maybe not cut out for it after all

A friend had posted a link to this article on her facebook page; an article which outlines 22 things that “Happy” people do differently, presumably from “Unhappy” people.

I thought about linking into it on what I have taken to referring to as “the guru project,” but after I clicked and read through all of the things I’m supposed to “do” in order to be “happy” all I could think was “Who has the time?” Exercise, meditate, dream big, keep up with my friends, spend significant time with my family, get up early???

I despair.

Maybe I’m just not cut out for this.

And no, I’m not one of those women who “want it all.” Who wants it all? I can barely keep track of what I have already. And I kind of wish we would stop being told that we can or can’t have it (all), when really all we want is to be paid fairly, have access to decent child care and affordable health insurance, maybe a school schedule that doesn’t have days off and two hour delays every 6 days, and people in the house who help with the dishes and clean up after themselves.

But get up early?

I had to be at a TV studio at 8:30 this morning, and at 7:20 still couldn’t find my black dress pants, and the coffee grinder was broken, and I realized a) how infrequently I actually have to BE somewhere in the morning and b) how much I really dislike having to BE somewhere in the morning. So I’ll dream big, as long as it doesn’t require me to be at a desk at 9 a.m. 5 days a week, and I’m not going to get up early. (Youcan’tmakemesothere.)

 

 

The Why’s and Wherefore’s

Husband often asks me, when I’m about to initiate a difficult conversation, say, (or maybe even an argument,) with someone, if I have first figured out what I hope to accomplish. I guess that understanding this is perhaps a worthy goal for just about everything we do in a day.

Have been trying to figure this out myself, since three days ago when I decided that I really wanted to start a second blog. Why not just post these thoughts in the blog I already have?

I do actually hope that some of my current blog followers will follow this one as well. (Hint-hint-nudge-nudge-wink-wink)

But I want this one to be different.

So back to the question, worded in a slightly different way: Why bother?

What, exactly, does this thing I’m about to do (fill in the blank) accomplish . . . and I would complete that sentence . . .  that will help fulfill my personal/emotional/spiritual goals as a person with a short time on this planet and a whole lot of life I’d like to live?

And here’s what, why, how, at least, as best I can explain it:

I (like to) believe we’re all searching for what I, for lack of a better term, will call Enlightenment. To live, laugh, love, better and more fully; to find Happiness, by which I mean the inner state that has nothing to do with the outer circumstances, but which resides deep within, burning like an ember; maybe to do one thing every day that feels like we Made a Difference.

(It’s funny, but it reminds me of the conversation I had with Husband the other day about that tattoo I’m trying to talk myself into/out of getting: Chinese characters that say “Live the moment.” But then I thought, and said, “But what if the moment sucks?”)

Anyway.

I want to try to post one thing each day for a year that helps toward this goal: to live, laugh, love, better and more fully; to find Happiness, that inner state that has nothing to do with outer circumstances; to do one thing every day that Made a Difference. It might be something I read, something I observed, something I did or said or that someone did or said to me. Every single one of them could probably fit under the category I call “Grace.” Some of it might be obvious (Duh!), some hopefully insightful, some somewhere in between. Maybe you’ll have heard it before, maybe it will remind you of something that you would like to share. There won’t be the same type of political commentary, or feminist “propaganda,” or making fun of advertising. Well, unless they contribute toward my quest for enlightenment. Who knows, maybe I’ll find that it’s not necessary, or not getting read, and abandon it entirely. I suppose I could start a separate category, but for some inexplicable reason, I want it to be separate.

Maybe it’s silly to think we can find Enlightenment at all — it is the ongoing quest of some of whom I already consider to be the most enlightened people I know — but maybe we’ll all feel better knowing that we’re looking together.

The new blog can be found at: notaguruatall.wordpress.com. I’m going to post this same post as my “introduction,” well, except for this paragraph — that would be weird — so please read on. After this, I will not duplicate.

Hope to see you there.

Really? That’s it? My quest for “happiness”

I am, and have always been, someone who strives to find/feel “happiness” every day. To live in the moment — to the point where I, a 48-year old woman, (with a nose piercing, but only 2 sets of holes in her ears), have seriously contemplated getting this tattoo’d on my inner forearm to remind me to live in the moment:

(This does, actually mean “live in the moment,” not “one order of Peking duck, hot and sour soup on the side.” I know this because I’ve checked.) (Still trying to get up my nerve. Any suggestions? warnings? Anybody out there want to drive me to the tattoo parlor and hold my hand and hang around for the next 30 years and remind me of what a good idea it was when my skin gets all dry and wrinkly like paper and the tattoo ends up looking exactly like it it is actually an order for Peking duck, hot and sour soup on the side? I didn’t think so.)

Anyway. . .

As you all know, I am also dealing with the death of both of my parents, my father a few weeks ago, and my mom last August. As you might imagine, my relationship with them was probably much like yours is with your parents — I didn’t talk to them often enough, my mom was often “disappointed” in me being, well, too much like me, (I’m not making this up), etc., etc., but I loved them and they loved me and they were my parents, and now they’re gone. Despite knowing that my dad died exactly how he would have wanted to — peacefully, apparently in his sleep, perfectly healthy as-far-as-he-knew one moment, and gone the next — I am still so incredibly sad to have lost him. (And it doesn’t do much to reassure me that the same won’t happen to me? Husband? Heaven help us whoever next.)

I’ve also struggled with having to let go of some of my professional dreams, and am still struggling with trying to find time to do the work I need to do to pay my bills, be there for Only Daughter when she needs me to be, and pursue the other things in life that have always tempted or interested me — namely, I want to read more, knit more, would love to take a painting class, and a photography class, would like to try to write an actual book someday, etc. etc.

Yesterday in my yoga class, a class with one of my favorite yoga teachers, and one which offered exactly what I needed (hip openers!) after having missed yoga for two weeks, the teacher did the opening meditation on happiness. She started with the American Indian/Cherokee story a chief tells his granddaughters, about the two wolves which live and battle each other inside each of us. One of the wolves is anger, fear, resentment, frustration, disappointment; the other joy, happiness, contentment. One of the granddaughters asks which wolf wins the battle, and the answer is “The wolf you feed.”

I started thinking about how much of my energy is spent feeding my resentment towards the people who have wronged me, how I should stop feeding that wolf, but how their petty insecurities have interfered with my ability to really live up to my personal or professional potential, and how letting that anger go is like letting them get away with it, and how unfair that is, and how much energy do they ever spend thinking about me and so on, and so on, and so on.

By the time I left, I was all nicely warmed up and limbered up and felt like I had really had a good yoga practice, physically, and was an absolute mess emotionally; nearly in tears before Savasana, barely able to roll up my matt and depart at the end.

I came home, and Only Daughter was here, as it was still her schools’ mid-winter break. I decided that, rather than do our usual, which is her at the computer watching ridiculous ridiculousness on youtube (Dance Moms! Ugh!) and reading her books and me practicing and at my computer answering emails, etc., we would go see a special exhibit at the local museum. So I shower, and we grab a quick lunch, and off we go.

First I park near what used to be one of our area museums, but it’s now part of a local arts college. Of course, I don’t discover this until I’ve fed every single piece of loose change I own into the meter, trying to eke out 90 minutes. We then drive to the correct museum (which has the name of it clearly above the door, a name which does not resemble in any way the name of the museum on all of the billboards touting the new exhibit), and can’t find a parking space. After driving around the block twice we find that someone has departed, so I do an illegal U-turn, grab the spot, manage to find two more nickels in the bottom of my purse, (I’ll get change when we get the tickets), and in we go. . .but the line is 150 people long, and I have piano students in two hours.

Never mind.

The rest of the day is much like this. I won’t bore you with the details, but it did include driving a long way out of the way to go to an arts supply store, doing extensive research in books introducing painting with watercolors, selecting paints, and brushes, and paper, and getting overwhelmed and intimidated and putting it all back.

After a kind of restless but adequate night’s sleep I wake up with the decision (!) that this will be a better day; I will make it so if it’s the last thing I do, gol’darn’it. I will start this day by writing the name of every person who has “wronged” me on a piece of paper and burning it in a foil tray, and that will release me from their hold on me. I do this. And there aren’t really that many people. And I laugh and think, “that’s it? It seemed like so many.” I start to wrack my brain to see if I can think of anyone else, decide I’m utterly ridiculous, and that’s that.

Of course, it’s not really that simple.

I picture this ideal, where there is this part way down deep in the center of me that is strong and confident and good, like a little tiny diamond carat from which the rest of me radiates; and some days I know it’s there and some days I think it’s there and some days I hope it’s there and some days I just can’t seem to find it, or believe that it ever existed.

But I have everything I need, and my husband and children are healthy and smart and strong, and my problems, in comparison to the problems of the world, are pretty small. I know all of these things.  So I make these vows to myself, to be more present, to be more joyful, to be more that tiny little diamond carat and less the dark swirling shadows that engulf it. . .and then my students come and they don’t have their assignment book, or their Etudes book, or they were skiing for the whole weekend and didn’t practice until yesterday; or I will be a better and more patient mom and then I catch Only Daughter eating her fourth snack since school, at the computer, and three of her Tuesday chores not done; or. . .

But today, I wrote an eleven-page paper about a Bach piece that I love and that I will submit for publication. And I got a last-minute gig playing for two gala occasions in area cities this weekend. And I bought myself these boots:

How fun/happy is that?

(Alas, I have to wait 30-60 days for them. Not sure why, but I think it’s important not to ask too many questions in cases like this. Of course, my credit card has already been charged.)

(And yes, I know retail therapy isn’t the answer to everything, and that it is not possible to actually buy happiness. But I’m thinking that it might sometimes help. I mean, did you see the boots? They’re red. And embroidered. And the toes curl up in that insouciant manner, almost like a smile. Did I mention they’re red?)

just do that, then

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151397745507577

I know this, and I’ve done it, but why is it so hard sometimes to remember that it was the right/good thing to do?

I’m remembering it today. And yesterday. Maybe I can hold on to it, then.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Am having a bit of a stressful ride lately, and the next 10 days see the culmination of it all. I try to focus on living in the moment, but I’m finding it particularly difficult not to just wish it were December 15.

In a nutshell, two big concerts to perform in, and one to sponsor/produce. Meanwhile, lots of people either not doing their jobs, or trying to do mine — both situations which cause a lot of extra work and/or stress for me right when I have a gazillion other things I really need to be focusing on; or should maybe just be sitting on a cushion with my palms on my thighs chanting Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti. . .

I did manage to clear my day today up until around 5 p.m. to stay home and regroup, so I am heading to practice soon (I will not knit. I will not knit. I will not knit.). I did start the day making my famous (infamous?) drunken Christmas cake. Actually, I started it last night, as I macerated the dried fruit in a good dose of brandy overnight. I did a fair bit of sampling of the batter as I prepared it, which means I was actually possibly maybe a tiny wee bit hammered before breakfast. I’m sure the coffee will counteract it and there should be no adverse effects.

It is a great recipe, adapted* from my very battered “Joy of Cooking” cookbook, so here it is:

Sheri’s Drunken Christmas Cake

The night before (the fruit can macerate up to 24 hours):

In a large (8-cup) mixing bowl or measuring cup mix 2 c. golden raisins, 2 c. dried currants, and 2 c. chopped dried figs. Pour 3/4 c. of brandy over and stir well. Cover. (Stir occasionally if you can — once before bed, once when you get up in the morning)

When you’re ready to make the cake:

Bring 1 c. of butter out to put on the counter while you make your coffee, assemble ingredients, etc.

Butter 8 small ! bread pans, bottom and sides.

Preheat oven to 300˚ (275˚ if it’s convection)

Put the butter into the mixing bowl of a stand mixer, and beat until smooth and creamy.
Add 2 c. packed dark brown sugar, and beat on a fairly high speed until lightened in color and texture, 3-5 minutes.

While this is beating, I mix the dry ingredients:
3 c. unbleached white flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon (I heap this one)
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground mace
1/2 tsp ground cloves
Whisk together well with an egg whisk to thoroughly blend and “sift” the flour.

To the butter/brown sugar mixture, add:
1/2 c. dark molasses
grated zest and juice of one orange
grated zest and juice of one lemon
Scrape the sides of the bowl as needed.

When this has been fully incorporated, add the flour mixture in 3 parts, alternating with 3/4 c. of brandy in 2 parts, mixing well (on low speed) after each addition. Be sure to scrape the sides of the bowl a couple of times so all of the flour stuff gets fully incorporated.
So: 1 c. flour mixture, mixmixmixmixmixmix, 1/2 of the brandy, mixmixmixmixmix, 1 c. of flour mixture, etc.

Now mix in the macerated fruits, and 2 c. of coarsely chopped almonds and/or hazelnuts. (I suppose, if you really felt it was necessary, you could use walnuts.*)

Divide the batter between the 8 pans (you can make this into one giant cake in a tube pan, but I like to give them as gifts, and they really serve better if you can cut up one loaf and leave the rest wrapped up until you want/need it).

Bake for 2 1/2 hours. At 1 1/4 hours rotate the pans so the ones on an upper rack get traded for the ones on a lower rack. (The JoC recipe says to bake for 3.5 hours, and to disregard the fact that the cakes look quite thoroughly done an hour earlier, but I have found these to come out a bit dry and crumbly, so I have shortened the baking time.)

Leave cakes in the pans to cool on a rack for at least an hour. At this point, if you like your Christmas cake REALLY hammered (who doesn’t?) you can drizzle (slowly) another tablespoon or two of brandy over each one.

To store: Soak a piece of cheesecloth in brandy, squeeze out the excess. Wrap the cake in cheesecloth, and then put into a sturdy freezer plastic bag. If you wrap the cake in brandy-soaked cheesecloth, you can actually age the cake up to a month. If I do this, about once a week I remove the cheesecloth and soak in a little more brandy just to keep the cake moist and discourage any molding. I’ve done this year after year, and the cake has NEVER gone bad.

Here’s how it all looked before I put them in the oven:

You know you’re a good cook if your counter is really messy. And my apologies for the beat-up looking cantaloup in the background. And not sure why I got the eggs out. There are no eggs in the recipe.

I wish you could smell how good my house smells right now. Yum.

Yesterday I made candied citrus peel:

(If you click on the picture it should link to where I got the recipe.)

Okay. Enough procrastinating. Must go practice now. (I will not knit. I will not knit. I will not knit.)

p.s. Is anybody else having trouble with the updated WordPress platform? I have never had so much trouble inserting pictures and having them go into the post where I want them and not having my links disappear. Grrr. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, y’know?

*Adapted meaning brandy has been added beyond that which has been called for, and that I have omitted things I cannot abide: dates (taste like boogers), walnuts (taste like dirt), candied fruits of any sort (taste like candle wax). Don’t ask me how I know these things, I just do.

cliché thanksgiving thanks

Oldest Son tells me that calling your mom on Mother’s Day to tell her thank you and that you love her is pathetic. That you should thank your mom and tell her you love her just because.

I agree, but I still like it when he calls me on Mother’s Day.

Giving thanks on Thanksgiving is also kind of pathetic — every day should be greeted with thankfulness. As I used to tell my dad when he would complain about getting old:  it beats the alternative.

So in yoga we thank our feet for carrying us through our days, and we thank our hamstrings (Hello, hamstrings!) and our aching backs and our hands for what they carry, and our hearts, for what they carry too.

And when we clean our floors we try to remember to thank the floors and the walls and the roof for keeping us from having to live in the dirt, in the rain.

And when we burn the pumpkin soup (just a little), we try to be thankful for all of the delicious ingredients in that pumpkin soup, and that we have good Calphalon pans so we know they’ll get clean again.

And when our children tease and spar and take 45 minutes to do the dishes we are thankful for their health and spirit, and that they are doing the dishes.

On the day after Thanksgiving 7 years ago I drove with my family to my brother’s for an extended family meal, not having yet told our children that their father and I were going to be divorcing.

Six years ago I cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my children and my almost-ex-husband in some kind of weird (pathetic?) attempt to manufacture for my children some weird version of family, which felt to me more like a completely phony and unsatisfying version of “family”; and a few hours after they left I was curled up on the bed in a fetal position, mourning all of the mistakes I had made and how, despite my best efforts, I did not have the relationship I wanted with my children, much less with myself.

So now what am I thankful for?

Well, that the dark days are over.

That we’ve crossed over to the other side.

That everyone’s fine.

That my back hurts, again, but seems to be getting better, and in a little more than a week we’ll have a new hot tub on our back deck (thanks, mom), and that will hopefully help my back problems, and Husband’s knee problems, besides being a wonderful addition to a life that’s being fully and gratefully lived.

For a life that’s being fully and gratefully lived.

For the physical, mental, intellectual, and emotional health of my friends and family.

For jobs that support us, working for and with people who respect our contributions, for food and shelter and kindness.

For a marriage with a man who is thoughtful, and sensitive, and supportive, and who likes, and loves, me as I do him.

He’s going to be embarrassed that I wrote this. But he is the thing I am most grateful for. And, for whatever weird (pathetic?) reason, I want you all to know.

I have it all.

I am the luckiest person I know.

Thank you.

 

what say we just ignore them?

I’ve seen a lot of posts on facebook in the last couple of days by people linking to a number of the vile things Ann Coulter has been saying.

Not unlike the whole Rush Limbaugh/Sandra Fluke (whose name Rush, I’m-quite-sure-not-unconsciously, pronounced Fluck) imbroglio.

And I have a proposition for all of you.

Instead of quoting them, or linking to newspapers which quote them, or to youtube videos that display them, etc., etc, we just ignore them.

They make the ridiculous amount of money they make because they are hired by people who don’t care what they say, as long as they get people to listen.

How about we just stop.

Nothing shuts someone up quite like being ignored. And it doesn’t mean we’re burying our collective heads in the sand, or allowing their propoganda to pollute the world, because we’re just turning a deaf ear, and going about making sure that that which really matters is done, and that which really matters is heard, and seen, etc. etc.

Join me?

Boycott the ridiculous, unless your paying attention to it can somehow change it. In which case, rock on and peace out.

How about it? Can I count you in? Let’s see, if we just stop paying attention, if that makes them all go away.

speaking of keeping your eye on the light

Heard Salman Rushdie on NPR’s “The Story” for the few minutes I was in the car tonight. (Yes, I renewed my membership. Yes I asked for the Thank You gift. Yes, I donated $10 more than I planned to alleviate my guilt. Yes, I was raised Catholic. Any more questions?)

Anyway, he was talking about how he really felt a sense of accomplishment in keeping his ability to write books in a way that would not reveal the circumstances in which he was living. To paraphrase*:

I didn’t want to think about the fact that I was living in a small, afraid little world, in which case I would write these small afraid little books; and I didn’t want to think about being bitter or angry because then that would come through and those books would be miserable too. I really pride myself on the fact that someone who didn’t know the circumstances of my life from 1989 to 1998 could pick up any of the books on a shelf that were written by me in that time frame and still would not know that I was living under a fatwa.

What an inspiring example of the triumph of the human spirit and of mind over matter.

You can listen here. I’d listen and actually quote, but it’s past my bedtime.

 

 
*I am paraphrasing. I can’t find a transcript. I apologize if I don’t have it exactly right.

this week, a.k.a., this is water?

So, a few weeks ago I was asked if I was interested in being Music Director at the church where I have been, merely, Pianist.

I accepted.

There are various reasons for this, the most obvious of which is that with this job I will, for the first time, get to be In Charge of Something That is Mine, and I only had to wait 47 years for it.

I also get to learn how to (actually) sing and how to conduct a bell choir, and get to put together a chamber concert series to raise money for social-justice causes in Our Fair City.

All good things. I’m really looking forward to all of it.

But all of this is happening in May, which is usually my month to Recuperate From the Academic Year. Instead this month has been a scramble while I try to Get My Act Together in preparation for our upcoming trip to visit Husband’s family on the western boundaries of Canadia (as I like to call it, and which strikes fear into his heart that I will Actually Say This in Front of His Family)(I have, btw, since they read this blog), and then six weeks of teaching at a summer camp, while presumably being organized enough to justify my salary as Music Director while being mostly conspicuously physically absent.

Meanwhile, as you probably know, my mom is in hospice with a glioblastoma in its fifth-and-a-half year along with DVTs in her leg and lungs.

Oh, and Husband’s Father had a heart attack on Wednesday night.

It’s really, really, in case anyone is Keeping Track of These Things, a bit Too Much to Take.

I got home today in between 3 hours at the church trying to make sense of 10 years of Bad Filing Practices and an oil-change and tire-rotation $37 trip to the service department that became a $300 60,000-mile maintenance tune-up and 3 hours of group lessons to a bag of raspberry and strawberry plants that Needed To Be Planted Today or They Will Die.

30 seconds after I planted the last raspberry plant Dexter the cute-but-stupid Dog had pulled one up and chewed it to bits.

Meanwhile Husband is off rescuing Stepdaughter from her now-defunct Chrysler Town and Country that was about to transport all of her earthly belongings from school to home, while I get ready to go visit my mom in hospice for 48 hours.

Needless to say, I’m Not Having a Very Good Day.

I’m feeling like I’m caught up in this vortex of Trials and Tribulations (call me Job, just don’t call me late for dinner), and I’m vibrating. Only Daughter gave me a very nice hug tonight and asked me if I was okay — she said that she doesn’t really hear Mommy laugh very much lately.

Sigh.

No kidding.

Last night First Son and I sat on the couch reading commencement speeches — notably David Foster Wallace’s last, which was okay, but not actually as profound as I’d expected. I have a DFW quote on Facebook:

That the cliché ‘I don’t know who I am’ unfortunately turns out to be more than a cliché. That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place, and, like, hurt. That you will become less concerned with what other people think about you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agenda-less kindness. That other people can often see things about you that you yourself cannot see, even if those people are stupid.

First Son thought it might be from Infinite Jest – a book we both hope to read, but each (independently) got far enough into that we knew needed more Time to Think and Process if we were going to do so successfully, so not yet, not yet.

Anyway, the commencement speech we found included a little anecdote, about two young fish swimming along, and encountering an older (presumably wiser) fish, who asks nonchalantly, as they pass each other “How’s the water?”  Wait a few beats, and one of the younger fish asks the other, “What the hell is water?”

DFW points out: This is water. This is water.

I’m trying to remember that.

If you can all send pillows of comfort and strength in Whatever Form With Which You Are Comfortable, that would be great, and greatly appreciated.

There was a really bad storm the other night, that went on literally for hours and hours and hours. At one point, around 2 a.m. or so, I opened up the weather.com app on my phone and saw that there was a front of stormage extending from Arkansas to the northern peninsula of Michigan, and the storm was just tracking along it, and the line seemed to pass right over our house. We live in the forest, (a forest which has had at least four trees fall in in the last 6 months), so bad storms kind of stress me out. Plus we’ve had Serious Water in our basement twice, and the lightning was striking trees and transformers in our backyard and it was raining so hard it sounded like it was hailing, and after a few hours of this I said to Husband, “This could stop now. Really. I’ve had Just About Enough.”

It’s how I feel about the vortex around me right now. I’ve had Just About Enough.

This is water. This is water.

I need to go sit on the beach. With Husband, an amusing Chardonnay, and a couple trays of sushi.

Sigh.

does it really matter?

I have 7,538 messages in my email inbox on my laptop. I spent 20 minutes today deleting 572 emails from my iPhone, only to have the phone helpfully download another 500 from the archive.

A couple of weeks ago I spent several hours unsubscribing from many many email lists.

Many remain. Many from various causes I have signed petitions for; many of them in the future will probably be regarding various causes I would sign petitions for.

But does it really make any difference at all?

I would like to just unsubscribe from them all so I could stop cluttering up my life and making my days busier than they already are, but I fear that’s just, well,

and exactly why we find ourselves in the situation in which we find ourselves.

No easy answer to that one, what?