Sometimes the carrot is a feather

Sometimes you have to go back to basics to get to where you want to go. So if you think you should be further along then you are and you’re feeling sadness or shame or something not right about it – try to remember, that sometimes, everyone, especially masters in their own craft, will take deep pleasure in going back to the very basic forms to reconnect with what is important and lasting.  For a tennis player that might mean hitting against the wall to gain strength and accuracy, and the purity of the swing that is yours unfiltered by the response of your opponent.

You might not stay long in the beginning mode.  You might realize that even here your experience informs the foundation movements.  It is about that first knowing the feeling – the moment you feel it and get it and understand it on what can only be called a cellular level.  We don’t seem to be able to stay in that beginner’s awareness for a long time.  But remembering the feeling is more than halfway there to hitting the ball right.

Other things will come into play. For tennis, the physical ability, sure, that will be one understanding and development for you.  The strength, accuracy, the feeling from the deep roots of your heels up through your arms. But the real journey of a good connection, in tennis or any other sport or deeply held activity, is from the feeling of the ground running through your legs and arms and into your imagination. That’s where you can really lay into the ball and move it wherever you want. It’s also true whether it takes place on the court, against the wall, or behind your closed eyelids; or whether it’s a soft hit, seriously strong and powered or the surprising fluency from timing. 

Deep body knowing is a great gift.  It is, once you experience it, hard to define as just physical.  Just as fear or dark feelings are not just emotional and ethereal.  If you know the sense of connection that the positive experience has you might also be able to identify the difficult and darker feelings that come with uneasiness, whether you call it fear, anxiety or depression.

When the fear comes or the darkness, it is like a cloud of sand that moves between the horizon and the plain. If only it were like a water spout, magical and from a distance, astonishing. Crowded by thoughts, by weights not entered on the periodic table core iron is pulled from your blood sending you into a sea darker than any ocean shadow. 

You might forget who you are and the meaning you’ve gathered for your life. You might forget what makes you smile. How this weight can come between you and what is joyful, that is the puzzle.  There is no set itinerary for the road back. Compasses are not helpful.  Yes it is possible to survive this time and enter your home or go to work. But the going and the coming could feel empty. In the rush rush world nobody notices that you have to try to engage. You pump the clutch; pull the gear into position and nothing. You look around for hills to gain momentum and trick the engine. 

I received a feather as a gift. It was under what I call my desk map but in an envelope. I had put it there to keep the specialness of the gift close by. But I had forgotten I had it.  It was a feather blessed by ceremony and connection; by meaning drawn from the shared experience of people holding the dream of our world in their songs and visions.  As I remembered this feather’s journey to me, I knew that it was always on the wings of my soul. The light was always the darkness’ partner. The day is mine to remember who I am and what makes me smile.

Attic to the stars, phone in the shower

We're planning to watch for the Leonid meteor showers in November.  Most people I know have not had a lot of successful meteor shower viewings in these parts. For one thing, they're not always reliable. And these days it’s hard to find people willing to lie outside in the cold and damp waiting for them with us. It's also getting harder to get up after lying on our backd in the dark and cold waiting for them.  But when the Leonids come along this November we’ll probably be waiting for them just as I did the year before. Some things just require faithfulness.

Another November day I shared the following notes:  When a meteor comes along it's coming with a guarantee that everyone there won't have seen it.  They go by so fast – it’s like phitt, phitt and they’re gone. When many were promised and you do get to see the phitt phitt everyone that missed it groans and says something like, "Really, I just turned away for second."  That means another hour or so of looking so they get a chance to see one too.  The bladder starts wanting a voice in how long everyone is staying out but you know that's only one small segment of the body clamoring for your attention.

I ended this day in the attic after a day of raking the leaves.  Dry weather, clear blue skies. The neighbor spotted not one but a pair of red tails just the day after one struck a squirrel in our yard.  It is squarely autumn here and there's nothing to do but give into the season and enjoy the leaf mold, sneezing, and those pure glycerin moments when the gold or red leaves are shot through with sunlight and just through that  window of beauty you get to see the bluest sky.  It's all here and then there's the raking.  There's really no good reason why a rake works better than a debris blower except for the fact that it combs the ground and the leaves seem to come along nicely.  I felt like a shepherd gathering the flock. It was after I had gathered the flock and dragged the flock on the tarp for, oh, I don't know, maybe three hours, that my back did appreciate the change of pace.  I changed the pace to sitting down and sipping a hot cup of tea.  I thought I'd appreciate the tea but my back liked it even more.

So that led to what seemed like early retirement, at least for the day.   But then I remembered that we were going to watch the meteor showers.  This means bundle up and get everything you own that's warm out of the attic and worry about the aches and pains on Sunday.  Here's the thing - crawling up the scrawny attic steps I realized that I'd have to crawl over everything that I've been tossing up there just to keep the downstairs free from the detritus of daily living. I discovered that a whole lot of tossing was going on. This meant a lot of crawling around looking for things warm and cozy for the meteor watching.  I realize that I can do this today but as the years go on I might want to have an emergency phone up in the attic in case I get stuck up there.

While I was raking the leaves I was thinking how much I missed a friend of mine. We hadn't spoken in over a week and I was wondering when I could call her. I was tired and needed a shower or be willing to face a citation from the township.  With all that had to be done today I thought it would be a great idea if I could talk to her from the shower. I would avoid a citation from the board of health and I could move onto the next thing.

Why is it that Saturdays have become an object lesson in connections? I have learned that the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone because my knee bones are really aching and my thigh bones can't do the walking without them. If I were to economize my motions I should consider putting an observation hole in the attic and wait there for the shooting stars while wrapped up in everything that's warm and within reach.  Once the telephone gets installed I could be set for the whole winter.  The Geminids are next and they're supposed to be reliable. So I’ve been thinking…

Schmatas, a case for same sex marriage

Finally NJ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Originally posted 2010

part 1 of 3

I am far off my main topic today, the issue of whether gays should be able to marry on the Ocean Grove boardwalk. That's not my concern since the topic of marriage is so fraught with and compromised with value issues, issues of ownership and relationship. I think the topic is best to avoid and what else, if nothing else, is neurosis good for, if not to avoid topics that are uncomfortable. But more to the point and closer to my level of appreciation is the issue of walking down the boardwalk in a schmata. As most people should know, a schmata is a rag that became a house dress.  (Miraculous transformation - not.) My mother wore them. She would even customize her schmatas by tearing out any sleeves that were nicely sewn in and sewing stitches around the gaping armhole she left in its place. Her needlework reminded one of Dr. Frankenstein's handiwork on his walking corpse of a monster. (Frankenstein's monster wasn't as charming as a golem. (A subject for another day.

part 2 of 3     

Warning. Corrugated sentences to follow.

Is it more important to challenge the freedom to marry the person of the same sex on the boardwalk when, as many know, at low tide the stink of seagull poop and dried Sargasso can challenge anyone's nostrils, or to protect the unarmed public from the view of anyone walking down the boardwalk in a schmata?  I think a net that can prevent that from entering the hallowed grounds, air and boards of Ocean Grove should take precedence over whether or not two people wish to bond and subject themselves to the convention of being conventional and nonconventional in a conventional world while challenging the convention and aping the convention simultaneously; as if locked in embracing funhouse mirrors, in a possibly limiting or expanding role of their relationship, is far less important for the actual direct aesthetic benefit that could be had from limiting schmata wearing on the boards.

part 3 of 3   

As I am reminded of my mother's schmatas, or schmatas of the past, I am also reminded that any two women can choose, at any time, to walk down the Ocean Grove boardwalk,

arms linked in intimacy, wearing schmatas, and apparently nobody can stop them.  If this doesn't show the impoverished and impotent ability of the Homeland Security Act, what does?  Our way of life is threatened by schmatas and everyone should know of this danger.

Popeye Theory Kaput

 There are those who view the world with pre-Einsteinian philosophies.   They're not convinced that the world is round or that gravity curves space.  I refer to a popular philosophy of these people as the Popeye Theory.  Everything in this world-view is based on a utilitarian theory of life.  Smack a zebra into an oak tree and you get zebra coats on wooden hangars.  It's a formulaic approach to life that doesn't necessarily lack imagination but does hinder the possibility of different realities.  Popeye physics is in direct opposition to the wave and particle theories which are a natural extension of Albert's algebra. 

Simplified, particle physics holds that everything is always in motion.  Therefore an object that appears solid is really a trick of the eye.  Popeye physics says you can't be both a particle and a wave, you must be one or the other.  This world-view is famous for the creation of zebra coats and dichotomies.

When someone pigeon-holes you, puts you down, or simply, calls you a name, they're practicing the Popeye Theory and living by its mandates.  One of these mandates holds that if you’re a such and such, that's all you are. Nothing else.  You can't be a lesbian and a fully functioning human being at the same time.  It's one or the other.

Objectified as such, you're perceived as a human target not a human being.   The world of strip malls and highways, beaches and offices is turned into a Robin Hood Festival and Popeyan people take aim at you as if a bull’s eye is central to your core.  Under these circumstances, it's not difficult to appreciate the hard work in coming out.  If you're a queer, dyke, faggot, fairy, lezzie or lesbo then you're an automatic finalist in the Run the Gauntlet Arrowfest.  That's why coming out is more of a process than an event.  There will be many, many arrows heading your way. (Some, hopefully, will be Cupid's.)  Stripped down to the bare essentials in a Popeye universe, your diminished self is seen as a target for every pot shot from amateur and pro alike. 

Many gay people hate how other gays use the names mentioned above as well, though some believe, as I do, that the sting of the epitaph is reclaimed when you take it back and make it your own.  They become words of power and privilege.  Privilege, because when you use that word you're infusing it with content and meaning.  You're extending the definition of the word to include pride in an aspect of your being; you're adding a cultural reference to your identity; you're being defiant and strong, and claiming the ones that you refuse to stop loving.  Popeye physics, by limiting realities, makes your love invisible when it's most successful or an object of ridicule when paradox creates a crack in its fragile world-view.   

I hold to the Theory of Relativity.  Like it or not we're all connected.  If you diminish someone or a group of people you diminish yourself, reduce your possibilities, and limit your world.  Don't buy into that.  Even pigeons can't return to smaller pigeon holes.   You're worthy of a full spectrum of rights, dreams, lives and honors.  And don't stand still when they try to close the borders on our lives.  We're here.  They can't take that away from us.  Not in this reality. 

Coda:  Make nice; be good. Peace.