Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I'm reading a riveting biography of the painter Agnes Martin, and it brings up for me the manipulation of silence by artists.  I don't think this was true for Martin, as she had a shyness and mental illness seemed to cause her disappearances.  But some artists can and do manipulate their public by not giving interviews or refusing to respond to demands for public access.  Some of this is rightful fear of being hurt or ridiculed.  There are writers like J.D. Salinger who was a recluse and, intentional or not, became a legend.  And recently, Harper Lee's just published novel, "Go Set a Watchman" has people arguing over whether her silence for many years and lack of writing was because she chose it, or suffered severe writer's block.  The book itself, to my mind, after having read it, should have never been published.  It shows a young writer just struggling with her skills and ferociously in need of an editor.  One bows who the editor of "To Kill a Mockingbird", as it is vastly superior to this novel which preceded it.  I think Lee's silence was wise, but she has been manipulated into revealing an amateurish attempt.

Silence and mystique are often yoked together.  Silence cannot really be interpreted.  Did Martin have something to say by her silence?  Was it part of a Buddhist practice, deliberate, or was it a disordered mind retreating into chaos and then healing?  We'll never know, because her writings are contradictory, as are reports from her friends and colleagues.  It's private and personal, and perhaps ultimately by Martin herself, unanswerable.  There are and always will be more questions than answers in this life.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We're having a heat wave, and there is lots of grumbling going around.  I tolerate heat better than cold, so I'm a happy camper.  But it reminds me that every single person has a different experience, and nobody is right or wrong in their perceptions.  What they speak is true for them.  Now there is the necessity to touch base with reality enough that you understand your dogs need to walked early in the morning not to become overheated, and it is not the best night for baking something in the oven.  But people's bodies are different and react differently.  It took the medical establishment a century or two to realize women's heart attacks often had radically different symptoms and that the guidelines for rushing to the hospital for men left many women untreated or dead.  Hello?  Women's bodies react differently.  Nowadays breast cancer is treated differently for each woman, depending on type, stage, DNA, response to chemo in sample cells, etc.  We know to be specific and look at the individual patient.

I mention those two examples because my son's partner's mother just had two heart attacks and my older daughter and many of my friends have been treated for breast cancer.  It's personal for me.  My mother's first heart attack was her last breath, because she only felt nauseated and my dad didn't call 911 until she had keeled over dead.  She didn't get a chance to be treated.  She was supposed to have massive chest pain, and she didn't, because she was a 120 pound female. 

So let's hear it for the spectrum of experiences and differences in our human bodies.  I'm just glad right now heat is bearable for me.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My son lent me a book called "Eating Crow", published in 2004.  It's hilarious.  It's about a British guy who is a nasty restaurant critic until a chef kills himself right after the critic has written a scathing review.  He has an epiphany and apologises to the widow, then goes on a spree of apologizing to everyone he has offended or not been so kind to, including his younger brother.  Eventually, he becomes famous for apologizing and is hired by the UN to be the chief apologist for genocides, attrocities of all sorts and is set up in New York.  I'm not finished reading the novel, but I love the absurdity and the complete relevance to our Western culture.

Not a day goes by that some group is not demanding an apology and reparations.  Yes, they mostly have excellent reasons for the requests.  But the book makes me think about when apologies would have been lovely to have received, and even better to have given myself.  I had two tiffs with women friends that I thought were resolved when we met to discuss the confusion and our points of view.  In the first case, the woman said she'd been upset about her fiance (whom she did not marry) and in the second she said I reminded her of her mother.  They both apologised.  I accepted.  A few years later, after I'd moved back here,  I bumped into them and they both wondered why we'd not been in touch.  When I described the contents of each meeting, neither remembered either the meeting or the admission that something was going on with them and they were unbalanced a bit at the time.  So apologies are evidently erasable and unmemorable to some.  Maybe apologies don't stick.

I've often wished I could apologise to my mother for throwing away all the hand sewn and knit clothes she made for me.  I was an ungrateful wretch.  And I wish I'd kept my fixing others ideas to myself and not opened my big mouth.   I've tried to rectify when possible.  Being Native American, I believe in at least having history be accurate and not a white wash. 

So can you go too far?  Does it become a device to get you off the hook instead of genuine remorse?  Intention takes a lot of examining before you take the plunge.  But it's worth considering.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

It's my 70th birthday today and I've just spent a lovely weekend with all my kids, their spouses and my grandkids.  That they took all the time and effort to make the two days special is such a gift.  I am touched.  We ate out, swam, saw some sights, and they had a barbeque last night with games, decorations and a pinata.  Wow!  The game was a trivia one about me, and they broke into groups and competed against each other.  What was so great was that my older daughter designed the whole game for my family to know more about me and the children hear some facts they would otherwise not know.  I really felt like the center of attention.  And the pinata had sugar free candy, and my younger daughter baked a sugar free carrot cake.  Wow!

When the out of state family said goodbye, I struggled not to weep.  I feel invisible strings from my heart to theirs and I miss them so when we're apart, which is most of the year.  But this year, because of a wedding, wedding shower, baby shower and other events, I've seen them more than usual.  I love it.  All my kids and their spouses are so sweet and loving, and the blessing of their natures washed over my husband and I.  How lucky can you get?  And the cards are by my bedside to see their loving right speech whenever I wish. 

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Our friends took us for a yummy dinner and to see Linda Tillery last night.  She was fantastic, but my husband complained that she talked too much.  I see his point, but I enjoyed it.  Maybe because it was her birthday celebration, she was turning 67, and she was loosey goosey in a way that's natural and not staged.  She seemed more genuine on stage that most entertainers.  She used a crutch to get on stage, and sat while she sang, and appeared to be demostrating for us the vissisitudes of aging.  But her voice was strong and young, and the musicians backing her up were fantastic, though they sported some powerful gray hair.  Before she began the main show, she brought out a 17 year old  man who played guitar and piano, and he was extraordinarily gifted.  So we experienced the joy of a young guy on his way up and the pure pleasure of experienced, older folk reveling in their art.

Since it's Bill's and my birthdays, it seemed as if she was celebrating us as well.  She told stories of her childhood and experiences performing traveling all over the world.  There was a sense of a life being summed up.  I felt the power of that as much as the songs.  So, no, the rambling didn't bother me, in fact, it charmed me.  I felt I had a glimpse into a soul on stage.  It was a spiritual experience.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

What is happening with the refuges in Europe is almost beyond speech.  The photos tear the heart assunder.  Such photos are speech.  The father holding the drowned body of his son is powerful and haunting, like photos we remember from Vietnam in the 70s.  The innocents destroyed over the merciless politics of adults who will never bear the cost themselves.

I'm thinking of how we examine family photos looking for clues as to happiness or sadness.  We somehow expect a revelation that will not transpire in words.  We acknowledge the power of the visual.  Yet photos can lie or be manipulated or manipulate us.  They cannot stand alone.

Whatever makes us engaged and curious is positive.  We may need the image to spur us on to seek the truth.  The more powerful the image, the more we cannot look away.  Our interdependence must be apparent for us to have compassion, and whatever nudges us to investigate is brave.  So let us weep with this father, his two sons lost to him, but us not lost to what is happening so far away.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Today is my husband's birthday and I served him a big breakfast in bed.  We've been married forty one years so words are mostly unnecessary.  Also, with him, listening is the best gift.  Since he's retired he's been pretty isolated, self chosen, so he wants my ear more than ever.  Sometimes I decline, and last night he wanted to tell me the plots of two BBC shows he'd watched:  Trouble in Paradise and Doc Martin.  I politely said no thanks.  But I'm pretty tolerant of this need.  I'd rather he got involved in activities and classes, but he knows that and knows he should, but can't quite get himself started.  And it's his life and timeline. 

I go out a lot, and do things with friends and have groups and activities, because I need more varied socialization.  I like people, have friends I truly enjoy, and I don't share a lot of interests with my husband.  That's fine with me.  I don't expect one other person to fulfill me, or, as the Jerry Maguire movie says, "you complete me".  I'm not a fan of that kind of marriage, though I have friends who believe and have lived with that principle.  I guess I need a lot of breathing room.

My husband respects that and even encourages me to get out and do things with others.  So that's all I need.  And the right of refusal about plotlines in mystery shows.