Volunteerism

I have carried 5 children to term.   I gave birth and breath to 4.   The first two came with breath were in 1990 and 1992.   I learned then that it was not just the beautiful, serene experience you think life is going to be after you bring them home.   I want to say that "they" didn't tell us stuff we needed to know but I am not sure now if "they" held information back or if "they" just omitted it because either they had been so traumatized by the experiences that "they" buried it somewhere deep in their psyche that "they" honestly don't remember or  "they" never once encountered the "over achiever of the school age children's mother" syndrome. Or "they" WERE card carrying O.A.S.A.C.Ms themselves and wouldn't admit it or never came to terms with their embarrassing, bullying, one-up-womanship which turns grown women back into the manipulative children they once were.

I know of what I speak, really.   Try providing the most perfect dessert for a class birthday party,  just once and feel what it is like to have the others look at you like they could have done much better and provided the entire cast of Sesame Street to serve each child a treat on a platter of crystal.   Seriously.   You KNOW I am.   I gave up.  I remember when it was too, crystal clear, like the plates I never brought to the damned parties, ladies.    I was going to make Witch Fingers out of pretzel dough and an almond for the finger nails.   I worked days to get it down right.   Me and Martha Stewart before she started day trading...   The day of the party,  (back when they were allow to, 1- have Halloween parties, 2- bring homemade snacks 3- have a nut involved.  and no, haha, I am not talking about me)  we got to school and my kid who was sitting in the back seat with Witch Fingers decided to help by pulling them out of the car and handing them to me.   They where heavy.  6 million dozen Witch Fingers are heavy.  I distinctly remember saying, "Oh no hon, let me get them.  They are heavy and it is slippery..."   They also made an indelible statement as they, in slow motion, I swear! slow motion,  fell to the ground into a puddle of last night's effort to snow, better known as slush.   Dirty parking lot slush.   Now I admit for a second I was thinking I could save at least 3 million dozen if I carefully picked up the ones that were piled onto the more unfortunate ones.  I did!  I confess!  But I realized that my kids could have never not said something about it and then there would have been hoards of   O.A.S.A.C.Ms with torches hunting me down like an ogre in a forest.   My kid was devastated.   Yelling at kid, didn't help.   I instead, stepped over the devastation and hugged kid and reassured her that it didn't matter.   I could go to the store and get more snacks for the party.   We cleaned up the tears and left the mess next to the car and went inside.    I told the story to the teachers about how I had slipped and lost control of the 100 billion gazillion dozen Witch Fingers and they were now toast. Really damp toast.   I saw their disappointment, first in not seeing the Martha Stewart perfection, then the oh no it was our signature treat! then to panic and a bit of suspicion that I either did it on purpose to make their lives miserable or never did it at all.    I told them I would go to the store and replace the treats with whatever I could that was Halloweenie and have them back to the school in an hour or so.   They nodded in understanding and major disappointment.    When I made it back the other mothers had started to assemble and I did the walk of pre-made - discounted bakery ware cupcakes with a plastic oversized toothpick thingy with a Halloween theme in each, walk of shame.  The cupcakes were coated with more dye than what would be needed to paint the center line of the interstate.  And it was cracking...  why else was it on sale?    I sighed.   Put them in the back part of the room and watched as the eyes of the  O.A.S.A.C.Ms follow me out the door.    And to quote this Cupcake Mommy,  "never more..."

I thought about this story today as I came back from registering my 13 year old for school today and I was handed the volunteer opps paper.   It comes back to me now in exaggerated hilarity and hurt... I am not sure how exaggerated the hurt is honestly.   Mean girls can choose to be mean always.  Only when they are older they have better ammunition.   No, not better, just different.  Motherhood is sacred beyond all other things.   Although I can laugh my butt off now at the actual facts as I know them,  the end of my career as a Cupcake Mommy saga... good times, good times.   Now mind you,  it wasn't the epoch failure that stopped it.  It was the general aire of the volunteer mommies in general.   I was not meant to be one.  I was not meant to fit in,  with the gossip, with competion , with the "oooh oooh like me best teacher-of-my-child" mentality.    I quit feeling bad about it.   Some mothers barely make it to Parent Teacher Conference Night.  They spend their time via email and extra time in conferences with their child's teacher.   For whatever reason, be it a busy career or a severe aversion to the Cupcake Mommies.  They are there when they are needed.   They are mom.   Good enough.  More than so many get.  Bravo to the members of the NOT O.A.S.A.C.Ms.

I timidly looked over the volunteer sheet and realized that it had graduated into other realms that I was so much better at.   First,  I didn't need to have contact with any of my student's teachers outside of conferences, so I would not have to feel the icky expectation of or watch as others fall to the gravitational pull of ass kissing for popularity.  I am excited about the opportunities available.   Most of the volunteer positions are those I have spent in salaried positions in my former life before children.   Most of the volunteer positions do not entail cupcakes.  If someone, who doesn't read my blog asks me to,  I will tell them the cautionary story and let them decide if I am the right candidate for the mission.

None of this has anything to do with Donald Shimoda.   Don may or not be a fictional character.   He is a character in Richard Bach's book, Illusions.   For all I know Richard Bach's status as a fictional character is still up in the air as well.  As is the book I am holding in my hand.  And as the blue chair continues her onslaught on me, I believe my status is also...  hers although,  is more ethereal.    However, ethereal really isn't that far from fictional.  Depending on your predisposition and physical perspective and willingness to bathe in existentialism.   Perhaps the blue chair, the tree outside the window, and I are almost or completely and  delightfully fictional with a more substantial purpose.  All the while trying to reach and maintain groundlessness.

"If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats."

-Richard Bach (Donald Shimoda) is that either of you?-  Bueller?

Later on in the book however it does connect with volunteerism.   Chapter 13 to be exact.  It states,

 "Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.  Listen to it carefully."

Paraphrasing,  Don says to Richard that we are all free to do as we choose.   Richard trying to out smart his spiritual teacher tries to correct him.    "We are all free to do what we want to do, as long as we don't hurt somebody else, I know you meant that, but you ought to say what you mean"

Same situation in the blue chair instead of a campfire, juuuuuuust yesterday.

"I just want her to be happy."

"Why do you want her to be happy so emphatically?"

"Because I don't wish anyone ill will or a bad life."

"Well I know that about you.  You are about the big picture,  the extended family, the "Rodney King" wish for the world.  I get that.  I like that.  If  every one could be like that it would be so healing.  That is all fine.  But why do you personally want her to be happy so emphatically that you continue to sacrifice your well-being, when you already know the outcome,  after 3 years of the same behavior, nina you KNOW the behavior,  you are certainly not clueless,  WHY is it so important that she is happy?"

"I just want her to be happy."

"We are out of time but I we will talk about this next time.   This part is about you, not her."

Don, being Don, could do nothing else but to be Don.  Teacher with props.    Suddenly, Richard sees through the darkness, a dark wretched  thing,  speaking with a thick accent.  Czech or maybe Russian?  Black cape lined in red satin.  As I recall he was sensitive to the light of the fire.   Richard asked the stranger if he could help him and he told him that if Richard didn't let him drink his blood,  the stranger would writhe in pain and eventually die a horrible death.   Richard wasn't about to let this stranger drain him of his life so that this stranger could live happily and comfortably.   It wasn't the strangers fault he was a vampire,  it wasn't wrong for Richard to say no to the stranger.   As it all turned out Don just created this imaginary person to teach Richard that you don't have to give someone what they desperately need if it will do desperate damage to you.   You are not bad to say no.  To walk away. To ignore forever... "even if"  because it is our own individual choice to be hurt.  We can choose to be hurt.  We can.  But once you understand it is a choice, you can no longer cry,  "I had to or they would be ______  (unhappy?).

Chapter 14 begins with a quote that mirrors the previous lesson. So I will add it here:

"Every person, all the events of your life are there because you have drawn them there.  What you choose to do with them is up to you."  -Illusions-

I called the blue chair expecting her voicemail but instead of Memorex, she was live.

"I am a liar."  I said.  Then I back tracked a bit to make sure that she knew that I really did want harsher punishments for parole violations and.... world peace.

"I mean,"  I stuttered,  "I don't want her unhappy, but the reason I want her happy so badly is because as long as she is happy,  she disappears and leaves me alone."   "I am being disingenuously selfless, when I say that I want her happy just for her."  "I am full of shit."

"I was going to get to that next time we talked but you got there first."


I just don't know what to do with this yet.

no intentional breathing in and out tonight....

Seven

I stood on my balcony tonight alone and watched the heavens, breathing in the fullness of universe and breathing out the empty that resides inside me and I watched as the meteor shower displayed it's glorious performance.   Seven.  I counted seven in the half hour I gave myself.   Breathing in the fullness,  breathing out my disappointment of regular life.   Breathing in more deeply as the meteors shot across my head hoping to consume stray stardust to fill me up with the very elements which I am made of.  The basics.   The basics that wear down and become lost as we turn our attention to frivolous concerns of our life.   Frivolous memories that, if not kept in their proper proportions will become too big for us to hold in our hearts without them breaking.   Breathe in the fullness,  breathe out the pain of everyday emotional life.   Breathe in the chaos of the universe.  Breathe out control.

As I breathe, I pray for sleep with out the physical pain that follows me everyday.   I pray for sleep without the mental merry go round of reproach.  I pray for permission to allow myself compassion for just being human.   I pray that I remember to say  "thank you for giving me one more day to get over myself and to get out of my way"  before sleep comes and the stardust has settled into my DNA.

I pray I dream of groundlessness.

59 Pithy Slogans.... how do i pass that up?

I have been reading

The Places that Scare You by Pema Chodron a Buddhist nun

So after struggling through 4 chapter I came across this written on the first page I burst out laughing and found that I was more open to the rest of the book.   Now that I am done, I have to start again.   This time becoming more aware of each process.   Buddha was an interesting teacher.   But was never one to rush through a lesson.  Years can go by.  Years do go by.

I have been working  with Tonglen lately.   It seems to bring other things into better view.  For today my suggested reading of the 59 Pithy Slogans is #31.   It seems to be a current and relevant lesson.

Lojong Slogans:

1: First Train in the Preliminaries
2: Regard all dharmas as dreams
3: Examine the nature of Unborn Awareness4: Self-liberate even the antidote5: Rest in the nature of alaya, the essence6: In postmeditation, be a child of illusion

Absolute and Relative Bodhichitta

7: Sending and taking should be practiced alternately. These two should ride the breath
8: Three objects, three poisons, and three seeds of virtue
9: In all activities train with slogans
10: Begin the sequence of sending and taking with yourself
11: When the world is filled with evil, transform all mishaps into the path of bodhi12: Drive all blames into one13: Be grateful to everyone
14: Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection
15: Four practices are the best of methods
16: Whatever you meet unexpectedly, Join it with meditation
17: Practice the five strengths, the condensed heart instructions
18: The Ejection of Consciousness
19: All dharma agrees at one point
20: Of the two witnesses, hold the principal one
21: Always maintain only a joyful mind
22: If you can practice even when distracted, you are well trained
23: Always abide by the three basic principles
24: Change your attitude, but remain natural
25: Don't talk about injured limbs
26: Don't Ponder Others
27: Work with the greatest defilements first
28: Abandon any hope of fruition
29: Abandon poisonous food
30: Don't be so predictable
31: Don't malign others
32. Don't wait in ambush
33. Don't bring things to a painful point
34. Don't transfer the ox's load to the cow
35. Don't try and be the fastest
36. Don't Act with a Twist
37. Don't make gods into demons
38. Don’t seek others’ pain as the limbs of your own happiness
39. All activities should be done with one intention40. Correct all wrongs with one intention41. Two activities: one at the beginning, one at the end
42. Whichever of the two occurs, be patient
43. Observe these two, even at the risk of your life
44. Train in the three difficulties
45. Take on the three principal causes
46. Pay heed that the three never wane
47. Keep the three inseparable
48. Train without bias in all areas. It is crucial always to do this pervasively and wholeheartedly
49. Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.
50. Don’t be swayed by external circumstances. 
51. This time, practice the main points. >
52. Don't misinterpret.
53. Don't vacillate
54. Train Wholeheartedly
55. Liberate yourself by examining and analyzing
56. Don’t wallow in self-pity 
57. Don't be jealous
58. Don't be frivolous
59. Don't expect applause

Dei ritiro bagagli italiano

The blue chair took that tone with me,  as pointed out in group,  "the one where she calls you on your shit?"   yup.   The blue chair has her limits,  she told me to step aside and get out of my own way.   I told her to shut up.  In that loving way I sometimes do.  Just so she knows I got it.   Somehow saying, "point taken"  just doesn't fit my style.

In group, a beautiful soul with a tray conveys how she is learning to keep balance in her life.
It was so perfect.   Just like ABS, we all walk around with so much on our tray.   We work hard at balancing the stuff until it is perfect.  Until we got it.  We go about our way.   We always, daily, hourly sometimes, come across stuff.   Other people's stuff.   They want us to pick it up and carry it for them because, well it is easier... for them... anyway.   But we have worked so hard to be balanced.  If we are expected to carry more,  especially if it is not authentically "ours" is going to throw off our balance and take time for us to rearrange the rest of the stuff so we can manage.    And then we have to decide if carrying someone else's stuff is really worth our time and effort.   Where the hell is their tray anyway?  I will always remember that story because it came right when I needed it.  Just like the blue chair and "the tone".

I fell asleep that night without any provocation from benedryl which doesn't happen.  But I was suddenly so tired.  Without regard to the high 100 degree weather lingering in my bedroom I laid down and closed my eyes.

The next thing I knew, there were footsteps in my house.  But I looked around and it is not my real house.  Not a house that I had ever even lived in.  Nothing recognizable.  But it was a comfortable place.  Old, rickety but not in disrepair.   All the nooks and crannies that old houses from that period had.  I immediately loved that house.   As I looked around, it was full of things.  All of my things.  But it wasn't as if I had arranged them for living.   They were just around.

The footsteps were all around me and it was then I became cognizant that there were people taking things out of the house.  My things.   At first I panicked.   Stop, no!  I didn't ask you to do this!  They smiled at me and I was instantly soothed.   Like a child being softly smiled  at by a loving mother who has stepped aside to let the nurses give the inoculations needed to protect and guarantee a healthy life for her child.  It was still uncomfortable and confusing but mother was smiling, steady and confident  and the child knows it will be okay.

They were all men.   They were all dressed in white.  They were all Italian.   It was as if the entire male side of the family of Carlo's Bakery had come to move my stuff.   They were so gentle with everything.  Constantly making eye contact with me as I watched them go in and out of the house.  They were everywhere.  I went sneaking about the house trying to hide things.... weird things that I do not, nor have I ever owned. Sparkly things,  bright polished things.  Old things that had dust but still displayed or tucked away somewhere that even I didn't know they were there.   They would always find the things I hid and I knew they would but I kept trying.

They cradled everything as if it were the lost treasures of antiquity.   They would pass by something on their way to somewhere else in the house and they would stop dead in their tracks.   They would gently touch whatever it was as if the item was as precious to them as it was me.  I could hear them say,  "Oh look!  It's this blah blah blah..." And they would recount its specific memory and who it belonged to and why it was so important.  They would both agree... and would linger... lovingly nodding their heads.   Then as if they were already on a mission to retrieve something else, they would put it down and head off to somewhere else.   I would breath a sigh of relief that the item was still there but I knew it was leaving, I just knew that there was something else that needed to go first.

I didn't continue inside the panic.   I was surrounded by all these loving people who loved and appreciated the history and the meaning behind all my things.  I knew they loved me.   They moved slowly and precisely.  They didn't bump or struggle with anything.  Not once did anything bump into a wall marring either the wall or the item.   When it left the house I could hear the screen door swing shut.  Not annoyingly.  Not like we did to our mothers as we ran out of our childhood home.  Crank the handle, push hard and clear the steps before you would hear  "DO NOT SLAM the d....."   SLAM.    It was as if the screen door was lifted slowly by a breeze that then invisibly closed it just enough so you could hear wood on wood as it closed.

I don't know where "out" was.  I never saw where all these treasures went.  I left before they did or perhaps we all left at the same time.  It is possible I woke up in my bed before they were finished.   Perhaps because of the immense empathy and respect I was surrounded by, I was sent home before it was completely done because they knew I wouldn't wake with desperation.   If so,  I know they stayed until it was finished.  I know that they remained as respectful of what was left.  But I woke up.  With a headache that felt as if I had been busy all night instead of asleep.  My body was being pulled by gravity more than usual as if I had been up all night walking around instead of laying peacefully in my bed.   I was physically and emotionally spent and it was 6:00am.   I laid there.   I felt odd.   I could recall all the empathy.   I could recall all the things I saw and held and hid.     I smiled as I saw huge Italian men cradling trinkets and memories as if they were newborn babies.  But mostly I could feel the presence of those spirits just helping me get out of my own way.

she said to be careful...

As I continue to move through my struggle to climb higher up Maslow's diagram it has continually been pointed out to me that I need to be careful of what I ask for.   Asking for something from the universe is sure fire way of getting it.   But being cognizant that Physics won't be fucked with helps when you find yourself with a gift. Repeat after me,  "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction..."  Your gifts aren't always going to make you feel good.  Well maybe for a while but within the gift, there is also a test or a lesson that needs further action.  If you don't want the next uncomfortable thing, don't ask for the gift.   Simply awful.  I always assumed that enlightenment and empowerment would always feel light and powerful.  It simply isn't so.   I am in a place today were I relate my internal frustrations to Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin:

See, I did join the army, but I joined a *different* army. I joined the one with the condos and the private rooms..."

"My name is Judy! J-U-D-Y Judy and I'd like somebody to call me by my name! Oh, okay I took my life in my own hands, I made a mistake fine I'm sorry! I'll never do it again! I wanna wear my sandals... I wanna go out to lunch. I wanna be NORMAL again!"

Too late Judy, errrr N-I-N-A...

the theory of subtraction....

A Deeper Longing
The Dark Night of the Soul 
Gerald G. May, M.D


"In the passive night of the senses God is freeing us from the idols we have made of possessions, relationships, feelings, and behaviors.  As always in the precious process of the night, this divine liberation takes place in ways that are obscure to us.  sometimes we may experience it as an inner relaxation and letting go.  At other times it may feel like something we cling to is being ripped away from us.  Either way, the freedom comes only through relinquishment.  The actual experience may feel like delightful liberation or tragic bereavement, or it may happen so deeply that we are not aware of it at all.  But one thing is certain: the process of freedom is one of subtraction.-- we are left more empty than when we began."


I believe we who choose,  have spiritual journeys that are not always one of angels singing and life all falling into place.   Or happiness at all moments and guaranteed tickets to the table of Jesus at the next Roast.   However,   I can see it now...

Saint Philip Neri walks to the microphone:   Good evening ladies and germs...



Two priests died at the same time and met Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter said, "I'd like to get you guys in now, but our computer is down. You'll have to go back to Earth for about a week, but you can't go back as priests. So what else would you like to be?"
The first priest says, "I've always wanted to be an eagle, soaring above the Rocky Mountains."
"So be it," says St. Peter, and off flies the first priest.
The second priest mulls this over for a moment and asks, "Will any of this week 'count', St. Peter?"
"No, I told you the computer's down. There's no way we can keep track of what you're doing."
"In that case," says the second priest, "I've always wanted to be a stud."
"So be it," says St. Peter, and the second priest disappears.
A week goes by, the computer is fixed, and the Lord tells St. Peter to recall the two priests. "Will you have any trouble locating them?" He asks.
"The first one should be easy," says St. Peter. "He's somewhere over the Rockies, flying with the eagles. But the second one could prove to be more difficult."
"Why?" asketh the Lord.
"He's on a snow tire, somewhere in North Dakota."


back to subtraction... of letting go.  I have recently used the story of how as children we would swing as high as we could, knowing secretly that we were going to jump no matter how many broken bones would happen according to our mothers.   We would lean into the swing...  pumping our legs and dreaming of touching the sky.   the voice says, "Now?"  but we hold tight, "no" we say, we regroup, backward we go and then lean again into the upswing, the voice says, "Now?"  but we hold tight yet again, "no" we say again.  Back swing....  We would see in our minds us letting go and flying...  we would hear in our minds our mother's screaming...  resolute... we would begin the journey to flight.   back swing, gravity bringing us down and our spirit raising us up higher and higher... then the back swing... small detectable slack in the chain, gravity begins to pull, we pull our legs inward as to not to hit the sand, we lower our head, perhaps in unconscious prayer, our back to the trees, our back to the sky, and then we raise our head to purvey the possibilities in front of us... mother giving us that look, the horizontal bar of the swing finally aligning with our chin  as we reach our zenith,   then a silence from somewhere inside.  We go in faith and as if magic, there is no questioning,  we feel our fingers release our grasp.  We feel the seat swing away from us as we fly in faith...