Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I watched "Arrival" last night again.  It's a favorite of ours and we have the DVD.  Ironically, it is not just Louise Banks who is unmoored from linear time, but us as we watch.  And the certainty she has of her daughter's death and her ultimate decision to conceive knowing what is coming is actually what we all face.  We bring children into the world knowing they, as we all do, are going to die.  So living becomes those treasured moments between birth and death, and we need to slow down and be awake and aware of each minute experience.  I love the moments Louise "sees".  Big ones like her daughter's diagnosis and death, little ones like playing tickle fingers in the back yard, watching her splash in rubber boots, rubbing noses with Hannah when she is a baby.  There is an equality to all those moments, because each is fully lived. 
As Louise slowly understands the speech of the septopods, she enters their world, through symbols and empathy.  When we learn another language, we also embrace a different culture and worldview.  But all of us, earthbound or not, face extinction.  It's what makes us "human".

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had just finished texting a friend about seeing the film "The Rider" when I saw an email from another friend urging me to see that very film.  Coincidence?  This advising friend is older, and sees all the "important" movies that come out, but before I get a chance to, and she doesn't really heed my advice if I do like a movie.  She's a bit like my husband:  she decides without taking a chance on seeing something she may not like.  I prefer the companionship of moviegoing.  I'll compromise on a film just to share the experience with another person.  I don't really care if the film disappoints, and besides, that kind of film still often nets lots to discuss.  She'll tell me to see a film, but we never discuss it, because by then she's already had her fill of analyzing.  She recommends books as well, but hasn't the time to talk with me after I've read it.  She genuinely  WANTS me to read it, thinks I will enjoy it, but she's moved on.  When I've given her books she often doesn't read them, or puts them off a long time.  She's older, and my intuition tells me she's guiding me.  We used to share, but now she's in a different place, with people she prefers to share with, but she loves me and wants me to experience the pleasure she's had.  It's subtle, this change, but I do feel a loss.  Yes, I have books and movies to see, but alone, the experience is dampened. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had a long talk with an old friend this afternoon.  We've had years of hurried emails and strangled phone calls, as we were both busy with families and work, and thousands of miles apart, but now that she is retired there is that precious time to luxuriate in, and we could not just cover the basics, but indulge in some of the lesser stuff that actually makes us feel closer to each other.  I admire her so much, and how she's kept her integrity and carved a beautiful life out for herself.  She's a great writer, and successful, and I am proud of her and the determination she has shown.  Her enthusiasm, always her most attractive quality to me, is undiminished, and her writing demonstrates it.  She, many years ago, shared her passion for art and museums with me, and I've continued on with those pursuits, albeit with a local friend mostly these past few years.  She's fun, and that is a great thing in a friend, and intelligent and perceptive about literature and life.  I'm grateful for her friendship.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've just had two days of eye tests.  My eyes are holding, but dilated eyes are no fun.  It makes me see the world through vaseline lenses.  Yet I am grateful, that there is a treatment that keeps the bleeds at bay, and for my compassionate doctors.  Yesterday, the retinal specialist, who does the injections when I need them discussed a class in Dostoyevsky and Russian psychology he'd taken and coincidentally I had also had a class reading all his works with a Nobel Winner in Literature.  I'm still a great admirer and have reread some of the novels.  When I was a teenager, I told friends I was going through my Doestoyevsky period, and my brother claimed he did too, and that it was my fault.  I think the author especially appeals to the turmoil of teenage angst, and also the overflow of feeling.  He keeps it complex.  Anyway, my eye doctor, after several minutes, laughed and said we know your eye is good, or else we'd be talking about it!  We were both joyful, because:  so far so good.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Coming home from a trip it feels great to do the ordinary things:  the laundry, get groceries, water the plants, sweep the kitchen.  The drudgery is lifted for a moment.  We took a walk around the reservoir, I returned phone messages, and my calendar is all caught up.  I finished a book I bought at the airport - Dark Matter -which turned out to be fascinating and left me with much to think about.  The plot involves the paths we do not take, what would happen if we could see who and what we would become.  The protagonist is likeable and loving, and he does not regret what he gave up to marry young and have a son.  I think at my age, I'm way past regret or even curiousity about what I might have done differently.  My life is so full and blessed, I could care less if I'd had more professional success.  I chose wisely, as the Crusader says in the Indiana Jones movie.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We just returned after midnight last night from a week in Hawaii with our younger daughter, her husband, and their son.  We got along really well and compromised and shared easily.  Our grandson had to be pulled from the water.  He adored the beach and had no fear.  He dug and splashed and crawled through the water like a minnow.  But on the flight home he would not sleep:  he'd clearly had enough changes and disruptions, and he likes to sleep on his tummy, so the plane ride was crying, laughing, being passed from grandparents to parents until finally, fifteen minutes from landing, he succumbed, totally exhausted.  He'd been a champ, but he was done.  I loved the flowers and birds.  There was a huge flock of wild parrots, green, which flew to the palm trees by our condo at dusk and flew away in a huge cloud with a racket like trumpets sounding every dawn.  And since we were up at dawn, due to the toddler, we got to see them rise and explode in the air.  The plants, flowers, roar of the ocean, birds, especially cardinals black and white with orangy red heads, the Hawaiian music, the green lushness, waterfalls, ponds and pools everywhere, did seem like paradise.  As close to heaven as you can get.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went on a walk with a friend who lost her wife six months ago, suddenly.  And she has been traveling the last month back and forth to her her son who "died" and was resurrected by amazing doctors and is now hoping to be released from the hospital in a week or so.  She's going to travel back and forth for only several days from now on.  He's single, with no relatives nearby, so she feels she needs to check in on him from time to time.  She said her friends were dropping like flies.   She's eight years older than I, but I assured her I'm also disturbed by our vulnerability at this age.  I told her about going to the drugstore and buying loads of Get Well, Sympathy, and Pet Sympathy cards.  I said mostly it was Get Well, as many friends are having surgery as our knees and hips and backs give out.  But I've had losses as well, and perhaps will never fully get over my younger brother's death.  How do we go on, knowing what's to come?  Knowing our turn is soon?  The answer for me is treasuring each minute on this earth, as she and I did yesterday, stopping to admire the dogwood trees and bearded irises and bird of paradise plants on our walk.  I told her I was trying not to sit much, as it was so bad for my body, and was cultivating ADD a bit, jumping up every few minutes with little tasks.  My body otherwise wants to fold into it's resting spot, and give up the struggle.  But I'm not done yet, though I could be tomorrow.  But like a hummingbird, I wish to take in the nectar and beauty of this world while I'm able.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I trudged along to the eye doctor this morning, and came back with antibiotics for my eye.  This infection may have something to do with my grandson, or not.  The perils of grandparenthood.  I debated last night if my eye weeping was just allergies or something else.  By this morning, I was determined to go in.  Why do I fear so much the doctor saying noting is wrong?  That would be a good outcome, don't you think?  But I don't want to "bother" people.  I don't like to assert myself.  I grew up in a culture where complaining and whining were dreaded labels.  Our family was supposed to be stoic, no matter what.  For my kids, I would force myself to take them in, even if it turned out not to be an ear, throat, whatever infection.  But for myself, I can't relieve myself of the worry that easily.  First I've got to suffer a few days, then have a sleepless night debating whether to call, and possibly then I'll pick up the phone.  This time, the fact that I was going on a trip forced me to be proactive.  I really didn't want to ruin my vacation.  And I'm so happy to have that tiny pink bottle of eye drops:  salvation!  But why do I put myself through so much to begin with?  Self punishment.  When do I mature enough to let go of that?!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading an interesting book, Meg Wolitzer's "The Female Persuasion".  I can identify with the young heroine and her aspirations, in the same way I did seeing "Lady Bird".  I'm many decades removed from teenagehood, but don't we all keep coming back to that time, when so much was possible, and so much was blocked from our consciousness?  I wanted to go East to college, but I dared not ask.  My working class father, who had risen in his company, but without college at all, felt the California college system was a dream come true.  Seventy dollars a semester for tuition.  He wanted me to take advantage of where we lived, and I dreamed of a woman's college.  I didn't know how to speak about what I wanted, and I didn't really know why I wanted it.  Now I see that I needed a small school with some individualized attention, after a high school of five thousand lost teenagers.  I never went to a small school.  Not for college or graduate school.  Luckily, my kids had the choices I did not have, and they all chose smaller and more intimate.  I certainly don't blame my parents, as they knew nothing about colleges.  It's just a path not taken.  And the novel is reminding me of how I thought and felt then, so many long years ago.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

The garden my friend and I wandered through yesterday was begun by a woman at age 61.  We both loved that fact!  One is never too old to begin a project or indulge in a passion.  Of course, sky diving is out for me and maybe ziplining.  But there are so many enthusiasms I have, and sharing them is a delightful prospect.  The garden woman loved succulents, and after her many kids grew up she began a project that turned into a pleasurable sanctuary for the public.  I love to read about a seventy something who has just published her first book, or say, Lillian Carter going into the Peace Corps in her seventies and then working with Mother Teresa.  I have two friends in Colorado who did just that for a three month period in their seventies, and the experience transformed their lives.  There is a famous wealthy woman in San Francisco who raised many kids, enjoyed the high society of that city, then gave it all up to become a nun with an order that has a vow of silence.  There are still many possibilities out there in the world for us.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went with a friend to a succulent garden this morning.  A lot of the plants were blooming, with strange ungainly blossom stems reaching up to the sky.  The foliage colors were every shade of green and blue and pink and purple and orange.  Some looked like overturned baskets and others like stacked teacups.  The infinite variety and amusing shapes were like a Dr. Seuss book come to life.  We sat in rusty iron chairs in the garden after the tour, and soaked in the warmth of the sun and the deserty is splendor before us.  They have a watercolor class at the garden, and we discussed signing up to learn to paint these beautiful, strange plants.  It would be ironic, as they pride themselves on not needing much water, and storing cleverly the water that does come their way.  We could emulate them if we were wiser.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had a nice time today with our two grandsons and their parents.  We tackled an art museum, and it went quite amazingly well.  There were train paintings and videos and hanging sculptures with shadows, and a tower where a lot of the city could be seen.  We found unpopulated areas where they could wallow on the floor or a bench, and the cafe was a big hit.  The outside had a huge turtle pond with two mallards, and then we dared risk the tea garden to look at the koi and walk bridges and stepping stones over waters.  Finally,  the boys were exhausted and ready for naps, and we parted to head home.  I'm about ready for a nap as well, but the little guys are so sweet and enthusiastic and affectionate that it's worth the exhaustion.  We won't always be so special to them, so it's best to bask in the admiration while it lasts. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Rain is coming and my knee is acting up.  I dug out a knee cover and took two Aleve.  We need the rain, but my joints don't!  The gloom makes it perfect to be reading Elizabeth George's new Lynley mystery.  I'm a bit sick of the British, but I do love the character of Barbara Havers.  I identify with her working class origins and her resentment of the privileges of the upper class, especially Lynley.  In this book she can see what's expected of her, and she tries, for the sake of her job, but her authenticity will not be bound even by her own self-interest.  I like that stubbornness.  She's in a man's world, judged by her looks and clothes and mannerisms.  But that man's world is corrupt and arbitrary and cruel.  She's so intelligent and good at her job that she's survived so far, and Lynley, even if he doesn't understand her, appreciates her.  I think the character is coming into her own in this series because she's the heart of it.  It's her we root for, not all the posh superiors.  Elizabeth George has a nice dollop of Dickens in her writing, and we sorely need her understanding of what ordinary people face:  including unfairness, prejudice and lack of support.  Hear, hear, Havers!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm taking a friend out to lunch today and she just called to ask if we could make it earlier.  She's "dying to get out" she says.  She was five days in the hospital then has had a long recuperation at home.  I'm happy to toodle her around.  One of the challenging things about getting older is the inevitable surgeries and falls and fractures that cause immobility.  And we don't want to rest.  We still want to go-go-go!  I was talking to another friend about her frustration with the healing process a couple of days ago.  Yes, you can read and watch movies and talk on the phone, but not to drive and be able to get up and go on a whim is annoying.  With that friend, since she has a new knee, the rewards are going to be well worth it, and she wasn't getting around well beforehand, but still.  We should be grateful, and cosmically we are, but minute to minute - not so much.  My turn will be coming and I've already had a three week in bed knee problem that still haunts me about what is to come.  But, as they say, the alternative is definitely worse!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm happy my friend's son is on the slow road to recovery.  He had a close call and still has a long time before he can go home, but he has turned that proverbial corner.  She's enormously relieved, and back home after weeks away.  I feel like a weight has been lifted, as worry was dogging my footsteps.  This terrific woman just lost her wife four months ago, and she weathered this blow gracefully, but with sorrow wrapped around her like a shawl.  Now she can begin to reconstruct her life, a life alone, but with a huge family and a vast number of friends to care for her and keep her spirits up.  Why do blows often come so close to each other?  Everyone says it's true, so you wait for the shoe to drop.  I remember a year when my mother died suddenly of a heart attack, then my favorite client at the safehouse was murdered, then our house didn't close on the day of moving, then my father died of cancer seven weeks after he was diagnosed, and I struggled with mononucleosis for months while my doctor said I was picking up flus.  I required therapy twice a week for a year after that nightmare.  But there was therapy, there were friends and family who supported me, and my basic love of life never faltered.  Thank goodness!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I had a lovely three days celebrating our anniversary.  We saw seals and sea lions and their pups.  We walked along the ocean.  We swam in the hotel pool.  We sat out on the patio among flowers and trees and fountains.  We ate well.  Our room even had a view of the ocean on two sides.  It was tiny, with a small bed, but the view more than made up for it.  But my "awake" moment came the first day.  I'd brought my opera binoculars, on a whim, and as we hiked up close to a bird rock with a circle of cormorants, I decided to use them instead of carry them around my neck.  Now, I see cormorants every time we walk our local reservoir, but I barely glance at them, as I am busy being fascinated by the pelicans.  Big black birds, so what?!  But with the binoculars, I could observe that they have this magnificent jewel-like blue under their beaks, irridescent and glorious.  They also have white filigree feathers on their head that wave in the breeze.  Their heads are like the most beautiful herons, and they are downright elegant!  Who knew?  Not me.  So the rest of the weekend I paid close attention.  I saw a group of seals that I at first thought were rocks.  I could admire the spots on a sea lion mom.  I found a seal's head amidst the kelp.  Being patient, still and probing reaped reward upon reward:  the joy of sea life all around me!