Word of the Week - 142

Art by Fabienne Cinquin.

Word(s) of the Week:  WHEN IN DOUBT

In times of confusion, I turn or have turned variously to food, sleep, humor, dithering, weeping, growing quiet, snapping, any distraction like organizing my color pencils yet again, pondering and, as a last resort, making a very simple plan.

The holidays confuse me.  Relentless promoting of costly, material goods makes me sad.  It seems so anti-holiday.  I used to be able to participate so differently, certainly with greater energy and other resources.  That was a very long time ago.  What passes for The News confuses me for I mistrust most of it, either to be actually newsworthy or to be true.

While I would not call myself a tough cookie of the old school, neither am I easily confused so it takes a really large and seething mass of chaos to throw me any distance.  Also known as, when the holidays and news collide.

Which brings me to, "Ow-my head," and other home-grown things a bright girl can do.  A useful response to confusion is not unlike a healthy reaction to physical peril from, oh, a poisonous snake or other predatory, lethal life form.  For me, that means stand still for as long as necessary.  Do nothing big or noisy or fast.  Drawing, with or without coloring, fits that description.  When figures or forms seem too much, I draw words, often silly ones that somehow help me feel less disoriented.  As each of us is unique, what is medicine for one may be further confusion for another.  It is not one size fits all.

I freely admit to being a conspiracy theorist.  One of the suspected conspiracies involves someone/someones somewhere being highly invested in keeping us confused or distracted in ways that render us non-functioning.  This is not new business, this didn't just happen.  Our job is to be as present, as bright and alert as possible, as don't-get-fooled-again skeptical as we can be.  Getting caught up with all the other fish who swim around in circles renders us useless.

It doesn't matter how one combats this fugue state, just that we resist it.  There IS a way out.  It is our job to find it, to draw its picture so we'll know it when/if it shows up again, regardless of the disguise it chooses.  Each of us is responsible for being present, for being our truest and most solid self by our own definition.  There is much to be said for simply holding a place of certainty when doubt seems to have the upper hand.  It is not about being right, it is about being.

Walking the narrow path

Some years ago a friend told of a question asked by her husband when she was in the throes of a ta-do.  He asked, "Would you rather be right or would you rather be happy?"  She chose, as I did and do, happy.  Every time.

We are, as a country and a planet, in a place of deep turmoil.  One of the things I know beyond any doubt is that my words will not change anyone's mind, nor will theirs change mine.  I forgot for a moment the truth of that.  It was an uncomfortable reminder.  Discord has no place in my life.  I simply do not believe in arguing, in feuds, in estrangements, in being at odds with those I love or even like.  I've learned through years of stress-induced ills and infirmities that fighting is very bad for my health.  It weakens the immune system, erases a quiet mind and produces only grief.  It steals sleep and the ability to trust in a good outcome.

I also don't believe that hate is an appropriate word to apply to other living things, least of all to my fellow humans.  Disagreement needs to include tolerance, the forebearing of hate-filled exchanges, of baiting, demeaning, ridiculing, insulting, oppressing, bullying.  It is unreasonable to expect to hold the moral high ground when one is spouting venom, no matter how perfume-drenched it may be.

I do not feel we are required to explain ourselves to others.  I believe all are entitled to the dignity of choice, for which we each have very personal reasons, strongly held ideas.

It is a narrow path, trying to walk through this mine field, not staying neutral but maintaining what I hope can be a respectful silence.   My voice added to the din would only make it louder.  I hear of families so divided they cannot sit together at the Thanksgiving table, detente a distant illusion.  My immediate family, never exactly large, has dwindled.  Its members are too rare and precious, our years here growing too short to treat recklessly in the election's aftermath.  A harmonious life is hard-won, not by abandoning our truths but by asking them to sit quietly in the back seat for the duration of the ride. 

Word of the Week - 141

Excerpt from a short video of artist Ralph Steadman at work on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Ralph Steadman cover illustration, one of several editions of the book.

Word(s) of the Week:  FEAR AND LOATHING

Saturday night, while watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain's show set in London, we saw Ralph Steadman at work in his studio and sharing a meal with Bourdain.  I realized my unexpectedly despairing, delayed reaction to Tuesday's election results might have been assuaged if Hunter Thompson were still here to tell us what really happened.   That is a story we will likely never know and certainly not as it might have been translated through the mind of Dr. Thompson, whose possibly best-known quote tells us, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."  It has officially gotten weird.  What none of us knows is what to do next.

About "Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72":

“Thompson should be recognized for contributing some of the clearest, most bracing and fearless analysis of the possibilities and failures of American democracy in the past century.” —Chicago Tribune

"The best, the fastest, the hippest and the most unorthodox account ever published of the US government's presidential electoral process in all its madness and corruption. In 1972 Hunter S. Thompson, the creator and king of Gonzo journalism, covered the US presidential campaign for Rolling Stone magazine alongside the establishment newsmen of Washington. The result is a classic piece of subversive reportage and a fantastic ride on the rollercoaster of Hunter's uniquely savage imagination. In his own words, written years before Watergate: 'It is Nixon himself who represents that dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise." Part of the item description from the bookseller, The BiblioFile in Gladstone, MI.

Word of the Week - 140

Henry Fonda as Tom Joad, THE GRAPES OF WRATH, thanks to this site.

"I'll be aroun' in the dark. I'll be everywhere-wherever you look. Wherever there is a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there is a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there...I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready. An' when our folk eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build—why, I'll be there. "  

From The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck 

Word(s) of the Week:  WITNESS AND REMEMBER

In every way that is humanly possible, we are, I believe, intended to be present for each other, present in kindness, in love, in compassion, in support, in care, in listening, in holding with and to what is most sacred.

I am an old hippie at heart.  Before the hippies appeared, I clung to the notion of being a baby beatnik.  These were and are my people.  I will never not cry when Henry Fonda makes that speech to his Ma during those desperately hard times.  Whether or not he survives being one who continues to speak up to authority, he knows his witnessing, his naming, his presence will live on.

On Sunday, my brother Mike shared Gandalf's (J.R.R. Tolkien'a) words from THE LORD OF THE RINGS,  “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love."

We are extraordinary ordinary people in possession of wisdom and strength.  We are healers and helpers, mourners, visionaries and heroes.  We are the answer to any question, or we are capable of being such.  We may, in some moments, feel as though we've lost our way.  We have not.  We have each been chosen to know, to witness and remember.  Let us not forget.

Word of the Week - 139

Word of the Week:  CHOREOGRAPHY

First, credit to Jerome Robbins for conception and choreography of WEST SIDE STORY.  The opening sequence has never lost its appeal, likely never will.

This week's word came to me while watching the Golden State Warriors play the New Orleans Pelicans the other night.  Having seen the Warriors throughout last season, including the playoffs and championship, I had a picture of what the court looked like during a game.  With the addition of Kevin Durant to the equation, it appeared to me that a new configuration was being eased into, one with which those concerned had not yet become fully fluent.  Where there had once been two principles, now there were three.  As one of the color commentators seemed ready to declare a team misfire part-way into the second game of the season, I saw the working out of new choreography.  When you go here, then you go there and you'll be ready for this.   Places, everyone.  Rehearsals have just begun.

I find that flux influences my days, flexibility and improvisation are required if one is to keep on one's feet, even figuratively.  It is still choreography, whether or not one is actively mobile.  Colliding with other dancers, with fixed objects, with change, happens.  Would that it happened less rather than more.  We have our routines, our expectations, the pieces of the production on which we depend - our own strength, our wits, our capabilities, all of them mutable.  Aging may bring these variations, this need to regroup regularly, into sharper focus, yet I know they've always been there for me.  A more youthful elasticity may have masked their constancy, whereas they now step boldly from the wings and demand a place on the stage.  The other dancers rearrange themselves with as much grace as they can muster.  They are learning not to grumble.

It seems my actions are all variations on working to make peace with uncertainty.  The phrase, "What fresh hell is this?" is one I utter often.  Not hell, exactly, but still surprising, unexpected.  I think of walls, the bricks hold their integrity while the mortar crumbles.  How to keep it all from falling down.

As words escape me, awareness seems easier to access.  It may be the product of greater stillness or the brain teaching itself new tricks.  A definition of evolution refers to, "the gradual development of something, especially from a simple to a more complex form."  I don't believe it was ever truly easy, we just let ourselves be fooled into thinking it so.  My wish:  the ability to evolve as the situation requires.  There will be new steps to learn tomorrow.

Word of the Week - 138

From "Letters to a Young Poet," by Rainer Maria Rilke. Translated by Joan M. Burnham. New World Library: 2000.

Word of the Week:  FERVENT



Yes, "completely baked" as spoken by Benjamin in THE GRADUATE would qualify as fervent.  Definitely feverish.

Fervent is never half-baked, never tepid, never neither-this-nor-that.  It is passionate, fiery hot,  may appear obsessive.  Heartfelt.

What is the point of showing up with indifference?  Let them talk.  "She seemed, well, awfully intense.  I'm not sure that is considered good manners."  Probably not.  This is life we're talking about.  As Mary Oliver says, "your one wild and precious life."  Be a shame to get over-excited about that and all the wonders it contains.  Perhaps I need to sit back down with a cool cloth to my forehead.

As I write this, we are having oddly balmy winds, none of the chance of showers forecast as late as this morning, and the neighborhood Amazon parrots are shrieking through the skies as though warning us of something.  They do a lot of jabbering so we don't take them seriously.  The point is that I sit at my table on the second floor, amid the trees where I can see no cars nor dwellings.  An hour ago a crow with a wingspan of several feet found delicacies in the palm tree just beyond my window.  His departure sounded like an old window shade that had been yanked down, then let go to flap and shudder.

Rilke knew that our ordinary moments are filled with texture, brilliance, joy, sorrow, sights and events to make our hearts leap or thud.  Best to take nothing for granted, to see it all as miraculous for the everyday is our most intimate universe, the room in which we spend the most time, the place it all happens.  Even peak events are cushioned by the everyday.  It is that with which we most surely need to fall in love, if we have not.  I had a stamp made that says, "Fall in love with everything," then I realized there are some situations in which that is difficult, many in fact, but as a goal, an aspiration, it seems a not bad fit.  I use the word love more and more, realizing that I do love so much.  I do, in loud and giddy and probably unladylike ways.  The list is longer every day.

I occasionally visit the Jet Pens website, perhaps to look at bottled inks.  Some of the colors, with names like Apache Sunset, Heart of Darkness or Dragon Catfish Pink, make me think of fervent correspondence.  Is there really any other kind?

Word of the Week - 137

Painting, "Araigami" (After Washing Her Hair), by Ito Shinshui.

Word(s) of the Week:  ORDINARY SACREDNESS

There is no way I could say it better, not even close, than poet Ellen Bass.

PRAY FOR PEACE

Pray to whomever you kneel down to:
Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,
his suffering face bent to kiss you,
Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,
Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary
that she may lay her palm on our brows,
to Shekinah, Queen of Heaven and Earth,
to Inanna in her stripped descent.

Then pray to the bus driver who takes you to work.
On the bus, pray for everyone riding that bus,
for everyone riding buses all over the world.
Drop some silver and pray.

Waiting in line for the movies, for the ATM,
for your latte and croissant, offer your plea.
Make your eating and drinking a supplication.
Make your slicing of carrots a holy act,
each translucent layer of the onion, a deeper prayer.

To Hawk or Wolf, or the Great Whale, pray.
Bow down to terriers and shepherds and Siamese cats.
Fields of artichokes and elegant strawberries.

Make the brushing of your hair
a prayer, every strand its own voice,
singing in the choir on your head.
As you wash your face, the water slipping
through your fingers, a prayer: Water,
softest thing on earth, gentleness
that wears away rock.

Making love, of course, is already prayer.
Skin, and open mouths worshiping that skin,
the fragile cases we are poured into.

If you're hungry, pray. If you're tired.
Pray to Gandhi and Dorothy Day.
Shakespeare. Sappho. Sojourner Truth.

When you walk to your car, to the mailbox,
to the video store, let each step
be a prayer that we all keep our legs,
that we do not blow off anyone else's legs.
Or crush their skulls.
And if you are riding on a bicycle
or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution
of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:
less harm, less harm, less harm.

And as you work, typing with a new manicure,
a tiny palm tree painted on one pearlescent nail,
or delivering soda or drawing good blood
into rubber-capped vials, twirling pizzas --

With each breath in, take in the faith of those
who have believed when belief seemed foolish,
who persevered. With each breath out, cherish.

Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,
feed the birds, each shiny seed
that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.
Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine.

Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.
Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child
around your Visa card. Scoop your holy water
from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.
Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling
your prayer through the streets.

Ellen Bass