Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today I went with a friend to Weight Watchers, and we signed up.  We have struggled before together to lose weight, and we both are determined to make this work.  The right speech of honesty is our starting point, and we trust each other and have lost weight together before.  But right speech is sometimes the ability to grumble, and we both need to whine and complain about how short we are and how much effort it takes for us to eat less, and avoid carbs.  We're in the same tiny boat together and capsizing is an ever present danger.  We are swim buddies in this endeavor.

I liked the guy who signed us up and his straight forwardness as well.  No promises made, no platitudes, just how the plan works and the offer to answer any questions that come up.  I didn't mind so much this time being weighed and looking at the number.  I'm going to try to be an adult about this health problem of mine.  I need to lose weight and eat wisely or my diabetes is going to go out of control and my health deteriorate.  Simple as that.  I'm going to get comfortable with this truth and be mindful of what I stuff myself with.  It's about self respect and kindness to myself. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I believe I vaguely imagined that when I got old my kids would be interested in my past and pile me with questions.  Alas, that was a fantasy gleaned from fairy tales, books and movies.  In real life, they are not so curious, and my friends verify this to be the case with them as well. The kids are busy with their own lives, and consider us out of date and irrelevant.  They happily envision us going to the grave with our secrets.  How could it possibly affect them?

Not only that, but I seem to have two kinds of friends:  the kind who want to know about me and what's going on in my life and the kind who want me to know what's going on with them, but have no curiousity about me.  I'm weeding out the latter kind, by attrition, so that at least someone will listen to me occasionally.  The one way street thing has gotten mighty old.

Paring down.  At my age everything comes down to simplifying and weeding out the unsatisfying relationships.  Now with my kids, my interest in them is so intense that I can laugh off their lack of interest in me.  They are the unconditional love people.  I love them unconditionally and they love their kids unconditionally. 

But I'd have no one who gives a rip (as my best friend would say) if it weren't for my husband and close friends.  From them I hear the advice and guidance I need.  From them I learn my lot is universal and can laugh at our silly expectations.  I bounce off the ideas and they bear witness to my struggles and triumphs.  So the narcissistic friends may disappear, and I wish them well, but I don't really have the time these days.  And if I want obliviousness, there are always my kids.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I used to dislike the audio packs for art exhibits, but over time I've changed my mind.  Today we saw a lovely Bonnard show, and my husband and I both got the audio.  I believe it's not just a change of heart on my part, but the audios are better:  less intrusive, no talking down to the listener, more specific and usually encompassing at least two points of view.  They are no longer lectures, but more natural responses to seeing the art, with a few bits of information thrown in to enhance our understanding.  There were plenty of paintings without numbers, and I went at my own pace.  I could sit down in silence, or chose a painting with audio and ponder what was being said.  Nothing was shoved down my throat; all was easeful. 

Now part of my conversion is not just the improved quality of the tapes, but my eyesight.  To have to read so much text on the wall is straining to my eyes, and I relax more when I don't need to read.  I can keep my experience primarily a visual take on the painting, and with most of the works there is no aural component.  If I've enjoyed a show, as I very much did this one, I'll buy the catalogue, and sit down at home under excellent light and read up about what interests me.  This process brings my recall back and lets me feel the art with my body.  Right now I can already tell you the color was so very sensual and stunning, that the mind cannot encompass it in any meaningful way.  Experiencing this exhibit will be going on for weeks or months.  And I'm willing to let the various parts of the process of being the viewer and the listener and the reader interact with each other for a deeper, richer engagement with Bonnard's art.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're going to an art museum that just reopened at a new location, and there has been a lot of talk surrounding this change about whether an art museum should be a work of art architecturally or the building that houses the art need not be an object d'art in and of itself.  At first there was a grand design, but monetary concerns downscaled the plan and incorporated an existing building.  Now the talk will be of what's inside and I find that appropriate.  When we visited Bilbao, the building was a grand art piece, but what was inside was disappointing.  Some old buildings are uninspired and uninteresting, but what they protect is exquisite.  The building does not have to speak for the level of art found therein.

I love exciting architecture, don't get me wrong, and as I grow older I love walking the streets of a city and looking up and around as much as going inside an structure.  The Frick is a delight inside and out, as is the Guggenheim and the de Young and Menil.  But are they my favorite?  No, I adore the Prado in Madrid,  and the Met in NY and the Louve and the Marmottan in Paris.  It's the treasures inside and maybe the grounds, part of the city its in and other intangibles that make for a great museum experience.  But in the end, the art speaks for itself.  It needs no translation by the edifice which houses it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I made a mistake this morning by immediately responding to an email from my daughter.  I try to wait 24 hours before responding to friends and family, but this time I blew it.  The result?  I had to talk to my son about my reply and I have regret about what I said.  In that moment, I thought I was being heartfelt and honest and loving, but I forgot one fact about myself:  I usually give too much information and assault others with too much verbage.  Now I've stirred myself up and probably upset my daughter.

I need the pause.  If I'd waited until tomorrow I would have handled the exchange differently, and maybe avoided hurting her.  Maybe not, but it was worth a shot.  I should have a sign on my monitor, in fact, I'm going to put one up right now.  PAUSE.  WAIT 24 HOURS.  DON'T BE AN IDIOT!

I'm sure I'll get into trouble many other ways, but I'm going to strive to keep this intention.  For my own sake, and others with whom I come into contact.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My son created a song he sings to his baby son as he holds him "standing" on his chest:

Two feet tall like a tree in the forest
Swaying side to side in the wind
Growing so tall to reach the sun
My baby baby boy
My baby baby bun

The baby dances and lifts his feet as his father sways him.   He smiles in absolute delight.  When you see it you laugh with joy.  It lifts the heart.  That is what poetry can do.  It expresses the inexpressible.  The sing-songy nursery rhymes, the songs for small children are odes to the delight in the world we see in a child's eyes.  The wonder.  And we feel with our hearts the newness, the brightness of the world again through them.  They remind us of the treasure that is this brief life on the planet.  My heart is uplifted with this child and his child.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I have a few go-to topics for when we can't think of anything to say and we are eating a meal.  Number one is movies.  We analyze a movie we've recently seen, or a director or actor.  It's fun.  Another is childhood.  This may surprise you, but after more than four decades of marriage, there are still things we don't know about each other.  The other day my husband described his childhood house again and for the first time I realized they had a playroom.  I only saw his house one time and it was eons ago, so we discussed the objects in the room and the dutch door at one end that allowed the whole room to be like a giant playpen, where his parents could look in through the top half and have the bottom half closed.  Pretty clever.  My husband has amazing recall over his childhood, whereas I have many fewer memories.  But he stayed in the same town and house, whereas I moved a few times.  My favorite place, Virginia I remember the most about, including the wild violets in the spring and daffodils growing on the hill where we kept three sheep to eat the grass.

Topics we avoid are politics and our kids.  Both take us down the road to worry or speculation, and we try to remain detached from the zeitgeist and pretending we can manage our kids' lives.  We can only observe.

In a pinch, I ask him a science question, as he is an encyclopedia of such information or I tell him the plot of a novel I'm reading that I know he'll never pick up.  In such a way we entertain each other despite seeing each other quite a lot now that we're retired.