Thoughts Happen

Delusions I Know and Love

A dear friend of mine lives in a household that to me seems like barely contained chaos, an entropy vortex where children of various ages, related and not, wander in and out, piles of papers and laundry perch on any open surface and aquariums and terrariums holding a variety of fish, reptiles and arachnids serve as room decor. The atmosphere is full of free-flowing energy spiked with undercurrents of mayhem seasoned generously with good humor.

I love her and her family greatly, but am always happy to return to my quiet home with three fewer children, several fewer pets and my own particular way of doing things, as I am not a person who thrives in chaos.

When my world gets too disordered I fluster easily and snap at innocent bystanders. My messy desk snatches papers right out of my hands, sucking them down like the sand-hole creature salivating for Luke Skywalker in “Return of the Jedi” while I shriek, “Where the hell did my registration go!!? I had it in my hand two seconds ago!!,” madly shuffling the detritus of weeks gone by.

 For though I love to be organized, my perfectionism stymies my organizing instincts if I can’t figure out the One Best Way to put everything together in a System that Works. In the absence of a One Best Way, I simply pile, pile, pile until inspiration strikes and/or exasperation takes over.

My embrace-the-chaos friend has times when it all gets too much, and she gets her peace by throwing everyone into the motor home and taking off to the mountains, beach or desert for as long as she can manage. It works for her, and she comes back refreshed and ready to tackle the insanity.

Myself, I organize. Give me an uninterrupted weekend to completely restructure my working area and I am in heaven. I did just that this past weekend, replacing an antique yet very large and impractical desk (which I donated to Daughter’s room, much to her delight) with a simple IKEA desktop and drawers. I also purged my filing cabinet, recycling or shredding a good third to half of its former contents.

 I know that having a clean desk or space in my filing cabinet won’t help clean up the Gulf or bring soldiers home from Iraq, but it brings some clarity to my thinking and calm to my state of mind.

When a college friend is still looking for work 6 months after being laid off, another friend still mourns the sudden death of her husband last year and a loved one gets a call from the doctor saying something funny showed up on the PET scan and we need you to come in for a biopsy, it’s hard to see these things as part of a System that Works, and I like to have some little corner of my world that makes me feel that I’ve got some control in my life.

It’s a delusion, I’m sure, but it works for me.

My Cavewoman Sheeba

 "Are you in my clan? ‘Cuz if you’re not in my clan, I’m suspicious. Do you look like me, talk like me? Even if you do, I’m still suspicious. Are you different at all? Are you small, or tall, or fat or thin? Are you injured or ill? Or do you just have a funny look? 

 Because I can’t trust you if you’re different. If I get too close I might get what you’ve got — your fatness or smallness or illness or just plain weirdness. Life is hard, and I don’t have a lot of time to waste figuring you out, so it’s just easier this way. I can sum you up in a fraction of a second. Don’t bother me after that."

 I did not actually have these words going through my head last week when I was one of 65 people involved in putting on a week-long day camp for 120 kids.

But I might as well have, for all the judgementalism I exhibited.

I found myself making snap judgements of people, especially the kids, all week long, based on minimal evidence. He’s lazy. She’s weak-willed. He’s immature. He’s boring. She’s weird. Things I would never, ever say out loud, or even usually admit to thinking. But for some reason I became aware of these lightning-fast assessments. At least I kept them to myself.

One child, a girl who is incredibly small for her age, with a tiny, pixie-like face, triggered something in me I can only describe as akin to revulsion. I don’t know why. I’ve seen her before, and had the same reaction, where I can’t stop looking because of a repulsed fascination.

This time, I had a sensation of watching myself and saying, “WTF? What is wrong with you? She’s just a little kid! Aren’t you more mature than that?”

As the week went on and I paid more attention, I noticed my reactions more and more.

I was horrified. I think of myself as a well-educated, empathetic, open-minded and tolerant individual. What the hell was going on?

After the week’s end I kept pondering it, and came to the conclusion that it’s my inner cavewoman showing her face. I’ll call her Sheeba.

Sheeba has to struggle for her very survival. She doesn’t trust very many people because, frankly, trust takes time and energy. She has to be on the alert all the time, so a snap judgement is very useful.

Problem is, Sheeba is a bit, well —misguided. Or at least overzealous, as I discovered as one after another my snap judgements proved hasty and one-dimensional.

The “lazy” boy was actually quite helpful, and the immature one showed a completely different side one-on-one vs. in a group. The “weird” girl had a deformed lip that just gave her an odd expression, and my pixie was simply a tiny child who I had absolutely no reason to dislike except that Sheeba had a problem with her.

The next day I came across a Pema Chodron passage that spoke right to the heart of it. “In that painful moment when we don’t live up to our own standards, do we condemn ourselves or truly appreciate the paradox of being human? Can we forgive ourselves and stay in touch with our good and tender heart?”

Sheeba means well, so I try not to be too hard on her. Just knowing she’s there is the first step to appreciating that paradox.

Photo courtesy ArtfulDanni by Creative Commons on flickr.

50 Years and Counting

My parents got married a little over 50 years ago, in a very small wedding held in the home of a friend, with just close family and a few friends attending. Mom was 20 years old and still in college, Dad was 23 and a recent graduate. They loved each other, but neither of them really knew what they were doing.

 They didn’t learn a lot about communicating from their parents. Mom’s parents divorced when she was in high school, and Dad’s parents, while they had a stable marriage, were of Northern European stock known for reservedness and reticence.

A couple of years after the wedding my sister appeared on the scene, and five years later I did too. Mom and Dad were loving, responsible parents who made time for us kids and raised us in a stable home with lots of good family memories. But they still didn’t know how to talk to each other.

If there was any discord, my sister and I were oblivious, acknowledging their anniversary every year with homemade cards or flowers. For me, the accumulation of years meant little; I was much more focused on my own birthdays and milestones. My parents accrued another year of marriage every spring — why wouldn’t they?

It wasn’t until I was in my 20s that the accumulated strain of over 25 years of miscommunication, unbuffered by having kids at home, started showing. They considered divorce. I don’t know how many times or how close they actually came over the following decade, but it was more than once.

I couldn’t let myself believe it would actually happen. Mom and Dad had always been there, together. For my own self-centered reasons I hoped and prayed they would find some way to stay together. And somehow, they did.

And here’s where the tiny miracle comes in. Over the past 15 years, despite hurt feelings, generations of family history against them and feeling way outside their comfort zone, my parents, with some help, learned to talk to each other. And along the way discovered a renewed tenderness, love and deep respect for the person on the other side of the breakfast table, flaws and all.

This year the anniversary clock hit 50 years. Let me say that again — 50 years. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that this is the first year that I’ve really stopped to think what that means.

Nobody tells you when you get married that it won’t always be easy. And if they do tell you, you don’t believe them. To know that my parents stayed committed to each other for 50 years, and that they stuck it out through some very tough times, is both humbling and inspiring.

In Anna Quindlen’s book, “One True Thing,” the main character, a grown child of parents who stay together through a tested marriage, says, 

“'No one knows what goes on inside a marriage.’ I read that once; the aphorism ended ‘except for the two people who are in it.’ But I suspect that even that is not the truth ...”

Perhaps that’s true — perhaps even couples who stay together for 50 years can’t even say quite how they did it. But that two people can stay together and grow together for a half a century — that’s an accomplishment.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mom and Dad
 

Gone Fishin'

Thoughts Happen is on hiatus until the end of the month. In the meantime, enjoy some of these popular columns from earlier days of the blog:

Holding the World on Father's Day (June '09)

 A Hyphen-Free World (May '09)

What the Turtle Taught Me (September '08)

My Dream of Doing Nothing

I did not know what to write about today. Usually I have something percolating in the back of my mind at least a few days ahead of time, but it’s been one of those weeks when I’m too pooped to percolate.

The accumulated busyness of the end of the year (how ironic that we manage to squeeze two year-end seasons into every year) is wearing on me— every activity has an end-of-the year “thing” which requires attendance at a minimum, sometimes selling tickets, most often a potluck dish, and occasionally some major practice or significant amount of paperwork. Do they all have to fall within a 4-week period?

I feel like I’ve stepped on a train that is hurtling downhill with no brakes, and I just want to get off. It’s not that these aren’t all worthwhile activities — they are. I just don’t like feeling like I’m being pushed from one to the other without any time to reflect and rejuvenate.

 I want to look around and appreciate the moment that is Now before it is gone. And I’m finally starting to understand the character in the late-’90s comedy Office Space, who when asked what he would do if he had a million dollars replied, “Nothing,” with a far-off, dreamy look on his face.

I am not the kind of person who normally finds doing Nothing very appealing. Even when I meditate, I don’t feel like I’m doing Nothing — I’m meditating. I like to feel productive. But from my seat on the train, doing Nothing is sounding pretty darn appealing right now.

I’ll leave you with a clip from this classic film. Enjoy it while spacing out at your desk.

via www.youtube.com