day 73: dear country, let me help

Today dawns on a weary, frightened populace as we look around at a nation torn apart by so many calamities. It is overwhelming. I seek to respond but don’t know how, apart from shedding some tears for the civil rights movement we felt was so wonderful while I was growing up, and all the hopes now dashed again, proven wrong yet again. I’m especially worried for my black women friends who are raising sons in this toxic environment. But I am really sorry for all of us, because today you and I are suffering.  Even if we think we’re exempt / immune /numb and incapable of taking in any more horrors, we are suffering. I turn to the Buddhist writings of Thich Nhat Hanh for guidance. I’ve been thinking and singing in my head the Billy Swan song, “I Can Help,” for hours.  Clearly, it would do me good to do you good. But how?

Here is what I learned from the Buddhist:

“When we are suffering, we have a strong need for the presence of the person we love. If we are suffering and the man or woman we love ignores us, then we suffer more. So what we can do—and right away—is to manifest our true presence to the beloved person and say the mantra with force: ‘Dear one, I know that you are suffering; that is why I am here for you.’”*

Today, we need love all around. Maybe you’re missing THE person you love. OK, can’t help with that. But I can be one person speaking up to you today with a friendly gesture that is real.

Dear reader,

I know that you are suffering. That is why I’m writing. I want to remind you that your life matters, your mind matters, your potential matters. Your words and actions matter. All the people who have died matter, and we will remember them, and keep demanding an end to the violence. And if you would like a face mask to wear during this ongoing COVID-19 crisis, or quilt to celebrate life, let me know. I can help with that. (Quilts $100 today only; lead time 3-6 months.)

Thank you.

With hope and solidarity,

Julia   (use the Contact form to communicate requests for masks or quilt information, or just to chat. I’ll check in frequently.)

p.s. sorry for such a minute response to what is really a shattering moment in American history, but apart from nothing—symbolic silence—I could not think of anything worth writing. It’s all out there in the news, I can only offer face masks or quilts, and a few words of comfort.  But remembering Billy Swan, I just had to say, “let me help”.

***

Here are a few examples of memory quilts from the past, fyi

and fyi, Yesterday’s face mask production

*Thich Nhat Hanh, “Love is Being Present,” Right Here with You: Bringing Mindful Awareness into Our Relationships, ed. Andrea Miller and the editors of the Shambhala Sun (Boston, Shambhala, 2011), 7.

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Warm up your self, and forget the failures for now

In these dark, cold days of February, it may be hard to stay focused on what is good in life. The snow is pretty but it is killing the spring flowers. The winter cold is natural, but it makes life precarious for the homeless and elderly. A loving relationship is great, but a partner can be so annoying to live with day in, day out.  Today’s New York Times features an article by experts extolling the virtues of failing for long-term success (and that we should even keep track of rejections as they pile up). Yuck!  To hell with that idea, at least in February. Maybe in April, when life seems easier…

Receiving rejection letters (or the silent treatment, worse yet), is a drag. I know, because I have been piling up quite a pile of rejections lately, in my new role as CEO of a small business. And since I’ve moved thousands of miles from my old friends, and left behind the community with whom I used to commiserate and complain, the rejections feel colder, more final somehow. I might as well just give up, right? No, no, no! Never.  Or at least not yet.

OK, so what to do?

Reach for help. In the absence of a flesh-and-blood friend, I reached out to a friendly guidebook last night, and it helped. Here’s the advice from Right Here with You, chapter on “Making Friends with Ourselves” by Moh Hardin:

“It is like this. If we have had a bad day and are feeling flustered, angry, and upset, and if in that state of mind, a mother asked us to hold her newborn baby, we would naturally hold it gently. Why? Because that newborn life is so obviously precious and fragile. Likewise, no matter how difficult our problems may seem, no matter the obstacles we face, our lives are actually precious and fragile…

Like picking up a newborn baby, we can make a gesture of friendship to ourselves. … Making friends with ourselves is an ongoing journey. It is not a one-time thing or a one-week project or even a five-year project.  It provides the continuity of the human journey itself. It is like the ground that we walk on.”  (Right Here with You, pp. 35-40).

The author suggests making a gesture of friendship to ourselves (“You go first; I’ll follow”) and practicing sitting meditation for ten minutes, to get back in touch with our breath and our feeling of life. Those tools are simple and free, and I bet they will raise your spirits faster than a making list of all your failures!

As another guide points out in the New York Times today (“How to be creative,” by Matt Richtel), “Boldness is a virtue.  … there is a moment in each of these creative flights where I become convinced that, ‘Yes, yes, I have something profound and wonderful to give to the world, and it’s going to be great; it not just deserves, but needs to be heard and seen.’ This is audacious, at least, and possibly delusional, and it is 100 percent O.K. In fact, it is the price of admission. You are allowed and encouraged to give in to this feeling of ecstasy. In fact, if not you, who?”

So go ahead! Be delusional, take a chance on yourself, and keep on going. I’ll be out here doing the same…

 

 

Road trip day one: immensity!(and just a little irritation)

After we escaped from the aggravating agglomeration known as Chicagoland, the drive from South Bend, Indiana to Albert Lea was sort of bland yet exhausting, the landscape huge, the rest stops tidy. Crossing the Mississippi was impressive, especially imagining how people managed to do so in the olden days!

Honey Girl is a calm and pleasant traveler; no complaints about her. Traveling all day with another person is not so easy. Heck, spending all day in a car hurtling down the highway at 70 miles an hour is not that relaxing, no matter who you’re with. I feel a new-found admiration for truck drivers, who do that every day, all day.

As a reminder to be grateful, despite the irritations of daily life which are after all impermanent, I’ve brought three little stones to align at the end of each day in our motel room. They resemble a cool rock formation seen somewhere in Wisconsin!

 

Here’s a good thought for the day ahead from Gabriel Cohen:

“I used to think of the spiritual path as a detached, solo journey, like Moses trekking up the mountain or the Buddha wandering off to sit under his bodhi tree. I imagined how challenging it would be to renounce life’s pleasures and meditate in a cave. Now I realize that life offers a much more common but just as powerful spiritual trial: just try getting along with one other person for the rest of your life.”

Cohen, in “Of Course I’m Angry,” in Right Here with You, 143.