SuspendedAnimation

In which our heroine lays down some crazy-ass wisdom

Change your attitude, but remain natural.

As usual, I was having lunch with the Jo. While pretending to be enthusiastic about the mediocre fare at the nicotine-soaked pub-esque restaurant (and unsuccessfully attempting to hide my smuggled-in outside food behind a ketchup bottle), we were deliberating on the phenom of magical thinking.

We're both magical thinking veterans--experts in the art of thwarting Dame Fortuna's insidious designs to rob us of our joys and throw poop in our laps.

DA RULES

• If you think that you perhaps might attain the Object Of Desire/Love/Energy (OODLE), denied!


• If you pretend to be certain that you will never attain OODLE, and then OODLE is denied, probably it's because you were thinking, on the sly, that maybe you might attain OODLE. We're on to you, buster!


• Molasses Swamp. Wait for a blue card.


• If you really truly promise that you will never believe that OODLE will ever happen, and it doesn't, you won't be disappointed. I'm only keeeding!!

In fact the Jo has written about this very topic with great wit and finesse in blogdays past.

Magical thinking--it's like so last week. We're smarter than that. But it's not about smart. You always have to think of new ways to undo this essence-sucking force that seductively whispers that if you promise to never enjoy your life, you won't be punished. So we were brainstorming it.

Jo: I try not to play it, but then I catch myself ...
Me: Well instead of trying not to ... maybe just notice it.
Jo: Yeah ...
Me: But then, instead of slamming yourself when you notice it, it's like, "Oh--silly girl!" but in a nice way. [Blinding flash of insight] Like, imagine it's your beloved child picking her nose!

Kind readers, this is as dharmic as I get.

Mauled

Or, How to be the world's worst daughter in several short lessons

Drive all blames into one

What kind of mother raises three--count 'em!--daughters who, with months' advance warning, all neglect to devise a plan for a retirement gift--thus necessitating a last-minute scrum and furtive trip to a dreadful, dreadful mall on the very day of her retirement party?

She may well be an incredibly accomplished senior executive of a rather large healthcare provider; and it's certainly true that she dramatically expanded desperately needed services to a vulnerable community of aged people and their grateful families over a sixteen year period; but really--she could have instilled in us more sensitivity and foresight.

On the brighter side, we're all capable of experiencing crushing guilt when we inevitably fuck up badly.

I may have plenty of personal defects, but I have enough personal integrity to admit that I do not, as a rule, loathe malls. I am perfectly capable of enjoying a mall, and it doesn't even have to be a really nice one. Particularly if it has a KarmelKorn or Chik-fil-A, I am so there.

But we were not on a girltime pleasure jaunt, nor were we, in spite of our gift-giving intentions, really on God's errand. We were trying to figure out how to make a terribly hastily-conceived gift look like an inventive, generous outpouring of thoughtfulness and affection. The affection was real, but so was the overwhelming weight of angst and self-blaming for having got into this predicament in the first place.

We had all converged the previous day at my mother's house in anticipation of the big retirement party to be held at her former workplace; my little family unit had arrived late, mid-evening, and then all had retired to their separate corners. The next day, some 6 hours before the party was scheduled, the sisters three, chagrined at their negligence, hastily conferred on options, and came up with the pretty good idea of getting a dharmic book on "right livelihood" (my mom is planning to keep working as a consultant in retirement); in addition, I was inspired, in that admittedly pressure-cooked moment, by what seemed at the time an ingenious idea of getting her a new cordless phone, to replace the exceedingly shitty one that she often complained about. We waffled about this for a moment or two, and then decided that it was an okay idea, though offbeat. Yeah. Okay.

So, 2 of 3 headed to the mall, and it wasn't fun. The book part went well--one of the 2 we got was this one, which is a very good choice for my mom. We got another, more practical one on starting home-based work.

Then we looked at phones, and realized what a horrible, dumb-ass idea that was. Possibly my worst idea, ever ever ever. There we stood, in Radio Shack, looking at the ugly, ugly, boring phones with their white and black and metallic finishes, while I mused on the depth and breadth of my own idiocy, having suggested to my sisters that we get a cordless phone for our sentimental mother as a retirement gift.

The next hour was kind of a blur to me, as my sister and I scrambled frantically about this mall, which was becoming to my fevered imagination a sort of jellyfish-infested sea of nasty shops with toxic wares. We finally settled on some trinkets from the Aveda store, and hustled back to my mom's house with nothing more eventful than another jilbur anxiety attack intervening.

Insult to injury: everyone but sister 3, in the know, imagined that we had escaped for an unreasonably long sistertime spree, and assumed that we had gone to a much-beloved local 'dairy bar' (grill) for their famous cheeseburgers, which I had in fact desperately wanted to do; on the contrary, we had gagged down some downright vile foodcourt fare, though we might have had Stride-Rite takeout for all the attention I was able to give the victuals. Worse, my mom was in the throes of her own anxiety about the event--since she generally doesn't enjoy the sort of thing--and probably our prolonged absence aggravated her mood.

Nonetheless, the party went off as planned; and with the exception of the viciously imaginative kosher fare, it was brought off rather well I think. It was a little freakish, after her long career that I only experienced indirectly, to get the perspective of all these folks who so honored her and could speak so eloquently of her accomplishments and all she had meant to so many people. She gave a pretty good speech, herself.

I think she liked the books, anyway.

Follow the bouncing ball

Seeing confusion as the four kayas is insurpassable shunyata protection

dharmakaya : the essential space from which everything arises--in other words, experiences feel thick, sticky, complicated, but in fact there is ventilation, there is space, but you have to remove a bit to perceive it.

sambhogakaya : we wrongly think that space means emptiness, in the conventional way, but actually it's quite vivid: full of color, vibrance, energy.

nirmanakaya : stuff actually exists--emptiness doesn't mean that what we experience as reality is a delusion. It's not that it doesn't exist--it just doesn't mean what we perceive it to mean, generally.

svabhavikakaya : the previous three kayas are not really separate--they're intertwined to form our complete experience.

Nevertheless, we are quite jumpy around here. Superhusbandman is back, and feeling conflicted: some moments certain that academe is ultimately the right place, other times shrinking from the uncertainties of what really will be a big change in work culture; sometimes running like a bat outta hell strategically moving towards a transition from his current position; other times wussing out considering that maybe that's not a prudent choice.

Had a bit of an anxiety attack driving the jellybean home from school today. I don't want to trivialize how a real anxiety attack must feel--I didn't have chest pain or feel certain that I was about to die of a stroke or anything--but it definitely was a panicky, separated feeling; and apart from the generality of circumstances, there was nothing present to occasion a fight-or-flight response at that moment. I just was looking at houses, trees, telephone poles, thinking: Nothing to be afraid of here. In this very moment, all is well. There is nothing to lose or to win. Was I successful? In these terms, there is no success or failure, either.

We could find out whether there's an offer within days, or it could be a month. Or it could be more.

What's the big deal? Whether you stay or go, the essentials of your life continue with variation, but it's just a different flavor--it's not intrinsically good or bad.

Don't wallow in self-pity

So first, let me say that I am ambivalent about whether blogs--my blog specifically--orter be entertaining. Worth reading--and worth writing--absolutely. And any photon of sunshine I can bring to a reader's idle moments, well that's mighty gratifying. I admit I was surprised at how quickly I became absorbed with observing the ebb and flow of web traffic, and how seductive the 'look at me' self-disclosure element of the blog can be. But I'm hoping every so often to get something substantial worked out here too.

So, before I started, it had occurred to me that I could use the lojong slogans (dear reader, the link is displayed to your left--but pray don't click until you're done here because I haven't figured out how to make my links default to target=blank) as an ignition tool for writing, on occasion. The slogans are the product of an obscure figure in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, and one of the dharma writers I read a lot, Pema Chodron, has used them in her teaching. Hey, they work for me. But--I don't know if I can write entertainingly with them.

Many of them have a certain gentle humor to them, though. Like these:
Don't expect applause.
Don't try to be the fastest.
Don't be so predictable.
or, today's choice,
Don't wallow in self-pity.

If you're wondering whether all the slogans begin with "Don't"--they don't.

So let's cut to the self-pity.

Today, into tomorrow, SuperHusbandMan is on his job interview for a faculty position at Big Southeastern U, and it's this potential future transition that has unleashed in me a furious rush of multicolored mood swings. Self-pity, though, is a standout, and 'wallowing' is a rather restrained choice of words to describe my relationship to that attitude. I am utterly captivated by my own situation, even while recognizing that it's not especially compelling. To me, as I sit transfixed by the reflecting pool contemplating the gorgeous complexity of my inner world, the possibility that we'll be moving to an area I know not of, where those I know not reside, is just overwhelming.

The amusing thing is that I'm actually a restless, change-addict type of gal, so you'd think I'd be on this like white on rice. Instead I've been having flashbacks on stuff I'd forgotten was traumatic from the last time I pulled a switch like this. But I do recognize that this is pretty commonplace stuff--not especially special. Not uniquely special. How many redundancies can I cram into expressing this?

I'm not in this alone. There must be literally millions of families relocating this year.
Is that why there is an instruction: "Don't wallow in self-pity"? Because I should get a real problem--I should just suck it up?

No, I don't think that's what the slogan is about.
It might be something like the distinction made in dharma between compassion, and idiot compassion. They say that acting with skillful means requires compassion, but compassion is not enough--you need prajna, which is a kind of knife-sharp discerning intelligence, to use your compassion properly. One example of 'idiot compassion' is what 7-step people have made famous as 'enabling.'

I must be imagining that I'm lovin' myself up when I'm wallowing ... but really, imagining that I'm unfortunate doesn't ease my suffering. Just as good a slogan for the situation would be another of my blog categories: 'chaos should be considered extremely good news.' Being thrown off balance cuts me closer to my core, ultimately helps me shed some dead layers.

I really have no idea why the phrase 'shake and bake' comes to mind at this juncture, but it may be a sign that I orter go to sleep.

becoming a refugee

Regard all dharmas as dreams
I have been very in touch with loneliness for the past couple of days. Not feeling friendless or isolated or lacking in something that could actually be named; just fundamental loneliness.

This is the loneliness I think many women feel at some point in labor (well, I did), when you notice that, irrespective of how supported you may feel, somehow you are the only one in the room who is in labor.

Most times in my life, I pretty much run screaming from it. Compulsive telephoning is but one manifestation. But fundamental loneliness comes with you. It's true that you can distract yourself from it, but that only increases the sense of 'a problem' underlying.

This time I'm experimenting with making friends with loneliness. It's the only companion I can be 100% sure of through life, and once you realize that it doesn't mean that something is 'wrong', it's a bit easier to relax into it.

A sh*tty attitude as an art form

Always meditate on whatever provokes resentment.
Today I haven't the slightest interest in being wise, or gracious, or patient, or optimistic. Why act in my own best interest, when I have an entire lifetime of spiting myself to live up to? If I had a dozen noses, by now I'd still have nothing but a hole in the middle of my face.

Here is a sample list of all the things I had managed to forget:

fact: until about 6 months ago I had no good grrrlfriends within easy driving distance for about six years;

fact: if we're cursed again with having our every wish granted, not only will I likely be stuck in an utterly alien and friendless place, but possibly with an infant in tow, for good measure;

fact: this time, whatever we get, it's probably what we're sticking with, for a long, long time.

Did I mention that we're doing all this on purpose? This is pretty well a replay of 1998, when my dh and I had this brilliant idea: Hey, how 'bout as soon as jilbur passes her qualifying exam, we go ahead and have a baby. Then SuperHusbandMan can finish his Ph.D. thesis over the course of that year, and get a job, we'll move, and then jilbur will write her dissertation, uh, when the baby is napping, that's it! Yeah, 350 miles from her department, advisors, library resources--no biggie!

Well, the result was predictably ... unsatisfactory in a number of ways (not all ways). We sorted it out eventually--but not before a substantial episode of the clinical depression variety intervened.

Flash forward 6 years. This time, I at least won't have some kind of enormous project in front of me ... but the basic outline is about the same. SuperHusbandMan (just in case anyone thinks I'm being facetious, he really is a mighty groovy guy) is making the big job transition; we're somehow envisioning a baby in the now-on-the-cusp-of-40 mix, but we have to move from the 'vision thing' to the, umm, less contemplative activity involved; and some kind of relocation will be happening. This time we have JellyBean as a more seasoned fellow traveller, and that ought to change the flavor considerably.