I don’t know why, but it’s hard for me to ask for help. It used to drive my mom crazy to come to my house for a meal, and I would fetch and carry and my family would sit around like guests. After I quit working my Boyfriend did even less in the house area (which didn’t necessarily mean I did more), and I can’t say I blame him. If I had to go out and spend the better part of my life doing what other people told me to so we could pay the bills, I’m afraid the one at home could have all the domestic chores by default. Still, he loves movies, and he likes my company watching them, and he goes to work before God gets up, which means he’s early to bed, and if we are going to watch movies, we have to start them before the rest of the world even gets off the day shift, which means every evening I am rushing through chores so we can see a movie, to the point watching a movie sure as heck feels like work to me, to the point I often nod off before it’s over, waking up to finish the chores and get a little light reading in before bed.
Yesterday I wanted Indian…palak paneer and something with the cauliflower I had in the fridge before it turned black. And we had Shame (Bergman!=Narcolepsy! if I’m the least bit tired) and Blue (Reading movie!=etc.!). By the time I started cooking, walked the dogs, called the old ladies, I could see it would be late, late, late for us to movie watch. Rushed!=Martyrdom! and why did I ever want a boyfriend anyway? and why don’t I just fall down on the (dirty) floor and whine?
Week-ends my Boyfriend mostly sits around in a housecoat, if he’s not taking a nap. Once again, I don’t blame him. Still, I wanted palak paneer and to watch the movies without feeling like I’m a hostage. I geared up to ask for help and for it to be alright if I didn’t get it. I asked him to walk the dogs. He did. He had to get dressed, but he did.
After that, for some reason, two hours of cooking Indian was a delight…and I did it for—TA! DA!—me. And it was very, very good. As were Shame and Blue, for both of which I stayed awake.
Just hope I’ll also be awake next time life gets too busy to be fun, and that I’ll know what to ask for.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Reality 101
I had one of those put-upon dreams last night, where people who were supposed to like me didn’t. I woke up in the middle of the night with grievances, and it took some effort to go back to sleep.
This morning I woke up with all the nasty fog in my frontal lobes…the poor-poor-pitiful-me chemicals.
When I joined Kent downstairs, I decided not to check my email immediately; instead, I would drink my coffee and do a little spiritual fancy dancing.
He asked if I had checked my email before going to bed last night. Though it had taken some effort, I had not. “Good for you,” said the man who has bumped my free cell standing from under game 600 to game 2,205.
He’s making fun of my email addiction AGAIN, cried out Evil-Thought Camellia from the fog. “You use my computer more than I do,” I said. You could have called my voice tone peevish. So much for fancy dancing.
“Why are you being so sensitive?” he asked. “Why are you being so mean?”
Me? He’s always the one who has something to say about me and email and addiction. Isn’t he being the mean one?
“I just wanted to know if Susie had answered you.” He and I had been discussing Susie and some unpleasantness she was experiencing. We had sent her some spunky, center-yourself, chuck-up-your-chin advice. "When I tease you about your email, I'm only joking."
Some joke.
But wait. I do think I have an email addiction. I’m beat up on myself about it. So for my spunky, center-yourself, chuck-up-your-chin advice: You can only hear him being the mean voice if you’ve already thought it yourself.
This morning I woke up with all the nasty fog in my frontal lobes…the poor-poor-pitiful-me chemicals.
When I joined Kent downstairs, I decided not to check my email immediately; instead, I would drink my coffee and do a little spiritual fancy dancing.
He asked if I had checked my email before going to bed last night. Though it had taken some effort, I had not. “Good for you,” said the man who has bumped my free cell standing from under game 600 to game 2,205.
He’s making fun of my email addiction AGAIN, cried out Evil-Thought Camellia from the fog. “You use my computer more than I do,” I said. You could have called my voice tone peevish. So much for fancy dancing.
“Why are you being so sensitive?” he asked. “Why are you being so mean?”
Me? He’s always the one who has something to say about me and email and addiction. Isn’t he being the mean one?
“I just wanted to know if Susie had answered you.” He and I had been discussing Susie and some unpleasantness she was experiencing. We had sent her some spunky, center-yourself, chuck-up-your-chin advice. "When I tease you about your email, I'm only joking."
Some joke.
But wait. I do think I have an email addiction. I’m beat up on myself about it. So for my spunky, center-yourself, chuck-up-your-chin advice: You can only hear him being the mean voice if you’ve already thought it yourself.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
communication V
People want you to be happy.
Don’t keep serving them your pain.
If you could untie your wings
and free your soul of jealousy,
you and everyone around you
Would fly like doves
Jalal-el-Din Rumi
Don’t keep serving them your pain.
If you could untie your wings
and free your soul of jealousy,
you and everyone around you
Would fly like doves
Jalal-el-Din Rumi
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Monday, September 03, 2007
Communication III
A friend was dying with uterine cancer. A couple of days before her death, I was sitting by her side. As I have done with other dying friends, I tried to match my breath to hers. She seemed to be floating in and out of sleep. Thoughts drifted in and out of my consciousness, and I began reviewing the time we spent together. She was a private person, not a hippy-dippy spiritualist like me. I often felt like we spoke a different language. When she was well, sometimes it seemed it was more important to her to see me than it was for me to see her. “I wonder if we were really friends,” drifted though my head. She flailed to a sitting position, her eyes wild, fierce and accusing. “We are,” I said aloud, “we really, really are friends.” The fire eased out of her eyes, and she sank back into her restless sleep.
And we really, really were. I know by how much I miss her.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
And we really, really were. I know by how much I miss her.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Communication II
I was asked to stay with a friend in the hospital. She was dying of lung cancer and hooked to all kinds of lines and needles. Late in the day she drifted off into a fretful, moaning sleep. I cleared my mind, watched her face, and tried to match my breathing to hers. To sooth myself, I silently repeated words from A Course in Miracles, “There is no pain, the son of God is free. There is no pain, the son of God is free.”
Suddenly my friend spoke out, “If she knew how much I hurt, she’d quit saying that.”
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Suddenly my friend spoke out, “If she knew how much I hurt, she’d quit saying that.”
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Communication
My neighbor’s 93-year-old grandmother has had a stroke, and is doing her time in rehab. While her automatic speech—yes, no, fine—is clear, anything she tries to tell you comes out as meaningless garble. My neighbor says for the last ten times when her grandmother becomes agitated as she tries to speak, my neighbor prays, “Holy Spirit, please help me understand what she wants.” Then she waits in silence until some idea pops into her head. “Do you want the shades closed?” my neighbor asks. “Yes!” her grandmother will say. “Do you want ice-cream?” “Yes!”
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Alien-Nation
I often find an ant running up and down my computer, or feel one tickling across my arm. Of course it’s not the same ant, but all those lone ants have one name: Paladan. Remember the song from Have Gun, Will Travel-- "...a knight without armor in a savage land”? Admiring its courage, I’ll let it travel on, or I'll use as gentle a breath as possible to help it relocate. I’ve yet to hear one yelling "Auntie Em…Auntie Em.”
If there’s a little bunch of ants gaggling around my sink, I offer them a deal: leave before I wipe down the counters and live.
Today I crushed an ant hill with my lawn mower. When faced with a massive invasion of ants who want to colonize my yard or house, I swoop in like the Witch of the West. I wonder what Buddha would do, but I react like a Cylon-- you know, Cylons--the Battlestar Gallactica robot race bent on eliminating the hapless but resourceful humans.
Anybody got another way?
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
If there’s a little bunch of ants gaggling around my sink, I offer them a deal: leave before I wipe down the counters and live.
Today I crushed an ant hill with my lawn mower. When faced with a massive invasion of ants who want to colonize my yard or house, I swoop in like the Witch of the West. I wonder what Buddha would do, but I react like a Cylon-- you know, Cylons--the Battlestar Gallactica robot race bent on eliminating the hapless but resourceful humans.
Anybody got another way?
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
when all there is and the best there is--is not enough
Tell me why the pecans in PLANTERS Deluxe MIXED NUTS are better than the pecans in any of the PLANTERS PECAN LOVERS MIXes? And even though my boyfriend leaves me (it’s REAL Deluxe LOVE) every single pecan in the PLANTERS Deluxe MIXED NUTS, I just can’t get enough pecans among all those other nuts and will buy the PLANTERS PECAN LOVERS MIX, even though the PLANTERS PECAN LOVERS MIXes are way more expensive, and even though I eat every one of those pecans wishing they were the PLANTERS Deluxe MIXED NUTS pecans.
And is the difference all in my head, anyway?
And is the difference all in my head, anyway?
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Reframing
Have you heard AD36, a common virus that causes colds in humans, also causes weight gain in animals? One-third of obese folks test positive for this virus, as compared with only one in ten of leaner people, and we know those ones in tens virus-carrying skinnies are probably anorexic.
I’m recovering from a twenty-year-old cold, okay? Pass the doughnuts.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
I’m recovering from a twenty-year-old cold, okay? Pass the doughnuts.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
ON REVIEWING MY VACATION
Thanks, Keetha and Nicole and the Rolling Stones:
You cant always get what you want
You cant always get what you want
You cant always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need
You cant always get what you want
You cant always get what you want
You cant always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you might find
You get what you need
Monday, August 20, 2007
Looks Like Heaven to Me
Cabin! Sunsets! Sunrises! Fishing! Pool! Restaurant! Restaurant! Restaurant! Fun, remember?
Before we left town I hit the bread store for three grocery sacks of reject bread, and the local bakery for sour dough. I returned home three (3!!!) times before Sandra, Tristan and I made it to the city limits. How could I forget the little phone, the antibiotics and the swimsuit…separately? We got turned around in the last-city-to-have-a-bathroom-before-the-resort-Tristan-had-to-potty-how-did-we-end-up-going-North-when-we-were-headed-South, and were so late we had to stop to eat fried fish that had been sitting under warming lights. On the road again, a little fawn ohmygod ran right in front of my big car, whamp, the car behind me swerved wildly to miss rear-ending us, we made it, at the campground there was no pool (wishful remembering), the swimming area was closed in hot, hot August because all the lifeguards had returned to school, there was a brown spider in the tiny bathroom, at the Restaurant! Restaurant! Restaurant! the gumbo was gray and lunch’s fried-fish-under-the-warming-lights had been better than hot-out-of-the-kitchen-fish here, when Tristan’s grand-daddy came for the night, the beds were ill arranged for sleeping three and one, Tristan’s grand-daddy forgot the fishing poles, the air-conditioners in the cabin almost didn’t work, nobody could really sleep, something bit me in the bed at night and left an angry red welt. This is a for-fun vacation? Thanks, Universe.
In lieu of swimming we hit three discount stores before we found the big plastic ball and bat, and in the process we managed to land a haul of bubbles and a miniature 18-wheeler and a package of five little super balls. We rolled the beautiful beach towels to block the space between the couch and the floor so we wouldn’t have to constantly bat the little super balls out with the broom handle. Wish you were there?
But we did have the pier and more old bread than the geese could eat. The little fish loved bread, too, so you could see them with their eerie blue fins silently gliding through the water, and did you know the sign for fish is your hand in front of you, little finger on bottom, thumb on top, fingers together and waving as you move your hand from right to left? Try it. Wave those fingers a bit faster. You’ll know immediately you’re signing fish, it’s intuitive. Have I told you Tristan is deaf?
The second day we got the big cabin with extra beds and good air-conditioning. We saw sunsets and sunrises, had pimento cheese on sour dough for breakfast, drank coffee, fed geese and fish, blew bubbles, pitched, hit, and caught balls, read books, practiced sign language, early to bed and early to rise. A grandma and a great-aunt seemed to be just about enough grown-ups for an active four-almost-five-year-old who can’t hear, and when he doesn’t like what you’re signing, has selective seeing.
After our last meal, Tristan tried to take the money we’d left on the table for the waitress. Though he had seen us pay for meals before, perhaps this was the first time we had left money so alluringly in the open. Sandra helped me sign, “That’s to pay for our food.” We could see him understanding that the money made the food possible. I’m the great-aunt, and I gave him a dollar just because, and when he wanted the quarter on the table, I gave him a quarter, too. He grinned and immediately began waving his money, trying to attract the interest of the waitress. “Ask him what he wants,” I told Sandra. She did. He was sparkling. "Ice cream!” he signed, “Candy!”
In the car he spread out both his arms, made little fists with his hands, the little finger and thumb extended. He waggled one hand toward Sandra and then toward himself, and toward me and himself with the other. The sign for together, the three of us.
That Universe. It’s intuitive.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Before we left town I hit the bread store for three grocery sacks of reject bread, and the local bakery for sour dough. I returned home three (3!!!) times before Sandra, Tristan and I made it to the city limits. How could I forget the little phone, the antibiotics and the swimsuit…separately? We got turned around in the last-city-to-have-a-bathroom-before-the-resort-Tristan-had-to-potty-how-did-we-end-up-going-North-when-we-were-headed-South, and were so late we had to stop to eat fried fish that had been sitting under warming lights. On the road again, a little fawn ohmygod ran right in front of my big car, whamp, the car behind me swerved wildly to miss rear-ending us, we made it, at the campground there was no pool (wishful remembering), the swimming area was closed in hot, hot August because all the lifeguards had returned to school, there was a brown spider in the tiny bathroom, at the Restaurant! Restaurant! Restaurant! the gumbo was gray and lunch’s fried-fish-under-the-warming-lights had been better than hot-out-of-the-kitchen-fish here, when Tristan’s grand-daddy came for the night, the beds were ill arranged for sleeping three and one, Tristan’s grand-daddy forgot the fishing poles, the air-conditioners in the cabin almost didn’t work, nobody could really sleep, something bit me in the bed at night and left an angry red welt. This is a for-fun vacation? Thanks, Universe.
In lieu of swimming we hit three discount stores before we found the big plastic ball and bat, and in the process we managed to land a haul of bubbles and a miniature 18-wheeler and a package of five little super balls. We rolled the beautiful beach towels to block the space between the couch and the floor so we wouldn’t have to constantly bat the little super balls out with the broom handle. Wish you were there?
But we did have the pier and more old bread than the geese could eat. The little fish loved bread, too, so you could see them with their eerie blue fins silently gliding through the water, and did you know the sign for fish is your hand in front of you, little finger on bottom, thumb on top, fingers together and waving as you move your hand from right to left? Try it. Wave those fingers a bit faster. You’ll know immediately you’re signing fish, it’s intuitive. Have I told you Tristan is deaf?
The second day we got the big cabin with extra beds and good air-conditioning. We saw sunsets and sunrises, had pimento cheese on sour dough for breakfast, drank coffee, fed geese and fish, blew bubbles, pitched, hit, and caught balls, read books, practiced sign language, early to bed and early to rise. A grandma and a great-aunt seemed to be just about enough grown-ups for an active four-almost-five-year-old who can’t hear, and when he doesn’t like what you’re signing, has selective seeing.
After our last meal, Tristan tried to take the money we’d left on the table for the waitress. Though he had seen us pay for meals before, perhaps this was the first time we had left money so alluringly in the open. Sandra helped me sign, “That’s to pay for our food.” We could see him understanding that the money made the food possible. I’m the great-aunt, and I gave him a dollar just because, and when he wanted the quarter on the table, I gave him a quarter, too. He grinned and immediately began waving his money, trying to attract the interest of the waitress. “Ask him what he wants,” I told Sandra. She did. He was sparkling. "Ice cream!” he signed, “Candy!”
In the car he spread out both his arms, made little fists with his hands, the little finger and thumb extended. He waggled one hand toward Sandra and then toward himself, and toward me and himself with the other. The sign for together, the three of us.
That Universe. It’s intuitive.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Monday, August 13, 2007
Clarity
My sister Sandra, coming to visit me, was flying with her grandson Tristan for the first time. They would be riding in other people's cars after they arrived. What are the car seat laws, she asked me. Tristan is only four, and by state law would require a child’s seat once he was here. With his stuff and her stuff and nobody to ferry them to the airport, Sandra could not see herself lugging his seat, too. I asked my friend with a five-year-old if she had a car seat we could borrow. She had just gotten rid of hers, so I put the word out among the with-small-child group, only I had discovered what we needed was a booster seat, not a car seat, and nobody I knew had one.
On the ground and headed to my house, Sandra stopped at Wally World and picked up a booster seat for under twenty dollars. With the booster seat Tristan rides high enough to see out the window, and he is also legal.
Today my friend emailed me: When is your sister coming in? I have a booster seat…could her grandson use that instead of a car seat?
If you're feeling a lack in your life, remember you have to know what you want before you get what you think you're asking for or you have to know what you're asking for to get what you want or something like that.
D. Warner, August 13, 2007
On the ground and headed to my house, Sandra stopped at Wally World and picked up a booster seat for under twenty dollars. With the booster seat Tristan rides high enough to see out the window, and he is also legal.
Today my friend emailed me: When is your sister coming in? I have a booster seat…could her grandson use that instead of a car seat?
If you're feeling a lack in your life, remember you have to know what you want before you get what you think you're asking for or you have to know what you're asking for to get what you want or something like that.
D. Warner, August 13, 2007
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Good Vibrations
Researchers have discovered your facial expression releases emotionally charged chemicals in your brain. A smile releases happy chemicals, a frown releases negative ones. So if you’re happy because you're going on a beachy trip with your sister and her grandson, you’re smiling, right? And when you’re happy, then walking the dog, calling your grumpy daffy old aunt, cleaning the toilet, washing the dishes, just about anything is A-Okay. And you discover August, heat wave and all, really is fun. Go ahead. Try it. Put on a happy face.
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
RECEPTIVITY
Always in August it seems as if Fun has surely drained from the weave of the world. Those towels striped the color of the tropics, six lush feet of Egyptian cotton and half-price, a mere pittance for such sweet promise, reminded me of that. The old Happy Talk song from South Pacific played in my head—you know—‘you got to have a dream, you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?’ Somehow here it was, another hot, grim August, another year without a beach, how did this happen again, last year I said next year, and now, here under the bright glare of this week’s shopping at Wal-Mart, this year was already spinning out of sight
I’ve read the books, I know the Secret, act as if your dream has come true and it will, so I piled the lengths of Aztec gold and orange with that thin strip of sea blue into the bottom of my basket. At this stage of my life I could afford a frivolous notion, so why at the check-out stand did I tell the clerk I had changed my mind? What I could not afford was to open a drawer some future August and discover the forgotten towel packed in the bottom, dusty and never used.
Though I put it back, acceded to the nonclutter wisdom of my new housekeeping creed, the colors of the towel hovered in my dreams, soft and bright and full of hope.
Then my sister called. She was coming in the middle of the month, bringing her lone grandchild with her. I have told you: August. Hot. I did not tell you that judges are ordering school children to stay inside, forbidding outdoor sports in this heatstroke weather. What’s a four-year-old, alone with the oldies to do? How are the oldies going to keep him occupied without losing their sanity? What a child needs in the throes of such a month is water.
On a notion, a beach towel wish, I called our favorite little family resort, the one we go to each Easter before the pool is open, the one that by January is booked solid into next winter, the one that has had no openings the previous two times I called this year.
The week my sister and my nephew were coming, our favorite cabin was open. The cabin has air-condition and plenty of beds and a nice little kitchen for breakfast and sandwiches and guacamole. The cabin is on a lake, with a pier and turtles and ducks and fish. The resort has a restaurant with yummy, melting-in-the-mouth vacation food, cooked and served by other people. It is hot, hot summer August and the pool is open.
Cabin! Sunsets! Sunrises! Fishing! Pool! Restaurant! Restaurant! Restaurant!
The connection between beach towels and a trip to a small family campground and receptivity might be a bit subtle, but for me that’s how this Universe/God/Law of Attraction/miracle stuff happens, even when I get the glooms and forget what’s possible. It’s all ideas. We’re ideas. And we get to choose the ideas we want to color our lives. Beach towels dreams, real-time pool trips…Universal truth working out, or hum-drum coincidence? And small stuff at that…what about world peace and joy and love? But the next time I feel like a weary traveler in a glum world, I hope I remember to choose the good dream.
Yesterday in Wal-Mart I bought two six-foot-long gleaming Egyptian cotton beach towels. “You’re going to a beach?” the clerk wistfully asked.
"Yeah," I said, though the beach part wasn’t exactly true. I grinned big time. "I'm gonna have some fun."
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
I’ve read the books, I know the Secret, act as if your dream has come true and it will, so I piled the lengths of Aztec gold and orange with that thin strip of sea blue into the bottom of my basket. At this stage of my life I could afford a frivolous notion, so why at the check-out stand did I tell the clerk I had changed my mind? What I could not afford was to open a drawer some future August and discover the forgotten towel packed in the bottom, dusty and never used.
Though I put it back, acceded to the nonclutter wisdom of my new housekeeping creed, the colors of the towel hovered in my dreams, soft and bright and full of hope.
Then my sister called. She was coming in the middle of the month, bringing her lone grandchild with her. I have told you: August. Hot. I did not tell you that judges are ordering school children to stay inside, forbidding outdoor sports in this heatstroke weather. What’s a four-year-old, alone with the oldies to do? How are the oldies going to keep him occupied without losing their sanity? What a child needs in the throes of such a month is water.
On a notion, a beach towel wish, I called our favorite little family resort, the one we go to each Easter before the pool is open, the one that by January is booked solid into next winter, the one that has had no openings the previous two times I called this year.
The week my sister and my nephew were coming, our favorite cabin was open. The cabin has air-condition and plenty of beds and a nice little kitchen for breakfast and sandwiches and guacamole. The cabin is on a lake, with a pier and turtles and ducks and fish. The resort has a restaurant with yummy, melting-in-the-mouth vacation food, cooked and served by other people. It is hot, hot summer August and the pool is open.
Cabin! Sunsets! Sunrises! Fishing! Pool! Restaurant! Restaurant! Restaurant!
The connection between beach towels and a trip to a small family campground and receptivity might be a bit subtle, but for me that’s how this Universe/God/Law of Attraction/miracle stuff happens, even when I get the glooms and forget what’s possible. It’s all ideas. We’re ideas. And we get to choose the ideas we want to color our lives. Beach towels dreams, real-time pool trips…Universal truth working out, or hum-drum coincidence? And small stuff at that…what about world peace and joy and love? But the next time I feel like a weary traveler in a glum world, I hope I remember to choose the good dream.
Yesterday in Wal-Mart I bought two six-foot-long gleaming Egyptian cotton beach towels. “You’re going to a beach?” the clerk wistfully asked.
"Yeah," I said, though the beach part wasn’t exactly true. I grinned big time. "I'm gonna have some fun."
© Donna Warner, August, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Forbidden Fruit
We have a mail slot in our door, and we accidentally trained our dogs to kill the mail. I say accidentally because we caught them snatching the mail, and we thought it was so funny that we would feed them junk mail through the slot. It’s what old, not-too-bright people do for entertainment. Then the little darlings managed to take a chunk out of a refund check one too many times and we got a new mail carrier with a dog phobia. Up went the new outside mail box.
We changed our wicked way, but the dogs didn’t. When the mail comes and is safely deposited in the outside box, they go wild, running and barking and gouging claw marks in the front door. They do this, occasionally falling in a snarl on one another, until I retrieve the mail. The big dog is satisfied when I’ve done my job, but the little one, the Yorkzilla, is still determined to shred anything incoming. He performs wild leaps and twists that would make any Olympic ice skater proud. Occasionally he’s managed to snag a mail-order book or a Netflix cd, and anything accidentally hitting the floor is hamster bedding.
But my husband has taught me a new trick. Select a piece of junk mail. Offer it to him. In the middle of a feeding frenzy, Little Bo gets a befuddled look on his face, and chagrined, turns away from the offering.
When you're playing at being the bad dog, it’s only really good if they don't want you to have it.
© Donna Warner, July, 2007
We changed our wicked way, but the dogs didn’t. When the mail comes and is safely deposited in the outside box, they go wild, running and barking and gouging claw marks in the front door. They do this, occasionally falling in a snarl on one another, until I retrieve the mail. The big dog is satisfied when I’ve done my job, but the little one, the Yorkzilla, is still determined to shred anything incoming. He performs wild leaps and twists that would make any Olympic ice skater proud. Occasionally he’s managed to snag a mail-order book or a Netflix cd, and anything accidentally hitting the floor is hamster bedding.
But my husband has taught me a new trick. Select a piece of junk mail. Offer it to him. In the middle of a feeding frenzy, Little Bo gets a befuddled look on his face, and chagrined, turns away from the offering.
When you're playing at being the bad dog, it’s only really good if they don't want you to have it.
© Donna Warner, July, 2007
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Redemption
A friend writes me of her aunt ‘who longs for God and has gone the scary fundamentalist route that still hasn’t filled her up (but she’s scared the beejeezuz out of the rest of us). My mom keeps telling her that she has everything she already needs but she doesn’t get it. It makes me sad for her. She tries so hard and gets no happier. Not saying that I completely get it. Sometimes I still think shoes are the answer but it is a temporary insanity.’
Remember the Three Stooges routine where Larry starts yelling he can’t see, and Mo says what’s wrong, and Larry says I’ve got my eyes closed?
And there’s a Rumi poem about the guy knocking at a closed door, wanting what Methodists from Cleveland would call God to let him in, and then he finds out he’s been knocking from the inside?
So why does the search for God always end in disillusionment? If you think you’re lost, Baby, you best open your eyes and quit banging on the door, because God has always loved you, and could never, would never, never, ever, not in a zillion years, not in eternity, misplace you.
Remember the Three Stooges routine where Larry starts yelling he can’t see, and Mo says what’s wrong, and Larry says I’ve got my eyes closed?
And there’s a Rumi poem about the guy knocking at a closed door, wanting what Methodists from Cleveland would call God to let him in, and then he finds out he’s been knocking from the inside?
So why does the search for God always end in disillusionment? If you think you’re lost, Baby, you best open your eyes and quit banging on the door, because God has always loved you, and could never, would never, never, ever, not in a zillion years, not in eternity, misplace you.
It Really Is That Simple
“The alarm woke me this morning,” my husband said, “and I was glad.” Usually he is awake before it goes off, and if he is sleeping, it means he’s really tired. “I was dreaming. I don’t remember the dream, but I know I was confronted with an unsolvable conundrum I didn’t want to solve. Then the alarm went off. ‘Eureka!,’ I said, ‘That’s the answer. Wake up.’ So I did.”
Friday, February 02, 2007
Gotcha
I’m fat. Like the rest of America, I think Fat is a pejorative. A character flaw. Nay—a sin!
And I want to be skinny. But more than I want to be skinny, at times I want chocolate. Or those macadamia nut cookies that cost $1.25 EACH, but then they are SO huge.
Recently my husband uncharacteristically commented on my pulchritude, but not way before I acknowledged to myself the results of cookie coddling was getting out of hand. “I’m trying,” I say. “No more sugar.”
And I avoided the peanut butter cups for over a week, until I felt I had stepped up to lead the brigade on the stress front, and there they were in their covered glass bowl, small and snackable and sweet. That was three days ago.
“We still have any of those little candies?” said my husband who smokes and eats honey buns for breakfast.
Of course not.
“Who ate them?” His smile was sly.
How I hated him. And he knew it.
“I wasn’t being mean,” he said.
Was to.
I thought I was over this. I sometimes encourage myself to believe if I had all those years to live over again, due to my sustained spiritual practice I wouldn’t be so sensitive, tearful, downright rageful. If I had it to do over again, I’d definitely do it better.
Wrong.
“You’re just feeling guilty, or this wouldn’t get you so upset,” said the smoke sucking, honey bun guzzling guru.
And he’s not guilty of a crime that no one other than some awful, catty woman who’s not your friend would commit?
But I knew if I was angry, I was wrong. So I prayed that prayer where I recognized God didn’t create my anger, and it was a mistake, and Love was my only Reality, and I was willing to let the anger go, only I didn’t know how, but I was willing to let it go, and be shown the truth.
And it went. It did. I realized he had done nothing to me, and I really did know him, he wasn’t trying to be mean, and I was even able to let go of putting it off to he was just a man which meant stupid, and I did get to the Love part, and the evening wasn’t ruined, and the willingness to let go and the willingness to receive a different answer worked again.
But why again? Why was I still going insane over something like five peanut butter cups (the little snack ones)?
Then it occurred to me: I had felt guilty.
And there was so much of it I was still lugging around.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
What would happen if I let go of guilt? If the next time I was ready to go off on the cretins, instead of getting to the tears, the rage, the finger-pointing justifications and then praying to let them go, why not go for the jugular? Why not just let go of guilt…not theirs, mine.
Would I possibly be done then?
And I want to be skinny. But more than I want to be skinny, at times I want chocolate. Or those macadamia nut cookies that cost $1.25 EACH, but then they are SO huge.
Recently my husband uncharacteristically commented on my pulchritude, but not way before I acknowledged to myself the results of cookie coddling was getting out of hand. “I’m trying,” I say. “No more sugar.”
And I avoided the peanut butter cups for over a week, until I felt I had stepped up to lead the brigade on the stress front, and there they were in their covered glass bowl, small and snackable and sweet. That was three days ago.
“We still have any of those little candies?” said my husband who smokes and eats honey buns for breakfast.
Of course not.
“Who ate them?” His smile was sly.
How I hated him. And he knew it.
“I wasn’t being mean,” he said.
Was to.
I thought I was over this. I sometimes encourage myself to believe if I had all those years to live over again, due to my sustained spiritual practice I wouldn’t be so sensitive, tearful, downright rageful. If I had it to do over again, I’d definitely do it better.
Wrong.
“You’re just feeling guilty, or this wouldn’t get you so upset,” said the smoke sucking, honey bun guzzling guru.
And he’s not guilty of a crime that no one other than some awful, catty woman who’s not your friend would commit?
But I knew if I was angry, I was wrong. So I prayed that prayer where I recognized God didn’t create my anger, and it was a mistake, and Love was my only Reality, and I was willing to let the anger go, only I didn’t know how, but I was willing to let it go, and be shown the truth.
And it went. It did. I realized he had done nothing to me, and I really did know him, he wasn’t trying to be mean, and I was even able to let go of putting it off to he was just a man which meant stupid, and I did get to the Love part, and the evening wasn’t ruined, and the willingness to let go and the willingness to receive a different answer worked again.
But why again? Why was I still going insane over something like five peanut butter cups (the little snack ones)?
Then it occurred to me: I had felt guilty.
And there was so much of it I was still lugging around.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
Guilt.
What would happen if I let go of guilt? If the next time I was ready to go off on the cretins, instead of getting to the tears, the rage, the finger-pointing justifications and then praying to let them go, why not go for the jugular? Why not just let go of guilt…not theirs, mine.
Would I possibly be done then?
The God-Shaped Hole
Yesterday I wrote about do-nuts and how, if indulged, there seems to be no end to wanting do-nuts. I ended with “So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?”
Last night I realized I got the do-nut message wrong. Wholeness, limitless holiness, peace is. Got it? That’s what we are. Now.
If we are longing, even for God, then we’ve forgotten who we are, what we are. And with that longing, even for God, we are just opening up a hole we are unsuccessfully going to try fill: with do-nuts, with trinkets, with people, with new skills, with new experiences, with God.
Won’t happen.
Got it? Just relax. What you really want is already here. Peace.
Last night I realized I got the do-nut message wrong. Wholeness, limitless holiness, peace is. Got it? That’s what we are. Now.
If we are longing, even for God, then we’ve forgotten who we are, what we are. And with that longing, even for God, we are just opening up a hole we are unsuccessfully going to try fill: with do-nuts, with trinkets, with people, with new skills, with new experiences, with God.
Won’t happen.
Got it? Just relax. What you really want is already here. Peace.
Letting Go
“How’s Alton?” I ask my friend.
“He’s okay,” she says. Her voice dips a little, deferring to ambiguity, acknowledging ‘okay’ can accommodate a lot of pain. “He calls his dad a lot to ask him to come home. Now that Justin has had papers drawn up, Alton may understand his dad’s not coming home, maybe he can get a little closure.”
What’s closure to a ten-year-old? The kid is great, full of vim, dedicated to whatever interests him, nice to old ladies, generous…an all around fine person. I know the statistics. I know children of divorce often carry wounds long into their adulthood. I do not want this for any kid, not for this kid.
“Tell him you know he loves his dad. Tell him even when he’s grown, he may still wish you and his dad were still together. But tell him sometimes when you love someone, you have to let that person do what he thinks is right, even if you don’t understand how it could possibly be right.” I want to help Alton, give him someway to honor his own feelings and still love his dad. I want something to heal the wound before it gets too deep.
Later I don’t know if I helped Alton or his mother, but I do realize I’d been teaching myself crazy pain doesn't come from what is gone, but from grasping for what used to be.
“He’s okay,” she says. Her voice dips a little, deferring to ambiguity, acknowledging ‘okay’ can accommodate a lot of pain. “He calls his dad a lot to ask him to come home. Now that Justin has had papers drawn up, Alton may understand his dad’s not coming home, maybe he can get a little closure.”
What’s closure to a ten-year-old? The kid is great, full of vim, dedicated to whatever interests him, nice to old ladies, generous…an all around fine person. I know the statistics. I know children of divorce often carry wounds long into their adulthood. I do not want this for any kid, not for this kid.
“Tell him you know he loves his dad. Tell him even when he’s grown, he may still wish you and his dad were still together. But tell him sometimes when you love someone, you have to let that person do what he thinks is right, even if you don’t understand how it could possibly be right.” I want to help Alton, give him someway to honor his own feelings and still love his dad. I want something to heal the wound before it gets too deep.
Later I don’t know if I helped Alton or his mother, but I do realize I’d been teaching myself crazy pain doesn't come from what is gone, but from grasping for what used to be.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Two Minute Musing
“He’s filed papers,” my neighbor said of her absent husband. She is wan, and her eyes are dark and distant and full of sorrow.
They have been married for 22 years. She could not tolerate me if I told her not to be sad. Instead I offer her the prayer I have to repeat often in my journey, using for her benefit God, since I know that is what she would use, as I often to do to name the Source of All Being.
Tell God you are sad, and that you know it is not His Will for you to be sad. Tell Him you are willing to let the sadness go, but you do not know how. Tell Him to take the sadness for you, and to show you what His happiness really is. Tell Him you are willing to accept what He wants for you.
This is how I have to do it…from having a fellow shopper slam my grocery cart, to some imagined offence by my husband, to the really scary life events I can’t control:
I do not deny how I feel…my sadness, anger or terror.
I acknowledge my feelings were not created by Source/God/Being/What I Am.
I acknowledge my feelings are a mistake.
I acknowledge my willingness to let them go, even if I don’t feel willing at the moment.
I acknowledge I cannot do this on my own.
I acknowledge my willingness to accept instead what God intends for me.
I don’t know how, but for me, it works every time. We are not talking about circumstances here; if I try to direct God’s Will, I am putting a limit on what I will allow Him to do for me. We are talking about feelings, as my husband likes to say sardonically. We are talking about peace/love/joy/happiness. And when I say my prayer (though sometimes I have to say it more than once…sometimes I say it feverishly, repeating it like an incantation…peace/love/joy/happiness always happens. I don’t know how it works. Maybe because that is the Source of my creation, because that’s all that I really am. The rest is just a foolish nightmare, from which I can easily awaken.
They have been married for 22 years. She could not tolerate me if I told her not to be sad. Instead I offer her the prayer I have to repeat often in my journey, using for her benefit God, since I know that is what she would use, as I often to do to name the Source of All Being.
Tell God you are sad, and that you know it is not His Will for you to be sad. Tell Him you are willing to let the sadness go, but you do not know how. Tell Him to take the sadness for you, and to show you what His happiness really is. Tell Him you are willing to accept what He wants for you.
This is how I have to do it…from having a fellow shopper slam my grocery cart, to some imagined offence by my husband, to the really scary life events I can’t control:
I do not deny how I feel…my sadness, anger or terror.
I acknowledge my feelings were not created by Source/God/Being/What I Am.
I acknowledge my feelings are a mistake.
I acknowledge my willingness to let them go, even if I don’t feel willing at the moment.
I acknowledge I cannot do this on my own.
I acknowledge my willingness to accept instead what God intends for me.
I don’t know how, but for me, it works every time. We are not talking about circumstances here; if I try to direct God’s Will, I am putting a limit on what I will allow Him to do for me. We are talking about feelings, as my husband likes to say sardonically. We are talking about peace/love/joy/happiness. And when I say my prayer (though sometimes I have to say it more than once…sometimes I say it feverishly, repeating it like an incantation…peace/love/joy/happiness always happens. I don’t know how it works. Maybe because that is the Source of my creation, because that’s all that I really am. The rest is just a foolish nightmare, from which I can easily awaken.
The Hungry Ghost Do-nut Jones
Last year a new do-nut shop opened in the strip mall a block from my house. Sometimes in the early morning as I walk my dogs the air is filled with the smell of cooking do-nuts, a heady mixture of yeast and sugar and sizzling oil that hits me like a rush. At that moment I want do-nuts, one, then another and another, all the do-nutty goodness promised by each intoxicating breath.
Only do-nuts make me queasy. One hot do-nut would melt in my mouth, so light it is almost nothing but an explosion of sweetness, and then I would want another, and even though I would not be nearly done tasting, tasting, tasting, I would feel my stomach roiling. Not to mention what limitless do-nuts would do to my already cautionary blood pressure, cholesterol, and body mass index. And the almost immediate carb coma.
I know this, and though I never buy them, still I want do-nuts. I am not hungry, and still I want do-nuts. I am seduced by the idea of do-nuts.
As you can guess, do-nuts are a…you know…metaphor.
For me the metaphor is the longing for an illusive temptation, something I don’t need, and is, indeed, bad for me, and even makes me ill, and that can never, ever give me enough to be enough. Like the next game of free-cell. Or another new book I don’t have time to read. The right recipe that will knock your socks off. The grievance I would control, expose, punish, forgive, and not forget because, darn it, you really hurt my feelings, and I never, ever want that to happen again.
Go ahead, name your own.
So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?
Only do-nuts make me queasy. One hot do-nut would melt in my mouth, so light it is almost nothing but an explosion of sweetness, and then I would want another, and even though I would not be nearly done tasting, tasting, tasting, I would feel my stomach roiling. Not to mention what limitless do-nuts would do to my already cautionary blood pressure, cholesterol, and body mass index. And the almost immediate carb coma.
I know this, and though I never buy them, still I want do-nuts. I am not hungry, and still I want do-nuts. I am seduced by the idea of do-nuts.
As you can guess, do-nuts are a…you know…metaphor.
For me the metaphor is the longing for an illusive temptation, something I don’t need, and is, indeed, bad for me, and even makes me ill, and that can never, ever give me enough to be enough. Like the next game of free-cell. Or another new book I don’t have time to read. The right recipe that will knock your socks off. The grievance I would control, expose, punish, forgive, and not forget because, darn it, you really hurt my feelings, and I never, ever want that to happen again.
Go ahead, name your own.
So is there really something else we are longing for? Some wholeness, healing, limitless holiness that offers not more desire, but peace?
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