Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I went with my friend to a water exercise class and had a great time.  Everyone was friendly and told me their names and helped me with the exercises and gave me tips.  We were all about the same age and no one had the figure they once did and no one was embarrassed.  I was immediately comfortable, and the warm water was soothing, though I struggled with executing some of the exercises.  The "noodle" was impossible for me to control, and it kept popping up or I went under.  Half a dozen women reassured me it had taken them months to be able to control it.  Their kindness mitigated my embarrassment.  Friendliness should never be underestimated.  I'll go back Thursday, because of the warm atmosphere, not the warm water.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We went to friends' house to watch the Oscars, and had a great time, but my husband doesn't like people talking at all when he's watching something, and I could see he was irritated a few times and he said so today.  He cannot stand much distraction, and it's a handicap for him in social situations.  He tries, but I don't think it's going to change.  He is generally so anxious that little things throw him off.  I don't explain him to others, that would be insulting, and I myself no longer become irritated.  It's a challenge and a burden for him, but others are doing nothing wrong.  I'd love to be able to lift this stress from him, but it doesn't work that way.  So I am a witness to his struggle, a sympathetic one, but I've learned not to take responsibility for it.  I never push him to do social events, so that when he does it's his decision.  I do a lot of socializing without him, and he's okay with that, though for him it brings up his struggle.  His agreeing to go last night was an act of courage, and I told him so.  That is right speech:  that witnessing and acknowledging.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've just said goodbye to my best friend who was here for three days.  We had a great time and talked a lot, but interestingly, not as intensely and compulsively as we used to when we were younger.  Part of that is our weekly phone conversation, so there is nothing really to "catch up" on, and also the comfortableness we feel in each other's presence.  And I noticed my husband has figured out how to weave in and out of the conversations and activities without going mad trying to get a word in edgewise.  He knows how to get in his two cents and get out when the subject bores him.  This is all good, because the three of us are taking a twelve day trip together in June, and it's a first.  Before, my friend and I have traveled alone, or once, with my childhood friend.  So we're trying something new and different, and it symbolizes a new level of connection for the three of us.  We each know how to take care of ourselves and each other pretty well, after forty years.  I love it!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My friend is coming today for a short visit, and it's been a while since we saw each other.  It was last May.  We used to visit each other, but now we usually plan a trip and do that instead.  However, she has been a champ about attending my kids' weddings and before that graduations and such.  I attended her son's wedding, but I've got three more kids than she does so she ends up doing the lion's share of traveling for events.  And in the fall we have the final kid's wedding here, so once again, she stands in as aunt and sister and best friend.  I appreciate it and her, and I'm going to remember to tell her today.  At least this time, her purpose is another's friend's birthday, so I benefit when she visits that friend as well, because she'll be here and then drive there for the event and visiting the town where she lived until she retired.  Gratitude.  I must remember to express it, and not just think it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We watched a movie last night, "The Debt" with Helen Mirren, Tom Wilkinson and Ciaran Hinds.  It's about three Israelis who in the sixties are sent to capture a Nazi doctor and things go wrong,
enough that he gets away and they lie to their superiors and say they killed and buried him.  For 30 years they are heroes, but that decision eats away at them all, but especially the woman and the one man that she loved, but because she impulsively slept with the other man and got pregnant, she can never be with.  Thirty years later, though she and the man she does not love are long divorced, their daughter writes a book lauding them.  Then they find out where the Nazi is, and that he is still alive and a reporter is about to interview him.  The one man has been ordered by the exhusband to find and exterminate him, but kills himself instead when the woman will not agree to finally go public about their deception.  She is sent by her ex to kill the Nazi before the reporter speaks to him.  Thus, the two people who were in love are eliminated, along with the Nazi, but before she dies she gives the reporter the real story.  Karma has punished each for the lie. 
You can see that the three, when young, were innocent, and never intended to kill themselves, just bring back the Nazi for trial.  But they kill their souls by taking credit for something and having to bolster and repeat lie after lie to conceal the truth.  We have great sympathy, as they have lost relatives in the war, but their lack of courage about admitting he escaped is the catalyst for disappointed, miserable lives, though the couple with the daughter become famous and powerful.  The third spends his life looking for the Nazi, unable to live with the lie.  So love is killed, and when the truth comes out, the daughter will be ashamed and humiliated, and her view of her parents forever tainted.  We cannot always know what consequences our actions will bring, but speaking falsehood is in this case like drinking poison.  It's a powerful lesson.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're having another deluge, and when I returned from walking our dog, we were both soaked.  Another day for reading or a movie.  Fear arises in me during these storms, as we have huge trees that could fall on our house, both on our property and on either side of us.  Last week two enormous trees fell:  one crushed three cars, the other blocked the whole street for a day.  I stopped by our younger son's place this morning and his fiance asked me if we had felt the earthquake Saturday morning.  I was visiting our older son, so had not.  But this kind of weather reminds us Nature is powerful and we are not in control.  It makes us jumpy.  When I was on the phone yesterday with a friend in another state, she described how nervous she was feeling about earthquakes.  Part of this is natural, and part may be the result of the election and the turmoil right now in Washington, D.C.  The zeitgeist is anxious. 
We're never in control, but storms like this don't allow us to ignore this fact.  We face it or wonder why we're snapping at our children.  I'm attempting to sit with this fear, and while I probably won't befriend it, I can cut myself some slack.  After all, I am an ordinary human being, so I guess I'll just join the crowd.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was just visiting my 16 month old grandson, and his speech is an explosion of new words, all expressed with utter joy:  bunny, car, train, book, soft, kittie, momma, daddy, cracker, etc.  His exuberance is contagious, and it gets so excited he exhausts himself, running bowlegged on his newly walking legs, carrying a book and ten a car and then a ball.  He found lots of his stuff under the sofa and I got a broom and we pushed it all out:  a truck book, a yellow ball, his hair brush, his train car.  Yellow is his favorite color and sunny is his disposition.  I could listen to him all day.  I follow after him like a puppy, attempting to keep him from electrocuting himself or hitting his head on the furniture or climb the footstool in the kitchen.  Life is just that miraculous, but we forget.  Our grandchildren make us remember just how extraordinary the ordinary world is.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I accidentally heard part of the President's news conference yesterday when I was driving.  I figured I could handle listening for a few minutes.  There was the usual bragging, exaggeration and vindictive trashing of anyone he considers is not toeing his line.  But his style of speech is so confusing and irrational that he's hard to follow.  There seems to be no line of reasoning whatsoever.  He blusters.  He bluffs.  He contradicts himself and that the facts.  I came away sort of sorry for him.  He appears to be unintelligent, though perhaps he's just unbalanced or ignorant.  You get the feeling he gets his information from sound bites, tweets and headlines in the grocery store.  This person clearly does not read, at all, and that is a tragedy.  For us at least.  He's gotten by beginning from rich and puffing up or scaring everyone around him into compliance.  He doesn't seem to realize he can't fire the American people.  Someone's mighty spoiled.  And yet he seems to identify with blue collar workers, with whom he's never even shared a beer.  It looks like he feels he's been and being treated unfairly and that makes him their ally.  Whatever his childhood or adulthood history, he makes the leap to being the underdog and a lot of people by into that idea.  There is some profound wound.  And his clumsy attempt to redress it probably will end up an excellent movie.  But right now, this appears to be a man with personal issues.  Only personal issues.  That's scary.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

There is excitement in the air because our younger son recently got engaged, and he and his fiance are looking for a venue for the wedding.  Last weekend they saw four, and one was a place I'd been to with my friend a couple of years ago.  I listened to my son describe it and a rush of enthusiasm hit me, maybe because I knew the place, and it is beautiful, with lots of places to hike nearby, and also because of my experience with my friend, which was so positive.  And all the worry about the plans melted away, as I realized that this wedding was not my responsibility, and this couple were older and confident and both fabulous organizers.  I thought to myself:  I just have to attend, that's all.  Of course we will pay for the rehearsal dinner and other things, but compared to our daughter's wedding a couple of years ago, I am free of responsibility. 

I automatically take on worry, guilt and a feeling of responsibility even when it's inappropriate.  Letting go is hard for me.  Yet freeing.  I'm glad I had this epiphany, so I can just enjoy the wedding and events leading up to it.  They only need me to show up.  I can do that!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I visited my eleven week old grandson yesterday.  He is smiling, cooing and making great effort to communicate.  He wants the connection to us, and he's bursting with his need to learn how to express himself and tell us as well as listen to us.  Speech is elementally for that purpose.  We are beings whose need to connect is vital.  And many other animals have this impulse and need.  So we mirror his sounds and he ours, and light up with smiles when he vocalizes and show our joy that he's joining our world of sociability.  His delight in this wiggles his whole body.  It clearly feels right to him, and enjoyable. 
Sometimes I think these babies teach us lessons we need to relearn:  that speech is for sharing and connection and love.  That other intentions are suspect and we should pause and reflect whether our purpose in speech is positive or hurtful.  A baby doesn't have the urge to hurt anyone ever.  That is where we start from.  And we would do well to get back to that premise.  If we speak from connection we will experience joy.  We are acknowledging our social nature and need for others.  Anything else is a delusion fostered by our ego. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I took my foster granddaughter to see "Hidden Figures" and she was interested and kept up with it pretty well.  She's 11 1/2 so she knows some of the history and there was enough human interest to carry her through the two hours.  I pointed out things and let her ask me questions.  As we ate lunch and told her I had lived in Virginia for the six years previous to the beginning of the film's time period and that my father was integrating plants in the south during this time.  Just as the movie "Loving" did, this one brings the south vividly to mind for me.  Everything was completely segregated when I was a kid living there, and as a young adult I had no interest in returning.  I was brought up to believe racism was morally wrong, and it tinted my view at the time I was a child and also going back, as I did recently.  I am every day learning the cost to me living in that environment, and appreciating my father's insistence we move back to California, where the colleges were better, as he said.  We were not southerners, and some of the charm was lost on us.  Yet I love some of the people there, and we mostly bridge the divide as long as we don't talk politics.  But it's there, now as it was way back when, and it hurts.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Wow.  I saw "I Am Not Your Negro" yesterday afternoon with a friend and it is so timely and elucidating that I wish everyone in America could see it.  I saw James Baldwin twice at readings, and also saw Malcolm X three or four times at Berkeley and Martin Luther King twice at marches.  I never saw Meager Evers, as he was killed when I was seventeen.  I was living out of the country when Malcolm X and King were killed, but remember vividly the stunning grief when they died.  Baldwin had the gift of saying the truth, unvarnished, but complicated.  He used himself as an example and was able to articulate his own fear and sense of alienation beautifully, and in a way that resonates with me and I believe most people.  It's a documentary that's hard to watch, because the racism and apathy by a lot of people has not changed.  This current flareup is the sign of a deep, dark past and the danger of our future.  But somebody dared say it, and his words have outlived him and speak to us now.  What a blessing.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We watched the movie "Sully" last night, and as we had seen it in the theatre, I was freer to notice other things about this remarkable incident.  One was how uncomfortable Sully was with the attention, and how stressful it was to him.  I believe most people imagine that if they were a hero, they would be thrilled and happy.  They see these fame seekers on TV and on Twitter and Instagram, and they would love to BE them.  But the movie did a great job of showing how scary it was to be focused on, both for himself and his wife.  He was in shock and examining his actions to check if he felt he did do the right thing, and the attention estranged him from others, rather than making him feel closer.  Fame is, as they say, a double edged sword.  He was hounded and abstracted and exaggerated until he couldn't recognize himself.  All these kids wishing to be a Kardashian are aiming for a bizarre existence where money does not buy happiness, only alienation and ordinary human tragedies are writ large.  If you are known for your posterior, does that help your level of self esteem?  I doubt it. 

Every day ordinary people pull drowning people out of cars, rescue folks, stop a violent act, or just ask if someone needs help.   I wonder if their anonymity is a blessing.  They remain themselves, and feel good about their act, but the pressures of projection from others is not an issue.  The act stays clean and bright and real.  Too much attention makes us doubt our actions.  And doubting causes hesitation.  Sully was remarkable in that he seems to have rebalanced himself and used his fame for good.  But maybe most people would not muster up the strength. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Nevertheless, she persisted.  Good for Elizabeth Warren.  She had the right to speak, and she used it until she was silenced by the patriarchy.  But that act of McConnell's will haunt him and other Republicans.  Not that they have a conscience, but it will cause others to see what silencing means.  Rape victims are refusing to be silenced at Baylor.  All around us people are speaking out against the Muslim ban, against fracking and racist tactics by police.  A lot of voices are raised right now.  And they will be heard.  The tipping points have been reached.  We want fairness, justice and a congress that speaks for the people who elected them, not the donors and lobbyists.  We will speak out and change this terrible course, as we did in the sixties.  Just ordinary people, finding their hearts in their mouths and speaking truth against all the lies and avoidance and subterfuge.  I believe it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I see that if you live long enough the attachment issue in Buddhism clarifies itself.  With our children our attachment is passionate and often misguided.  With grandchildren you feel the passion, but in a more detached way, as you are not "in charge" of anything, and the grandchildren are being raised without your advice.  At first I was hurt, as my kids would offer or withdraw their kids depending on their needs.  But now I realize the lesson is in letting go of all the ego around grandchildren, and simply enjoying them when you're with them.  And I've learned to think fondly of them without the desperate need to see or talk to them.  My role is really minimal, and I accept that.  I'm going to die, and I wouldn't want too great a loss to hit either my kids or grandkids, so there is automatic detachment on both sides.  I deeply appreciate what time I have with them and what they teach me, not what I might teach them.  My greatest gift to them is loving them unconditionally, and without expectation.  Each encounter is fresh and new and delightful, because I have no agenda, not even to make myself indespensible to them.  The more love they and I engage in, the better.  It's that simple.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I used to work with the victims of domestic violence, and over the years I realized the earlier such violence is addressed, the better.  We began going into high schools, as date abuse was an issue, but in my heart of hearts I knew the answer was easier and more complicated.  We needed to make sure small children did not grow up seeing abuse or being abused, and that meant a kind of interference that would never be allowed.  Little girls learn everything is their fault and they deserve to be hit.  Little boys learn if they are frustrated or angry hitting mommy or sister is the answer.  We counselors had a fantasy of kidnapping all these children and saving them from a life of repeating the violence. 

The hatred and violence we are seeing now, all over the world, began in a home where the man was a tyrant and the women and children afraid of him.  Who wants to be powerless?  So the boys emulate it and the girls placate it.  Patriarchy ends up causing this belligerent, nasty atmosphere we live in.  And why do women vote for men who abuse women?  Because if it is pervasive, you don't even notice sometimes.  You think it is god's will.  You are told your job is to nurture and support and look beautiful and you will be rewarded. 

This is how big the problem with our world is.  Can it be changed?  One family at a time only.  But with policies and leaders who address it, a lot of the family dynamic could be changed.  I don't believe men are happy being bullies.  They need to be freed up as much as the women and children.  We should all be working for the elimination of domestic violence, if we want a peaceful world.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I was walking our dog when I ran into an old friend and his dog.  He asked about me only having one dog with me and I told him about the death of our other dog.  He's been through this grieving process with his previous dog, and I knew he was sympathetic.  I told him we'd cried for three days after we put him down.  I'm not ashamed of grieving for a pet.  Even as a child, I can remember grieving when our cat or dog died.  I've not forgotten any of them or their names.  I saw the sadness of my father when we lost a pet, and when his final pet, an apricot standard poodle named Pepe was hit by a car in front of his house, a light went out of my father.  We often suggested him getting another dog, but he refused.  He'd had enough heartbreak over dogs.  When he took care of our dog Huckleberry for a few days, and then later we had give Huckle away because he began snapping at the mailman and others, he looked at me like I was a murderer.  But I was taking care of him as he was dying of cancer, and driving back and forth to my four kids in a new house in a new town with new schools, and I couldn't handle it all.  But Huckleberry haunts me.  I should have left him behind in Colorado, where he was out in the country like he was used to, but my husband talked me into bringing him to our tiny yard in a city, and he couldn't adjust, and my dad was sick, and I knew no one who could help or support us.  Sometimes I forgive myself, and other times I know I never will.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

What is free speech and what is hate speech and should they both be protected as if they are interchangeable?  So much hate speech is demanding complete freedom from censorship and the easy answer of just don't listen to it is no longer viable, because it has entered the public arena so insistently.  Our new president is exposing us all to hate speech without limits.  If we want to know about our government we read or hear this bile.  That hate should call itself the champion of free speech is perverse and vile.  I risk using an old fashioned phrase:  is nothing sacred?  If our government is free to label religions, countries and groups of people without contradiction, what has happened to the Constitution and the Fourth Amendment?  People who wish for civility and kindness and restraint have no place in this new world.  We who would "get along" are told that we are fools and dismissed.  When the President has no idea what our democracy means, or truth is, then the distortion is devastating. 
And if churches want to espouse politics then they should not be tax free.  Then they become political entities.  Yet the president says they can be as active as they want and we will pay the bill.  We know he won't.  He doesn't pay taxes.  But he forces us to subsidize his political viewpoint.  This is tyranny.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Why do we never seem to be kind enough to ourselves?  When I see it in my grown kids, I feel sad.  Yet we all seem to struggle with this critical, comparative voice in our heads.  I can see now how destructive it was to me and how I hesitated about actions that would have benefited me.  But watching my kids not think they are "good" enough, or attractive enough or smart enough is devastating.  I read recently that girls until the age of six think they can do anything, but after that height they begin to think they aren't as smart as boys.  Even though they have better grades, test scores and succeed more often.  Something in our culture tells them they aren't smart, and they don't try math and engineering and science because they think they don't have the brains for it.  And boys persevere because they think they are smarter, no matter what their actual achievements.  Parents struggle long and hard to make their kids confident, but then their peers take over and swallow up the joyous belief in self.  Being aware helps, but not when school, technology and media subtly whisper one thing to boys and the other to girls.