Writing Stories Together

Tonight my son’s homework assignment is to write the first draft of a mystery story. It’s to include dialogue, six of this week’s spelling words, and he’s to define character and setting. We’ve been going back and forth at the kitchen table for longer than you’d think it would take to write a page. My son stops writing mid-sentence to tell a joke with no punch line:

“What’s got four wheels and spins?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

“Me neither,” he said, breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

He just looked over my shoulder and OK’d my punctuation for the dialogue.

It’s been dark since 4 pm. Our holiday lights are up in the window. My husband is in the kitchen making a lentil/lamb sausage soup, my son and I are sharing a cup of tea, and there’s a lovely winter candle with blue and white snowflakes on the table, in the midst of binders and papers and pencils and composition books and my laptop and holiday cards from friends and the withering colors of a fall floral bouquet my husband brought home over the weekend. The days are getting shorter and shorter, it’s cold outside, but this is a great moment of warmth.

Meeting the Buddha in the Road

I’ve heard that one way to reach enlightenment, or at least not to be so frustrated by daily irritations, is to assume that everyone we encounter each day is a Buddha, an eminent teacher sent to help us learn an important lesson about ourselves. Many of these Buddhas are wrapped in loving-kindness, and meeting them is a true delight, and we open ourselves easily to their teaching. Others are not so easy to meet.

Yet in this way of thinking, we are to greet even the most
challenging of people and circumstances with an openness to learn from them, a humbleness that perhaps we are their Buddha in the road, and that we are all here to learn and grow. The thorns of a rosebush make the rose more precious, make us slow down and carefully take the flower, appreciating how its beauty is protected by the prickly, dangerous bits. We must always anticipate the thorn, and we might accidentally get hurt, may be careless in handling the stem, and then we will bleed. Just a bit. And we forgive the rose.

I have cultivated many skills to enjoy and navigate the small moments of interaction with strangers and acquaintances, and I’m proud to say I’m almost always pleased with how I meet different people on the road. I have met the Confused Buddha, the Frightened Buddha, the Lost Child Buddha, the Grieving Buddha, the Lonely Buddha, the Jealous Buddha, the Insecure Buddha and even the Stingy Buddha. I have been pricked by these Buddhas’ thorns of self-protection, yet the wounds have been clean and easy to heal, and I have understood that the intention was never to harm me, but to protect themselves. I’m sure I’ve become the Irritable Buddha or the Impatient Buddha in response, but I hope that in doing so I’m forgiven, as I come to forgive these others for their temporary woundings. But usually, I’m closer to the Laughing Buddha – people tell me they love my laugh, my warmth and positive attitude, and I even heard from someone today that I have a little giggle in my phone voice. What a compliment this was.

Yet less than an hour before I heard this about me, I had encountered my least favorite Buddha: the Angry Buddha. We traveled for a short time together, this Angry Buddha and I. I initially mistook this person for the Creative Buddha, the Spiritual Buddha, the Enlightened Buddha. Maybe even the Savior Buddha, as at the time I think I was looking for someone to rescue me. That should have told me what I needed to know, but it didn’t. Not then. All I knew was that I was getting smaller and smaller, less and less like my usual self, like a Vanishing Buddha.

Even long after even our paths have separated, the Angry Buddha continues to appear without my beckoning. It’s not really a meeting, more of an ambush, a hijacking out of my safe and snug life. A hostile takeover, creating fear, pain and entrapment. The infliction of harm not through accident or the self-preservation of thorns and defenses, but through the intent to destroy. Without any control over the moments of meeting, I am often caught unaware, which by now is a sign that I have much in me of the Naïve Buddha. Every time we meet, I am surprised, stunned, angered, troubled and hurt. Where there was one Angry Buddha, there are now two. In the aftermath, I’m flattened for a bit - I’m hollow and depleted–the Defeated Buddha.

I’m sure meditation books and spiritual advisors would tell me that I should meet the Angry Buddha with compassion and kindness. To not form any attachment to the Anger, but connect with the innermost Buddha nature hiding underneath. But I’m not anything like an enlightened being, and I may never get to this place. I don’t meditate, don’t do yoga faithfully (it probably doesn’t count that I incorporate some yoga poses into my gym routine), and often forget to even breathe deeply. I just want to get through my days in a way that makes sense to me. And the Angry Buddha wreaks havoc with what I think makes sense.

I always recover from the encounters with the Angry Buddha. Then comes the glimpse of the lesson I am learning. The recurrence of the Angry Buddha calls attention to how much of my life is spent alongside the Kind Buddha, the Supportive Buddha, the Smart and Funny Buddha, the Benevolent Buddha, the Thoughtful Buddha, the Eager-to-Learn Buddha, and the Generous Buddha. Such a life of blessing have I now that these Buddhas permeate my household, my family, coworkers, and my closest circle of friends. My son is the Joyous Buddha; my husband the Noble Buddha. To them I am the Loving Buddha, the one they look forward to seeing each day and someone they eagerly learn from.

So here’s what I aspire to express one day as my gratitude - for both the Angry Buddha and the lessons you have taught me:

Thank you, Angry Buddha, for teaching me the things I am willing to fight for. You saw me as a flower – perhaps - but never a rose. You have never forgiven me for refusing to die after you cut my stem. I will continue to fight your attempts to take over my life and poison what is dear to me. I used to fear that having to engage in such a fight would poison me, prohibit me from being the kind of person I want to be. But it hasn’t. It’s done the opposite. It’s freed me up to appreciate and enjoy the loving-kindness surrounding me. I’ve had to grow different thorns and be willing to use them. Most people in my life see me as the rose, even when they encounter some of my pricklies, and they forgive me for them. You have made me an active creator in my own happiness, no longer waiting or hoping for someone to make it for me. Your continued attempts to diminish me have forced me to become fully alive, and what a choice that has turned out to be.

Oh how I wish that when you cross my path again, you’ll have transformed from whatever life lessons are awaiting you. But until then, I promise to use you, Angry Buddha, to remind me to cultivate loving-kindness for the roses in my very own garden.

I Woke From a Dream

There were no unknowns in this morning’s dream - the cast of characters, the setting, the emotions. Some of the plot details are fading, but the feel remains. I can feel a man’s hand on my cheek, and the way my head tilts to rest in the weight of his hand, initially comforting to lean just so. Later in the dream sequence, a look of meanness takes over his face, turning him emotionally into a stranger, warping the facial features and expressions like a Munch scream. But it’s my voice I hear as I ineffectively plead for what I want to happen, the fear and anger and the sense of separation from my child vividly real.

Who is this dream state mate who shifts from lover to betrayer? First thoughts go to an amalgamation of all the important men in my life. But I once learned that the dreamer, who is responsible for creating every character/scene/conflict in a dream, is also represented in every character. If so, it’s my betrayal, not anyone else’s. Who is the “me” in the dream – am I protecting my mother by putting motherhood themes on me, or is it really me? Who’s the child I’m separated from? My actual child, me disguised as a child, or someone completely different that I’m struggling with but I need the dream to transform into a smaller, more powerless person before the leave-taking? I don’t know what the dream was telling me – nor if was about something that has already happened or something that is percolating - a window into recent chafings or a reminder of unresolved struggles which are now so familiar they’re like old friends.

Did this week’s minor disconnect get blown into this? And, if so, which disconnect? It seems I managed a perfect trifecta, with moments of irritation, misunderstanding and loneliness with family, friends, and, of course, myself. I’ve been a bit more tired than usual. My writing has seemed flat. Even my cooking has been uninspired. A series of mis-connections and disconnections amidst an intense and over-filled household schedule. I’m getting everything done, but without time for a full rest – one that lasts more than a few in-breaths. The dream is filled with images of people turning away and not being able to get to the things that are most important.

I know two things – that I’ll never know what the dream was really about, and that I know perfectly well what it’s about. I’m supposed to move in the direction of true, sustained connection, with myself and others. Or, as I told someone recently, I’m supposed to “lean the f___ in” at exactly the moment when I’d like to step back. And I’m not the only one who’s supposed to get this message – it’s quite a good message, in fact - but I’m the one who got it at 4:12 am. I’m now heading into a very, very long day, a precarious way to set me up for just the opposite. Imagine what will be in my dreams tonight.

First Bike Ride

The first time my son ventured onto concrete on his bike – after a long, arduous process of coaxing, cajoling, bribing, yelling – these from the adults – and whining and defiant refusal from him – he started to get it. He wobbled, straightened, wobbled, went so fast I had to let go of his jacket and then he rode right into a telephone pole. But the ride wasn’t over. I made him get back up, we continued to our original destination – the market where he could choose dessert for that night's dinner. More whining, wanting to walk the bike, shaking out his hands from the pain. Big wet brown eyes mixed with rage and fear and powerlessness. He wanted a fried chicken leg and ate it while we were in the store. He chose his favorite, caramel ice cream, to take home (yet, no surprise here, he didn’t want any dessert that night). The ride home was emotionally painful to both of us, I imagine. But I filled it with “life lessons” and reframed riding into a pole into “inviting the pole to join him.” This gave us a little touch of humor – “You’re not supposed to invite a pole to join you when you ride your bike!” Which, when I read this sentence in print sounds ludicrous, but I was desperate to turn the event into something less awful than what it was. By the time we got home, we’d wrapped the whole incident into something we could both live with, despite the dual disappointments we experienced.

What is it about disappointment that makes it such a dangerous feeling? Fear comes to join disappointment quickly, anger subsumes all, but underneath it’s such a raw place, a slippery slope that opens up all the disappointments I’ve strung together like a beaded necklace, a never-ending pulling of polished disappointment stones through the fingers of my memory. Like a rosary, I imagine, although I’ve never held one, and I imagine that rosary beads quell discontent since they are accompanied by prayer. Nothing quells a lifetime of strung-together disappointments. For me, my heart beat is rapid, I am flushed and sweating, and pretty sure that once the feeling is opened up, sleep will be impossible.

My son doesn’t have many disappointment beads to string together. He will accumulate some, no doubt, as we all do. But perhaps he will never string them together. Maybe he’ll have the luxury of disappointment floating away, meaning nothing more than a momentary loss that he can make sense of, and move through it to return to his deep-down understanding of the world – that sometimes you invite a pole to join you at exactly the time you don’t want a pole to join you, and that other times you ride right by the pole. Instead of disappointment confirming that he is powerless in achieving his goals, perhaps he’ll experience it as a temporary setback; powerlessness isn’t global, just momentary.

It’s several years after that first ride, and as we walk or ride past the same pole on the same sidewalk square, he'll sometimes bring up the time he rode in to it. It's been restructured in his memory as something that's part of his own story, a battle story he survived to tell, and therefore the battle was worth it, and the painful bits have clearly faded away. We no longer need the reframe of having invited the pole to join him – he gets that sometimes cruddy stuff happens when you least expect it or want it to, and it’s our job to keep going. To take the disappointments with us, honor them for what they meant - because let’s be clear – most parents want a happy first-bike-ride story, and there’s no way my son wanted his first ride to go like it did – and in this way disappointments will slip through our grasp. The only thing left for us to string together will be the something fine we’ve made out of our disappointment.

Carpool Life Lesson (Not Very "PC")

Tonight was my turn to drive car pool. We drive with the same “older” girl whose father drives the convertible red Cadillac. When we went to pick her up, she wasn’t quite ready – she needed to find her shoes, comb her hair, grab a car snack, pick a jacket, track down her book. Her Dad was apologizing that she wasn’t ready.

I patted my son on the back, and said, “Get used to it, honey – it’s just the beginning of you waiting for women.” To the girl, I added, “Take your time. They’ll always wait.”

She’s a lively, lovely girl – she should never apologize for the time it takes to get ready. Should she get ready earlier? Maybe. Does she have the privilege of making boys/men wait? Probably. Is it right? Who knows. She makes my son smile and laugh, she uses her ‘please’s and ‘thank you’s, talks directly to my son as if he’s her equal, and the truth is he’s not. He’s a year and grade-level behind her, and the gap between the normative maturity level of 4th grade boys and the chatty, social, sophisticated girls of 5th grade is of dog-year proportions. She has her own cell phone and texts her friends, has stories to share from dance class, openly passes along the wisdom of having braces and bombing an impromptu math quiz. My son is trying to memorize jokes and riddles just to have something new to bring to the conversation. Tonight, she told an elaborate new joke, and my son interrupted twice by twirling a Halloween lollipop until she was distracted.

She brings things to him, draws him out, appreciates him, even tells him of things he can do that she hasn’t mastered yet; he offers her a short span of time where she doesn't have to prove herself, do anything different, or be anything other shan she is, since he likes her just fine as she is, and it doesn't faze him at all to stand in the hallway a few extra moments until she’s ready. It’s a fair deal, as far as I can see. No one’s oppressed, no one’s judged. Boys and girls - men and women – we will never bring the same thing to the table in a relationship. We aren't equal, and perhaps we don't need to be. All I know is that these two kids are very, very happy with their unbalanced, unequal, fully equitable relationship.

On Wanting: Part II

I finished the book this morning – I couldn’t stay up long enough to finish it in one night. I still didn’t remember anything about it while I read it, even as I reread the exact passage I’d saved for my own posterity.

My initial reaction to finding the quote was to invoke the memory of how hard I have fought for the basic experience of wanting; I began to think that I am still struggling the way I might have been back in ’06. But by the end of the book, I realize that I am NOT in the same place I might have been when I read it the first time. I do not solely want what I used to want.

This time around, I’m a touch embarrassed for finding life wisdom in a romance novel. There’s a lot of talk of erections, breasts, nipples, and naked bodies, and although it’s tasteful, it’s not all that erotic. Mia did go on to have an affair with Robert; Robert stops the affair in part because she’s married; Mia’s children confront her after her affair has ended to tell her of the affair her husband has been having for three years. The book seems a bit dated, possibly because its characters use dial-up modems to check their adulterous emails. Possibly because of the content of the medical details. This time around, I don’t want the characters to base all their decisions on blind, primal wants. Mia and Robert can want, they’re entitled to want, but they oughtn’t hurt others unnecessarily in the process of identifying and obtaining their wants. They should wait, do the right thing with their wants.

Funny, perhaps after having four years of a want-filled life, I’m now somewhat smug in thinking that wants can be delayed. Sure, tell the dehydrated, lost-in-the-desert person she should wait just a bit longer for some water, when the jug is right there, and everyone can see it. Nah, emptiness from years/decades of not letting ourselves want probably does end with some damage to those who have perpetuated the myth that our needs don’t matter, or they’re only selfish, or they’re just something that will pass. Damage, violence – perhaps these are justified for the brutality of tainting and dismissing our longings and yearnings. So maybe we will take a few prisoners as we reclaim our capacity to desire.

This time through the book, I’m paying way more attention to Mia’s mother, Sally, who, at the beginning of the book is about to have a bilateral mastectomy. Years back, my Mom had breast cancer, and three years ago I had my second scare. If I’ve done the math correctly, I’ve had one biopsy, one cyst removed, three MRIs and four mammograms since I read the book the first time. I now have an oncologist (despite never having had cancer) with whom I have a three-tiered plan of risk reduction (I’m healthy, eat well and exercise 5 times a week, do nothing to excess, and there’s not much comfort in having no risk to reduce), surveillance (scans every 6 months), and prevention (I’m supposed to be taking an estrogen receptor antagonist, a drug my Mom took when she had cancer, as a preventive). But here I live with the guilt of going against medical advice because of something else I want – a body full of estrogen, my skin and body fluids mine to enjoy as long as I can, a full dose of my libido.

Sally’s the one I’m glued to as I finish the book. After the death of her husband and the loss of her breasts, the brief loss of her will to live, and the loss of physical stamina from chemotherapy, Sally allows herself to love another man, named, iconically, Dick.

“We’re figuring things out. It’s what we all have to do with each other if we want to go further. I just never found someone I wanted to be with until Dick. It’s what -” Sally feels her next sentence in her mouth and then holds it against her tongue, its bite pushing on the roof of her mouth. “It’s what you have to do if you want to go further – unless, of course, you don’t have a choice. Sometimes . . . it’s there. In front of you, knocking you on the head. There’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, though, you have to choose to move closer.” (p. 232)

Sure, there are blinding, hit-you-over-the-head kinds of love, and these seem to remove any possible choice or thought. But other times - often, in fact – we much choose to love.

There’s so much to be said about wanting what we want, and being allowed to want it, but here’s the piece about what we’re responsible for – which is creating and cultivating what we want. We can’t hide behind others, and what we think they will or won’t allow us to do. We can’t hide behind fear – that if we move toward what we want we might lose it. Of course we might. Of course, we probably will.

In a way that doesn't feel morbid or overly sad, I realize I am going to lose everything that I cherish right now – the vitality of my body; the mothering of a son young enough to appreciate being mothered; the loving relationship with my husband. Life doesn't stagnate and losses will come, even if I do nothing to screw things up. Time and age and death will claim my present joys, leaving only grief for what is no longer, an opening for what will come next. I hope I will have the courage, like Sally, to leave the confines of fear. It seems so obvious –now- that we’re supposed to cultivate, feed, and tend our lives and loves like a garden. Nothing will continue to flourish without fertilizer, weeding, aerating, and whatever else it is gardeners do to grow their crops. I can’t stop and rest on my laurels just because I finally got what I wanted. I will have to keep wanting, staying open to create the next thing I've always wanted when these things are no more. And whatever losses I encounter, I’m the want-granter now; I will have to continue to do what it takes to know my loved ones, to keep learning how to love the people who love me, as their needs change over time.

I’m also thinking about what the author is saying about a woman choosing Dick. Mia’s name, meaning “mine,” is discussed throughout the book. The author doesn’t comment on Sally’s name, but it conveys setting out, sallying forth. Sally is supposed to set out on a journey, and to choose Dick. Maybe the author is telling women to choose sex – not just sex as an act, but sex as metaphor for aliveness, fullness, meaningful connections with others that transcend body parts. In choosing Dick/dick, Sally comes to him with puckered scar tissue where her breasts should be. She’s not bringing the “sex” of her body, she’s bringing the sexuality of her entire being. Sally’s more alive without breasts than she was at the beginning of the story, living a rather small, closed-off existence. Sally emerges as a fully functioning, sexual, alive being. Choose this, the author seems to be saying.

I don’t want Mia’s life – the 20-plus years of marriage and want-less-ness, where she was loved but not known or understood, and used this to justify her unwillingness to know and understand her husband. I definitely don’t want Sally’s life, as I’m terrified of Sally’s (my Mom’s) cancer and breast loss. But I want Sally’s renewed willingness to live fully, sexually, even if pieces and parts of her have been left behind. I know a little bit about leaving pieces and parts behind, even with a mostly intact body. I have grieved and lost things I thought were too dear to me to lose. Yet here I am, in a phase of my life I would have never predicted, wrapped in an abundance I didn’t have even when I had those other parts of my life. I want to keep wanting, and to be a generous want-granter. I want to keep choosing a fully alive existence, even if I encounter irreplaceable losses. This is what I hope to remember four years from now.

On Wanting: Part I

First things first. I am shamelessly (shamefully?) copying a format for writing this in two parts from my dear friend who posted a two-part blog entry. When I read hers, I knew that would fix the problem of how to tell this story, which when I started assumed would have one arc, but it turned out to go another way. So thank you, Kristin, for letting me piggy back.

(Insert Ira Glass voice here) Here’s Part One:

There’s a book I began for what I call bedtime reading – nothing with much literary value, but that allows me to relax and quiet my mind before sleep. These aren’t the books I read for ideas, nor do I read them for life lessons or because they have a buzz about them from being well-known titles or authors. I read them to help put myself to sleep. I picked this book up without knowing anything about it or its author, just that it had a picture of a woman leaning back in lingerie, so I figured at best it’s a romance novel.

The other day, I was perusing old writing files all the way back to 2000. I sometimes copy meaningful passages from novels or poetry to keep for later use. I came across a document with the author’s name on it, dated May, 2006. This I find interesting, as I have no recollection that I’ve read anything by this author before, and didn't remember this entry.

I opened the document, expecting to learn something from another book by this author, something that might relate in theme or format to what I’m currently reading. Instead, the excerpt is from the same book I’m reading, although I haven’t yet made it to the text I’d copied. How strange. I have no recollection of the story, the characters, the meaning I could have possibly found so compelling from this story that I would have written it down before. In fact, as I’ve been reading it (this time) I’ve been wondering why I’m reading it – as I get distracted when a main plot line is an affair, and the main character seems headed toward an affair and hasn’t picked up the signs that her husband has already begun one. Further, there’s a cancer subplot, which is a bit distracting. But I kept reading it. And it did help me doze off.

I titled the excerpt, “On Wanting.” I have grappled with wanting, with the fine line between the absolute right of a person – me – to want, and the accusation that wanting makes a person – me – selfish. I’ve grappled with this for as long as I can remember, and have only very, very recently shifted my understanding of my own wants, and my history with them. I was apparently grappling with this in 2006, but trust me, it goes back way, way further.

Old view: I wanted too much, I wanted the wrong things, I wanted things no one else wanted and therefore I was wrong for wanting them, I was selfish for wanting what I wanted, and, ultimately, it didn’t matter, because I wanted things that were impossible, and therefore I’d never get what I wanted.

New view: My wants have always been reasonable. I’ve never wanted things that were impossible, or things that were out of reach. My yearnings have never really wavered, despite the years of telling myself - and being told - that I must want something else, or deep down I just want what everyone else wants, or maybe I don’t know what I want.

In the past, my only problem was wanting that which was beyond the capacity of those around me to give. That’s it. I wanted something that my family members, when I was young, couldn’t give. My wants might have threatened their own experiences, since no doubt they were living without their wants being satisfied. My wants and wishes weren’t “wrong” – the want-granters were limited. I didn’t know this at the time, and I didn’t know this for such a long time. My guess is that those early want-granters still don’t know this.

There’s a quote I used in my wedding invitation that said

Blessed are they who remember
that what they now have they once longed for.

-Jean Valentine (1992). The River at Wolf.
Farmington, ME: Alice James Books

I’ve come late to the experience of wants being met, of being seen with my wants and desires and longings and not being talked out of them, not being ridiculed for them, and not receiving the odd, silent eyebrow rise that suggests I’m in for some strong disappointment if that’s what I think I wanted. Now, I’ve tasted the joy of getting what I have always wanted. I was, after all, as right as I thought I was. And I have to say, it was possibly even better than what I’d dreamed it could be.

I was curious about this former oh-so-important passage that I had to write down to remember forever (and then go on to ignore on my computer for 4 years, ignore so completely that I didn’t remember anything about the book).

Here’s the passage:

As she looks at this man underneath her, she knows she could get sucked down into wanting. Of wanting what she’s always wanted. Mia knows she’s greedy. To want more is selfish. To want more is to test fate, pulling one final, gaudy thing on board simply to lose the rest of the load she’s collected for years. Hasn’t she been gifted with her children and her husband and her writing? What about her teaching and mother and sisters and friends? But the need for this thing in her body, this loving with Robert, has always been there. For years, she’s been saying good-bye to her want, watching it float away on a life raft to the middle of an uncharted ocean. Good-bye, she thought, waving as she sailed on. Maybe next life.

-Jessica Barksdale Inclán (2006, pp. 176-177).
The Instant When Everything is Perfect.
NY: New American Library.

After reading this, I see the parallel story line about a woman trained to give up wanting. So I have struggled with wanting, for years, and have tried various ways to not want what I wanted. What was happening 4 years ago? Was I about to give up the old view for the new? Was wanting becoming something safe for me, so I could notice other people who had given them up? Did I rail against the author/character, “NO – don’t wait until the next life. It’s possible now. Want it, just keep wanting it. You’re not wrong. You’ve never been wrong.” Did I root for Mia to do whatever possible in the service of her needs?

Four years ago I was ensconced in the luxury of living out my oldest longings, the ones I’d tried to say “goodbye” to. I was relatively new to the experience, and didn’t trust it to last. I was awash in the largesse of having my wants acknowledged and respected, the spaciousness of having no one who made my yearnings seem small or wrong.

After reading this passage, which is ahead of where I was in the book, I still couldn’t remember how the book unfolds, although I guess it’s obvious the main character, Mia, is going to have an affair, as Robert is not her husband. I gave myself permission to stay up as late as possible that night so I could find out how the story unfolds, and to see if it gave me any more clue as to what was so important about my wanting back then. This permission giving is a small example of how freely I now throw around my wants. It’s a reasonable one, I get to want it, and I even get to allow myself to try to meet the want – I just have to stay up late enough to finish the book.