From: Me, To: You, Re: Thanks

“Parents are people, people with children.”
—Harry Belafonte & Marlo Thomas

They always taught me to speak up.
They always said — probably they didn’t even say, it was so obvious that it needed not even to be said — that my voice was worth hearing in the wider world. That I — smart, funny, interesting, well-read — had the tools to create and think, that I had the right and responsibility to exist in public, to speak my mind, to push back in public discourse against those ideas which I thought were wrong-headed, ill-considered or damaging.

It is essential to recover the fundamental ways in which these two people (the same people who bought me the Marlo Thomas record “Free to be You and Me”) taught me to be who I am, in which they REQUIRED it, in which they reveled in my original, thoughtful, active self.

It is essential because I could spend four incalculable eons listing the ways they wanted me to behave which I resisted, ignored, rejected. Maybe the list starts with wearing skirts to church, maybe with some other troublesome thing. Conflicting notions of female desirability without sexuality, perplexing ideas of humans as grasping, flawed and sinful, ideas about pushing yourself even when it doesn’t feel good in the name of commitment.

But these pieces don’t need to be centered today.

The basic truths about my right to be in the world (vocally, publicly and honestly) are direct hand-offs from my parents. I cultivated them, like bonsai, making adjustments for the ways I think it’s important to walk through the world.

For instance, it’s important not only to speak out against things that you believe are unfair, unkind, or unreasonable, but to speak for the things that are dear to your heart — to speak for love and understanding, to speak for people and families who need help, to speak for a higher way of existing in this world, which is so often lived moment-to-moment in a flurry of digitized, consumerized activity.

As a wise woman at UU church said today, there comes a time when you must negotiate a new relationship with the people who raised you: Part of this relationship is that they treat you like a grown-up. The other part is that you get to treat them as people.

I love this idea. Just people, who are allowed to be flawed, who come through when they can, who do care, who may not have given you everything you needed to get by, who may have left you floundering when you could have used a voice of wisdom because they had complicated stuff of their own to deal with.

When I acknowledge the beauty in the basic lessons they taught me, we cannot be enemies. We are at work on the same project. Yes, it’s complicated. Still, the colors are bright — even shadow is usually layered with color if you look. I think my growing understanding of the beautiful things of which I am capable, of which humans are capable if we can find a way past entrenched cultural barriers and our own resistance, is coupled with increased peace with failure, mine and other people’s.

Thank you and namaste. Thank you for being willing to teach me. Thank you for failing and succeeding. I continue your tradition, I work, I love, I fail and I succeed.

“Not to acknowledge any favor is a sign of ignorance.
The knowledge of the Truth and cognizance of God is but to give each man his due.”
—M. Shabistari, “Garden of Mystery”

Love and oatmeal

“Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.” — Marge Piercy

I think a lot about how to love people. What does love look like? How can I best love people, acknowledging their dignity and difference from me? How can I extend that kind, empowering love to my own self?
When I think of treating people with respect and love, no strings attached, I think of my friend R.
R. is abnormally gifted at loving people even when they don’t give her what she wants, when they are demanding or boring, when they don’t make sense or are lazy. She offers friends a love that makes me think of oatmeal (the kind with cinnamon and honey). It’s nourishing and substantive. It’s not particularly fancy — it is homey, warm and full of good humor. She doesn’t have any complicated requirements about how you have to act in order to deserve it, either. There’s no oatmeal-exchange agreement you have to sign, no proof that you’ll return this love in kind. Her friendship is welcoming. I learn, slowly, how to take part in this warm and bracing exchange. 
In the winter in New England, we're forced to move a little bit more slowly. There's ice, and weather that resists your efforts to be out and about. The time we spend inside with warm food is sacred. Warm oatmeal turns into an event, a ritual, a joy. When it's bitterly cold outside, when the wind is blowing every well-defined thought out of my head, I'm thankful for R, who offers me a space of peace, acceptance and warmth.

On the Bus

Coming home from work exhausted, dizzy from the noisy, creaking city bus, I look up from the book in my lap and see a boy and his father. They both wear baggy jeans and sweatshirts, they are the color of au lait coffees. They sit next to each other on the bus.

Soon, the boy's father stretches out and rests his head in his son's lap. The boy curls over his father's shoulder and puts his head on his father's chest. Their familiarity is intimate, practiced. They touch with the casual, proprietary air one saves for one's own pocketbook or a jacket carried over the arm. My heart swells; it is as if I, too, am being touched in this familiar way.

When this position gets too uncomfortable, the boy (curly-headed and observant) sits up and puts his fingers on his dad's face, playing with the way his father's eyes close and the way his forehead wrinkles. His fingers are neither gentle nor rough, but insistent, inquisitive. The man doesn't brush his son's fingers aside, but waits until, on their own, they finish exploring.

The boy takes an envelope from his pocket, and studies the two Red Sox tickets inside. He asks his father a question, maybe about the seats. I don't like to overhear.

We are headed south into the city from the suburbs, and the bus jangles like a woman's heavy costume jewelry or an aluminum can filled with concrete dragged, without mercy, behind a bicycle. It takes the potholes too seriously. I call my brother first and then my father. My brother is in the middle of something but my father answers with a fond "Why, hullo there!" and it is as if I can touch his face with my fingers. We talk all the way to the bus station and I walk out into the street where it's raining and we keep talking, even though we make mistakes (He thinks I was born in 1975. I wasn't.), we are both unwilling to let go of the connection.

Sweeping slantwise

I've been sweeping and mopping out the new apartment in Dorchester, and have found such archaeological gems as a single tacky earring, other people's hair and toenail clippings, and -- the tour de force -- a great pair of thong underwear while sweeping underneath the radiator... Those will of course come in handy as it gets closer to laundry day. Such a find really makes me wonder who used to live here -- a hooker? A hot mama? A drag queen? My sister?
What if that person is dead? Is there a right or wrong way to dispose of a dead person's thong? Can they haunt you if you do it wrong?

The Thong

It's been hot up here all summer -- but I'm close to the water, and the views are great. UMass is on Dorchester Bay, and Dorchester and Quincy both have nice bodies of water right next to them.

UMass Boston and Dot Bay

Dorchester Bay

Wollaston Beach, Quincy

I keep seeing these ominously enormous snowshovels in people's storage closets. They're serious and square and imposing. There should be some kind of organ music playing. Dum-dum-daaaaaah....
Boston drivers are the best. They are affectionately known as Massholes and they're lots of fun to be around. Seriously, in Florida, where people stay in their lanes, there's not nearly the sensory challenge. But in Boston... it's kind of like a video game, where pedestrians pop up out of nowhere (kind of like Galaga, except they don't shoot things at you. Usually. I haven't even gotten The Bird.) and other cars behave erratically (You can't let the taxis intimidate you.) and sometimes barrel straight at you. You kind of have to fight for your lane sometimes. (But it's not personal.) And then -- why you've EARNED it, by golly. That's the American way.
Another funny thing -- on autopilot, most cars edge out of their lane if there's an impediment -- they sort of expect that you can see the huge FedEx truck inexplicably parked in the middle of moving traffic and that you understand they've got to get around it somehow or another. It's much more fluid traffic than I'm used to -- everybody expects exceptions and nobody really raises much of an eyebrow when you cut in front of them because you've suddenly found yourself in a turn-only lane. There's some sense of camaraderie, I think, about the whole thing. An "Ah, whaddaya gonna do." (shrug) laissez faire sort of approach that, in our culture of rules, rigidity and restrictions, I find quote wholesome. It's organic driving -- the next craze, and it didn't even start in California. :)
I miss the cats. They are funny beasties and their personalities are a lot like people. I mean, they have their annoying parts. But mostly they just made me laugh and snuggled me lots. Oh, and clawed things that did not belong to them. That was a big part of their schedule, too. But, ah (shrug), whaddya gonna do.
School starts Tuesday! So... I'ma gonna read something. Stansell's "City of Women," Johnson's "Sleepwalking through history" or "Playing the Race Card." Until next time...