musings

The definition of terms

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms. – Socrates

We were visiting friends at the beach this past week, and at one point I was with Grace in the ocean. Despite the heat of the day, the water was cold, and we were standing right at the edge of the waves’ breaking, tip-toeing in slowly. Suddenly a really big wave came and Grace was standing in just the wrong place. She was tumbled over and thrashed around in the whitewater. When she came up, spluttering, her hair and her bathing suit were both full of small rocks. She was breathless, surprised, somewhere between gigglingly startled and authentically afraid.

This was just one more time when the ocean provided me with a metaphor. I know I’m neither alone nor original in finding meaning in the waves, the water, the tide, the undertow. But it is to these images and sounds, to the salty bite of the ocean air, the snapping of halyards against masts, the caw-caw-cawing of seagulls soaring above that my mind most often returns. I am the child of sailors, who grew up mostly on the coast, and this runs through my veins as surely as does my affection for scientific inquiry and my East Greenwich Eldredge blood, so perhaps this instinct is innate.

For some reason I feel a connection between the image of my daughter, tossed in a wave breaking on shore, and that quote by Socrates. I’ve been in my own version of whitewater lately: feeling confused, a bit lost, unsteady. And I wonder if part of that is because I haven’t even begun to define my terms, the terms by which I want to live my life, by which I want to exist in the world. I am fairly sure that awareness of such a need is progress for me. I suspect that for years I just assumed some general universal terms applied to me. Terms that were, importantly, set by someone else.

No more

I’m going to set my own terms now.

I am not sure how, or when, because right now I’m still a bit upside down in the whitewater, unable to see for sea spray in my eyes, and waiting for the water to drain out of my ears so that I can hear clearly. But at least I know I need to. I know the terms I want to live my life by start with compassion and empathy and kindness, and that they include a deep need to honor the reality, savage and beautiful as it is, of my life.

Maybe that’s what writing is for me. Just as my lifetime love of cornflower blue was, all along, guiding me to my son’s eyes, maybe my words, in the convoluted, slow-to-be-revealed wisdom that I must trust is there somewhere, are taking me to the place where I will know how it is I want to engage with the world. How is it I want to live my life.

I believe she’s amazing

I’ve watched this many times now. Each time I end up with tears rolling down my face. It’s worth the time to watch it.

We all need someone who thinks we’re truly amazing. I know this as much as I know anything. I think, again, to Bindu’s excellent post several months ago that said clearly that “constructive criticism” is not friendship and that everything we really need will come to us in compassion. Of course I think there is much to be learned from others who can gently remind us when we are not being our best selves and hold up a mirror in which we can see things we might not have the distance to notice in our own head. The key? Compassion. Tough love has to happen in a supportive environment, one where the abiding and steady reality of love and support is unquestioned. Otherwise? It is just mean and soul-destroying.

We all need someone who thinks we are amazing. It is this that lends buoyancy to our days, lightness to our hearts, and theis that gives us the ability to be compassionate to others. When we feel loved we are better able to give love. Of that I am sure.

Watch the video. Think of a woman you think is amazing. You can read more about this project, started by a woman to honor her dear friend who died of cancer at 31. You can add the name of a woman to the list.

Please, let’s all approach the world with more compassion. Let’s remember that love and empathy engenders more love and empathy. Let’s not wait to share our feelings with the people that we think are amazing. Hearing it often doesn’t cheapen it, it just makes it more deeply known and trusted.

Who do you believe is amazing?

These are things that speak to me now

I am heavy and full right now, waterlogged with feeling, tired and a bit burned from exposure to the sun, both literal and figurative. The changes of the last month or two are settling in, making themselves at home, and the rhythm of this new reality (albeit an interlude for just this summer, which creates its own anxiety) is becoming familiar. I feel a bit out of words, but also as though there is a tide of them brimming up inside of me, the vague pressure slowly mounting. I hope I can ride this tide to somewhere that has meaning, and peace, and calm. I’ll let you know.

In the meantime, I seek refuge, as is my habit, in the words of others. Today, Meg Casey’s essay, These are things I know now, spoke to me. I’ve quoted Meg before, and I think she’s one of the most exquisitely honest writers out there. Her journey resonates with me and I’m touched every single time I read her words. Maybe what I’m feeling right now is surrender to my empty bowl, to the trust that something essential and life-giving will fill it.

Meg, thank you, as always, for providing solace when I feel the undertow most strongly, for when I feel storm-tossed and run aground at the same time.

These are things I know now – Meg Casey

That sometimes the most beautiful innocence can be born from deep suffering, desperation and ugliness
That nothing is ever one thing and even the most exquisite joy and breathtaking beauty can be punctuated by sadness and loss and even the most heartbreaking grief can be tinged with a rosy kindness
That laughter and silliness and ridiculousness is sometimes the only answer to heaviness
That my heart will whisper to me exactly what I must do next
That angels most certainly must exist
That I have sisters who I will walk with and they will not leave me and I will not leave them because our paths are intertwined whether we like it or not (though we mostly like it)
That love (not sappy silly love by lionness roaring love) is alchemical — it is the magic ingredient and while it sounds so trite its true
That the youngest among us are extremely powerful and hold all the wisdom that we forgot
That miracles are like tsunamis and leave disasterous messiness in their wake and it is a saint’s job to clean up what comes behind, physically hold the wounded together to sutcher their souls.
Saints also bring lemon cake and stand on chairs tip toe to hang paper hearts from the ceiling

A reflection of what it is in this life you prize most highly

I have been thinking nonstop about Anne Lamott’s piece, about our true wealth being this moment, this hour, this day. As usual, she is basically the oracle to me, among my wisest and most impactful teachers. I agree with her initial assertion “that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder.” She herself says that this is not revolutionary, but in fact the basis for “almost all wisdom traditions.” She talks about “chances of lasting connection or amazement” and I think of Mary Oliver’s glorious line that often scrolls through my thoughts:

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement

Let us all be less cynical, less negative, less judgmental.  Let us all have more wonder, more trust, more giving each other space to be human.  Let us all remember that almost everyone is really just doing the best they can.

What Anne’s essay has me thinking about today, though, is about the way we make time for that which we really value.  In fact, I think that if we each looked back over how we have spent the last day or week, we would see, in neon animation, a graph of what it is we really honor and think is important.  That’s what we make time for.  Most often, this happens instinctively, without much forethought or analysis.  It simply is.  We just say yes to that which we care most about.  Other times, we have to actively, even fiercely guard the time for certain activities or people who are near to our hearts.

Let’s no longer hide behind the excuse that we “don’t have time.”  The truer response would be “I don’t care enough to really protect the time.”  Maybe this is harsh, but I think it’s also true.  Think long and hard about how you spend your precious hours, the only currency in this life that I personally think is actually worth anything.  And if you look carefully at these choices, you will see a reflection of what it is in this life you prize most highly.  Do you like what you see?

The only person

What is authenticity? What is the truest expression of self? What do I really want? Who am I, at my deepest core?

It’s awfully easy to lose sight of these things, at least for me, in a world where I feel the competing pressures of dozens of responsibilities and identities every single day. I’m a complicated person to begin with, I think, and that’s exacerbated by and refracted through the all the demands on and expectations of me.

Well, isn’t who we are what we do? I don’t personally think it’s that simple. I’ve written before about how an adult life can often hem us in, how responsibilities curtail our ability to purely express the deepest desires of our heart. And after all, we soon forget what it is our young heart, not yet dented and bruised by life’s hurts, truly wanted.

All of this results, for me, in a swampy morass in which I know a few things for absolute certain but am mixed up and confused about most everything else. I’ve realized that the expectation of a single clear answer or one ringing bell of simple truth is an utter fallacy, a crutch, an immature belief that is far from the reality that there are just more questions beyond the questions.

Still, there are a few signposts. I think that it’s useful to think back to before our lives were complicated by all of these midlife demands, to when we were able to follow our hearts in a more unfettered way. I was reminded of this this weekend when my dearest friend from college said to me, upon hearing my latest news, “You are doing what you always dreamed of doing, Linds. You always wanted to write.” I confess I was surprised to hear it put so baldly; I always knew that writing mattered deeply to me, but I honestly don’t remember being so plain, openly, that it was my fondest dream.

I also think of the many times, over and over, when I chose solitude or introversion. This is just one place where I’ve been challenged before about the authenticity of how I represent myself, but when I reflect on the choices I’ve made, they show the truth I know about my instincts. I chose to live alone all but one of the years at college that I could choose. I also lived alone when I graduated, in a city away from almost all of my friends. I chose to write my thesis in a small and quiet carrel on the nerd-central floor of the library (with a beloved – and studious friend) not in the social group carrels downstairs. I never played team sports, choosing instead to run cross country, which I imagine must be the most isolated and singular sport of all. I return now, circuitously and slowly, but surely, to that most individual and lonesome task and dream of all: to write.

I do know myself, despite all of the murky facts, the input from the world, the mixed-up advice I’ve received. Confused, contradictory, complicated. Yes. But I am me, and I know it.

I am the only person who can tell the story of my life and say what it means. – Dorothy Allison

This post is part of Dian Reid’s Self-Evidence & Authenticity Challenge. Thank you, Dian, for being an inspiration and an example.