An Understanding Ear

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear.”
― Stephen King

    I'm afraid to even put it here because it makes so much sense to me.  It will resonate for some of you but others?  Others may shake their heads and wonder what the hell she is talking about.  My guess is that for the latter group either a) you have access to someone who really "gets" you  or b) you aren't visited by secret thoughts.  Lucky you.

 

The Silver Lining

June 10, 1964

      Yesterday I wrote about attending my elderly uncle's funeral.  Those occasions are certainly difficult days but there can be a silver lining in such events.  For me, family funerals are painful but they are also precious times to renew connections with extended family members.  I have about 35 first cousins on my mother's side of the family and most of these first cousins have children of their own.  Now that "the greatest generation" is dying (many of my uncles fought during WW2), we meet to say goodbye to another elder but we also meet to visit and connect with our own generation.  Sadly, we have already lost six of the 11 elders and four of the cousins from my generation so we know we are not far behind.

     The extended family is scattered primarily on the West Coast and mostly in California.  When funerals happen, people make every effort to leave their homes and gather where the family of the deceased lives.  Of course, there is a great enfolding of the branch of the family that has been most impacted by the death but the ripples extend to all.  Oddly enough to me, we have weddings too but they don't draw the same people.  I went to a handful of my first cousins' weddings back in the day but I don't see myself on the guest list for their children's weddings - gotta draw the line somewhere!

    One of the best things to come out of the funeral this week was this:  I got a chance to meet two cousins that I remember meeting only once (I was ten at the time....they were 2 and 8 years old.  Does that count?).  Near as we can figure, their dad and our mutual grandfather had some kind of falling out back in the early 1960's.  As a result, that family rarely came to family gatherings. They lived maybe a couple of hours from my home but somehow packing all of us into the family car and going out to visit the other family never happened.  Don't know why.

   It was such a pleasure to meet these two sisters!  They are 50ish and stunningly beautiful (clearly in every way).  The three of us stood together with a couple of other 50ish cousins and tried desperately to make up for lost time.  Impossible! I had the strong sensation that. because of some adult issue from way back when, we kid cousins got cheated out of this connection.  The people at the church were in need of the hall back so we had to move on but not before promises were made to arrange a weekend get together (sans funeral) soon.  I am on it!

Buyers Wanted

      I went to a funeral yesterday,  The deceased was my 87 year old uncle.  He was also my godfather in the Catholic tradition.  John was truly salt of the earth, a genuine good person who lived a life worth emulating.  He was married to my aunt for lots of years (60+) and raised seven responsible, good people.  His children range in age from mid 40's to 60ish and, though I don't know most of them well, I have a huge amount of respect for all of them.

     John and Lucille were devout Catholics.  For their entire lives together they wrapped themselves and their children in the parish, the beliefs of the church, and the rituals and traditions of the faith.  Because their religion was essential to John and Lucille and to most (if not all) their grown children,  the funeral service reflected this value system.  I appreciated the opportunity to sit in the back of the church and observe and reflect on what unfolded in front of me.  I was raised in the Catholic faith but chose to set it aside when I was in college.  So, although the service did not reflect my current way of thinking, I was familiar with all parts of the ritual and I knew the beliefs behind the words and gestures.

    Although I know the beliefs behind the words and gestures, I just can't buy them.  I was impressed with the homily (aka sermon) delivered by another uncle who has been a Catholic priest for almost 50 years.  In his remarks, Fr Ralph talked about death being on a par with birth.  That is, when a child is born, he/she leaves the safe, familiar, comfortable world of the womb and is pushed out into a world of a million sensations - all new and most intense.  And the new born baby has no other choice but to ride it out and see where it all goes.  For the most part, most people would say the ride in the new world was worth it.  And so it goes:  when we die, we are being thrust into a new world and wonders await us there.  Sounds fine to me. I am open to what might come next.  I might even say I am curious.

     The way I heard it, Fr Ralph also talked about how people need a faith community in order to sustain their beliefs in Jesus Christ and all that He offers.  I guess that's where I'm stuck.  I don't have any problems with Jesus.  I like what He taught  but I also know that his words and life were recorded by people who may have distorted his words and actions for various reasons. The Catholic Church grew into a powerful institution and I don't want to participate in the rigidity and often close minded precepts that mark the twenty first century Church.  I don't know why Fr.  Ralph thinks we need a faith community.  I do need people and connections, no doubt.  But I don't want to be told what I must believe.  I have a finely honed sense of right and wrong by my own standards and I most certainly hold myself accountable. Do I need a community to keep me i check?  No, I do a pretty good job of that all by myself.  I have made mistakes.  Plenty of them.  But I live now with all those voices from the past.  I grew up feeling as if I could never be good enough for God - and now?  Now I think God would love me just the way I am.

   Don't get me wrong.  I am happy that people who want a faith community can have a faith community.  I'm just not comfortable with the notion that spiritual life is a one size fits all thing.  I am not disrespectful of any faith tradition. But please don't tell me I have to buy it.


 

Slouching Towards Bethlehem

    Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion was one of those novels I read in a contemporary literature class back in 1973 or 1974.  I've always thought fondly of it though I sure couldn't tell you the plot or theme - other than fragmentation and alienation in Los Angeles in the 1970's.  I've had Ms. Didion's book Slouching Towards Bethlehem on my "to read" list for years and this week I finally got to it.  It did not disappoint.

    This book is a collection of essays focused on America in the 1960's and, within that, primarily on California at that time.  She tackles lots of topics including John Wayne, Howard Hughes, what it was like to grow up a girl in California, and investigating Haight-Ashbury at its height as the counter-cultural capital of the world circa 1968.

    Ms Didion's words just knock my socks off.  The opening essay is entitled "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream".  It clearly demonstrates how "the future always looks good in the golden land because no one remembers the past.  [California] is where the hot wind blows and the old ways do not seem relevant, where the divorce rate is double the national average and where one person in every thirty-eight lives in a trailer.  Here is the last stop for all those who came from somewhere else, for all those who drifted away from the cold and the past and the old ways."  The essay focuses on "the conventional clandestine affair in a place like San Bernardino, a place where little is bright or graceful, where it is routine to misplace the future and easy to start looking for it in bed."

   Listen to that:   ".... routine to misplace the future and easy to start looking for it in bed."  Does that not send chills along your spine?

   Another essay that I found particularl poignant and insightful is entitled "On Keeping A Notebook".  In it, Ms Didion reflects on why she keeps a notebook anyway:  "Keepers of private notebooks are a different breed altogether, lonely and resistant rearrangers of things, anxious malcontents, children afflicted apparently at birth with some presentiment of loss."  Agree or disagree, you must admit the words are compelling.

    Later in the same  essay, Didion is remembering a particular line that she wrote in her notebook and how that line impacted her:  "It all comes back.  Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that  kind of mood, but I do see it;  I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.  Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.  We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget."

    There are so many thoughtful words in this collection of essays.  It's not the kind of book you'll want to read in a breezy way.  You'll want to take your time.  You'll want to put those post it notes all over the place.  You will want to read parts aloud, simply because they sound so cool, they evoke such images.  At least I did.

Tribute to Boring

   So I see these fun award posts in Bloggerland and have even been awarded a few along the way.  The thing that gets me is that each award includes the exhortation to provide seven (or ten, or eleven or some random number) little know facts about yourself as you pass the award on to someone else.  That stops me cold.  I don't have those quirky interesting facts to pass along.  Frankly, I think the word that might best describe my life right now is boring.  So, just for fun, I am going to give you eleven boring things about me.  Ready?

1.  I don't have any quirky food things.  I don't eat much crap - don't like it, doesn't make me feel good. I eat boring oatmeal with blueberries and/or strawberries for breakfast, generally salad for lunch, generally some kind of protein and some kind of veggie and some kind of salad for dinner.  Seldom eat dessert - don't much like it, don't much like how it feels.  Except the occasional homemade chocolate chip with walnuts cookies that Meg makes.....

2.  I don't watch reality shows or cooking shows or animated shows or even sit coms on TV.  Don't watch much TV at all (I warned you - BORING).  Yes, I tivo and watch at my convenience Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and Modern Family.  I will Netflix a series - currently The Good WIfe, previously Boston Legal (LOVE that one), Six Feet Under, quirky stuff like that - but that's about it for passive viewing.

3.  And, yes, I like to move, to get out and walk or bike or do ECT - even lift weights or do Pilates or yoga -- weirdo

4.  I avoid spending the night anywhere - I like my own bed and I fear bedbugs and whatever else might have gone on in that hotel bed the night before.... need I say more?

5.  I play Words with Friends for entertainment.  I seldom truly surf the web, though I will check in usually daily on Facebook, Blogger, Huffington Post, NPR, NY Times and will cruise the Amazon aisles on a regular basis.

6.  I like to get up early in the morning.  Every. Day.  Weekends. Included.   You will rarely find me awake past 10:30 and you will rarely find me still in bed after 5:30 am.

7.  I am not a big shopper.  I will deal with the Target type things every six weeks or so - and will go clothes shopping maybe three times a year.  I do have to go clothes shopping with my 25 year old daughter.  I count on her to dress me.  And, I do LOVE boots!  I get a new pair (at least one) every fall and I wear boots all fall and winter.  I like boots with a heel but I like Uggs too.  Oh, and I love skirts but not long ones - not short ones either (I know how old I am) but just above the knee length with tights in winter).

8.  I am adventurous when it comes to hair color but not so much when it comes to hair style.  I typically have fairly short hair and favor a style that is pretty much wash and wear.   I do like to change it around from time to time (currently planning on letting this short summer cut grow back into a bob sort of thing - WTH - in a year or two, I will cut it short again - keep them guessing!).

9.  I have been to Reno once (traveling through) and never to Vegas (though I live on the West Coast). Am not at all interested in gambling and the giant buffet type meals about which people exclaim.  The last thing I want to do is sit on a perch, breathe yucky cigarette smoke, and put stupid coins into a machine or throw money on a table with a bunch of drunk people.

10.  Although I enjoy at least one glass of California red wine pretty much every night, I haven't been drunk since I was in college.  I never really got drunk much then either as I did not like how I felt when I had too much to drink.  I have excellent self control.  How boring.   We won't talk about other forms of self medication.

11.  My beverage of choice is just plain iced cold water.  Boring.  I carry a Camelbak sippy thingy around the house and in the car - whoo hoo.  It can be so refreshing.

Okay, there you are.  Boring enough for you?

Hello, Mr. Facebook

Hello, Mr. Facebook,

     Gotta tell you, I'm seriously thinking about breaking up with you.
"What?" you cry incredulously.
Yes, it's true.  It's not that you have been a bad boy (though you do carry on with an awful lot of women).  You don't cost me much - perhaps ten minutes a day - and you pay off in some smiles and an occasional snort of laugher.  Why would I break up with you then?

     Well, for one thing this whole privacy thing drives me crazy.  I realize it is tough to maintain any kind of boundaries on one's personal information but when you randomly changed my email last week, well, that pissed me off. I also get mad when you decide what status updates I should think are important and which are not.  I hate advertising and yet I hate even more being profiled for advertising.  Why should that bother me?  Hell, I don't know but it does.  It makes me feel manipulated.

     Oddly enough, one of my biggest reasons for breaking up is also one of the reasons I am tempted to stay bound to you.  I do like to see the photos of babies and engagement rings, weddings and picnics, new homes and vacations run amok.  But sometimes looking at all those happy faces makes me feel as if something is wrong with my life.  Sometimes I feel left out or less than.  I seldom post anything personal on my own wall.  I don't really like putting my life out there like that but I am drawn to what other people put up.

     The feature of Facebook that I like the most is the ability to access so many articles or videos that other people think are interesting.  I also subscribe to the Internet Anarchy feed and am guaranteed several good laughs a week with those posts.  I am often steered towards good books with the five or six links I have to book review columns and I am linked to a number of social/political sites that feed that part of my mind.

   So, I'll tell you what, Mr. Facebook, I am going to put this out in my blogging world.  I like these people and I don't generally feel manipulated or left out by them.  I wonder what they think about you? Let's find out, shall we?

   Your friend (for now)
   graciewilde

Blogger friends:  What do you think?  Send Mr. Facebook packing or keep him around for awhile?

Tell the Wolves I'm Home

      "Don't you know?  That's the secret.  If you always make sure you are exactly the person you hoped to be, if you always make sure you know only the very best people,  then you won't care if you die tomorrow.......It's the most unhappy people who want to stay alive, because they think they haven't done everything that they want to do.  They think they have't had enough time.  They feel like they've been shortchanged."

      These words are from the newly published debut novel  Tell The Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt.   I liked this book.  A lot.  It's a death story.  It's a life story.  It's the story of family, of sisters,  of what it means to come of age.  It's the story of the early AIDS epidemic and how it damaged families and made people scared.  It is a well told story.  Finally it is, at its core, a love story.

      The book unfolds over about a two month period.  June, our narrator,  is an awkward and uncomfortable 14 year old.  Shy and serious, she does not like parties:  "The worst thing about them [parties] is the stupid hopefulness.  Every new party, every new bunch of people, and I start thinking that maybe this is my chance.  That  I am going to be normal this time. A new leaf.  A fresh start.  But then I find myself at the party, thinking, Oh, yeah.  This again."  


    June's sister Greta is sixteen and much the opposite of June - party hardy, talented singer/actress, and the sister that the 'rents clearly see as the successful one in life.  But as June notes,  "It is hard to say exactly when we stopped bring best friends, when we stopped even resembling two girls who were sisters.  Greta went to high school and I was still in middle school.  Greta had new friends.  Greta got prettier and I got ...weirder.  I don't know.  None of those things should have mattered, but I guess they did.  I guess they were like water.  Soft and harmless until enough time went by.  Then all of a sudden you found yourself with the Grand Canyon on your hands."

    Through particularly engaging dialogue, Ms Brunt writes a story full of insight, anger, pain, and tenderness.  The dialogue moves the story along but here and there you will find wonderful short pieces of wisdom from a 14 year old:  "...I fell asleep.  The bed was warm and ordinary and perfect, and it had been such a long, long day.  Probably the longest day of my life.  I felt like I had proof that not all days are the same length, not all time has the same weight.  Proof that there are worlds, and worlds and worlds on top of worlds, in you want them to be there."

    In short, I really liked this book.  I grew to care about the characters in a way that made me think and feel.  I bet you will too.

Taxi!

     As I was running some errands today, I heard part of a talk show on a San Francisco radio station.  Apparently, one of the eastern states  has passed new legislation (or wants to pass said legislation?) that would put a $10,000 fine for first DUI offense.  The host was soliciting reaction to this law.

    $10,000 is A LOT of money for most people.  As the talk show guy said, it's not the kind of sum for which most people can just whip out a check.   In California, there is a typical $1,000 fine for first offenders and then assorted other costs:  in pound fees, court fees, increased insurance, DUI treatment program.  In short that first DUI can run you well over $7,000 in expenses.  So, if the fine was raised to $10,000, all these other costs would be added to the $10,000 fine, making a grand total of well over $15,000 for one mistake.

    And I completely support this.  I don't want to hear any excuses.  Most callers that I heard in my brief window were on my team but there were still several who voiced the opinion that this was just too much of a punishment.  Nope.  Not in my book.  People need to get it:  you cannot drive when you are under the influence.  If hitting you through the pocketbook is the way to get the message across, then so be it.

    One of the callers tried to use the "when a person is drinking they don't always realize how tipsy they are" excuse as if this should let them off the hook.  Really?  How do you figure?  Maybe the threat of going into debt to the tune of $15,000 or more will make them think before they get in the car.  Some other caller tried to play the "what if there is a medical emergency" card.  Right.  How coherent and responsible are you going to be after having a few beers?  Emergencies require that  cool and rational heads prevail, not slightly inebriated ones.  Call 911.  Or risk creating an even larger medical emergency.

   This drinking and driving thing has always been a pet peeve of mine.  I know the buzz and the relaxation that comes with  a margarita or two.  I know it.  I like it.  A lot.  But there is way too much at stake for me to get behind the wheel if I have been drinking.  I want it to be that way for everyone.

Hope Drifts

“Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” 
― Stephen King

    There was a time when I wished my parents had named me Hope.  The name offered such a positive outlook.  Who couldn't love a girl named Hope?

  It seems to me that hope is an essential ingredient in life.  It is not necessarily The Essential ingredient but without hope, how does anyone make anything change?  And when does hope become a goal?  Or are they always and already the same thing?

  Just wondering.

Nuns on the Bus

     Have you heard about the Nuns on the Bus?  This group of a rotating 14 or so American nuns is on a bus tour of nine states designed to draw attention to the harshness of the U.S. House of Representatives budget bill.  I will say they are among my current heros.

    Their trip is about making people aware of  the proposed cuts in domestic and international hunger and nutrition programs.  Frankly, I first heard about it the other night when their spokeswoman, Sister Simone Campbell, appeared on The Stephen Colbert Show.  As with most things Colbert, her presentation was brief but enlightening.  In another interview, Sister Simone said that the budget bill "all wrapped up in sound bites" would punish struggling people "while benefiting the top 1 percent" with tax cuts that would add to the national debt.  "The House budget would decimate our country.  It is not in keeping with the spirit of our Constitution."

     The tour is being sponsored by NETWORK, which describes itself as a progressive national Catholic social justice lobby.  These women care passionately about the marginalized in our country.  Most of them, I would venture to say, have given much of their adult life to others.  They have devoted
themselves to their God and to the less fortunate people among us.  That is why they are my heros.  This path requires a heaping portion of unselfishness.  People who give fully to others live among my heros.  It is something I am not willing to do.  I am not willing to set aside my requirements for solitude and silence, my desires for a diverse sort of life, to give all to a cause.

     I am humbled by someone like Sr Simone Campbell.  For 18 years, she was the lead attorney for Community Law Center in Oakland, CA.  There she served the working poor of her county assisting people with family law and probate needs.  She also worked with a California Interfaith public policy organization to protect the interests of people who are poor.  She went to Iraq in 2002 with a group of religious leaders and has been able to present and write extensively about her experience.  She has been the Executive Director of NETWORK since 2004.  Clearly, her life has been about peace building and economic justice.  I admire her so much.

    I want to follow her example but I don't even know where to start.  Oh, wait a minute, start from where you are.  But that's where it gets tough.  To follow her lead, I need to give more of what I have.  I need to take precious time away from my solitude, from my reading, writing, family, painting - all those things - and give it to a cause.  I could more faithfully participate in the Sonoma County Peace and Justice Center.  There are tons of opportunities there to get involved in peace building and campaigns for social justice.  I could volunteer weekly with local food pantry.  I could even commit to writing one letter a week in support of some cause.  But I know, at this point, I won't.   I am not going to beat myself up about this.  I am simply going to acknowledge my admiration for people such as Sister Simone Campbell.  Who knows to what that acknowledgement may lead?