Spring is here, and once again the world is still spinning, and all right.
I remember two springs ago, noticing that after seeing the world light up again, I felt at peace to let it go on without me, seeing that it was growing and greening again - the life was not forgotten in the cold earth. I keep trying to push the rest of the world on with the warmth of my breath, and let it leave me behind to fade gray and smile to watch it go.
I feel that for a long time, it has been hard for me to tell the difference between living and dying - between breathing, growing, exploring, creating some chaos,... and trying to put things in order so I can die responsibly.
My grandmother is showing me living and dying. My brother and I are trying to show her how well the world is turning - its ok to go. My brother's slideshow reminds me of life as well. The pictures are not well-composed, the subjects are often unprepared for the photos, and many are blurry. But, the life in them! I remember it! A lesson, for me.
Spring is here
I think it's about time I came back to life.
Living is chaotic :) I will have time for cooling later
There is a quote that I thought I posted long ago, but now cannot find. It was lyrics to a song I heard called One Art by Elizabeth Bishop (quoted below)
I've thought of this poem a lot over the years, a few of the lines being etched into mind.
But, I feel like I've put in my time on this art (the art of losing). Due partly to its practice, there are others I find myself lacking experience in, such as the art of claiming.
I would like to practice this as well. I'm sure it would be good cross-training.
****
The art of losing isn't hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three loved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
Imagine a world in which you are very happy with what you are doing and everything is fine. Move in that direction. It doesn't matter where you're starting from.
These exercises are not just for thinking. Do them
"You will set yourself apart from the majority, and thereby make yourself more useful to the majority, by your (study of the Chinese language)."
I met a nice couple at Lili's today over a discussion of the fantastic avocado melt I ordered. We chatted about my studies and my desire to learn Chinese in Taiwan, and that's when the man said that.
He actually did say the part in parentheses, but I like to think I could fill that part in with many of things that I try to do and be.
Even though I know that variety and versatility are important (and for there to be variety, there must be deviation) and therefore it is vital that I pursue those things that interest and are within the abilities the particular person that I am ... his words encourage me to keep growing in the ways that seem best to me, and to grow with confidence.
Funny isn't it?
For as difficult as it can feel,
it is often the ways that we are different from others that make us more useful and more appreciable.
During daylight, I had considered the people of various ages, social maturities, and conduct that I've encountered. It seemed that, even if one is well-intentioned, there's still no substitute for experience and for the way we all learn from each other how to navigate as a collection of individuals.
The words incubated until dark, and I had to crawl halfway out of my bed the other night to find a pen and the back of a business card so that I could scrawl out the thought before it was submerged in the unconsciousness behind my eyes:
When I was in elementary school - like, first or second grade or so, this elementary school guidance counselor woman would come in, and teach us elementary social wisdoms with her puppets - a dolphin and an otter, whose names I can remember pronouncing but have no idea how to spell. I've actually thought about some of those early lessons a lot as I've grown.
I remember her repeatedly encouraging us to be unique, because unique was good and made us special in our own ways - and we should understand that everyone is unique.
I learned that unique was good and also to be appreciated in others. It seemed like an easy fact. What took me longer to learn was that in some ways, it is 'safer' to be like everything else, and so, 'unique' must also be encouraged and expressed from within myself, even if at odds with my surroundings. It is a choice, and sometimes it is not easy.
Even though I wrote a speech for high school graduation about the necessity of guiding oneself beyond what "they" say (because, if everyone listened to "them", then how would we ever get anywhere new?), I am still learning and practicing what it means to choose and cultivate a uniqueness, and to own and assert the sense of person that I am - even when it seems to disagree with the usual accepted expectations.
( In fact, I think this may be when it is most important to follow a sense of personal uniqueness - if I'm doing it honestly, people seem to react mostly out of curiosity. Besides - they all want to be themselves anyway, so I think that if I assert myself as an individual, that this can be enabling for other people, too )
Also, uniqueness does not mean being all things. I have had friends remind me, at various (and necessary) times that I cannot be everything to everyone. Perhaps it has to do with maturing further, but I feel that as I specialize as a personality and make choices about the person I want to become, I must recognize that if there are some things that are particularly like me, there are also things that are not me - and both of these are aspects of who I am. My sense of self demands that I represent both honestly, though there be varied consequences.
Recently, a good friend of mine shared a couple versions of this song with me. They were important to him, and that importance made me think twice about what it meant to me. This is what I've been reminded of.
Being a particular and unique personality inevitably means being 'different', and this can take a lot of courage, both to discover and to assert (to yourself and to others). But, don't you like meeting people who are not like anyone else you've ever met? If you don't assert your own sense of individuality and creativity of person - then how can you expect anyone else to? Go be the things you are. It's very important, and only you can do it.
It is a pretty fun game in which a different person takes turn being the 'judge' in each round. So, the way you play is largely dependent on the personal preferences of who is judging that round, which can be pretty arbitrary. It can sometimes be very hard to decide which cards to play.
I recall one game in which, not feeling like I had any good idea of how to win, began an experiment to intentionally lose. I began playing to lose. I played the cards that I thought were worst suited to the round being played. This strategy was a lot of fun, put absolutely no pressure on me, and had the interesting side-effect that I began to win.
I've been considering that this might not be a bad strategy to apply to other areas of my life. Depending on the context, it could even be advantageous. There are many many adventuresome, interesting, and creative ways to lose at something, many of which may have gone entirely unconsidered thus far.
Play to lose your heart, your mind, .. In the New Testament, Jesus tells people to play to lose their lives, saying that this is the only way to really gain something. I am not advocating anything destructive, but I guess I'm just trying to say that, maybe losing isn't as bad as it sounds. .. Has possessiveness ever gotten anyone anything good? Maybe it's not what you thought it would be anyway.
The windows all around my heart must have come loose, and I hope to keep them so. I sense the wafting curtains in my chest, and feel again well-ventilated.
I remind myself to respond to fear and uncertainty with an openness and willingness to greater understanding.
If a stranger is a friend you've never met, perhaps fear can be a world unexplored. I will ask its name and place of birth and allow us both to be transformed.
A friend and I were talking last year about the concept of good things coming from bad situations. I think I believe instead that good things come to those who can keep their heads lifted enough, no matter what the situation, to see them.
I was talking with him on the phone about housemate interactions - internal good will and the use of chorewars, billmonk and the like - when he made a distinction between a household where it was more like a family and ..(here I waited, because I couldn't tell what the contrast would be) .. shared housing like a dorm where people are more just sharing the space.
From reflecting on his distinction (his words held a mirror to my assumptions), I don't think I have ever considered living with people without considering them family. Certainly I have lived in some families composed of very autonomous individuals, or families of individuals with whom I did not interact all that much, but to live in a place with other people and not consider them some kind of family feels very foreign to me.
It now occurs to me that it is possible for others to live with people (including me) and perhaps not consider themselves to be in some kind of family. Especially, because I'm now guessing that sometime in the future, I will have to live with people that do not consider me family or whom I will not be able to consider as family. At least now, if this unfortunate event transpires, I will probably be confused for less time.
And I do not notice until I feel myself coming back.
Where do you go? He asked me once, point blank, as if his words might peer into something that eyes are untrained for and draw out a response from somewhere beyond that would return me to where I sat beside him.
That was four years ago already, and I still don't know the answer.
As I walked home this morning, my footsteps were overtaken by the scuttling of escaped leaves and spiraling seedpods riding the lip of the wind along the street.
I think my squirrel-mind has been anticipating - storing-up, and hoarding - comforts and securities, sensing both an end of summer and a dread of winter-coming.
But, perhaps out of a sense of enough stability, I remember to pick my head up. It will all be ok.
I have been seeing: events and people colored with a familiarity that leads me forward.
I pick my head up, remembering that this scent of air is the apprentice September preparing the trees for that artist October. That memory brings the life from my feet into my neck, and I look up to observe the entire ritual.
Do you feel it in the wind? Do you smell that? It is change. The Change brings death. These are exciting times. The leaves scurry along the ground.
Last week, I realized with dread that sense of end-of-summer, and the heaviness of the impending, long darkness of winter. It was not until a few long moments later that I remembered that between winter and summer comes fall.
Fall, and the brilliant golds, scarlets, oranges of fading emerald leaves - and the sky is colored with the same bone-drying winds that crisped the apples.
It is a time for opening of doors and windows. Secured indoors, I cannot feel the breeze or smell the wind, and feel an curious apprehension that I will not notice the piper passing by, but will be trapped by continuing to go about my business. No, that must not happen. Throw open the doors and windows.
In the moving air, can you taste that?
These are exciting times: it is a far-off death. It moves through the house and cleans the air. It is a salt to draw out the flavor of living. In the company of September and approach of October, in the anxious tugging of the breeze by leaves the color of tea, summer departs and I am reminded of a vivid obligation to live.
"Doctor, without your wounds, where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and laundering children of this earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve ..."
- Thorton Wilder, The Angel That Troubled the Waters
