On Wisdom and Character... Neither of Which Comes Naturally to Me

Patience is a virtue. ~Prudentius

Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. ~Bierce

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. ~Rousseau

Endurance is patience concentrated. ~Carlyle

Are we there yet? ~Me

You're traveling through another dimension (am i? is that why i feel so distant and strange?) -- a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind (especially of mind dear god and boy, do i mind). A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination (i certainly couldn't have imagined i'd be stretching my own boundaries so far). That's a signpost up ahead (shit. i hate the signs. i don't believe in signs... do i?). Your next stop: The Twilight Zone!

Please. That's not my next stop. I've been in this zone for quite some time now but it never becomes familiar. If and when it does, I'll know I've lost too much of myself to keep being who I think I am or I was.

I've been consciously waiting for things to change because the current situation is unacceptable as a status quo. I don't accept SNAFU as how it should be or how it will continue to be. What's keeping me going in this frozen state is that I'm sure (oh please oh please) it ends soon.

What's needing change, you ask? To be perfectly vague, I need my kid to be okay. His forced emotional state (damn you, justice, in the past) doesn't support that. In addition, I need to make this long distance epic (and I use that word in the old, non-commercially-abused sense) love into an in-our-face, right next to each other, stealing covers and putting the silverware in the wrong place in the tray, basking in each other's glow and glower and boredom and delight epic love. I need the courts to move forward. I need the government to move forward. I need my life to move forward.

Because this extended game intent on stalemate shit has got to go.

Every day and week and month and moment that passes in this swirly grey purgatory, this mundane but pregnant limbo, takes something out of me and replaces it with profound wisdom and, really, total shock at the way I'm handling these thumb screws. I'm losing my wonder but gaining strength. It's hard to think about because it hurts to accept the fact that I can't be both strong and bright (in my heart). As a little girl, even the smallest emotional slight tore my heart up. Now I feel like I'm staring at me from outside my body when broadsword blows to my emotional center barely rock me, let alone knock me off my feet. In the same way, music that moved me is now simply lovely but not profound. Clear, dark skies scattered with cold stars make me smile in a comfortable way but they don't take my breath or light me up with an electric glow anymore.

And that's okay, really. It's just sort of sad in a "yep, that's life" sort of way. It makes me think, though, about all the other people I know who have already done this growing up thing. All the roses with their bloom already off. I think I was a hold out. Maybe I was a late bloomer. Maybe I'm not a rose at all, but something slower and rarer like a night blooming desert flower. Or maybe I'm just getting older and the metaphors are naturally going towards the sun setting type.

So I'm in limbo and have been for a few years now. What am I learning from limbo? Well, I'm learning I can bend to a vulgar degree without breaking. I'm learning that fierce passion like mine can be concentrated and focused into slow burning fuel able to sustain my core through long winters of waiting.

I hate waiting. I'm also very good at it. I just didn't know that.

But now that I've had these revelations and revealed the center of my being, can we just get a move on?

No?

Okay. I'll be over here, reading all the magazines and having all the dreams and learning all the things until it's my turn to move forward. Just don't be surprised if I've rearranged the whole waiting room by the time you get to me. Because I'm here and I don't have a guide, I feel like I have a duty to future limbo dancers. I'll be leaving a map of waiting for the next poor, passionate soul. May they be as lucky as I am and have a stubborn fortitude and wells of patience and enough whimsy to make a life out of it as I have.

Either that or they can go quietly, artistically and positively mad. Which might be exactly what I'm doing. I think this is how eccentrics are made. I'll let you know when I get there.

Because I Can't Let it Go

Some weeks ago, I found myself engaged in a one-sided battle on my favourite social media site, Facebook. It was one-sided because all the pain the other person caused wasn't something I addressed. All I did was absorb it and hurt.

I did the unthinkable in public. I said I was tired and crabby. I said that about attending an event at my kid's school. Suddenly, I found myself wearing the frame of the portrait of the Not Good Enough Parent.

And it blew me away.

I wanted to stand in a room with the other person and download my whole experience as a mother, to have that person lay with me as I cried myself to sleep, to panic with me as I fell behind on bills, to sit with me as I scrabbled to keep my civility when my kid was being a (totally normal, totally within the average parameters and completely infuriating) jerk and I couldn't tell another soul to just "deal with it" while I hid in the other room with a good book. I had to stay Right There, mothering and Being Amazing and remembering all the Love & Logic training I had and not responding like any other human would... by ferociously barking.

You see, though I am in a serious (and amazing) relationship, I am functionally single. My mate, my partner, my other half is on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. We're four thousand, five hundred and two miles apart. Give or take a few yards. Or meters. Whatever. Somewhere out there, on the other side of a gigantic body of water filled with whales and sea cucumbers and darkness and rogue waves, is my support system. We don't exchange supportive looks across the room. He can't feel my temperature rising in ire, he can't take my kid for a man-to-man walk, he can't provide the third person perspective so agonizingly necessary in parenting.

Nor can my mate contribute to the household's finances. The money he budgets with barely covers his own basic needs. Thus, I'm on my own here. Not enough money for bills and groceries all in the same week? I weigh the priorities. I'm no longer growing. I can survive on my physical storage units (read that: my muscles because I'm already pretty skinny) in favour of supplying my offspring with the nourishment a kid needs during the adolescent growth spurt. I tell myself that I'm from pioneer stock. Before that, I'm from warriors. Between the bloodline of oxen crossed with Viking, I should be alright. Just don't ask me about my bone density. Or my teeth. Or my brain function when I'm faced with bouts of malnutrition. I get my nourishment from watching my son grow strong and healthy.

So, in being admonished for not being glitteringly grateful for every photographable, scrap book worthy and bragging rights firm event... I found myself utterly furious. I spent days examining the root cause of the fury and I came up with this: privilege. From a position of privilege, my exhaustion was being criticized.

And I realized it was bullshit.

Every night, I put my kid to bed with snuggles and assurances. I tell him to have sweet dreams and I tell him I love him and that I will do everything I can to make things be okay. Every morning, I wake him up with a silly story of "what is this chicken doing taking photographs" or "well, I'm sorry but I lost the car to a giraffe who wanted to drive to the Statue of Liberty. We're walking today." Every night, he snuggles down in his bed and tells me it is the safest, most wonderful place in the world. Every morning, he smiles himself awake and tells me I'm silly.

My son wakes up and goes to sleep feeling loved, secure and happy.

I can't make myself be grateful for every event. I can't see how other people with harder lives have more of a right to feel pain. I can't imagine telling another person that what is hard for them shouldn't be and that their struggle isn't valid. All I know is that I do the best I can and that my son feels safe. I see in his beautiful, content face that however I do this parenting thing, it's right. It's good. It's valid.

And I do judge the people who discount and belittle that. I do judge the privileged who dare to judge me. I swear on the contented, sleepy sighs of my kid that I will not do that to anyone else. I am a single mother of an amazing child. No matter how I do it, that my kid is doing alright is the only confirmation I need.

On Pacifism, Compassion and Empathy

I was chatting with a friend yesterday who often doubts the things he is saying are valid. He never says, "I doubt the things I say are valid" in those words. He says it by apology, he says it in hesitance, he says it in ways that approach the fear from the side. By my observations, it's very, very common for people to apologize for their thoughts, to belittle themselves and to assume that they are somehow flawed or freakish for thinking as they do. But... if most people feel that way, then how can they be freakish? And how can I express to people that they're okay?

Thinking about this, I realized, in talking to him, what my whole purpose in life is. That's a pretty sizable revelation to have while sitting on your living room floor with a cat at your side and a cup of not very good coffee at hand. That's a pretty sizable revelation no matter what the circumstances. I was struck by the notion that here, in the midst of the mundane, I was being presented with one of those moments of clear vision.

My vision? Compassion. I'm here, on this planet and in this space, to be a vessel of compassion and to study the art of empathy. What I'm finding out about myself is stunning and I'm struck repeatedly by how difficult it is to maintain this kindness. Am I the first person to think this way? Not by a long shot. Will I be the last? Not hardly.

Let's take a moment to explore empathy and it's outward expression: pacifism. Pacifism isn't easy. It means I have to stop the up-rush of adrenaline that flows when someone says or does something hurtful. It means I have to bite my tongue. That hurts, both physically and emotionally, but the real kicker is that it doesn't injure. There's pain involved with turning the other cheek, taking a step back and a deep breath in, but there's no actual harm being done. To the contrary, the sharp sting of holding myself back results in non-injury.

I'm not talking about taking a physical swing at someone who's being a dick. I'm talking about reserving the sharp blades of my tongue and not taking a vicious bite out of the offending person's soul (soul? self-awareness? ego? whatever). Here, in my head and in my heart, I have this extraordinary ability to harm with words. My predilection for empathy means I have the ability to see and feel the very core fear of someone else and, if I choose, to use that fear and vulnerability as a point of attack.

I choose not to do that. I choose it all the time. I have the opportunity to strike out at that core in every person around me and I consciously choose not to do that. In my youth, I wielded that power a couple of times. I watched the people I turned my emotional violence on melt into fear and hurt. There were tears and there was begging and there was, born of my cruelty, a real hate lit up in them. I think I caused lifetime scars. I know I scarred myself.

I look back on those times and I find my only true regrets. I am ashamed of the pain I inflicted, but there isn't a thing I can do about it now but remember and (try!!) never do it again. Not even when it seems like the smart option. Not even when it seems like the only option. Seems like. Appears to be.

It isn't. There's always another way to deal with someone else's bad behaviour.

That's pacifism. As much as I want to berate, belittle and browbeat folks from time to time, I don't do it. Why? Because every single person out there feels like my friend. Strange. Apologetic. Wrong. Vulnerable. I don't need to add to that. I don't need to carve the foundation out from someone because they are, quite likely, already doing that to themselves.

Does that mean I'm going to smile and nod and agree with everything other people have to say? Oh my, no. Does it mean that I won't stand my ground, discuss uncomfortable things, point out flaws and dickish behaviour? No. It means that when I do stand my ground, I do so from a position of realizing that every person comes to conclusions based on the information they have and experiences they've lived through. Including me. It means I have to remember (I choose to remember) to accept that everyone has the same motivation: doing the right thing. It doesn't matter if they're doing the right thing for themselves, doing the right thing for all beings, doing the right thing for their church, doing the right thing for a reward or doing the right thing because their heart tells them so. They are all acting on the premise that what they are doing is the right thing.

Because of that, and because I seek to be a better person than I am right now, I'm choosing to use my empathy in a loving way. I'm going to love even when I'm so pissed off I can hardly see straight. I'm going to love enough to think through my anger and respond to dickish behaviour with strength and compassion. I'm going to love each person enough not to go for the emotional jugular, even when they go for mine. Pacifism, to me, is about strength and balance, mercy and mindfulness. Pacifism is about having the courage to weather my own anger long enough to come out the other side and recognize that the other person in front of me is worthy of love.

I can't fix fear with fear. I can't fight hate with hate. I can only apply more love.

I'm willing to do that. For everyone.

1. 
   

So Passes the Time

It has been a year since I spoke here.

For a full year, I've been wary of words written in electronic space. For a year, I've been occupied elsewhere, still full of thoughts but hesitant to express them. The reasons why are a different story altogether, and not one I'm willing to share just now.

It is the end of easy. Summer has gone and the winds are coming out of the north, stiffening flags and tearing leaves from trees. As the seasons change, so do the concerns. My birthday is fast approaching and I'm forced to consider my mortality and my obligation to the world. I think, therefore I am. I am, therefore I must think.

What do I think about? Life choices. I realized not so long ago that by default, I've made food service my career. This isn't to say that I can't up and choose a new path but in the current atmosphere, that seems unwise.

So, given that I've chosen food service (whether by accident or by design I don't know), I've been thinking that I might share what I know in the context of servings and service, behaviour and appetite, expectation and nuance.

First of all, I know that most people have no idea what they're doing if it involves more than the daily grind. No one seems to know which fork to use. They know they need to be up at 7 and back from lunch at one. They don't know if they're allowed to use teeth when they smile or what words to use in asking where the bathroom is. They don't know that, aside from the rare unincorporated (socially) individual, they all make the same faces that imply the same questions. People who walk in the door expecting to meet other people have a look. People looking for that bathroom have a look. People who come to pick up take-out orders have a look.

In those looks, they look the same.

Bathroom people. You have a faraway, distracted and urgent look. Take-away people, you have a near-sighted and purposeful look. Those meeting others, you don't see what's right in front of you. You're looking into a vague want.

It's amazing.

It makes me think. If we're that predictable about something as simple as enjoying the privilege of eating outside our home (and, if you'll grant me this assumption, there's not a whole lot of survivalist pressure there), what common looks do we have for the bigger things in life? People who have survived war. People whose parents did, inasmuch, torture them. People who can't stand themselves. People who can't see anyone but themselves. You all, in your struggle, have the same tenseness of mouth, you share a focal point, you hold your bodies at the same angle.

Because of my years and years of service to the public, I can see you coming from quite a distance. All of you.

And that's the crux, isn't it? We're all hiding our fears, our weaknesses, our trepidation about what others think. The last thing we want is for someone to see us. To really see us and judge us unworthy.

What makes me sad is that each and every one of us seems to expect that these so-called flaws are going to make others think we are weak or not as valuable or suspect in some way. But, when you consider that every single person you meet or interact with or pass by on the street is afraid and vulnerable in some way... you've got to realize that it is our individual struggle that makes us so able to attach to each other.

So you picked up the wrong fork. I've done that. So you stumbled right to pass someone instead of left. I've done that. So you were embarrassed to ask where the bathroom is because I might know you need to use the bathroom. I've done that. We have all done that. We are all vulnerable. We are all flawed. We are all afraid.

The reservations you make with me for parties of five are actually reservations of asking to be allowed to be who you are. And I'm going to honour them. I will save you a place in this construct. I will help you find your way. I will ease your confusion with grace.

All I ask is that you accept this grace and sometimes return my kindness with some of your own. I need it as much as you do; as much as every one of us does. I thank you in advance for your mercy and I tell you that you are always welcome to mine.