I like lists.
Here are my goals for the next 30 days. from 12/24 to 1/24/10
– 5 work outs/runs/yoga classes
– 30 blogs
– 10 lunches with friends
– 15 minutes a day on novel
– 15 photos posted
– 5 support group/meetings
– 15 minutes a day on apartment organization
Category: Rules To Live By
Good Bye Old Phone
We had a very good thing, you and I. We went everywhere together, museums, plays, the beach, the bathroom.
But it’s over now. I must turn you in. We’ve been together almost four years . I slid you on your side – fingered sweet nothings on your back.
Now the IT department recalls you. The company says it must “right-size” and that means that we, Level 14s, must turn in our companions. And purchase our own.
You, my phone, asked nothing of me. Unlike my boss, you gave me no deadlines. Unlike my kids, you gave me no backtalk.
Oh phone – oh Cingular 8125 – you were there for me without fail. All you asked was to be plugged in now and then. A small charge and you were happy. You took pictures and you took calendar items. You called and emailed my coworkers and friends for me. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to sending a text or two through you – “HH has started. Where r u?” (Thank you, oh phone, for your discretion.) The kids played games on you, especially Bubble Breaker.
But now, the IT people will have you. You’ll be shoved in Richie Jackson’s messy, cable-filled drawer. You’ll be forgotten and your happy ringtone heard no more.
But I’ll remember the sledding pictures from Central Park, the time I dropped you in the toilet, the times we stared at one another.
Oh, Cingular 8125, we have loved and now we are lost.
Hey, does anyone know if the Verizon Droid is any good?
Taize Service & My Guys
The huge bells toll, ring, do all those verb-y things that huge bells do.
In the church, the brothers take the center aisle like NFL players taking the field. In their efforts to be humble, they are bigger than life. They walk to their usual seat or knee rest. Sometimes they go to a new spot on the center aisle, but usually they take the same spot, Brother Emile said.
Brother Emile, who is Canadian, is one of “my guys.” There are other brothers that I love – the tall one who served me communion, the Asian one who helped me change rooms, the one who leads Bible Study. The Bible Study Leader is Brother Wolfgang and he rides a bicycle to Tent F where the adults gather. I admit I have a weakness for bike-riding monks.
One of my friends said that Wolfgang was one of her guys until he stopped leading the Bible Study in English and just let it be simultaneously translated into English by a couple of German 20-something year olds. But she liked his grey hair.
One of the brothers is handsome in a Robert Redford kind of way. I think he may be in love with a dark-haired 20 year old German woman. As he processed by her last night, he coughed. Then, the dark-haired girl’s friend, the one with glasses, pinched the dark-haired girl. They practically swooned. The cough signified something. But what?
Something new happened towards the end of the service. Instead of processing out, some of the brothers stood like sentinels around the perimeter of the sanctuary. Why? The answer becomes clear as people approached them. It’s confession or a time for guidance.
I have to admit I went up to one brother that night. I will not tell you what we talked about. But when he lay his heavy hand on my head, I really felt blessed and protected.
Then the last night at Taize, after the service, Brother Emile is standing right next to me. And I feel sorry for him, because no one is coming up to him to ask for guidance or forgiveness, so I go to him. I ask him for blessings for our group’s travel. And he puts his hand on my head and says something about “Jesus, forgive your friend, Mary Beth.” And maybe that’s his standard prayer but I wasn’t asking for forgiveness. I did like that he said I’m a friend of Jesus’s though. And I wondered if I could Facebook friend Jesus, would I?
Light Within
written around October 15, 2009 at the Taize community
The Altar
Last night I stayed in evening worship until the candles were extinguished by two young people. Today I arrived early to morning service in time to see the candles being lit by one young man. I was one of the first in and the last out (FILO). I also was one of the first out at the morning service.
The altar is a jumble of about a hundred leaning cement blocks with candles within. It’s hard for me not to imagine that the candles are symbolic of all of the lights within all of us at Taize and beyond. We each have a light within and we lean, round shouldered on one another.
Challenges
Although I love the worship three times a day – the amazing singing (the harmonies!) and the time of silence, I must admit that monastic life may not be for me.
Taize is more like Outward Bound than a week in the French countryside. For example, you have the tight living quarters in the barracks, the ladled serving at mealtime on a plastic plate, the one utensil (a spoon), the seats on wooden benches, and the unforgiving cold.
The Bus
I did discover a way out — there is a bus that cuts through the campus. Today, like several days, I snuck away from morning service and boarded the public bus for one Euro fifty cents. I took the bus until a petite ville beckoned. I hopped off and had an adventure.
I stayed at Taize and led a contemplative life. Yet, if truth be told, I also snuck away, and discovered hidden treasures in the neighboring French countryside. Both kept me going. And the memories will keep me going.
Changing Barracks
I am sensitive. I am a light sleeper.
Because of the snoring, that first night at Taize, I did not get more than one or two hours of sleep. At three in the morning, I sat outside under a bare lightbulb. I was cold on that concrete step. It was raining lightly. I read the book, “Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close.”
I never want to cause any waves or ruffle any feathers so when I had to go to La Morada to ask if I could be moved from my barrack, I felt bad. (Yes, the Taize bunk bed rooms are called barracks.)
But the barrack the gentle novitiate moved me to already had its six beds (three bunk beds) full. (“I will have to ask one of the sisters to investigate,” he said.)
The only barrack left for me was with the four women on the silent retreat week.
“I promise I will not speak to them,” I said.
“And they certainly will not speak to you,” the brother said.
“Let’s hope they are as quiet in the night as they are in the day,” I joked. He smiled, unapologetically, raised his eyebrows, as if he could not guarantee.
The women were quiet and peaceful. After my first dark night of the soul at Taize, I got many good nights sleep on the top bunk in the quiet room with the women (mostly German, I figured) who were on silent retreat.
They were incredibly quiet and extremely close.
It’s Not About You!
The first time I consciously shut up about myself was at my sister’s Marymount College reunion. The wonderful Catholic women’s college in Tarrytown was closing and this was the last hurrah for the graduates. The college had been folded into Fordham and then simply disappeared. Gone from everywhere but collective memory.
All that remained of the college was the fading sign at the Metro North Station, once a “Welcome Home!” symbol, now a reminder there was no home to be welcomed into.
I knew the reunion would be hard on my sister and her friends (Katie!) So I said to myself. “Yes, Mary Beth, you have troubles, issues, ideas, opinions. But today is not about you. You are not the center of the universe. Support MK. Focus on her. Don’t go into any of your diatribes about the sexism of the Catholic church.”
This last edict was hard on me. I wanted to vent about the BS of Catholicism. About how the nuns were smarter, yet could never have more authority than the priests. About how God resides in everyone – especially in the least of these – not more fully in the Pope. How Catholicism kept abusive marriages together and women down over the centuries. Well, you can see, I’m about to go off again!
My point is that I told myself in my journal and then throughout that day, “Do NOT talk, think, focus on yourself today. Not one little bit. Today is NOT about you. Other days will be about you, but not this one.” And it worked. I relaxed, felt receptive, and was non-judgmental.
In our modern culture of narcissism, giving up on my own opinion is difficult, but that day, it paid off. I listened more. I nodded more. I really heard more. My heels sank into the mud under the tent on the lawn and I experienced more. I felt embedded in the Marymount community. Although it was disappearing before my eyes, it was also coming to light – what community had been so many and what it could have continuted to be.
On the ride home, I could resist no longer. A flood gate opened and I had to mention the BS of the Catholic mass that day – how could the presiding priest not recognize the huge, gaping sadness of so many people in attendance? He did not even mention the loss to so many people. I couldn’t help it. I shared my sadness too. I did apologize for having an opinion. But, luckily, MK agreed. She vented too.
It was hard not to talk about myself all day. I find myself and my views so interesting and I have something to say about, oh, just about everything.
I recommend this exercise. Give up your own point of view. Focus on some community. Or some person who is having a special day. Like a wedding, divorce, graduation, bar mitzvah, funeral, reunion.
Put all your attention on the other person or the community. You will find a freedom in getting away from yourself. And then, if you’re lucky, you will be able to debrief and put in your two cents on the ride home. Or you can write about how the exercise made you feel. Because, ultimately, it’s all about you.
# 7 Embrace Uncertainty
In less than three weeks, I will go to Switzerland and France for a week and a half. I feel a sense of hope mixed with worry. I don’t know how well my husband can care for the kids without me.
I also feel guilty. Yes, as a mom of three school-age children, what gives me the right to such happiness? such liberty? Once we’re parents, we’re are no longer free. We must be responsible-type people. We must not traipse around Europe with a backpack (I do intend to take a backpack and a fanny pack!) I feel guilty I will miss the girls’ 10th birthday.
But for survival reasons, I MUST take this journey. In order to fulfill my proposed sabbatical, I must go. To jumpstart my lagging spirit, I must go. To gain the language fluency I dream about, I must go.
Yet, yet, yet. I still feel worried and compelled to downplay my excitement. I wonder why. I wonder if there is some soap scum residual ring of dread around my psychic bathtub. If in my childhood, I was told not to look forward with hope. I must scrub that psychic tub.
Here are some reasons NOT to worry. Chris has said he’s adequate to the task. I have a cadre of friends, neighbors, babysitters, family who can help.
I must embrace my uncertainty. I must embody those stupid cliches – like, Jump and the net will appear.
It’s human nature to want to know if the house will increase in value before you buy it. Or to want to know if the kid’s soccer team will at least have one victory before you sign them up.
I have tons of swagger and humor, yet also carry oodles of self-doubt.
Yet, yet, yet. I am going to embrace my liminal state. I do not know the outcome; I am fearful. I am going to take Goethe’s advice to the young poet and (paraphrasing here) “Love the questions themselves, like books written in a very foreign tongue. You are not given the answers because you are not yet ready to live them. But you must live the question now. And that is the point. To live the questions now and someday you will find you are living in the answers.”
Live the uncertainty. Embrace the unknown.
#6
Live every day as if it were your last.
This is the Carpe Diem step. Honestly, it sounds cliche, but sometimes cliches are true.
The point is to really live this day fully. Not to be petty. Not to hold a grudge. Not to nurse a wound. But to be open (and yes, okay, loving) to the people in your day. There are people, places, adventures right there in front of you.
Celebrate this one day only. And especially your relationships. Because happiness is found in relationships. Sure, it’s fine for religions to extol the benefits of the silent retreat, monastic life, 40 days and nights alone in the wilderness. And I’m sure there’s something to be said for that kind of withdrawal from humanity.
But I have to believe that real joy and meaning is found in hugs, laughter, friends, family. Just being in the presence of one another. Like E. M. Forster says in “Howard’s End,” “Connect! Only Connect!”
On August 16, Rev. Anna Carter-Florence spoke at Camp Dudley Chapel service. Her teenage son introduced her. He mentioned all of her credentials, like that she taught sermonology at a divinity school in Atlanta; she had been given awards, etc. Then he closed his introduction with, “The light of my life, my mother.”
That was living the day to the fullest. He could’ve been sarcastic and not exposed his feelings. But, instead, this teenage boy, in front of hundreds of other teenage boys, said “I love you.”
That was awesome.
Rule #5
Expect the Best; Love What You Get
Lindsay suggested this rule after working with horses. Every time she gets a new horse, she thinks, “This one will do tricks. This one will amaze and inspire. This is the one!” And every time, that horse is not exactly the ideal horse.
So it is with kids. As he first began to babble, I stared at him in his high chair, wondering, “What pearls of wisdom will he say when he can finally talk? This kid is deep, brilliant, poetic.” And when he did start talking — and I’d been waiting months, years for his genius — I got, “No!” “Mine!” “Dad!”
With people and animals, you gotta love what you get.
It’s hard at times to do that, when you expect so much. But you’ll get something and it will be surprising. And it will be good. Gail told me that as moms, we have to love the title of that book, “The Good Enough Mom.” That’s me. I’m good enough. A perfect mom would be a disaster. Same with a perfect kid. Or horse.
There’s an adage that is useful for creative people — low expectations, high results; high expectations, low results. But this rule says, high expectations and love no matter what.
Downward Dog
I have no idea why I love Downward Dog — or it’s official name, Adho Mukha Svanasana.
It is just such a welcome break from more difficult stretches and twists in my Iyengar practice. I have come to love Downward Facing Dog almost as much as Savasana (the Corpse) Pose — my absolute favorite.
When we return to Downward Dog, it is like my body has met an old friend, an old comfortable dog. The pose is almost as good as a lounge chair on a beach in Akumal, Mexico.
It is familiar. My feet flat on the floor, my head in line with my arms. I can find myself in that space easily. I do it well.
I also feel — and I have no proof of this — that my waist is actively shrinking when I am in Downward Dog. Something about this pose makes me feel, “Ah, this is good. I like yoga. I like my body and what it does.”
It is a healthy feeling; I am doing good. Like eating a huge, yummy spinach salad for lunch instead of a cheeseburger.
I have been entering Downward Dog since I was in Seventh grade and took yoga at the Park Ridge YMCA, which is now the Park Ridge Community Center in suburban Chicago. That was 35 years ago.
I have always loved this pose, too, because of its silly name. For the life of me, I cannot see how this pose has anything to do with a down dog. What does a down dog look like any way? Ah well, I love the alliteration of Down Dog. Just go with it.
And I love coming out of this pose because I know Child Pose is coming along somewhere soon. Yes, Child Pose is down the road from Down Dog Pose. Ah, Child Pose, another old and beloved friend.
I have a lot of stress in my life — sick husband, three school-age kids, full time job. But there is something about Down Dog that makes me feel, I am up to the tasks of this crazy life.
There are many things I cannot control in my life. Many things I do badly, many cakes I only half-bake. But not Down Dog. That, I can do. And do well. And as I enter, rest in, and exit this pose, I am at one and the same time, resting and striving. It is a good place to be.
100 Days of Poems and Pics 