Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our dog is old, and she hates the rain.  Last night was a deluge of rain and she refused to go out before bedtime, and as she is 70 pounds we can't make her.  So she woke us up several times in the night, and the way she does it is irrational and not helpful:  she doesn't bark, she lumbers up the stairs making a huge amount of noise.  Sometimes she makes noise at the bottom of the stairs when she's really tired.  But though she barks at dogs not on leash and German Shepherds on priniciple, as well as when greeting people at the door, she will not bark.  So you are sound asleep and dreaming and suddenly you hear a burglar sneaking up the stairs to rob you, but no, it's your own dog turning sleep to nightmare.  We cannot negotiate this with our dog.  She does what she does for secret reasons.  Perhaps she thinks its rude to bark at your owners.  Maybe she is lonely now that her companion dog died.  We don't know.  We will never know.  So she has situated herself the way she prefers, and we are getting less sleep, and we know who is really in charge.  We've always known.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We had dinner with our daughter's inlaws last night, and any worry about what to talk about or interests we share has been utterly dissolved by our mutual grandson.  He was the center of attention and his exploits provided all the topics we needed to bond.  And I did feel closer to them afterwards.  They are doing a great job of caring for him while our daughter works, and it gives me a break, which I needed as I picked up our grandson's cold and cough last week.  We are a mutual admiration society for the benefit of the baby, and all our speech is tinged with the joy of him.  We each took turns holding him as we were eating dinner, and shared tricks we'd learned to entertain him.  Then his parents swept him away for bath and bedtime, and we said goodbye and went home.  I knew from experience that the other grandparents needed rest, lots of rest, to babysit today.  We old folks have to stick together!

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

When to speak up and when to wait?  What are you speaking up for?  Are you helping someone by speaking or will it hurt in some unintended way?  Do you have all the information you need to speak up?  Will you be a listener no matter what the response is from the other person?  All these considerations must be part of a mindful way of life.  I ask less questions than I used to, but listen more.  I am more likely to ask follow up questions to a subject my friend has introduced, rather than bringing up what might be a sticky topic and upsetting the friend.  Most things don't need to be discussed.  Gratitude and expressions of affection are good.  But probing is not.  I now realize how private a person I am and I protect myself more these days.  That in turn requires me to respect other's privacy.  Instead of "knowing" a person from what they say, I try to "feel" a person's state.  My heart leads more as I get older.  When my head is busy rehearsing what to say, I shut that line of thought down and let go.  What needs to be revealed will be, but maybe by body language, expressions or a feeling sense.  I used to process a lot through my mind, but not so much now.  I visualize my heart as a book with ears and open it up to listen that way.  As a consequence, I'm a kinder, gentler person these days.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I love serendipity!  Yesterday I walked over to pick up my new glasses, and the woman who helped me had my same name and though much younger than I has the same eye disease I have.  We talked about that, about her being from an immigrant family, the sense that she has of being hassled at airports, and what we have experienced about this new tone in the country.  She got cancer as a teenager and has had radiation and chemo multiple times, which caused her eye problems.  She was diagnosed with the disease at 32.  Yet she is fully alive and crackling with positive energy.  We parted promising to pray for each other and our families.  We hugged.  The connection was swift but bone deep.  And last night I prayed for her.  Such a wonderful spirit should flourish.  When I first saw her I would never have thought we had anything in common:  she's the age of my children, different background, education, and life.  But we clicked instantly.  Proof that if you remain open to the world gifts abound. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I accidentally deleted my home page and have been lakidaisical about fixing it.  Now I'm beginning to think it's for the best.  I can still get news, if needs be, from my phone, but now that's it.  I don't read articles on the computer, and as I don't watch TV news or listen to news any longer in the car (I've switched to the classical station) I'm not bombarded by news.  In my email I receive calls to sign petitions or take actions, and I read those, as it's a quick and easy way to help causes that I care about.  But really, the news is nine tenths recycling, and most of it is not my interest.  So right speech for me is about selecting what I fill my head with, like the straw of the the man in the Wizard of Oz.  I'm liking not knowing:  I've filtered out a lot of unnecessary information, and the important stuff gets through somehow by osmosis anyway.  Plus I have friends eager to tell me what they think is urgent, and now I am a more interested listener.  So home page goodbye, and tranquillity hello.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I finished a novel yesterday about Camille Pissarro.  Actually, more of an imagining of his orgins, especially his mother's life.  What is delightful is having the experience of seeing his paintings and then seeing them become even more vivid with the history behind them.  Alice Hoffman wrote the book, and her admiration of Pissarro is obvious.  I don't enjoy criticism when it tears down the subject.  I appreciate enthusiasm.  Pissarro's life is so extraordinary:  he was born and raised on St. Thomas, then went to Paris, then came home, then spent years in Venezuela, then to Paris again.  He married a servant, which upset his mother greatly.  Yet his mother's life was also fraught with risks, and radical departures from traditional life.  She was Jewish, yet believed in all the island magic and spirits.  After her first husband died, she married his nephew, years younger, and had still more children, one of whom was Camille.  She was strong willed and independent, yet yoked in by custom and the time.  In the end, she lived in Paris, not far from her son, and lavished love on his children that she'd seemingly withheld from him.  Hoffman makes us see her influence on her son; the patterns that parallel in both their lives.  Her magical stories became his magical canvases.  Hoffman's book brings alive the artist and the meaning of his work, and speaks up for both beautifully.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm going up to see my granddaughter in a couple of weeks and I'm getting excited.  She'll be nine, and she's a fascinating character.  She was strong willed from the get go, and I love little girls with opinions.  I like the feisty ones, and identify.  I heard my mother complain about me often enough that I can reconstruct my nature.  I defied her, and was not "proper".  She said as a toddler when we took the bus in Kansas City that I would go up to strangers and say, "You want to see me sing and dance?"  I'm still kind of like that, though I had a shy streak as well, and needed time by myself.  Reading was my salvation, though my mother was constantly urging me to go outside and get fresh air.  The result:  I read in the woods, in the fields, in barns and under trees.  My granddaughter is a great reader as well, and imaginative and amazingly well informed as a result.  She has her own online newspaper, her political opinions and a voracity for life.  She got it from her mother, but her mother got some of it from me!