Month: October 2009

More than logic

“If the world were only pain and logic, who would want it?
Of course, it isn’t.
Neither do I mean anything miraculous, but only the light that can shine out of a life.”
(Mary Oliver)

Of course the world is not only logic. We can beat our heads against the wall, searching for certainty, and we simply won’t find it. The things that really animate our existence – feelings, people, relationships – defy categorization into the neat boundaries of logic and rationality. That is what makes them so daunting, and so seductive. Also, scary, particularly for those of us predisposed towards control and clarity.

There is tension between surrendering to that which we cannot comprehend and striving to better understand. The existence of that which is illogical and inchoate is not an excuse to throw up our hands in the face of the work required to live examined lives. Still, it is clear to me that we need to celebrate, and not fight, the ambiguous, illogical parts of our lives, selves, and relationships.

Maybe this is the essence of maturity: waking up every morning in the face of that all that cannot be known and embracing the uncertainty and the certainty with equal ardor. Maybe this is the definition of intimacy: seeing someone for who they are, including that which cannot be understood, and loving them because, not in spite of, those things.

Halloween

Halloween.

I’ve never been a big Halloween fan. In fact I’m a downright curmudgeon about it. In college it seemed like an excuse for women to dress like tramps and now it seems like an excuse for boys to wield weapons. Plus I find some of the stuff about it legitimately spooky.

So I’m kind of a loser mom when it comes to Halloween. I don’t decorate the house and I generally force them to trick or treat early and go to bed at a regular hour. Of course having a child with a nut allergy makes all of the candy extra fun and stressful.

Grace and Whit have had matching/coordinating Halloween costumes for four years. The first year, when she was just 3 and he was 9 months old, she was chicken and he was an egg. That was really great. I got a lot of comments about how “Hey you’re really taking a stance on the which came first thing, eh?” They were adorable.

The next year they were a firefighter (Grace) and a dalmation. Whit still occasionally emerges from his room wearing his dalmation costume, which is now skin-tight. Then the next year they were Tinkerbell and Peter Pan. I searched high and low to find a non-Disney Tinkerbell and I did. And last year they were Wonder Woman and Superman. Photos of the costumes here and here.

So this year it was clear early on that Whit was going to be something from Star Wars. Despite not having seen the movie, he is utterly obsessed. He wanted to be Captain Rex so I bought him a clone troopers costume (and a gun, which I still haven’t decided whether I’m going to give to him or not). Grace came to me several days after Whit had decided on his costume. She told me, eyes cast down but firm resignation in her voice, “Mum, I’ll be Princess Leia if you want.”

Of course I wanted! What a cute costume, perfect for her, plus not slutty and potentially warm enough if it is a classic New England Halloween. But something tugged in me. And I told her, then and there, that she didn’t have to match. She decided to be a witch and is very excited about it. It is a small thing, an infinitesimally small easing of the hand I keep on them.

A Return to Yoga: Seeking Stillness (and a Stretch)

I have been plagued on and off for the past several months with knee problems. And my lower back and my hips, and everything is tight. I took six weeks off this summer, which, though actually really challenging, did help the immediate situation with my right knee. Just as I was getting back into shape and thinking that my Columbus Day half marathon was in my sights, I got swine flu. No dice.

I’m creeping my way back into running now, but I’m also realizing that these hip and knee and back problems are not going away. Nothing major, but definite aches and tightness. The joys of being 35, I suppose.

This long preamble is to say I went back to yoga on Sunday morning. I used to have a very committed yoga practice. For years I practiced 4 or 5 times a week and it was a big part of my life. Somehow, having children and more time pressure has caused me to drift back to running. And I love running. I don’t think I will ever stop running (as long as I can). I have always thought of running as a kind of worship: it is where I can be still and can think, it is often where I come as close as I ever have to feeling the presence of the divine. I love running around my neighborhood, tracing the changing seasons and the trees, running in the heat of the summer, the rain of the fall and spring, and the ice and snow of the winter.

But with the gradual, persistent issues of tightness in my body I am realizing I need to reincorporate yoga. A little. Now I need to figure out how. So Sunday morning I went. Even though what I wanted was to lace up my sneakers and head out, instead I took my mat and flip-flopped to what turned out to be a very lame class. Still. My body remembers yoga like a long-lost but deeply-buried language. It felt familiar, returning to the poses that I can do from sense memory. It was also humbling, because I am so weak and so tight, so much more than when I used to practice regularly. But it felt good. And so I am newly committed to find a way to practice every week. Or most weeks.

Combining running and yoga is probably ideal for the body (at least my body), but it is also the perfect metaphor for the tension that exists for me between stillness and speed. This tension is central to who I am, I blogged about it last month over at Chicken & Cheese, and I am probably boring you all with my repeated forays into discussing it. I continue to be frustrated by my inability to be still, to appreciate all that is, while also trying to accept and embrace the inherent impatience of my nature, the instinctive way I move forward, quickly, in the world.

The reason vinyasa yoga worked for me early on is that the meditative aspects of the practice were reached only through physical exertion. I know myself well enough to know that the other way around does not really work for me. I did find, though, that a vigorous, physical asana practice allowed my mind to still. Sometimes. For a little while. My first teacher used to tease me constantly about how I fidgeted; he pointed out that in a long pose I always had an itch to scratch, hair in my face, need for water. And he was right. But sometimes, just sometimes there would be a moment where it was just me and my breath. It’s those moments – and some space in my aching, tight knees and hips and back – that I hope will motivate me to return to the studio, at least occasionally.

Seven



Grace on the first day of being seven. She looks older to me, in a single day. I can see in her face both the baby she was and the woman she will be.

And this, I love. I love. Thank you to Jen of Momalom for pointing me to the marvelous poem from which it is taken:

Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.

(Louise Erdrich: Advice to Myself)

What I want is to be willing to be dazzled

The Ponds (Mary Oliver)

Every year
the lilies
are so perfect
I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding
the black,
mid-summer ponds.
Nobody could count all of them —

the muskrats swimming
among the pads and the grasses
can reach out
their muscular arms and touch

only so many, they are that
rife and wild.
But what in this world
is perfect?

I bend closer and see
how this one is clearly lopsided —
and that one wears an orange blight —
and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away —
and that one is a slumped purse
full of its own
unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life
is to be willing
to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even
to float a little
above this difficult world.
I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing —
that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum
of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

HWM – thank you. the right words at the right time. older and wiser you will always be.