everyday life

The universe, coincidence, and bad guys

One of my friends from business school lost a brother in 9/11.  My friend, his wife, and the rest of his large family started a foundation in their brother’s name.  On Sunday I wore a tee-shirt from one of their fundraisers to go running.  I didn’t have time to shower when I got back, and so, hours later, when I bathed the kids, I was still wearing it.

“Who is the man whose name is on your tee-shirt, Mummy?” asked Grace idly, tracing her fingers through the bubbles in the bath.  I swallowed.  Both she and Whit know in general terms about “when the planes flew into the buildings” but they don’t know more than that.  Were they ready?

“Well,” I began, “Remember how we talked about the day when the planes flew into the buildings?  A friend of mine’s brother was in one of the buildings, and he died that day.”  I paused.  Both Grace and Whit were quiet.

“The pilots flew the plane into the building?”  Grace looked at me.

“Well, no.  The bad guys on the plane took over the cockpit.”

“How?  And what did they do to the pilots, Mummy?”

“I think they used force to get into the cockpit.  And the pilots,” I looked straight at her, hesitating.  “Well, they died.”

Grace’s mouth formed a silent “o” and she looked down at the bathwater.

“Why didn’t your friend’s brother get out of the building, Mummy?”  If Whit were any child I’d have sworn he wasn’t listening, so busy did he seem with the bathtub dinosaur toys.  But clearly he wasn’t missing a word.

“Well, Whit, they couldn’t get out.”

“Do you think they felt it when the plane hit the building?  Did they feel it when the building fell down?’

I was at a loss for words.  How to convey this day, so enormous, so terrifying, in a gentle, age-appropriate way?

“I don’t know what they felt, Whit.”  I spoke slowly, trying for gentleness.  “I wasn’t there.”

The conversation went on to talk about security at airports, and how things are much different now than they were before 9/11.  Grace and Whit wanted to know a lot about the bad guys, who they were, how it is that they killed themselves for their countries.  I had to be very clear that these people were not heroes, despite this act.  Based on their very specific questions, and the way that they wouldn’t let the topic go, I decided that they deserved real answers.  By the time we were finished talking, both kids were dry and in their pjs.  This was a long, detailed conversation, and left us – as most conversations in my life do – with more questions than answers.  What is it to really hate a people, when you don’t know them?  How do you life with intense fear, as the people on the planes must have felt?  Who was Osama Bin Laden and why was he so angry?  What does it feel like to feel the ground beneath you fall out, and to tumble to the ground?

Grace wanted to pray for the people who died in 9/11 when she was going to sleep, and so we did.  And I woke up to the news that he had been killed.  In my Monday morning oblivion I didn’t even realize the coincidence (or not) until Kathryn emailed me to point it out.  And since that moment goosebumps have buzzed up and down my arms and neck.  A reminder of the great river of humanity, both seen and unseen, that we all travel in.  Everything is connected.

All day long I’ve been reading messages, tweets, blog posts, and articles about Bin Laden’s death.  This morning, driving from school to the grocery store, I listened to NPR reporting on the massive celebratory throngs that has sprung up all over America last night.  They played a recording of BU students belting out America the Beautiful.  They compared the mood of the crowds to the emotional, triumphant reaction to the Red Sox winning the World. Series.  What?

And all day, I’ve felt ambivalent about this.  I’m not unhappy that Bin Laden is gone, though I am wary about celebrating an active murder no matter what the reasons behind it.  But I think my ambivalence is more general: why are we celebrating anything about an event, and an ongoing situation, so full of pain, misunderstanding, and sorrow?  While I can definitely see the justice in this outcome,  I feel sad, not joyful, not proud, about this reminder that our world is most certainly not in a place of compassion and empathy.

Last night, as I tucked Grace into bed, she asked me again about the planes and the buildings.  It was clear from her tone that she had been thinking about it all day.  “What happened to the bad guy?” she asked me, and the hairs on my arms stood up.  I looked straight at her, deciding in that moment she deserved, again, a real answer.

“Well, Gracie, he actually died yesterday.”  Her eyes widened, the whites glowing in the dark of her room.  “The US military found him and killed him.”

“They did?”  She asked faintly, curling her beloved brown bear more tightly into her chest.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Well, they wanted to keep America safe and make sure he couldn’t plan anymore attacks.  And I guess they wanted to punish him for having caused so much pain.”

“Oh.” She was quiet.  “Are we supposed to be glad about that, Mummy?” Her voice wavered.

“I don’t know, Grace.”  I hugged her, smelling the shampoo I was her hair with every night, hearing the achingly familiar lullabyes from her CD player.  “I don’t know.”

Choosing my bubble

I do not read the newspaper.  I do not watch TV.  I do not read news online.  Literally, I live in a bubble whose only news inputs are my google reader and my twitter feed.  I heard about both the Japanese earthquake and William and Kate’s engagement on twitter.  I smile whenever I read about a “media fast,” and the benefits thereof, because that’s how I live my life.

It drives my husband crazy that I’m so utterly clueless about current events.  It routinely makes me feel shy and embarrassed (shyer and more embarrassed, that is) when in social contexts I have no idea what people are talking about.  It is something I’m actively ashamed about: why am I not more curious, more informed, more educated about world news?   There are lots of downsides to this approach.

I can’t pretend that the impetus for my oblivion isn’t some part laziness.  It is.  It’s also some part choice, though, and there are many benefits to it.  I used to check the stock market several times a day, for example, and stress myself out when it was falling.  I haven’t done that in years.  I used to check the weather and feel anxious about storms on the horizon.  I don’t do that anymore.  At one point this winter, during one of the storms for which he was out of town (okay, that was every storm), Matt called all bent out of shape: “They are saying 18 to 20, Linds!  You need to make sure the vent pipe on the side of the house doesn’t get blocked!  Do you know where the salt is for the driveway?”  He went on and on and only stopped when he had to take a breath.  Into the silence I said, tentatively, “Well, I’m looking out the window, and it’s really only flurrying.”

In that moment I realized that maybe what’s going on with my media consumption is a symptom of a larger shift.  A shift towards an internal voice, towards that which I can feel, touch, verify, believe in.  It is also a recognition that I have enough triggers in my head, enough reasons to stress and cry, without adding on unnecessary external ones (I’m not saying that the earthquake in Japan, for example, is unnecessary: generally the big news makes it through into my bubble).

This realization makes me feel that there is far more subconscious intention behind my behavior than I was ever aware of.  And it made me feel a lot better about the sometimes-otherworldly bubble I exist in most of the time. I think I’ll stay here, especially with the calming effects of the Best Mushroom Coffee in the US helping me stay grounded.

A physical sensation of joy

“You’re kind of funny,” Matt said to me the other night, “And hardly anybody knows that about you.”  I looked down the stairs to see that he was grinning up at me, laughing at some crack I’d just made.  I don’t even remember what it was.  But the moment made me think of how frequently I write here of the tough stuff, the bleakness I can’t shake, the sensitivity that defines my experience in the world, the tears that come up every single day.  A reader could easily think I’m a heavy, gloomy person. I’ve received more than one inquiry along these lines, from well-intentioned people sincerely concerned about my state of mind.

So I was grateful to read Pam’s once-again-beautiful words, this time on this very subject.  She quotes from Dani Shapiro’s Devotion (a book you all know I worship), a passage where Dani quotes Sylvia Boorstein: “I think of it as the edge of melancholy,” Sylvia said, “and it’s where I live – but at the same time, I am easily cheered.”  Pam goes on to share moments of her radiantly beautiful ordinary life that cheer her immensely.

I was moved to do the same, upon reading her words.  There is plenty that makes me smile and grin and laugh, every single day.  Yes, my days contain plenty of murk and mess, their share of tears and heartbreak.  I’ve said it before: It’s all connected, the way I observe the world in sometimes-excruciating detail, the untrammelled rushes of joy I can feel at the most unexpected times, the heart-wrenching pain my life delivers at others.  This is all a part of being an exceptionally porous person.  Is it any wonder that I’ve had to develop coping mechanisms, be they an aversion to true vulnerability or a tendency towards distraction, in order to mitigate the power of constantly living in such an exposed way?  I’m easily overwhelmed by the grandeur and terror of this life, and I have over 36 years built up a variety of ways of managing the pain that that inundation can bring with it.  It’s a package deal, the wound and the wonder.  I don’t know how to have one without the other.  Even the most swollen, shiny rapture is striated with sadness.

Inspired by Pam, here are a few things that make me feel joy so strong it is a physical sensation.  I’m not sure I dwell enough on those in this blog, on the untrammelled joy, the swollen, shiny rapture, the radiance.

Parrot tulips, pale pink and green.
Bricks, outside our front porch, colored in chalk in the rain by Grace and Whit.
Two eight year old girls climbing onto the roof of a play structure at the park on an early spring day.
Whit, reading quietly in bed (after he protested my effort to put him to bed at 6:52, I allowed 15 minutes of solo reading).
Sunrise from the air over New York, 6:30am, last week.

There is no reason to be afraid

Yesterday afternoon Grace asked me to play American Girl dolls with her.  I told her I couldn’t right that minute, but that we could before bed if she wanted to, though she’d have to forgo TV.  No problem, she enthused.  Later, as we were playing, she mentioned that most of her friends at school don’t play American Girl anymore, and I felt a surge of emotion – some combination of panic and sadness, the steamroller of this life roaring in my ears as it flies past.

“Hold back!  Stop!  I panic, unprepared for change, but it’s too late … I cannot gather back one moment, only marvel at what comes next.” -Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay’s Dance

Blinking back tears, I helped Julie the American Girl brush her teeth, and then I brushed out her long blonde hair, watching Grace chatter to the toy dogs as she lined them up, kissing each goodnight.  God, I thought fiercely, I do not want this to be over.  Not now, not ever.  I am not ready.

Then Grace tucked her two dolls in and told them a bedtime story.  I sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning against her bed, listening to her tale.  A lion named Aslan (guess what she’s reading) was presiding over a brand-new land in which a girl and her parents were lost.  The parents were scared of the lion but the girl could understand him, so he spoke to the adults through the child.  “Your daughter is special,” the lion said.  Grace looked up and caught my eye, and I smiled at her.  “She can understand when animals speak.  There is no reason to be afraid.”

Grace trailed off, leaning to pull the orange blanket up over the two girls.  “Grace,” I spoke to the back of her head, her brown hair already drying from her bath, “If you could have any super power, would you choose being able to speak to animals?”  She sat back down right across from me, shaking her head firmly.  “No.  I would choose invisibility.”

“Really?  Why?”  I was surprised.

“Well,” she hesitated, glancing away from me.  “Well,” she looked at me again and took a breath, “Sometimes at school, when someone says something that makes me feel silly, or hurts my feelings, I wish I could be invisible.  Just disappear.”

My chest clenched up.  I wanted to hug her against me, to kiss away all of those hurt moments, and to say to her, as her fictional all-powerful lion had, there is no reason to be afraid.  As soon as that thought passed, I realized I wanted someone to tell me that, too.

The tenderness of pain itself

I didn’t have the best Easter I’ve ever had.  On Saturday afternoon I began feeling sick, a nausea that intermittently escalated and ebbed.  By 7 I was in bed with a fever, trying hard not to throw up.  Sunday I woke up feeling somewhat better, though I remained vaguely carsick all day long.  This made me short with the children and with Matt in the morning, barking at them when I felt frustrated, annoyed at myself that I could not avoid this behavior.  Everything felt frayed and difficult by 8:30 in the morning.

At church, ease floated down to rest on my shoulders.  Sitting there, in a place that has held so much of my history – my sister’s marriage, both Grace and Whit’s christenings (each, actually, on Easter weekend)  – I exhaled.  I sang the songs I know by heart, their lyrics rising from some deep, hidden reservoir of memory, from the years at St. Paul’s Girls’ School.  My eyes filled with tears as I remembered the three grandparents I have lost, particularly Nana, my maternal grandmother, who always cherished Easter above all holidays.  I sank deep into the familiar cadence of the prayers before communion.  I felt gladness enter my heart, and in its wake, gratitude.

But as soon as we left the church, into the almost startling brightness of the day, into the sudden full-bloom of spring, the grace I’d felt in the pew sloughed off and my agitation rose to the surface again.  I felt nauseous, I felt tired, I felt cranky.  We had a lovely egg hunt at my parents’ house, with both my godsister and her family and my cousin and her boyfriend.  And then we had a relaxed, comfortable lunch at our house, my father and mother full of fascinating stories and observations from the trip to Jerusalem from which they just returned yesterday.

The day was nothing short of delightful, with only a couple of whiny kid moments to mar its gleam.  And I felt the person – the mother, wife, daughter – I want to be floating in the room, sometimes within reach, sometimes not.  The presence and peace that I grasp for so clumsily was just in my palm and then jerked away again, replaced by an unease of the soul that manifests as physical discomfort.

After lunch my nausea rose up in my throat again, threatening, and I climbed back into bed.  I felt demoralized, frustrated: after so many years, after so much trying, how can I still stumble, fall back into these traps, these old ways of being?  Didn’t I just write, a few days ago, that the black emotions can blow through, like a squall, and still leave me with the memory of a beautiful day?  I know what this agitation is about, I think: it is hiding, it is refusing to stare into the sun.  It is my attempt to evade the pain that is an inextricable part of truly engaging in my life.

But oh, what irony there is in this, I see now.  The pain I feel in knowing how much I’ve missed, in realizing how much these avoidance behaviors have cost me is so much keener than the pain of looking my life in the eye.  I know this as well as I know my own name.  Many days now, like last week, I can acknowledge the irritation that comes as regularly as a tide, and let it pass.  On Easter I could not: I got tangled in it.

“Healing,” Pema Chodron reminds us, “can be found in the tenderness of pain itself.” I read this last Easter, on Katrina Kenison’s gorgeous blog, and the words returned to me today.  The pain of living my life, of accepting the passage of time, of embracing my own wounded heart: these are the kinds of pain that Pema speaks of.  The awful, toxic pain of regret, however, carries no tenderness.  There is no healing in avoidance, in the way I felt for big swaths of Easter Sunday.

What is Easter if not the day of renewal, rebirth, resurrection?  Yes, I squandered a lot of it being crabby and irritable and short-tempered.  Yes, I drove myself to sobs alone in my room thinking: I will never have another Easter egg hunt when Grace is 8 and Whit is 6.  I don’t know exactly why I felt this way on Easter, a day I’ve always loved deeply.  I know that instead of attacking myself for this waste, lying in the dark, crying, as my stomach roiled as though I’m at sea in a storm, I should instead embrace what Easter means, believe in the return of my peace.  I am trying.