Have a great weekend.

I'm physically limited to 30-minute segments of writing. Turns out that when I sit and write for longer than that, my neck muscles get tired. This discomfort is my body's way of saying, "hey, get up, this head is too heavy to hold over the desk, move it back!"

Thirty minutes on, five minute break, then thirty minutes on again.

This is just another insult added to the injury of the inverse pulses of diminishing time and expanding limits. Just for the record, I'm not great with limits. They seem to come up at the most inconvenient times.

Today I'm thinking about Friday, when I appear to encounter the most resistance to limits. A lifetime of clocking into first the playground, then the school house and then the water cooler - the accepted program of "modern" life - a dance inherent with inequity and unnecessary tension?

If you think about it, there is no actual difference at all between the moments that begin Monday and the ones that commence Friday. Yet I'm so thoroughly programmed to the weekly clock that the words evoke completely different feelings. We even have a special prayer for the experience. T.G.I.F. anyone?

That's why writing about limits is logically a better topic for Monday than Friday.

But Friday is when the resistance comes up. (Resistance to limits could have been my middle name but there wasn't enough space on the birth certificate, so they went with Ann instead.)

Resisting the culturally accepted delusion of work time isn't easy. The whole monkey show is organized around this dance of days. I suppose it is more efficient to have everyone agree that Wednesday is the middle of the week rather than just letting each person decided what makes the most sense.

First of all, why seven days? And why'd we agree to working five or six and only having one left to ourselves? Where's the creativity in that? Not to mention all the things that are competing for the short end of the stick and in living terms are probably more important.

Apparently we agreed the whole thing centuries ago and who's going to question the Sumerians? "The only thing we seem to know for certain about the origin of the 7-day week is that we know nothing for certain." It seemed like a good idea at the time.

So, probably just to be certain that Louis the cheese maker would be around when we stopped in to buy some cheddar, we agreed to participate five or six days in the marketplace and reserve one day for gratitude and rest.

And in exchange Louis agreed to the deal to secure somewhere to tend his cows, eat left overs and keep track of his kid's growing pile of toys.

We've made some adjustments to the original terms since actually Louis worked way more hours every day than was healthy. When we invented the machinery of mass production, we needed to schedule work a bit more closely. And were led into the land of labor laws by our cousins across the pond. Thank the British.

Having glanced at the link, turns out that the 40 hour work week was a great relief! A gift!

Thank god we don't have to work all day and night.  But before you get too excited, read between the lines a little.

It turns out it's more expensive to replace trained workers who burn out at their stations, so breaking the work up into shifts was introduced. The machines can run around the clock and monkeys could survive if limits were imposed on their time in exchange for the guarantee of life long benefits.

We agreed to trading our lives for one day of rest to maximize productivity? Our reward a far off paradise called retirement? (Which I've checked out. It ain't pretty. There are a ton of old people and it's uncomfortably close to the nursing home.)

Is it any wonder as we're approaching the end of our weekly shift, the transition to "free" time approaches, and the resistance builds.

Inherent in our acceptance of this schedule is the agreement that one day is enough. Work six, rest one. (Anyone not working on Saturday? Think about it.) Get up and do it again.

And this realization, for one brief moment, comes washing in on the wave of relief at the conclusion of another hectic, maybe even brutal week.

I've agreed to exchange the entirety of my adult life for one day of rejuvenation per week?

On what planet does that make sense?


Maybe it isn't Friday that I'm resisting. Maybe it's the whole deal.

I'll have Sunday to rest up but right now I'm thinking I'll boycott Monday.

Have a great weekend and try not to think about it.

Some things are meant to be.

If the entire world is accessible from my computer by the sea, why would I ever leave? Or drive somewhere? Or get out of my daytime jammie clothes?

By eight a.m. this morning I've chatted with friends on two continents, checked out thirty or so discussion threads, gathered blog posts for later review, re-tweeted ten different posts, been quoted and grateful for the mention, offered emotional support for a gal pal and expressed concern for a family member's recovery from surgery.

The power to reach out and connect is growing exponentially. And not only with the people you already know and love. But the entire world is accessible from my home office.

This freaks me out in some regards. And in others I'm ecstatic.

Humbled and wondering, if I could connect with thousands of people, what would be the best possible thing to bring to the party?

Physical things are probably out, since just the logistics of the physical world require a big investment and certainly those pesky, basic math skills that I've never mastered.

Like all those questions of when and how many, how often, how fast and how heavy? The whole physical showing up goes to calculating space and time and I'm already on record about being math "challenged", and not by gender, thank you very much.

It has more to do with word problems, which never, ever, made the least bit of sense to me. I'd always get stuck on things like why was train leaving Chicago anyway? Was it winter? And did anyone remember to bring extra socks? And were the sweaters nubby wool, silk or cashmere?  Will we have lunch on the train or are we getting off to try a new cafe?

These kinds of things were never mentioned in the word problems, so is it any wonder that I just wasn't really interested in taking the whole physical showing up part along to the next level?

Okay, so I'm not bringing anything that involves the physical, which is okay, since network services probably won't support a cupcake protocol for a few more years.

Emotional? Too dicey if I'm connecting with thousands of people I've never met before. This is where my we're-not-jumping-around-on-the-Internet friends get freaked out about stalkers, slashers, posers, perverts and half-wits. And based on some of the nastier traits of monkeys, I can see their point.

Psychological? Well, here's a bit about that arena. It can come off sounding preachy and self-satisfied, like I've figured stuff out and am generously handing out the keys to a happy, healthy and wealthy life.

It's the quick fix. Here you are, life summed up in a tidy package with a bow and a free seminar for friends and family. The advertising usually has a number in it, like the three secrets of eternal bliss, the five ways you can finally be perfect, the eight keys to undoing a life time of sloth, bad habits and snarky attitudes.  You get the idea.

Not nearly close enough to the actually very messy process of living, for my tastes, much less the question of, if I'm so damn evolved, what am I doing attempting to connect with all these people by selling the answers to the quizzes?

Social?  Not really what I get excited about per se. I know there are people who are relentlessly scheduled to meet people all day every day and never miss a chance to go to the endless rounds of potlucks that inevitably seem to come up. Thanks, but I'm out of town that day?

I mostly just adore who I adore. And you know who you are. I'm not especially interested in connecting with the people I went to high school with just because we were in the same building. If I adored you then however, I still do. I'm still trying to find Wendy Quinn.

Feel free to friend me on Facebook. But don't bring that other kid who was not cool about ditching sixth period to smoke behind the gym.



This brings me back to connecting with the global village on my terms. Which tends to be the spiritual, philosophical, zen mindfulness continuum. Sort of "the answer is there is no answer" crowd.

And sure, there might be some cupcakes, half-wits and high school reunions along the way.

But on a day to day basis?  I'll continue to play the fool and rush right in.

Which brings me to the perfect gift to bring to those thousands of new connections, affectionately known as "tweeps".

Think about what you're bringing to the party while you hear it from the King.

The Dance of Love

This week a tiny clearing broke through the raucous thumping of creation. "Is anyone paying you to do this blogging thing?"  "No," I replied.  "Then, why are you doing it?"

Great question. Why am I doing this? Since all motivation comes down to either avoidance of pain or pursuit of pleasure, what is driving my behavior? I'm usually the last to know why I'm doing most things, so I looked at other bloggers to try and piece together some clues.

Honestly?

It appears there are as many reasons to do this as there are people doing it. Here's a link to a recent "Top 100" citing in the Times Online regarding the "blogscape" , if you are interested in Brian Appleyard's view on the genre. He's a professional journalist, so he's done an excellent job of researching the whole enchilada.

Recent guesstimates put the current number of blogs at over 200 million. Many of the posts about the growth of blogging appeared in 2005 and then died out. Just as many of the blogs did. Apparently blog mortality is a big issue.

I suspect the thrill over the printing press had a slightly longer honeymoon period.

For me there is the immediacy of seeing my words in a finished format. These words are not cleared by a committee, or approved by the legal department and beyond speller checker, lack formal editing.

This feels naughty, even writing it - I am completely unsupervised. Clearly at some point, that has to stop. Some part of me is waiting for the blog police to discover that I'm not qualified, licensed, certified or approved in any way to be just writing whatever I'm thinking about.

For heaven's sake, could I at least try and make money?

External acts that consistently deliver internal satisfaction - definition of a carrot on a stick, dangling in front of this donkey's nose. If I wanted a guarantee of something, blogging probably isn't the way to get it.

So the promise of fame and fortune on the outside take a backseat to a kind of internal stubborn streak. I practice three times a week because I can. Showing up, facing a blank screen, putting fingers to key board, refusing to take no for an answer. Typing along on my keyboard, there is nothing between me and the public except the acknowledgement that the posts may live forever.

Whoa. So that's kind of scary but also kind of thrilling.

Creating a foothold in cyber space with this freakishly direct medium is risky. Powerful socialization functions kicking in, my typing reflexively slows.

But hey, I endeavor to stifle myself every day in the name of good manners, so how real is the downside of acting out a bit here and there? Rather than succumb to the habit of hiding under a concrete veil of self criticism, I continue leaping into the creative fray.

Freedom, excitement, challenge, risk, set-backs, boredom, doubt, triumph, failure, exoneration, witness, advocacy, causation, liberation, art.

Looking at the process of creative expression, getting paid doesn't pop up. It is "supposed" to be worth money. If there is a socially acceptable reason to do anything it's selling.

Have a goal, a plan, an objective, for heaven's sake, at least an editorial calendar. Drive, do, produce, get money. Sigh.

Even writing that last little bit was torturous. Trust me. I know. Been there, done that. As a matter of fact, do NOT offer money as a reason to create. It stinks up the place.

If "a" then "b" isn't available, goal orientation slips away. Simply the clicking sound of the keys.

Freedom, joy, expression, monkey business. Entertainment. Fun.

There is it. Blogging is fun. Like some people would be skiing. Or sailing, exercising, reading, or playing the piano.

I'm thinking about it. Whatever it happens to be today. And if I wanted, I could tell you this blog is about triumphing over the inevitable smallness of any single life and reaching for immortality.

So, fun and death defying.

Oh, and love. Always about love.

Because in this little universe, as far as I can tell, there really is nothing else.

Blame it on the Bossa Nova.

What do you see?

Is it possible that being attention deficit is synonymous with a monkey brain on overload? My friends insist it's actually an apt description of modern life. With all the bits of flotsam and jetsam competing for my attention, is there any wonder each day seems like the aftermath of a tornado?

It remains a miracle that anything gets done, much less in a straight line. Seems that when I try to pay attention, I'm flung around by my thoughts, my ego, my senses, my environment, my duties, my values, my past, my future.... my, my, my!

You get the idea.  Then, somehow, I remember the point.

"The deepest principle in human nature is the craving to be appreciated", William_James.

And this makes me think about how we're living in a universe where, really, what you see is what you get.

Another way to think about this is the idea of a "holodeck".   Click here for more.

Basically this is a science fiction version of a magic mirror. And in the normal progression of things, science fiction becomes science fact, then common knowledge, and then no one is amazed anymore.

Try reading anything from the 16th century on humans flying to the moon.

So, the holodeck works around the principle of projection and delivers on the idea that what we see is exactly what we expect to see. 

This means that what we pay attention to is our reality. 

I'm thinking that this is a true statement. (Check out this link and follow the instructions if you'd like a startling demonstration from our friends in the psych lab.  What do you see? )

Eventually science squares up with common knowledge, and so cliches are also probably true.

This makes me think about appreciation and "what goes around, comes around." A popular expression that could point to a deeper meaning?

Holding the two ideas together, we see what we expect to see and what goes around comes around, might mean that our lessons are, in large measure, self created.

Of course the ability to consider creative responsibility for our lives is qualified by a baseline presence of a healthy mind. If a human is incapable of self reflection, emotional regulation or empathic response, they suffer from such instability as to be permanent creators of a living hell.

Most likely they will not be interested in appreciating others.

If you are related to one of these folks, you'll know what I'm talking about!

Otherwise, assuming you possess a somewhat intact mind, imagine for a second standing in front of a mirror and giving that person a righteous lecture on common courtesy.

What do you see? As your face contorts with indignation and hurt, what happens to the person in the mirror? Do they repeat your words of condemnation? Does their face begin to harden with defensive pain? Do they begin to take a poke or two at you?

Now, notice the effect of this harsh lecture and that in fact it is bouncing right back off the mirror into your own face.

Imagine now that you are smiling and appreciating the person in the mirror. What do you see? Try thanking that person for their gifts of gentleness and calm demeanor. Tell them a joke and see if they get your sense of humor and laugh. Do they enjoying spending time with you?

Chances are this experience could be easily applied to the world at large.

What you see is what you get.

When you are angry and defensive, guaranteed you'll experience mostly hostility and attacks. And every ensuing interaction justifies being fearful and aggressive. If you believe that "you're screwed", in fact, that is what you'll be creating!

The reverse is also true. When you are open and appreciative, what you'll experience is an infinitely loving creation.

What goes around comes around.

Consider spreading some appreciation around today. Start in the little mirror and move on to the bigger one when you're feeling ready. If you have a chance, appreciate someone who isn't expecting it. Feeling bold? Try genuinely appreciating someone who's being grumpy.

Silently appreciate someone who isn't ready to hear it.
Be amazed at how the universe reflects back exactly what you expect.

What do you see?

When the circus comes to town.

Having entered the Age of Rice Krispies - no matter what I have for breakfast every morning is snap, crackle and pop - I'm coming to appreciate a sense of perspective.

Doesn't mean that things just flow along like one big caramel macchiato, but my mental habits are beginning to emerge more clearly as my physical decline accelerates. And while I'm still young at heart, the rest of this bio mechanical bag of neurons is beginning to seize up with a predictable frequency.

On a side note, a friend who's reached the high side of forty, recently went doctor shopping for a diagnose of anything that would grant her a regular supply of stimulants. Her main complaints were that paperwork is tedious and she tired every afternoon.

If she's successful, I'll save you a spot in line.

Until then a change in perspective will have to suffice.

Aging is one of those topics where I notice that my mind and ego swing into a Cirque du Soleil routine that would make P.T.Barnum blush.

My mind applies its super power of time travel and routinely slides around the physical evidence, looking through the reflection in the mirror to a time when a much younger face appeared.

My ego slips into a warm, deep pool of denial, insisting that aging is happening to others and is convinced that actually we're dodging the entire process. Using these superpowers, this dynamic duo manage a perpetual stance of shock and surprise at the advancing territory of decay.

Is it any wonder that I covet a Mini Cooper to drive the clowns around town?

A big part of the fun of watching the circus is suspending disbelief. http://bit.ly/pBFI

In this suspended state, for an hour and change, we are transfixed by the performer's death defying feats of grace. They rush to the edge again and again, escaping gravity, time and space, defeating chaos and amazing us with their feats of physical beauty and strength.

They taunt death and win. When you think about it, what's not to love about this?

The mind and the ego are briefly grounded in their twin beliefs of immortality and specialness. We project ourselves into the performance and are relieved of the painful awareness of our mortal insignificance.

As my best friend would say, sign me up!

Noticing the circus that the mind and the ego are staging. The suspension of disbelief is undone and we fall back to this moment.

If you're interested in being here while you're here, you could practice noticing.

When the mind's circus comes to town, launching a drama filled trapeze act to distract from the present moment and the inevitable advance of your demise, you could practice noticing.

Following each inhalation, notice that neither the challenge nor the escape are true.

Neither fixated on adrenaline nor muffled in sleep walking.

The line between triumph and defeat fades.

Practice noticing and the circus music fades.

Gently, the elephants in the room sway. Empty, the trapeze hangs overhead.

No tall shiny boots or cracking whip. The ringmaster breathing in and out.

Sawdust drifting in a sun lit shaft of air.

Perilously fragile vessels

I was thinking about the amazing process of being born. Not from my perspective so much, as the woman who made it all possible - my mother. Technically, shouldn't every day be mother's?

Every monkey has a mother, of one shape or another. And making the choice to become a mother means letting go. Letting go of that identity before her child came. Of whoever she is before a tiny bit of life shines back at her and grunts the hungry sound. Or wails the wet or cold.

Interrupted by my shortened attention span. Shiny! Let's go outside, chat with the neighbors, watch HGTV, even practice my short game.

Wanting to do anything that is easier than writing about my mother.

Aren't there enough written words? Haven't all the great ones been taken? Looking for satisfaction in smaller and smaller things, I feel myself shrinking.

This is a good thing from my perspective. I'm as suspicious of self importance as I am of self deprecation. Whatever process puts the self in the center immediately brings to mind the ego.

Who do I think I am?

Love that question and could write about that for hours.

And that gets me neatly around what I do not want to write about.

My mother.

The cliche is true. Every woman in mid life endures looking in the mirror and sees her mother staring back at her. If the first half of my life was about reacting to my father's faults and challenges, does the second half need to be about my mother's?

Really, any activity - shopping, voluntary surgery, organizing the spice drawer, talking about your grandchildren, planning cruises, contemplating the universe, imagining health crises, avoiding holiday celebrations -  anything but writing about my mother.

I thought we were finished. All is forgiven.

She did the best she could with the hand she was dealt and had some wonderful characteristics that made her remarkable, gentle, amazing, lovable and endearing. So why isn't that the part that I remember?

Why do I only look back at this stranger's life and poke holes in her psyche? Could I ever really appreciate having English as a second language? Or living in a community where the Catholic church set the tone and tempo of my every waking moment?

Helen, her given name, told me frequently that she grew up in the moral equivalent of the Middle Ages.  Pisek was a reconstituted medieval Czechoslovakian village at the edge of North Dakota, not far from the Canadian border . She was born in 1917 to immigrant parents, the third child of eight.

Good news is they bathed in birth order, so the water wasn't completely gross and cold by the time she got there.

Her older brother began school not speaking a word of English. Fortunately, the one room school was run by a teacher who was bilingual in Czech.

The town revolved around the annual calendar of the church's feasts, saints, music and decisions were driven by the Catholic take on the Bible. Talk about fiction.

Whoa. My mom grew up in a cult.

And most of what appears below will only dance around these issues.

My grandmother Mary nearly died in the flu of 1918, which meant that my uncle and aunt and mom and her younger sister Margaret were cared for by the live-in "girl" who helped out with the household chores and cooking.

My mom had a nanny, but in her experience that was a bad thing, since she imagined that having her mother's attention would have been a much better deal. Having met my grandmother, I'm not so sure about that.

Ultimately grandmother survived the flu and went on to have four more sons. This was a big deal for my mom as her brothers were the "chosen" ones, as she was fond of reminding us. Men had special status in her cult, where Christ got top billing and Mary was more like an opening act for the big show.

I suppose I didn't encounter Grandma Mary under the best of circumstances, since it was later in her life and she didn't appear to be a very jolly person to begin with. We shared my room when she came to "help out" when mom was hospitalized.

Suffice to say I wasn't feeling particularly generous, had a new transistor radio and a defiant attitude towards the chaos around me. Of course how many eight year olds are interested in other people's problems?

This is the part of the story where I turn away.

My mother had issues. This isn't a surprise to me as an adult. It turns out that everyone does. I'm probably still attached to the story of who she was. And no matter how kind the words, the black and whiteness doesn't really serve itself up willingly to the page.

How can I characterize her experiences without just making things up from my side? Can I ever really know what was happening on the inside?

 "All of human experience is subjective and memory is a perilously fragile vessel for collective truth."  Mark Frost

There are only stories of events that were filtered by the simplicity of a child's understanding. Perhaps I'm entering the realm where fiction serves to speak on behalf of truths that are too painful to claim as my own?

Through fiction could I presume to open these doors and pretend that a yet unnamed character will sort out my mother's story?

Mother is gone some fifteen years next spring and she was never a great one for explanations anyway.

She'd been raised to accept what the church offered, and would repeat the truisms of her age and upbringing. This usually meant assigning blame to my father for whatever misfortunes she'd endured.

The immigrant history, martyr mother, lost child of eastern Europe, gifted musician of hymns exalting the life promised in heaven by a god who gave men a place of honor and women a place of servitude.

I suddenly understand why my sister is a poet. None of this territory easily lends itself to linearity.

All is forgiven.

My throat closes with unshed tears. Every story is based on fiction.

The perilously fragile vessel that was my mother.

Exhaling

I think I've earned a PhD. in "pushing the river". Naturally hard headed and raised to be a fighter, I've never been one to back down. Upon reflection however, what might be tenacity in some cases turns out to be just plain stubbornness in mine.

With the mind of a Rottweiler and the stature of a Chihuahua, I've specialized in starting fights I couldn't win.


Descended from aggressive, conquering, planet colonizing English stock, it isn't any surprise that our family anthem was "My Way."  http://bit.ly/14Cwxf    

At least on Dad's side of the family.

His ancestors emigrated from England in the early 1600's to stake claim to a paradise lacking only in British rules and rights.

The majority of people coming to the new world at that point were dreamers and fools, mostly destitute and fleeing either the tax man or the church, or both. Pretty much sums it up. The ones who survived were fighters.

Never surrender. Fight harder. Battle on to victory. Winners never quit and quitters never win. And for God and country's sake, don't be a "loser."

Is it any wonder that being a fighter is a compliment? Looking beyond my personal family cosmos, our culture constantly wages war in the market place, on playgrounds, in classrooms, bedrooms and court rooms, across game tables and continents.

The war of the sexes, the war on poverty, the war on obesity and we haven't even left our borders? The war on illegal immigration, the war on intellectual property rights, the war on drugs and the war on human trafficking. Oil wars, land wars, water wars and star wars.

Our wars are all about keeping score, winning and losing, triumph at any cost and avoiding defeat whenever possible. Depending on the stakes, we sanctify deadly force against our opponents or at least justify some serious prayers for it on any given Sunday.

When do we value cooperation? Where do we learn to collaborate? Within our families as a "team" against one another or against other families? Or do we band together with relatives in a dance to preserve our blood lines, consequences be damned for any one who gets in our way?

Is it any wonder we are ill at ease in the world? Our shoulders hunched, backs tightened against the raining blows, jaws jutting forward with determination and our heads pounding with the stress of modern combat.

We're fighting cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, killer flues from super bugs, air pollution, drought, inflation, deflation, stagflation - is is any wonder we've lost our sense of grace?

What if the way forward is through surrendering to what is happening?

Have you ever just sat with the actual events of your life and noticed that when you stopped fighting, things moved along anyway?

It never occurred to me that the river would flow without my pushing.

Yoga practice runs counter to life here in the West.

Surrendering to expand.

Letting go to move forward.

Releasing into experience.

Pioneers laying down.


Opening outward from the inside.

Revealing infinite frontier.

Exhaling.