I am in a restaurant, dining with friends, prior to us all attending the ballet. My eyes become mesmerized by, then squint and flicker with the table's overly bright hanging light. Suddenly there appears a spider like web of black strands in my left eye. Wearing mascara for the first time in years, I think I have gotten some of it in this eye. I brush and rub it lightly. The web remains. I eat and try to ignore my discomfort. Later sitting in our seats, awaiting the ballet performance to begin, I tell my husband about my eye. He encourages me to relax.
When I get home, I pour water in my eye and try to rinse the blackness out. Nothing works, and my anxiety-prone brain kicks in. I treasure my sight...doesn't everyone? But I mean I truly treasure my vision because I love seeing the tallness and greenness of trees, the expanse and blueness of the ocean, the faces of my family and friends, the shoots of flowers peeping through the earth telling me winter will pass. And I love words: both reading them and writing them. How can I describe where I would be without my sight?
I get through the night. My husband goes onto the Internet (our portable encyclopedia and general wonk machine) and we decide what is happening is a phenomenon called “Floaters.” Supposedly, the eye gets dry behind the lens and small fragments of matter can break loose and wander around in the eye. I don't want to be like my mother who in her later years did nothing but talk about her ailments and so I stuff my complaints and concerns. Will this thing last forever? I try to ignore what can't be ignored and decide I'll make an appointment with my optometrist first thing in the morning. Simultaneously, my mind starts going to: what can I learn from this experience?
My optometrist thinks I have been in a fairy world, because I have never heard of “floaters” before. I tell him this makes me feel old, for it is said floaters can be connected to the “aging” of the eyes. But he assures me that every month people in their thirties and forties come in with these concerns, and this benign artistic eye patch usually works itself out in a matter of weeks.
After my exam, I begin to breathe again, and walk down the street wearing sunglasses to temper my blurry, dilated vision. Even with shades on, the world is clearer and brighter and more colorful. With each step, I mumble a repetitive mantra, reminding myself to give thanks for my daily living and seeing. I am in a fog as I teach my students and focus/listen more to what they say. Especially as we humans age, there is always a tendency to become self-absorbed with the “problems” or “obstacles” given and though I only mention my floaters to one student and her grandmother, I intuitively know there are a thousand lessons of “insight” coming my way.
The grandmother tells me about her macular degeneration and my student, whose mother translates books into braille for the blind, tells me about a young elementary kid who is losing his ability to see colors. We nod and acknowledge how difficult it would be to live in a colorless world.
Over the next few weeks I shy away from my usual voracious reading and writing. Am I being encouraged to turn my vision from the outer to the inner realms? To rest my eyes from their narrow outward viewing?
What I have been noticing with my blocked vision is this: everyone appears to be here with a passion or a reason...to draw, to write, to dance, to sing, to mother, to teach, to repair, to create, to be of service. Of course, many of us have a number of these reasons for being. But sometimes we forget these passions/reasons, or at least we think we forget: we stumble, we fall and we scrape ourselves trying to scramble back up to the mountain top where the panorama encompasses our whole world and we finally know what we are supposed be doing.
I have been stumbling. I tend to stumble a lot, of late. I have been allowing the past to pull me backwards for far too long. Once upon a time I was a mother, and my mothering seemed like enough of a reason for being. But it's finally becoming clear to me that this was only a stepping stone. If I have this tendency to melodramatically (for I am a Leo after all) look into a sad, daughterless future, then I must remind myself how the future is only my imaginings and hasn't happened and needed happen so.
I find that when I focus my eyes in a certain way, the floaters disappear. And then I can see clearly what's in front of me. This present, this near vision is all I have to worry about. Each pearl of clarity brings me closer to the object I am trying to see and allows me to understand what my world is all about. These pearls are all that matter...not the past, not the future. Sometimes it is best not to see too much all at once. Sometimes it's best to close and rest one's eyes, to cuddle under the covers of darkness and to simply be with one self and to understand as Virginia Woolf did, that these given insights, “moments of being” are enough.
© 2012
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
From My Journal: Love Rules
February 10, 2012: My teen mom had “Baby Bentley” this week. I find this student to be a sweet, soulful and extremely vulnerable young woman. Naturally, when I heard of Bentley's arrival, I relished this new beginning of life, yet wondered what sort of childhood he will have. Like her own mother, my teen will be a single mom trying to make it in a world that does not especially embrace those below the hetero/family normal.
She has her mom, she has her grandparents, she has a home teacher and she has a high school ready to support her progress towards graduation. The positive of her pregnancy is that it has motivated this bright youth to put more energy into her school work. I am never sure why it takes the radical act of having a baby to nudge these drifting, at-risk adolescents towards a better education.
These teen births always bring up memories of my own daughter's birth and swift passage through childhood. A sweet pain hits my belly as I am reminded of how so many of my life passages have come and gone. I also flash forward to my Queer adult daughter who every day has to hear or see a critical allusion to why her fundamental identity, who she is, is wrong. If I want an earful of unsubstantiated statements and naïve stereotypes, all I have to do is listen to the the Republican Primary candidates. Thank goodness I can tune them out.
But a prime example of what my daughter lives through comes from a controversy closer to home. Her part-time, college supporting employment is with J.C. Penney's. They have been revamping their ad campaign, getting rid of coupons and continual “sales.” There has been one T.V. spot I absolutely love: women are screaming as they tear up expired coupons, realize they have missed sales deadlines, etc. I e-mailed my daughter that no doubt as a customer service rep she too has felt like screaming. When JCP chose Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson, I was ecstatic. I thought my daughter would be pleased, but she is a “younger Lesbian” who forgets how much Ellen has and is doing for LGBTQ causes and is colored by what she might dub, Ellen's “merely another celebrity” status.
My daughter is not “out” where she works. She does not actively hide who she is, but in all phases of her existence must she shout her difference? And who is it that labels her as different? And why? But I'm getting off the track. I love Ellen. I don't watch her daily show, but I love that she speaks freely about her marriage to Portia, her continual fight for marriage equality and non-discrimination for LGBTQ. The public glimpses of her personal life are to me statements about how similar all families and loving partnerships are. The supportive tide of marriage equality and LGBTQ rights is rising, but the haters are hanging on. With Ellen's JCP spokespersonship has come the Internet founding of a group calling themselves, “The Million Moms.” These moms are rallying to criticize JCP for their choice of Ellen, saying JCP has lost sight of their “traditional values” and urging people not to shop there.
I would not have been aware of this controversy if my daughter hadn't sent me a video clip from The Ellen Show. I'm continually scouting for good LGBTQ news to e-mail my daughter and this week is off to a running start: California's Proposition 8 (anti-marriage equality) has been declared unconstitutional and the state legislature of Washington voted to approve same-sex marriage. In response to my good news, my daughter forwarded me Ellen's public statement to her JCP critics. Ellen spoke with humor and honesty and the tears started streaming down my face (again). JCP is not backing down, and on the Million Moms' Facebook page, replies are flowing in such as “I guess I'll have to shop at JCP now.” My daughter wrote how she feels better working at a place that isn't caving in to such discrimination. And her mother feels better too.
So it's been an eventful week of birth and hope, tears and concern, where I find myself shouting out to my daughter and to others who might listen that love rules! At the end of her talk, Ellen describes herself as honest and compassionate and loving. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all humans were raised to be so, and all babies could grow up in a world of pure love without a thought to race, creed, gender or sexual orientation? Long ago as we formed America's innovative new government, weren't there words written down with the above in mind?
© 2012
She has her mom, she has her grandparents, she has a home teacher and she has a high school ready to support her progress towards graduation. The positive of her pregnancy is that it has motivated this bright youth to put more energy into her school work. I am never sure why it takes the radical act of having a baby to nudge these drifting, at-risk adolescents towards a better education.
These teen births always bring up memories of my own daughter's birth and swift passage through childhood. A sweet pain hits my belly as I am reminded of how so many of my life passages have come and gone. I also flash forward to my Queer adult daughter who every day has to hear or see a critical allusion to why her fundamental identity, who she is, is wrong. If I want an earful of unsubstantiated statements and naïve stereotypes, all I have to do is listen to the the Republican Primary candidates. Thank goodness I can tune them out.
But a prime example of what my daughter lives through comes from a controversy closer to home. Her part-time, college supporting employment is with J.C. Penney's. They have been revamping their ad campaign, getting rid of coupons and continual “sales.” There has been one T.V. spot I absolutely love: women are screaming as they tear up expired coupons, realize they have missed sales deadlines, etc. I e-mailed my daughter that no doubt as a customer service rep she too has felt like screaming. When JCP chose Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson, I was ecstatic. I thought my daughter would be pleased, but she is a “younger Lesbian” who forgets how much Ellen has and is doing for LGBTQ causes and is colored by what she might dub, Ellen's “merely another celebrity” status.
My daughter is not “out” where she works. She does not actively hide who she is, but in all phases of her existence must she shout her difference? And who is it that labels her as different? And why? But I'm getting off the track. I love Ellen. I don't watch her daily show, but I love that she speaks freely about her marriage to Portia, her continual fight for marriage equality and non-discrimination for LGBTQ. The public glimpses of her personal life are to me statements about how similar all families and loving partnerships are. The supportive tide of marriage equality and LGBTQ rights is rising, but the haters are hanging on. With Ellen's JCP spokespersonship has come the Internet founding of a group calling themselves, “The Million Moms.” These moms are rallying to criticize JCP for their choice of Ellen, saying JCP has lost sight of their “traditional values” and urging people not to shop there.
I would not have been aware of this controversy if my daughter hadn't sent me a video clip from The Ellen Show. I'm continually scouting for good LGBTQ news to e-mail my daughter and this week is off to a running start: California's Proposition 8 (anti-marriage equality) has been declared unconstitutional and the state legislature of Washington voted to approve same-sex marriage. In response to my good news, my daughter forwarded me Ellen's public statement to her JCP critics. Ellen spoke with humor and honesty and the tears started streaming down my face (again). JCP is not backing down, and on the Million Moms' Facebook page, replies are flowing in such as “I guess I'll have to shop at JCP now.” My daughter wrote how she feels better working at a place that isn't caving in to such discrimination. And her mother feels better too.
So it's been an eventful week of birth and hope, tears and concern, where I find myself shouting out to my daughter and to others who might listen that love rules! At the end of her talk, Ellen describes herself as honest and compassionate and loving. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all humans were raised to be so, and all babies could grow up in a world of pure love without a thought to race, creed, gender or sexual orientation? Long ago as we formed America's innovative new government, weren't there words written down with the above in mind?
© 2012
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
What Lasts
Time waits for no one and flows past us like a rushing river. I look back on my sixty four years and wonder where all the decades went: my dysfunctional childhood, my agonizing youth, my blindly adventurous twenties, my blessed partnership, parent sharing and empty nest revitalization with my partner. This winter seems darker as I try to decipher what positive elements of our human existence outlast and endure the ever widening chasm of humanity's leap towards the earth's destruction. I don't mean to sound bleak, but perhaps the past months' cold, wet gloom has seeped inside my bones and gnawed away at the usual warmth of my heart.
But rather than swim in this frigidity of my mind, I decided to attend a series of seminars at the university. It was during one such seminar on how to listen to the music of J.S. Bach that I found a thawing, and a brighter light. The musicologist professor and cellist is originally from Belgium and has the European pedagogical gift of knowing five languages and being his subject area's walking encyclopedia. Every Saturday morning, I sat in the front row and soaked him in. For, in addition to the musical and academic knowledge he was imparting, what was really going on for me was beyond music theory and history; it was my answer to what rises to the top of our human existential cream and what has lasted and will last past our mortality.
On one of these Saturday mornings, as we were about to study Bach's organ music, several students started asking questions about the properties and origin of the instrument itself. Surprisingly, the organ, even though one of the most complicated instruments, has a long, influential history going all the way back to the time of the Greeks. It predates the piano by centuries. The professor's eyes glistened and his face glowed as he proceeded to expound upon what I gathered was one of his favorite topics. After showing us a series of slides from a recent tour of original and restored 16th/17th century organs in Germany, he mentioned how Bach had repaired and tuned many European organs; that these Bach-tuned and German/Dutch-made organs have thrived for centuries. As he described a Brombaugh organ residing at Eugene's Central Lutheran Church, I intuited these instruments and their music were tangible evidence of lasting human value.
Organs were originally built by monks, and it wasn't until the 15th century that organ building became a profession. John Brombaugh, a noted American organ builder, was commissioned by the Eugene's Central Lutheran congregation to build their organ back in 1973. The organ's entire construction took place in Brombaugh's Germantown, Ohio shop, taking him and his twelve assistants over a year (15,000 hours) to build. What impressed me, from the myriad facts the professor presented, was that the white oak used for the organ's main pipes and casings had to be aged for eighty years. Quality preservation and longevity requires patience! The renowned, recently deceased, organist Gustav Lionhardt stated that the Central Lutheran Church organ is the finest on this continent, and barring a bombing, would easily endure to 2500.
What else, besides the countless faces of music, popped up on my journey to find what will outlast our too-short lives? I am a home teacher working with school district students who for one reason or another cannot attend public school. During a recent home session, the student's mother and I got to talking about family memories and history. She quickly thumbed through a nearby bookcase and brought over to the dining table an album with some ancestral photos taken over fifty years ago. These black and white photos told of proud working class farmers, ranchers and loggers from Oregon's back country. They were (of circumstance and necessity) simple folk who put in a solid day's work, and held family in the highest of esteem.
Studying these photos, I thought about how this city family had chosen the same values as their ancestors: They had built a chicken coop in their backyard, had small raised vegetable beds on the side of their front driveway, baked from scratch, and put their children first. I enjoy working with the teenager from this “urban farm family” even though the family's conservative faith ultimately contradicts my own belief in equality for same-sex couples and families. Staring at the faded photos, I knew that beyond our individual bias is a core connection of similarity that lasts.
Every day, I walk into homes from all socioeconomic strata and from a wide range of faiths, and what will always be important is this connection to family and love. What ultimately lasts is being here on this earth at this time and trying to carve out whatever meaning and beauty we humans can.
After our intense discussion on the origins of the organ and J.S. Bach's prominent place in the survival of organ music, the professor noted: “Nothing has replaced the instrument of the human ears.” This statement pushed me into an even deeper revery. What was he talking about? That music could never have been a possibility without the ears hearing the notes, hearing the rhythms and beats? Also, my inner English major ruminated, without words and written language, the notes might not have made it to the page to be preserved for generations to come. Is it language that lasts? But isn't love and family an intangible feeling that doesn't have to use words? But I fear I am getting caught up in a spiral and if I follow its twists and turns, then I will lose my way. My present clarity is this: what lasts is the need for humans to create both that which concretely endures, like music and musical instruments, and that which is intangible and hard to concretely confine, such as love and family. This love, this sharing, this creation of music, art, literature is what I hope will counterbalance our often-times horrendous, violent deteriorating humanscape.
© 2012
But rather than swim in this frigidity of my mind, I decided to attend a series of seminars at the university. It was during one such seminar on how to listen to the music of J.S. Bach that I found a thawing, and a brighter light. The musicologist professor and cellist is originally from Belgium and has the European pedagogical gift of knowing five languages and being his subject area's walking encyclopedia. Every Saturday morning, I sat in the front row and soaked him in. For, in addition to the musical and academic knowledge he was imparting, what was really going on for me was beyond music theory and history; it was my answer to what rises to the top of our human existential cream and what has lasted and will last past our mortality.
On one of these Saturday mornings, as we were about to study Bach's organ music, several students started asking questions about the properties and origin of the instrument itself. Surprisingly, the organ, even though one of the most complicated instruments, has a long, influential history going all the way back to the time of the Greeks. It predates the piano by centuries. The professor's eyes glistened and his face glowed as he proceeded to expound upon what I gathered was one of his favorite topics. After showing us a series of slides from a recent tour of original and restored 16th/17th century organs in Germany, he mentioned how Bach had repaired and tuned many European organs; that these Bach-tuned and German/Dutch-made organs have thrived for centuries. As he described a Brombaugh organ residing at Eugene's Central Lutheran Church, I intuited these instruments and their music were tangible evidence of lasting human value.
Organs were originally built by monks, and it wasn't until the 15th century that organ building became a profession. John Brombaugh, a noted American organ builder, was commissioned by the Eugene's Central Lutheran congregation to build their organ back in 1973. The organ's entire construction took place in Brombaugh's Germantown, Ohio shop, taking him and his twelve assistants over a year (15,000 hours) to build. What impressed me, from the myriad facts the professor presented, was that the white oak used for the organ's main pipes and casings had to be aged for eighty years. Quality preservation and longevity requires patience! The renowned, recently deceased, organist Gustav Lionhardt stated that the Central Lutheran Church organ is the finest on this continent, and barring a bombing, would easily endure to 2500.
What else, besides the countless faces of music, popped up on my journey to find what will outlast our too-short lives? I am a home teacher working with school district students who for one reason or another cannot attend public school. During a recent home session, the student's mother and I got to talking about family memories and history. She quickly thumbed through a nearby bookcase and brought over to the dining table an album with some ancestral photos taken over fifty years ago. These black and white photos told of proud working class farmers, ranchers and loggers from Oregon's back country. They were (of circumstance and necessity) simple folk who put in a solid day's work, and held family in the highest of esteem.
Studying these photos, I thought about how this city family had chosen the same values as their ancestors: They had built a chicken coop in their backyard, had small raised vegetable beds on the side of their front driveway, baked from scratch, and put their children first. I enjoy working with the teenager from this “urban farm family” even though the family's conservative faith ultimately contradicts my own belief in equality for same-sex couples and families. Staring at the faded photos, I knew that beyond our individual bias is a core connection of similarity that lasts.
Every day, I walk into homes from all socioeconomic strata and from a wide range of faiths, and what will always be important is this connection to family and love. What ultimately lasts is being here on this earth at this time and trying to carve out whatever meaning and beauty we humans can.
After our intense discussion on the origins of the organ and J.S. Bach's prominent place in the survival of organ music, the professor noted: “Nothing has replaced the instrument of the human ears.” This statement pushed me into an even deeper revery. What was he talking about? That music could never have been a possibility without the ears hearing the notes, hearing the rhythms and beats? Also, my inner English major ruminated, without words and written language, the notes might not have made it to the page to be preserved for generations to come. Is it language that lasts? But isn't love and family an intangible feeling that doesn't have to use words? But I fear I am getting caught up in a spiral and if I follow its twists and turns, then I will lose my way. My present clarity is this: what lasts is the need for humans to create both that which concretely endures, like music and musical instruments, and that which is intangible and hard to concretely confine, such as love and family. This love, this sharing, this creation of music, art, literature is what I hope will counterbalance our often-times horrendous, violent deteriorating humanscape.
© 2012
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