Bullet Points 11-1-11

Redefining the notion of “home” is both exciting and terrifying.  

Missed communication between two well-meaning people is painful beyond words.

I’m realizing how annoying platitudes are and how refreshing truth is, even painful truth.  Amazed at how often I spout platitudes to myself!

I am forgetting what I used to know, or perhaps knowledge is letting go of me. 

I’m not ready.

We can be perfectly sane and still believe the most appalling things. Amazing.

You would think that wisdom would ease the way.  More often wisdom says,  “here we go again.”

I am hoping the realization that I will not achieve sainthood in this lifetime will eventually come as a relief.

We just returned from attending a wedding between our wonderful American nephew and his Indian bride, who wore a gorgeous white sari.  Many of her relatives were wearing stunning saris as well.  I think if I wore a gorgeous silk sari for just one day, my outlook on life might improve.

Here is what is true for me today:  Life is unpredictable, unplannable, surprising, and delicious.

Bullet Points 10-20-11

• I have a very low tolerance for optimism…just saying.  Surprising since I was a very optimistic child.  Did I get beat up by life?  Hate the thought.

• Life is hard; Love soothes and smoothes the edges.  (Did you know “smoothes” is not a real word?  Spellcheck doesn't like it.  I do.)  The trick is to remember that Love is available at any moment, in any circumstance.

• Off to a weekend retreat with really cool women in a really lovely spot with amazing food.  Feeling more optimistic already.

• They say Gaddafi was killed today.  Have you noticed that a lot of “bad guys” have been killed of late?  Not sure rejoicing is the appropriate response.

• I disagree with most of the Tea Party agenda, but love that thousands of folks stood up, spoke up, and got Washington’s attention.  I’m especially happy to see even more thousands doing the same thing with Occupy Wall Street.  Clearly we don’t agree among ourselves, but we all are beginning to respond to the reality that Washington is not on our side.

• Hopefully, this weekend I can temporarily let go of my multiple identities:  American, Texan, wife, daughter, mother, sister, senior, female, college-educated, WASP, and so, so many more.  Shaking them off!

• What’s true for me today is:  I feel freer and freer.

Bullet Points

·      I’m in the middle of Brene Brown’s The Gift of Imperfection.  Dr. Brown is the popular Houston professor, researcher and speaker who studies and writes about shame, vulnerability and authenticity.  The whole time I’m reading I’m thinking I wish I had written this.

·      Was confessing some of my imperfections to my mother this week: she agreed with me.  Yikes.

·      Have been hiding out in my house feeling sorry for myself because I have no “work.”  I have no work?

·      Becoming more and more aware of how badly I want to flee from city life and embrace country living.  Really?

·      Studied a web page for more than an hour dealing with female hair loss and looking at all the expensive products that promise miracles. Then I ask myself if I really, really want to spend time obsessing over thinning hair rather than enjoying the fall weather.

·      Shared with a group of friends last night my disappointment with my spiritual maturity and my life with no work.  They helped me see how I’d forgotten that Love is.

·      Experiencing more and more sleepless nights.  Something has really got me stirred up.

·      I recently spoke at my uncle’s memorial service; it reminded me who I am.

·      Heard a song on the radio that had a line that said something like “some people are meant to be memories to remind us how much we have changed.”  Whoa.

·      What’s true for me today is I welcome the opportunity to explore more deeply living with uncertainty.




II welcome your comments, pro and con.  Speak to me.

Class Warfare

A few have more,

Many have less.

The many with less resent the few with more

Not because they succeeded, but

Because once they arrived they forgot

The cab drivers, grocery clerks, mail deliverers,

Waiters, file clerks, receptionists, shop clerks, housekeepers,

Hair dressers, school teachers, nurses, lab technicians,

Baby sitters, truck drivers, customer service reps, office

Managers, auto mechanics, delivery drivers, distributors,

Plumbers, tailors, factory workers, pharmacists, sales reps, all those

On whose shoulders they perch.

The many with less are not asking for

What belongs to the few, but

For what should already be theirs,

Acknowledgement that the few can’t prevail

Without the many.

How obvious it should be

That we are all in this together.

And so we see Spring springing up

Across the world,

Tunisia, Yemen, Syria, Egypt,

Wall Street.

The many finding their Voice en masse,

Singing out, marching to a more authentic tune.

The few, if they pay attention at all, murmur

Class warfare.

The leaders of the few shout

Class warfare, offended and outraged,

These toys are mine, hard-earned,

Go find your own, like I did, and

I’ll see you at 3:00 for my hair appointment.

Rumblings

My bachelor’s degree, for what it is worth, is in political science.  I chose that major not because I wanted to study government structure and organization but because I wanted to learn more about the nature of power. 

At the time I was a single mom with two young children who felt pretty powerless.  The feminist movement was dawning on me, which meant life, as I had understood it, was crumbling and refreshing notions of equality, empowerment, independence and responsibility were fomenting in my psyche.  I was confused and dazzled by it all.

I marched in Houston with Betty Friedan; I attended consciousness-raising groups; I rebelled against the patriarchal religion of my childhood.  Woman power made sense to me.  Just as today, gay power, Chicano power, and empowering the disabled all make sense to me. 

Surprisingly, I personally feel some of the same internal rumblings today that I felt 40 years ago.  I once again feel powerless and left out, left behind, invisible.  The growing inequality between the wealthy elites and the rest of us is making less and less sense to me.  The increasing power of corporations over regular folks is disturbing and nonsensical to me. 

I find myself wanting to drop out, which for a political junkie like myself is somewhat startling.  I grow weary of the Washington catfights and power struggles, the junior high mentality that has hijacked our government.

The notion that a corporation is a person, with the same rights and protections of individual citizens, boggles the mind.  The notion that a wealthy investment banker should not pay more taxes than his administrative assistant is ludicrous.  What seems patently obvious to me, however, is anathema to half of the well meaning, just as frightened as I am, Americans. 

It doesn’t matter what I think.  The corporations and investment bankers hold a more powerful position in our culture than do I.  They have influence that I do not have.  They have access that I cannot afford. 

Perhaps I will attend Occupy Austin on Oct 6 or, perhaps not.  I find myself vacillating between dropping out and rising up.  When I imagine dropping out I feel shame; when I ponder rising up I feel weary.  Marching with Betty Friedan was a heady, life altering experience.  Not sure I still have it in me.

Poof

Have you ever felt something unlatch itself within your psyche?  An internal disconnect, unanticipated.  A notion, a belief, an attitude, once of paramount importance, just lets go of you. 

You are not who you thought you were.  Or, you are no longer who you believed yourself to be.  A value, an approach to life, a sacred responsibility, dissolves without your even being aware.  And nothing is quite the same.

Your assumptions about the “next right thing” no longer pertain; they seem irrelevant.  The future now looks nothing like your prior assumptions.  It is bewildering.

Dare you trust this “letting go?”  Or, do you scramble to retrieve the once cherished worldview, so that your feet once again touch the ground beneath you?

Might more revelations surface to your awareness?  Or, has the path ahead suddenly disappeared leaving you directionless?  Lost.

Might the path to authenticity be not so much a trail but a series of unpredictable realizations?  Do you know?  I suspect...

65

I am not who I set out to be
Nor who I thought I was.
Life is a surprise to me
More difficult than I had suspected.

Love can't be grasped, nor sustained,
Love is, but also elusive.

My life is living me,
I did not plan to be here,
I don't know where these people came from.
I am neither fortunate nor unfortunate.

I am more wanderer than sojourner,
More vagabond than pilgrim.
I claim nothing; I own nothing,
I go where beckoned.

My intelligence is useful, but rarely helpful.
I have assumed way too much responsibility for my life.
I wish I had known.