax the communication process.  There is time for digression and confession and inconsequential give and take.  The defenses tend to come down and spontennaity goes up.  There is also the pause/silence thing, because of heavy breathing or slugs of water or needing to stop with your hands on your hips.  And how much less often I walk with friends nowadays, though I did walk with my friend last Friday morning, and it was fun and comforting and meaningful to me, as it is every time we walk.  I take the dogs, so there is lots of stopping for pooping and peeing, sniffing other dogs, dog talk with owners, and the like.  Although her dog is dead, she has the dog lover's tolerance for all this rigamarole. 

What a simple gift walking is, and how we do take it for granted, until we get sick, or break a foot, or the weather prohibits it.  All the great joys are that simple:  a hug, the beauty of a flower, a child's laughter, splashing in puddles.  I came out of the movie theater resolved to walk more, and with my brand new walking sticks from REI!!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Yesterday a friend seemed dazed and confused, and this morning my husband was in a similar condition.  We're of an age when these signs must be noticed and watched.  I told my friend I was concerned, and yes, she did seem more confused than I'd seen before.  This was after discussing her husband's behavior that was worrying her.  Today it's my own husband.  We are all nervous about cognitive impairment.  And we are each advocates for each other if we tell the truth when we have concerns.  This is hard speech, because we're not doctors and can only say what we feel.  Expressing our concern is as far as we can go.  Then a doctor's visit is warranted.

But our elders are mostly dead, and it's up to us to monitor each other silently at first, gently and with questions not diagnoses.  I hope my friends do the same for me.  Because perspective requires multiple takes on behavior, and quite a bit of courage to speak when changes occur.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I believe this is the day a year ago that my brother killed himself.  His body was not found until October 28, but it was badly decomposed, and the last check he wrote was September 11.  He suffered from paranoia and I'm guessing the anniversary of 9/11 played into his disturbed mind.  I have wondered and stayed up nights trying to figure out what his suicide note revealed.  I have waited for answers.  And now I'm at piece with the mystery of his mind, his life and his death.  HIS.  Not mine to dissect.  I have no right to KNOW.  I will live with uncertainty, as I do daily and hourly anyway.  Mostly I'm comfortable with it, sometimes I'm anxious and desperate.

Now there is only missing his being on this beautiful planet.  His ashes are in my guest bedroom (little irony there).  I will scatter them soon in the woods, where he had his happiest times as a child.  I am in a strange position, since I am the only one grieving him.  My sadness is solitary.  But my love is steadfast.  I loved him as my companion in childhood, I loved him when his suffering caused us great pain, I loved him when he sobered up, I loved him whenever he chose to see us, I loved him through the last thirteen years of his life, when he wouldn't see or speak to me.  There is no diminishment of the love now.  He is lodged permanently in my heart.  And how he died or lived is not connected to that love in any way.   The love just is.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading a riveting biography of the painter Agnes Martin, and it brings up for me the manipulation of silence by artists.  I don't think this was true for Martin, as she had a shyness and mental illness seemed to cause her disappearances.  But some artists can and do manipulate their public by not giving interviews or refusing to respond to demands for public access.  Some of this is rightful fear of being hurt or ridiculed.  There are writers like J.D. Salinger who was a recluse and, intentional or not, became a legend.  And recently, Harper Lee's just published novel, "Go Set a Watchman" has people arguing over whether her silence for many years and lack of writing was because she chose it, or suffered severe writer's block.  The book itself, to my mind, after having read it, should have never been published.  It shows a young writer just struggling with her skills and ferociously in need of an editor.  One bows who the editor of "To Kill a Mockingbird", as it is vastly superior to this novel which preceded it.  I think Lee's silence was wise, but she has been manipulated into revealing an amateurish attempt.

Silence and mystique are often yoked together.  Silence cannot really be interpreted.  Did Martin have something to say by her silence?  Was it part of a Buddhist practice, deliberate, or was it a disordered mind retreating into chaos and then healing?  We'll never know, because her writings are contradictory, as are reports from her friends and colleagues.  It's private and personal, and perhaps ultimately by Martin herself, unanswerable.  There are and always will be more questions than answers in this life.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're having a heat wave, and there is lots of grumbling going around.  I tolerate heat better than cold, so I'm a happy camper.  But it reminds me that every single person has a different experience, and nobody is right or wrong in their perceptions.  What they speak is true for them.  Now there is the necessity to touch base with reality enough that you understand your dogs need to walked early in the morning not to become overheated, and it is not the best night for baking something in the oven.  But people's bodies are different and react differently.  It took the medical establishment a century or two to realize women's heart attacks often had radically different symptoms and that the guidelines for rushing to the hospital for men left many women untreated or dead.  Hello?  Women's bodies react differently.  Nowadays breast cancer is treated differently for each woman, depending on type, stage, DNA, response to chemo in sample cells, etc.  We know to be specific and look at the individual patient.

I mention those two examples because my son's partner's mother just had two heart attacks and my older daughter and many of my friends have been treated for breast cancer.  It's personal for me.  My mother's first heart attack was her last breath, because she only felt nauseated and my dad didn't call 911 until she had keeled over dead.  She didn't get a chance to be treated.  She was supposed to have massive chest pain, and she didn't, because she was a 120 pound female. 

So let's hear it for the spectrum of experiences and differences in our human bodies.  I'm just glad right now heat is bearable for me.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My son lent me a book called "Eating Crow", published in 2004.  It's hilarious.  It's about a British guy who is a nasty restaurant critic until a chef kills himself right after the critic has written a scathing review.  He has an epiphany and apologises to the widow, then goes on a spree of apologizing to everyone he has offended or not been so kind to, including his younger brother.  Eventually, he becomes famous for apologizing and is hired by the UN to be the chief apologist for genocides, attrocities of all sorts and is set up in New York.  I'm not finished reading the novel, but I love the absurdity and the complete relevance to our Western culture.

Not a day goes by that some group is not demanding an apology and reparations.  Yes, they mostly have excellent reasons for the requests.  But the book makes me think about when apologies would have been lovely to have received, and even better to have given myself.  I had two tiffs with women friends that I thought were resolved when we met to discuss the confusion and our points of view.  In the first case, the woman said she'd been upset about her fiance (whom she did not marry) and in the second she said I reminded her of her mother.  They both apologised.  I accepted.  A few years later, after I'd moved back here,  I bumped into them and they both wondered why we'd not been in touch.  When I described the contents of each meeting, neither remembered either the meeting or the admission that something was going on with them and they were unbalanced a bit at the time.  So apologies are evidently erasable and unmemorable to some.  Maybe apologies don't stick.

I've often wished I could apologise to my mother for throwing away all the hand sewn and knit clothes she made for me.  I was an ungrateful wretch.  And I wish I'd kept my fixing others ideas to myself and not opened my big mouth.   I've tried to rectify when possible.  Being Native American, I believe in at least having history be accurate and not a white wash. 

So can you go too far?  Does it become a device to get you off the hook instead of genuine remorse?  Intention takes a lot of examining before you take the plunge.  But it's worth considering.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It's my 70th birthday today and I've just spent a lovely weekend with all my kids, their spouses and my grandkids.  That they took all the time and effort to make the two days special is such a gift.  I am touched.  We ate out, swam, saw some sights, and they had a barbeque last night with games, decorations and a pinata.  Wow!  The game was a trivia one about me, and they broke into groups and competed against each other.  What was so great was that my older daughter designed the whole game for my family to know more about me and the children hear some facts they would otherwise not know.  I really felt like the center of attention.  And the pinata had sugar free candy, and my younger daughter baked a sugar free carrot cake.  Wow!

When the out of state family said goodbye, I struggled not to weep.  I feel invisible strings from my heart to theirs and I miss them so when we're apart, which is most of the year.  But this year, because of a wedding, wedding shower, baby shower and other events, I've seen them more than usual.  I love it.  All my kids and their spouses are so sweet and loving, and the blessing of their natures washed over my husband and I.  How lucky can you get?  And the cards are by my bedside to see their loving right speech whenever I wish. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our friends took us for a yummy dinner and to see Linda Tillery last night.  She was fantastic, but my husband complained that she talked too much.  I see his point, but I enjoyed it.  Maybe because it was her birthday celebration, she was turning 67, and she was loosey goosey in a way that's natural and not staged.  She seemed more genuine on stage that most entertainers.  She used a crutch to get on stage, and sat while she sang, and appeared to be demostrating for us the vissisitudes of aging.  But her voice was strong and young, and the musicians backing her up were fantastic, though they sported some powerful gray hair.  Before she began the main show, she brought out a 17 year old  man who played guitar and piano, and he was extraordinarily gifted.  So we experienced the joy of a young guy on his way up and the pure pleasure of experienced, older folk reveling in their art.

Since it's Bill's and my birthdays, it seemed as if she was celebrating us as well.  She told stories of her childhood and experiences performing traveling all over the world.  There was a sense of a life being summed up.  I felt the power of that as much as the songs.  So, no, the rambling didn't bother me, in fact, it charmed me.  I felt I had a glimpse into a soul on stage.  It was a spiritual experience.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

What is happening with the refuges in Europe is almost beyond speech.  The photos tear the heart assunder.  Such photos are speech.  The father holding the drowned body of his son is powerful and haunting, like photos we remember from Vietnam in the 70s.  The innocents destroyed over the merciless politics of adults who will never bear the cost themselves.

I'm thinking of how we examine family photos looking for clues as to happiness or sadness.  We somehow expect a revelation that will not transpire in words.  We acknowledge the power of the visual.  Yet photos can lie or be manipulated or manipulate us.  They cannot stand alone.

Whatever makes us engaged and curious is positive.  We may need the image to spur us on to seek the truth.  The more powerful the image, the more we cannot look away.  Our interdependence must be apparent for us to have compassion, and whatever nudges us to investigate is brave.  So let us weep with this father, his two sons lost to him, but us not lost to what is happening so far away.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is my husband's birthday and I served him a big breakfast in bed.  We've been married forty one years so words are mostly unnecessary.  Also, with him, listening is the best gift.  Since he's retired he's been pretty isolated, self chosen, so he wants my ear more than ever.  Sometimes I decline, and last night he wanted to tell me the plots of two BBC shows he'd watched:  Trouble in Paradise and Doc Martin.  I politely said no thanks.  But I'm pretty tolerant of this need.  I'd rather he got involved in activities and classes, but he knows that and knows he should, but can't quite get himself started.  And it's his life and timeline. 

I go out a lot, and do things with friends and have groups and activities, because I need more varied socialization.  I like people, have friends I truly enjoy, and I don't share a lot of interests with my husband.  That's fine with me.  I don't expect one other person to fulfill me, or, as the Jerry Maguire movie says, "you complete me".  I'm not a fan of that kind of marriage, though I have friends who believe and have lived with that principle.  I guess I need a lot of breathing room.

My husband respects that and even encourages me to get out and do things with others.  So that's all I need.  And the right of refusal about plotlines in mystery shows. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I read a really good mystery that I finished last night.  In the plot line was a story that sounded fantastic and almost pulled me away from the book.  Yet after I completed the book, an afterward noted that this story was in fact true, and was documentable.  Truth is stranger than fiction.  I realized that keeping an open mind until the END of the story is important, and how often my critical thinking makes decisions and judgments before hearing the whole tale.  I somewhat spoiled for myself the reading of this mystery by my own asides and my criticism of what I thought was a plot device, though it was really an examination of historical events.  I thus reenforced the author's point that greatly important information is hidden by human beings' propensity to deny what might seem preposterous.  Thus others get away with outrageous acts because we cannot imagine them.

I was reading in the newspaper this morning of the 4,500 year old UNESCO site in Syria that ISIS has destroyed.  A few years ago none of us could imagine that people of a region would destroy their own heritage not accidentally through conflict but deliberately as an act of spitting on their own heritage.  They say it is because idolatry was worshipped, but really it is to insult and horrify us with their devaluation of culture.  Why do we care?  Because history has the potential to help us discover who we are and were and it identifies us.  Now our history includes people who deliberately commit these acts of contempt. 

I will strive to be more open and non-judgmental about story.  After all, I am the person who listened to battered women's stories, most of which could never be believed if written down.  And I admire even more the author of the book I just read, because she dared to risk the skepticism of her readers, for the sake of truth.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend sent me a photo of her mother as a young woman.  She died 40 years ago.  I am touched when people remember the dead.  I often do it myself.  It seems the essence of right speech to keep memories alive.  And seeing the photo had me imagining her hopes and dreams and how her four daughters have fared after her death.  They've all had families and children and led interesting lives.  She must have done quite a bit right because they are good people.  It's sad she couldn't live longer to see their life choices and her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  But my guess is she was fierce woman in the best sense of the word, and she endowed her daughters with a jest for life and a passion for family.  They fight and argue but they are there for each other every step of the way.  I envy that.

So the ripples move outward from a daughter's memory of her mother, honoring her and her birth and death.  This gesture is lovely, and I'm basking in the tenderness.