Melissa works at creating a personal survival guide for the tumult of the times

These are tough times. This is the one thing we all can agree on. At this juncture, I am forced to acknowledge that personally things are also rough and ragged. This could be a chicken and egg question, “Is it the state of the world that is making me sad or am I just sad which is affecting how I see the world?” Does it really matter? It’s perilous out there and its perilous in here. So what to do? The very wise ones say that it’s not what is happening that is important rather how we respond and relate to what is happening.

With this in mind I’ve begun to make some changes – they may seem superfluous and shallow but I’ve noticed immediate improvement in my outlook. I have blocked the posts of people on Facebook who persistently lambast. It depressed me. Truth be told I’m limiting my FB time and when I am there I find I am looking for inspiring stories and cute animal photographs of interspecies bonding and acceptance. These things lift me up and contribute to an overall feeling of well being.

A few days ago I flew from the West to East Coast to attend a retreat with the Buddhist Nun and Teacher, Pema Chodron titled, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change. I left the West Coast just shortly after the Oakland Police Department unleashed tear gas, rubber bullets and batons on a group of peaceful protesters critically injuring Scott Olsen a young member of Veterans for Peace. Shortly before that event, the deposed dictator of Libya, Moamar Ghaddafi, was found and then sodomized with a knife by one of his captors all captured on video. The news media then played, played and re-played the video of a bloodied and dying Ghaddafi. I found this all entirely disturbing and savage. No matter Ghaddafi’s documented atrocities towards the people of Libya, an inhumane act toward an inhumane person is still inhumane. The media approach to this “story” was likewise inhumane and indecent. My retreat was well-timed and aptly titled.

As I flew across the country the sun went down behind me and I began to see little gatherings of light below me — unknown towns and villages. I looked down on them and whispered out the window, “There is some goodness down there, there must be.” And there is. Everywhere. In this time I am prospecting for goodness.

I am fortunate to know a number of people who contribute to goodness in the world in big, big ways nationally and globally. This work inspires me. Right now though I’m seeking the little gestures around me and also the ones I can create so as not to feel so overwhelmed by the tumult of these times.

A Few Examples

My friend Gina Truex is an extraordinary artist. Gina shares her time and skill with two groups of women who are for the most part homeless but manage each week to make their way to a drop-in day center. There, Gina works with the women creating both community and objects they can call their own.

Through the Berkeley Reads Adult Literacy Program I am tutoring a woman with limited literacy who has raised two children, and now has two grandchildren She wants to be able to read and write beyond the elementary school level. She wants to be able to read magazines and movie titles.

In Winslow, Arizona, three visionaries Allan Affeldt, Tina Mion and Daniel Lutzick saved the last great Fred Harvey Hotel, La Posada, designed by Mary Colter, from the wrecking ball. They have made the restoration of the hotel their life project. The hotel has created 50 jobs in a depressed area. Everybody who works at the hotel has health insurance, retirement and access to funds to help them buy homes.

At the beginning of the school year I gladly answered the call to provide children in Foster Care with school supplies and their own backpacks, Project Ready to Learn. Choosing two backpacks and filling them with cool school supplies made me unreasonably happy.

I just read an article about the monotony soldiers on deployment endure during the hours they are not avoiding bombs and snipers. Storm Williams from North Carolina created a website called Books for Soldiers. I’m a volunteer. I log in to the site see what books are requested, go to the used bookstore, find the book and ship it out. It’s simple, its something I can do and probably makes me feel better than the soldier who receives the book.

I’m well aware that “Living Beautifully” in these times is not all about external acts of goodness. So too I take on the internal in an act of spiritual warrior-ship which basically means not adding to fear and aggression in these times. Adopting the posture of being friendly to myself and merciful to others requires vigilance. I find the former to be the hardest task. So I acknowledge myself when spontaneous love, compassion and understanding bubble up. Yesterday on the train I was thinking about someone I love profoundly who hurt me deeply and all of the sudden I understood why. It didn’t make it right but the understanding prevented my hurt from hardening into anger and I was aware that in this case love prevails — an act of goodness toward my self. It’s a beginning. Step by baby step.

My yoga teacher Peggy has been known to say during class,
“Triangle pose is like a little black dress. You can take it anywhere.”

As my birthday month comes to a close I have been ruminating on all, like the triangle pose, that is wise, helpful and transportable. Even more so than New Years, my birthday has become a time of reflection and review. Like my closet, my life gets a spring cleaning at every year when the wheel turns toward my birthday. “This gets tossed, this stays, this needs cleaning and that needs altering.” Although this year has been rife with challenges, I am not immune to the good news and that is the wheel is still turning. And with each turn of the wheel I garner new pieces of wisdom to add to the mix and I become myself and push my brave tender heart toward the promise of a new day.

Recently I read a blog titled “Inspiration and Chai” by Bronnie Ware. For many years Bronnie worked in palliative care with the terminally ill. As such she was privy to the intimate revelations of the dying. Bronnie noticed that there were common themes as people voiced their thoughts about living and dying, and what they wished they had done differently.

The most common regret was,“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

Generally the wish to live differently had to do with unrealized dreams. I think about this and I am reminded again to be mindful of the choices I make lest they someday become my own utterance of regret when time no longer offers the opportunity to redirect.

I ask myself, “How can I live my life in a way that is beautiful? How can I actively choose the life that is mine to live?” and “How can I move from wishes to action, word to silence?”

I am not by nature a fearful person but I have noticed a particular brand of fear that gets caught up in the speeding passage of time; fear of holding on too tight, and fear of letting go, a fear of opening my heart too much, or of armoring myself in equal measure—a tightening then a lightening.

This year I am determined to embrace the concept, to the duty of opening to the whole darn thing. The question which remains on my lips is, “How can I open to life?” I find that every act of love is in some way also a promise to forgive, but I have also learned this year that when a moment of truthful loving appears not only should I open and open some more, but seize on it lest it never come again.

I have also formalized what up until now has been an informal tradition of mine and that is to commit to doing at least one thing I have always wanted to do which I haven’t yet. In fact this year I am folding into my “beautiful life” two things I have wanted to do for years and years. As an avid reader I have long wanted to work with adults who cannot read well or at all. Next month I will begin training as an adult literacy volunteer at my local library in hopes that I might assist somebody in advancing their literacy not only to help in their everyday worlds but so s/he might also experience the magic of reading novels and short stories, plays and history.

The Bhajans and music of India has long enchanted me. So I will soon begin lessons on the Harmonium that I may learn the songs of India and accompany myself for my private pleasure only.

Last week in my yoga class while many of us were attempting to work our way into a somewhat complicated arm balance, the sounds of people falling, breathing and trying again were greatly evident. Peggy said to us in that moment, “Whatever you do just err on the side of beauty, grace and ease.” This is a motto that can go anywhere with me, one way to live my life in a beautiful way day by day.

When Melissa’s trust is broken, she examines past and present with hope for the future

Here a lie, there a lie everywhere a liar, liar pants on fire.

When someone loved and trusted lies, its hurtful and makes me feel as though I am not worthy of the truth. Trust is so precious, and yet we take so much of the universe on trust. Having my trust violated leaves me feeling lonely and kind of empty. Ironically, it’s also kind of lonely to try and stand strong and sure in my own truth and experience.

In the third grade, my teacher Mrs. Randolph gave the whole class a word problem. Something along the lines of, “If ten monkeys hiked to the peak in search of one banana, but two of them took the bus half way, and had to wait for the bus for 30 minutes, and the bus travelled at 20 miles an hour and the rest of the monkeys high tailed it, who got to the banana first?” Mrs. Randolph instructed us to remain at our desks until we had the answer to the problem. When we thought we knew the answer we were to come up to her desk and whisper it to her. I came up with the answer right away and in front of the whole class Mrs. Randolph called me a cheater — except there was no way I could’ve cheated. In effect Mrs. Randolph was lying but calling me the liar. At eight years old, it was challenging to hold on to what I knew was true even as my teacher was abusing her power. I knew in my heart that I came up with the answer and that was an early lesson in trusting myself. A year later I read in the newspaper that Mrs. Randolph had been arrested for shoplifting, which somehow proved my case.

As a child, my mother would wash my mouth out with soap when I was caught lying. I can’t recall what I lied about but I do know that my lies were an effort to maintain control over a situation and avoid my mother’s inevitable disappointment in me.

The great poet and feminist Adrienne Rich wrote a seminal essay over 30 years ago, which I find myself returning to now, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying”. In the essay, Rich explores the ways women lie to themselves and to one another and outlines a cultural history of women lying for our very survival. We’ve come to expect certain people to lie, in fact it’s become de rigueur —politicians, (“I did not have sex with that woman.”) sports figures (“What steroids?”), the Catholic Church (“Pedophilia? Never!”). But what’s happening when we lie to ourselves, and one another?

“…the liar is concerned with her own feelings. The liar lives in fear of losing control. She cannot even desire a relationship without manipulation, since to be vulnerable to another person means for her loss of control…The liar leads an existence of unutterable loneliness…The liar is afraid…She is afraid her own truths are not good enough…The liar fears the void.”

“To discover that one has been lied to in a personal relationship, however, leads one to feel a little bit crazy.” *

Despite all evidence to the contrary I’m not crazy. I know the truth of the situation and standing in it is taxing and lonesome. However, for me the hardest part of watching a beloved and trusted person lie is the crushing disappointment.

“An honorable human relationship—that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word “love” — is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other.

…It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go the hard way with us.”*

I’ve long adhered to the feminist belief that when we have more women in power—more women leading—the world will be improved. But can that be true if in our most intimate relationships, be they friendships or more, we do not honor one another with the truth?

“Truthfulness, honor, is not something which springs ablaze of itself; it has to be created between people.”*

Women! Be the “truthtellers”. Go the hard way for the sake of honor. Go forth and CREATE possibilities amongst us. The truth will set us free.

—-
* Rich, Adrienne, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying “, On Lies Secrets and Silence: Selected Prose 1966-1978, W.W. Norton & Company, New York, London Copyright 1979

In an effort to understand her mother, Melissa peels back layers of her own heart

In the summer of 1963, my mother left my father. I was just six and my brother turned three a few short weeks later. Thirty-six years, several boyfriends and one more divorce later, my mother admitted to me that the love of her life had been my father.

My mother’s admission about the love of her life was stunning and surprising. I asked her why; given that my father was the love of her life she left him? She replied, “He was young and stupid and always had something to prove.” I wondered what 20-something (man or woman) is not young and stupid with things to prove?

A year after this conversation my mother died. I discovered then the only things in her safe deposit box were the letters my father had written to her asking, and then pleading with her to come back. I cried then for my mother, not for her death but for the fact of her pride — the pride, which kept her from the love of her life for most of her life, which by all measures was not a particularly happy one.

I think of my mother now and wonder what she did with that love — for and of her life? Did she push it aside? Assuage it with vodka? Did she make hash marks on the kitchen calendar noting each full moon passed without her love? Did she hold righteously to her belief in my father’s youth and “stupidity” even as the years passed? I asked my father about their divorce wondering if there was anything else that would have prompted her to leave. Without knowing what my mother had said, my father said, “I was young and stupid and didn’t consider her in ways I should have.” His crimes were so human and temporary.

My mother has been gone 11 years now. She was never one to say, “I am sorry” or “I was wrong”. I know that on the human fallibility scale there were many reasons my father could have found to leave my mother had that been his inclination. Instead he stayed, he tried and she would not give. Ultimately my mother and her two children were the losers.

Like so many daughters before me I’ve spent much of my life trying to understand my mother, and also trying not to be her. Of course the effort to understand my mother is the work of understanding myself, be we different or be we same.

I’ve been “in love” two times. My second love is the one of my life. During the course of this love I made mistakes, no matter how hard I tried to be conscious, mature and awake. I held onto things that in retrospect showed me to be “young and stupid with things to prove” without regard for age — my crimes of humanity. The hardest part is not simply the loss, but the ways in which I blame myself. It’s easier to lose when you know you gave it everything. If not, well that’s a bitter pill.

While muddling through this time I’ve taken an online writing workshop called “Forgiveness Through Writing”. Out of eight sessions the most heart wrenching/breaking/cracking for me was the one in which we had to begin with the words, “I was wrong…”

Ultimately, given my maternal legacy, I found sitting down and writing about the ways in which I was wrong to be liberating. But now I fear the life of regret. My father wrote with heartbreaking beauty in his letters seeking forgiveness for the ways in which he failed and asking — given their great love — for the chance to do better, to be better, but my mother wouldn’t give. She lived the rest of her 37 years with regret and an ache in her heart that no amount of denial or vodka would ease.

I have friends who soon will have been married for 50 years. I asked one of them today if during that time he ever felt they would not make it. He thought for a moment and replied, “I don’t think I ever thought we wouldn’t make it but there have been some touch and go times. Just four years ago we had a really horrible time. If you asked either of us now, we could not really say what happened because we simply don’t know.” Another friend who has been with her partner for 30 years says, “I still screw up, shut down and get afraid even after all this time.” Another couple of over 30 years speaks of “their work” and “their many differences”. The common denominator here is commitment and devotion. All of my long-term couples have said, “it’s hard and…it simply doesn’t work without commitment and love, the love is the easy part but it’s also a rare gift. That’s the reason we do the work and walk the path to take care of the gift. We are here to grow each other.”

Melissa reflects on the legacy of separation and the ways in which we cope

Some week’s back, the cover of The New York Times had a picture of two young boys tearfully clinging to their father who was returning to one war zone or another after a leave. The look of panic and pain on the younger boy’s face haunts me.

I have a similar photograph from 70 years ago on the day my grandfather left to go to war. In the photograph my eight-year-old father appears more stoic than the boys in the NY Times but I know from letters and first hand reports that the one photograph of that day does not tell the whole story.

I will always wonder if the father in The New York Times photograph comes home. I know my grandfather didn’t and that legacy of separation has been passed down in my family. This is the story of countless families throughout history, changed by the legacy of loss at the hand of war, economics, borders, political posturing and empire building.

The legacy of being left is in the minting of fresh victims — leaving them to continue the tradition. Those who carry it generally accept the story, but the heart of it is rarely known.

I am interested in the heart of it, the healing at the heart of it, given that to heal means to make whole.

My personal history (though not exceptional) is one of countless separations particularly as the child of divorced parents. A recent revelation from my father about the first year of my life sheds light on why separation has always taken a particularly hard toll on me even as an adult.

So I’ve been thinking about the ways in which those of us living in a state of separation, from family, countries, and loves, cope — the ways in which we maintain connection and self soothe our longing. Of course when my grandfather left his family, there were letters and telegrams, for a few months anyway. Now we have Skype, satellite telephones, Facebook and email to name but a few of our connective devices. However, I am more interested in the personal, often private rituals we employ to keep the heart and soul of our connection to a person, and sometimes a place, alive.

I’ve been taking an unofficial poll. One woman says that she keeps a handkerchief in her pocket and when she holds it she imagines she is holding the hand of the one she is missing. This has particular resonance for me because I sometimes hold my own hand when sleeping or in the movies to achieve the same feeling.

James Joyce wrote about the concept of epiphany as, “the sudden revelation of the whatness of a thing,” when “the soul of the commonest object…seems to us radiant.” This may be why some people have certain objects that are imbued with the essence of the person, be it old sweatshirts or rocks picked up from a special shared place. The fabric of connection runs in both directions. My unofficial survey shows the desire for keeping the connection alive is shared ,such as when one person gives the other a particularly chosen thing when they are separating — a “magic bear” totem for example. For some a simple red leaf folded into a note will hold them for months. My best friend Carol wore garish socks. She collected them. After she died, I took one pair and put them in my top drawer. For several years each morning when I got dressed and opened that drawer, I saw Carol and was connected to her in that moment.

Others rely on scent; a particular cologne, lotion or soap used by the missed will help to alleviate the pain of the one doing the missing. Or the particular taste of something will bring the beloved to mind — in my case it is one square of Lindt white coconut chocolate layered on top a square of any really good dark chocolate and eaten together.

Some are more ritualistic, using the same mug every morning without fail until they are reunited with their missing love(s) or taking a walk each day to sit on the same bench once shared and having a private conversation — sometimes aloud with the one(s) who are not there keeping the spirit of connectedness alive.

I am equal opportunity in this regard. I’ve got all of the above going at one time or another. And when nothing else is at hand, the moon never fails. When I look at the moon I know that anyone I am missing or thinking about sees the same moon. And I know that (as a friend of mine said) even though the weather may be different from one viewing place to another, the climate of our hearts is the same.

Get a daily dose of uplift, courtesy of Melissa and friends

To keep my cheer flowing year-round, I find great daily joy in two free email subscriptions.

A Daily Poem
Hosted and curated by Garrison Keillor, The Writer’s Almanac can also be heard daily on NPR. I read the poem each morning while the coffee brews.
The Writer’s Almanac >>

A Daily Painting
I also subscribe to a daily painting by a noted Southwestern painter John Farnsworth. Having painted himself into a corner with horses—a subject he’d become known for—John hit a creative wall. To reignite his creativity, John began doing one painting a day and posting it on his website. Every day I am eager to see what John has created. Waiting to see the painting reminds me of the fifty-cent surprise bags we used to get as kids at the Trading Post when on vacation, only better.
A Farnsworth A Day >>

Join Melissa as she vanquishes demons, delights in distraction and cultivates deep belly laughs

OK, I am not going to pussy foot around here — transition and change, not so much fun for me.

Last week, I was listening to an interfaith podcast discussion about happiness in which the Muslim scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr talked about how the word jihad actually means to combat one’s own negativity or quite simply to struggle — it is the process of exerting our best efforts. In response the Dalai Lama said, and I’m paraphrasing here, then all of Buddhism is jihad. That is what I call reaching across the aisle.

I am not sure about my “best efforts” but I do identify with the struggle and if it’s a noble struggle then all the better.

Recently I observed the holiday Diwali with several friends. I resonate with the holiday for the symbolism of the lighting of many lamps — in our case candles — to signify the triumph of good over evil. Specifically Diwali celebrates the return of Lord Rama from 14 years of exile after vanquishing the demon King Ravana. The festival of lights also serves to direct an observant devotee to the awareness of his/her inner light and it signals the end of the harvest.

I am a mujahida, engaged in vanquishing my demons while in a personal kind of exile.

A couple of weeks ago I spent a weekend in retreat with the great Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron. I am sure that Pema and her colleagues would refer to my demons, my current suffering, as “bourgeois”. She would say this with a compassionate smile and she would be right. So be it! For now I’ll wear the T-shirt with a playful smile proudly proclaiming myself “Bourgeois Mujahida!”

I’m told that suffering and negativity, in the bourgeois sense, can just be indulgent or it can serve to teach and advance self-awareness. In my case I am hoping for the latter. We live in a very rich world, one that by all accounts never runs out of messages — whatever I do or say, I will surely receive a response from the world.

So while my inner light is in flicker mode I’m exploring new modes of transport. What I mean to say is I am looking for my “laugh out loud” in places out of the ordinary for me. If I am going to be hanging out in the borderlands then I might as well explore some new territory.

I’ll take it however it comes and I’m not going to be proud about it; Oprah and Gayle’s great Yosemite camping adventure made me laugh out loud on several occasions. A friend of mine made me laugh out loud after reading her horoscope for the month of November and saying “FINALLY it says I am going to be in the right freaking place at the right freaking time!” My friend Kate makes me laugh out loud when she describes the utter seriousness around her in an Iyengar yoga class while focusing on spreading the “butt cheeks.”

Speaking of butt cheeks, my own exercise practice, or lack thereof has been on the wane because I’ve needed something new and different, something that holds the promise of joy. The elliptical machine just doesn’t have that quality. So in a weak moment I bought a Zumba exercise package (a form of dance exercise with a Latin flavor) after seeing an infomercial. (I said I am not proud). Frankly, Zumba just looked like fun. I received the package the other day and popped in the first disc and began to learn the basic steps. I have found my “laugh out loud” laughing at myself trying to revive some hand/eye coordination. I sent the dog packing with a particular kick forward followed by a reach back with the opposite leg. Frankly anything that calls on me to jump up and down such as one particular Mexican influenced dance step makes me feel awkward, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, but it is funny.

So if you are walking by my place and hear some great Latin music, underlined with banging and crashing about, and punctuated by guffaws and giggles, don’t worry, that is just me cultivating my Laugh out Loud. Joy comes from realizing that nothing is ever a dead end. I’d reached a dead end so I’m trying a different road. It looks promising.