T.S. Eliot helps this Mexican jumping bean get to essential.

Posted by | September 9, 2009 | 7 Comments

The paring knife of life keeps peeling. In restlessness, in exasperation, on the edge of the precipice when it all feels too much, I keep coming to:

What is essential here?

It is a question both clean and powerful. It moves around the immovable, leaving bullshit in its wake.

Sitting in that question is sitting in kindness. Which isn’t necessarily the same as nice.

In the midst of turmoil “what is essential here?” is a beacon, a steadfast light in an otherwise thick mist. It motions me toward a resting place much like airport workers in orange reflecting-tape vests on the tarmac waving a plane toward its spot to park.

I am drawn to things that speak the language of essence. In a time of endless slogans and causes, and preachy propaganda (no matter the side) telling me what’s wrong with me and how its answer will be my sure salvation, I crave expression that is pared of excess, justification, and excuse.

I crave communication that doesn’t hem and haw or beat around the bush—my bush or any bush.

Essential often looks like symbols and metaphors that tell a story without blah blah blah. Literature that cuts to the chase, without, for even an instant, sacrificing beauty or truth. In fact, one might say truth is essence’s brush, beauty its palette of paints.

Excellent poetry is exactly that. Which brings me to T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets.”

It is the lightest and skinniest book of essential beauty that has ever not weighed down my shoulder. It is sheer inspiration, brilliantly simple and multi-layered at once. There is not an extraneous word to be found.

Even when it circles back around its theme, it is shining a light on itself or on our world in a new place, or in a slightly different hue. And I am changed.

I can open that little book anywhere and be blown to the moon. What Eliot describes invariably speaks to where I am in this ever repetitive but never quite identical journey. He speaks of time. He speaks of seasons. He speaks of beginnings and ends, of birth and of death. Of hope, of faith, of fear, and of love. In short, life.

Lately, my difficulty has been in waiting, in staying at the still point. Change is afoot (is it ever not?) and the water is murky murky murky. I can’t will the dust to settle and it is hard to wait. What I thought was supposed to happen by now has not—or has it?—and what I thought should not have happened, has—or has it?

Waiting. One of the hardest things to do. Especially for a Mexican jumping bean girl.

T.S. Eliot’s words come to me right there like warm oil in strong, kind hands, on an achy, tired body. Here is a passage from Four Quartets (East Coker):

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

Categories: Getting to essential, Poetry | Tagged: , | 7 Comments

Wearing less. Like a sexy dress.

Posted by | May 28, 2009 | 11 Comments

The other morning I passed a lady fumbling for keys in her bag to open her little manicure shop on Mass Ave. We exchanged a quick smile and I felt my heart swell with appreciation:

  • The fact that she’d gotten out of bed.
  • That she’d showered and fixed herself up.
  • That here she was, showing up for another day of business, no matter how busy or slow, good or bad, it might turn out in the end.

It got me thinking about all the little things, all the ways in which people—you, me, that lady—show up for life.

Those things I used to take for granted? I’m noticing them. I’m loving them. And, this seems to be getting worse.

That’s right: worse as in, it’s spreading. In fact, I think it’s contagious.

The main symptom? Simple joys.

Like goat milk in my morning tea. (The milk I sometimes refer to as my a-buck-a-sip milk). And I should say goat milk in the best-ever-tea. (Yorkshire Gold, if you must know, of which my sister sent me three big boxes for my birthday).

Things like arm muscles growing more defined, not from any health club membership like I used to have, but from walking home a mile or so from the market several times a week, balancing, among red cabbage, lemons, kale, cheese, chocolate and bread, yes: that half-gallon of buck-a-sip goat milk.

The bright fire-orange reusable bags I fold up and carry around with me.

The city park I walk through with its birds and its marsh. Its benches and bunnies. Its frogs and its ever-changing-trees. Its kids and their moms and their dads and their soccer coaches with British accents and lovely tight tushies. And my running track and my walking paths, including a glassphalt path made of smooshed up, recycled, colored glass mixed into black asphalt. Ahhhh, Danehy Park. I love you.

The light of the moon on said sparkly path.

I could go on, I’m sure.

Lately, my pared down life keeps returning me to one simple question:

What is essential?

I love that question. It helps me find the heart of a matter.

It cuts through overwhelm with pruning shears of kindness. It gets rid of clutter to find the smooth surface of my kitchen table, the sweet comfort of my heart, and a mind that incubates all manner of ideas.

Yesterday, going about my business, I started playing with the words “Less is less,” singing them to the catchy tune of “Black is black,” by Los Bravos:

Less is less, a skimpy, sexy dress
More is more, one more thing of bore and chore.
What can I do? Cuz I-ayayayayay, I’m feeling new.

I know, cheesy. But hey.

Less and essential make room for bursts of unabashed laughter. For joy. Followed by quiet, in which to notice sounds, like the plaintive call of mourning doves. Like the neighborhood boys’ basketball bouncing in the park. Like the church chimes on the quarter hour. Like my visiting friend’s breathing while he sleeps.

Sounds a whole lot like just what I need.

Categories: Getting to essential, Minding my biz | Tagged: , | 11 Comments

That’s plenty

Posted by | December 15, 2008 | 1 Comment

I’ve often been a hold-on-er. A white-knuckle-r afraid to let go of things and people that leave. But it’s no fun to live that way. Not for me, and I’m sure not for them either.

Underneath my grip is a fear of not having enough. Of not being taken care of. Of being alone. When I believe these thoughts, my creative mind, otherwise so adept at creating all manner of joy and humor, goes nuts painting me pictures of me dying alone. It ain’t pretty and it pretty much sucks.

I’m a slow learner when it comes to big life things, but I am starting to see through this whole shenanigans.

So today I was noticing the pervasiveness of that belief that there is not enough. I was noticing how I live my life with that thought. I noticed how greedy I get. How stingy. It makes me hold on really tightly. It makes me suspicious. It makes me cynical and sarcastic. I don’t much like my own company when I’m believing that, which is not so good a thing since regardless of who else may or may not be in my life, my own company is the one I am guaranteed to be keeping every day of my livelong days, so help me god, in sickness and in health, till death do me part, thank you very much.

So I went for a run, or my Heidi-version thereof. Somehow the repetitive motion combined with fresh air have the effect of sifting through my mind in the best of ways. I often see through the lies & fibs I might be believing while I’m circling the track. And somehow the thoughts I’m left with afterwards are pretty much always better for it. Sifting out what’s not true leaves much more room for things like joy. Creativity.

Sometimes, after running, I cry, especially if lots has been happening and I’ve been afraid and hanging on really tightly. And somehow, crying like that, when it’s not a temper-tantrum-y cry, always softens me up in the best of possible ways.

Byron Katie, says it so well: Happiness isn’t getting what you want but wanting what you have.

Without the thought I don’t have enough, I get to notice how much I have. Friends come to mind. And more. I notice how much they’ve given me and how freely they’ve given. I appreciate them. I notice the earth. I notice how generous the air is, always giving me another breath. I notice how strong the ground is, never once having told me I’m too much for it. I go to the store and my legs carry me. I can be grateful for not having a car. I’d weigh at least another 15 pounds if I didn’t walk to the store. I go to pay for my food—so many things I love: a banana, a pomegranate, some cilantro, some rice, some milk, even some ice cream—and I notice I have enough. And that’s plenty.

Categories: Getting curious, Getting to essential, Noticing, Re-imagining | | 1 Comment