Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm getting my hair cut this morning.  The stylist is about the age of my older daughter, and I've been seeing her for years.  She is getting her degree in engineering, and only works Sundays.  Over the years we've talked politics, personal and everything in between.  I toyed with the idea of introducing her to my younger son, but wisely resisted.  Now he's with his perfect mate.  But I care about this young woman, and I actually think she's an artist.  She arranged my younger daughter's hair for her recent wedding.  It looked beautiful.

Etiquette for these situations is touchy.  But we're comfortable now.  Sometimes we are quiet, and other days we chat away.  She often gives me advice about nutrition because her sister is a nutritionist.  I've watched her suffer with a flaky boyfriend, have trouble selling a house, and finally resolve to put herself through a new degree so she can have a stable, secure profession.  I don't think she's had any help along the way.  I've witnessed her growing up and becoming assertive about her own needs.  I don't say that in any superior way.  I also have done some late growing up and have more to do even at my advanced age.

This is friendly speech, but without any strings at all.  We enjoy seeing each other then forget about each other in between.  But we're on each other's radar, and that's a nice feeling.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had an almost panic attack at Trader Joe's yesterday afternoon.  I thought something was off about my eye I just had the injection in, and I had to force myself to calm down and get through the shopping.  The threat of losing one's sight is pretty terrifying.  I seldom face it head on, but the exam, then the discovery of the bleed and then the injection have got my vision front and center.  "Don't know" is a good mantra to have in my situation, well, in anyone's situation.  I know I can worry my head off about one thing and another takes me by surprise.  I know I'm lucky my good eye is still holding.  I know I can fly and take the two trips I've been looking forward to.  But at the store, the last few days just hit me, and last night I hardly slept.

I'm honest about myself.  Fear is my unwitting buddy.  Loss of vision for a writer and lover of art is scary, but the worst is probably not recognizing faces.  All I have to do is close my good eye to see my future.  My friend has already had both eyes fail.  She's brave and funny, but it's so hard.  But there are worse battles than eyesight.  Loss is around the corner at my age, and never far from my mind.  "Don't know" is actually comforting.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Sometimes right speech is having someone speak for you.  Yesterday our younger son went to an auction house with my brother's stuff and had it appraised and found out how it would work if they took it to sell.  At first I was going to go, but then I thought, no, he's super competent, and I'm emotionally disturbed whenever I deal with my brother's things.  So he went, came back several hours later, and made it so easy for me.  I will be able to let him handle most of it, and it is such a relief to me to let go of the responsibility and give it over to a more impartial person.  Much of what I've had to do legally has required my voice and body.  I'm the sole trustee and the inheritor of his estate.  They want to speak to me.  But when they don't, I see that as an opportunity to protect myself from stress, and I'm choosing to step back.

My son is the right person because he's confident and enjoys negotiations.  I also do, but not with this.  After many months just speaking about my brother can bring tears to my eyes and voice.  I'm grieving. 

This is about not having to be in control all the time and trusting.  I've had many lessons about both of these issues and will no doubt experience many more.  So, anyway, I have a spokesperson.  It feels great.

Wandering Along the Path; Right Speech

All seemed to go well with my eye injection.  I had a lot of sitting to do between eye drops to numb the eye and waiting for photos to be taken of the eye.  So I was sitting in a row of patients and the guy next to me had his daughter, probably around 12 read to him from  People magazine about Whitney Houston's daughter, who overdosed.  This was not pleasant information, especially for a kid, but she read the whole article aloud, loudly, struggling with some words, and I cringed at the manipulative sentimentality of the prose and the fact that a kid was reading it.  Then it dawned on me that she was not the best of readers and maybe daddy was trying to encourage her to read anything for practice.  He may also have seen it as an object lesson:  don't do drugs.  The whole row of us was kept informed of the latest gossip.  The absurdity ended up amusing me.  I was literally a captive audience. 

You never know what you're going to learn out there in the world.  If I hadn't been captive, I would have probably left in a huff and not thought beyond the inappropriateness of the article for a child.  But gradually I realized their banter was tender and he was good with her.  And maybe he felt she already had heard about all this scandal and he wanted to take away the terror of it.  Who knows?  But they were affectionate and even when he told her she was too loud, he said nothing negative about her and did not label her.  It was a strange way to get father-daughter time, but there she was, in the middle of us old folks, being a kid and none of us discouraged it.  Pretty sweet.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I attended my granddaughter's choir concert and she had a solo at the beginning of one of the songs.  Before that song, she wiggled on stage, rubbed her left eye repeatedly, and looked about as nervous as it gets.  Then she performed the song perfectly.  It's fascinating how stage fright seems wedded to performance, and I've heard many people say when they don't have the anxiety beforehand, they blow it.  Nothing is pure and simple about us.  We make everything complicated, with conflicting emotions, thoughts and behavior.  The relief on her face after her solo was done was funny, because the torture was over and also she knew she'd done well.  We want to voice out, to perform, to draw attention to ourselves, yet we are miserable at the same time.

The choir director is amazing in her selection of songs.  She makes certain the words are appropriate, uplifting and beautiful.  So even though my granddaughter pronounces her "mean", she is intuitively drawn to the great melodies and lyrics.  One of the songs this time was John Lennon's "Blackbird".  It was haunting.  Several of the songs brought tears to my eyes.  The director is introducing beauty into the kids' lives, and harmonies.  Singing in harmony is a lesson from the angels.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I had to do some careful speech this morning talking to the realtor who is handling my brother's house.  I wanted to drop the price, but also get a sense of what she thought was the problem.  I suggested several possibilities, and she admitted the fact of my brother's suicide in the house is known by everyone in such a small town.  We also discussed the layout, and why it wouldn't be financially feasible to stage it.  And she was honest, once I said it, about the narrow hallways and layout being a problem.  The two guest bedrooms and bath lead to a dead end in that hall.  The other leads to the kitchen, living room and rest of the house.  There is something slightly claustrophobic about the one hallway.  So she was honest, when I brought it up, and we agreed on a lower price, and I admitted I now wanted the house to be done with before I have to renew the insurance in July, plus my worry about the house being unoccupied for so long.

I felt I handled the discussion skillfully and respectfully.  I understand I have a rather strange house with the stigma attached.  It's a problem that cannot be overcome.  I'll have to have some luck to sell it at a reasonable price.  It's not going to sell for what it is technically worth, because of its history. I'm feeling that it has been empty long enough, and needs a new beginning.  I hope someone takes a chance on the property.  I will do what I can, but am not in control.  And underneath, there is this sense of being pushed into dealing with this against my will.  I have some resentment, and though it's illogical, since my brother was obviously in no state of mind to consider what his death would mean to me, the resentment arises nevertheless.  Such is my state of mind at this moment.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I've been thinking again of one of my favorite expressions to tell myself.  It's from the Brad Pitt zombie movie "World War Z" when the tiny Israeli soldier is bitten and Pitt hacks off her wrist to save her, then has to clean the wound while they are escaping on the airplane.  He tells her to "Gut up".  Succinct, but the message is received.  It makes me smile when I think of the scene.  I have that in my mind to help me know I can get through a shot in the eye Wednesday.  In fact, it reminds me many people have and are going to undergo worse procedures, and whatever is on your plate, don't turn away, but face it.  Pain is a part of life.  My daughter had so much worse pain being treated for breast cancer, and so did my friends when they underwent treatment.  I'm a wimp by comparison. 

Last night we watched "The Day the Earth Stood Still" with Michael Rennie and Patricia Neal.  I told my husband afterward I knew Neal had had a dramatic life but couldn't remember details.  He looked it up online and gee, she had unbelievable challenges.  She was in love with Gary Cooper but he became jealous of Kirk Douglas and hit her though she was innocent, so she left him.  She was married to Roald Dahl and one of their children died of measles, and the same year their son was hit by a car and suffered brain damage.  Later she had 3 aneurysms, and was in a coma for weeks.  She slowly recovered with Dahl by her side.  Then he found a younger woman after 30 years of marriage and they divorced.   She won an Oscar for "Hud".  I hadn't known that.  She spent the last two decades of her life raising money for treatment centers for rehabilitation  and died at 84.  Amazing life, and she said she owed it all to being stubborn.  I would say she took the idea of "gut up" to heart.