All Hell Breaks Loose

Captured this shot on my drive home from work today (and didn't even get in an accident).  I was so taken with the contrast between the blue and the dust.

It left me wondering whether that wall of brown was coming or going.

Also made me think about the extremes in life, and how the good and the bad presented to us strike such a stark contrast when juxtaposed smack up against each other.  But of course the distinction is rarely so obvious.

Wednesday's Word -- Illusion

I've been reading The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami and thinking about the word illusion.  (Don't take this as a recommendation of the book . . . .  Many parts are wonderfully metaphoric and creative, while other parts are worth skipping due to graphic descriptions that I can do without and still appreciate the tale  . . . .)  

Illusion comes from a root meaning to play or jest.  It finds its origin in the Latin illudere, meaning to mock at.  A client sent me this (almost hypnotic) optical illusion today, and it has me thinking about the reality that things are often not what they appear to be . . .       

Button, Button

I left my last orthodontist appointment with a button in my mouth.  I was wary when the orthodontist and his assistant gave each other a conspiratorial look.  Turning to me, the orthodontist told me, "you have a choice.  You can either get the button today, or get the button at your next visit."  "Well, what do you think I should do?" I asked, unsure why I was being given a choice in the matter.  Was this going to be such a torture that I should delay?  "It's the next step," was all he responded.  I paused to consider and, because I had a number of upcoming work obligations that would require me to actually be in front of people, I told the ortho and his assistant that I would wait until my next appointment.  

It became clear that I had made the wrong choice.  It kind of reminded me of that scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the bridge keeper at the Bridge of Death asks "what is your favorite color."  Your answer to the question-that-would-seem-to-have-no-wrong-answer is somehow wrong nonetheless.  I really do have a desire to be a diligent metal mouth and get this whole thing over with as quickly as possible, so I revised my answer.  

Within minutes, the button had been installed.  Turns out that the "button" is more of a metal spike jutting off of the inside of my left far-back molar into the side of my tongue.  It's intended to correct my cross-bite.  In addition to causing stabbing pain, it also results in the sensation that I am constantly swallowing a small piece of metal.  One end of a small rubber band is looped around this spike, with the other end stretched to a hook on the outside of the corresponding bottom molar.  "If this works," I was told, "you might only have to wear this for a month.  But it could be as long as six months."  I was warned that my tongue would be a bit sensitive for a few days, and then I was sent on my way.     

As I have been learning, orthodontists and their assistants are helplessly euphemistic.  My tongue was more than "sensitive."  It was shredded raw.  I couldn't eat and couldn't speak clearly for days.  I thought to myself, "how am I going to endure this?"  But the amazing thing is that now, a few weeks later, I have almost completely adjusted to the situation.  It's astounding to me, but I am back to functioning almost as if the "button" isn't there.

This "button" is no major inconvenience in the grand scheme of things, and certainly is nothing in comparison to any real suffering by anyone who has a right to complain about life.  But it has me thinking about how amazingly adaptive human beings are.  We can endure so much more than we might think we could, and pop back up to the surface, resilient as ever.

As a child, I remember paging through the National Geographic magazines my parents had been saving for decades.  We kids would look in amazement at the awe-inspiring photographs from parts of the world we could only dream about.  One of the stories I remember quite vividly (perhaps because I was horrified and fascinated both) was about the practice of foot binding in China.  I couldn't fathom how those Chinese girls could bear the pain of having the arches of their feet broken and the growth of their feet stunted by binding, resulting in feet so tiny they could hardly do more than hobble carefully with little, mincing steps.

I've never endured anything even remotely close to the horror of foot binding, but my own life has taught me something about enduring what may seem, in the moment, to be unendurable.   I suspect it's a lesson I've had particular need to learn for whatever reason.  Sometimes we may be forced to endure pointless pains, but more often than not, the pain has a purpose.  What might feel like a foot binding (cramping, confining, excruciating, mutilating), may be more like my button (stabbing, nagging, but ultimately correcting).

At least, that's what I try to tell myself!

Beautiful Disaster

I came home to this today.  {Thank you, wind storm.}

Really.  Needless to say, I was less than pleased with this greeting.  Imagine about 200 or so shattered drinking glasses sprinkled across your patio, in your pool and in your grass, just beckoning little feet and hands for the cutting.  I cleaned it up--all the while with my three children pressed against the sliding glass door, begging and miming their desperation to come out and join me.  

The amazing thing is that, in the process, I discovered that the glass shards are simply beautiful.  

I couldn't even bring myself to throw them away.  There must be something creative I can do to recycle and enjoy my now destroyed-beyond-repair patio table.  Ideas?

I know.  I can't help but see the metaphor in everything.  You know what I'm going to say, right?  Not that you can turn lemons into lemonade.  {I'm no Pollyanna.}  But it IS true that if you look closely enough at the shards of any disaster, there is a glimmer and a gleam.  {Even if there are bandaids too.} 

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I won't review the book here or spoil the storyline, but one of the main themes of the book centers around the lines we draw between ourselves and others.  Creating the "us" and the "them."  The book is set in the 1960s, in Jackson, Mississippi, during the Civil Rights Movement.  The story is told from three perspectives -- through the eyes of two black maids (Aibileen and Minny) and one young white woman (Skeeter) whose eyes are opened and decides to stop following the rules. 

It's a great read, but I have been especially struck with the idea that we all draw unnecessary and artificial lines in our lives.  The book is mostly about racial lines at an explosive time in history when those lines were finally breaking down.  But the theme applies so much more broadly.  Whenever we draw lines or put up walls, it comes down to our faulty perceptions about the differences (lack of similarities) between us. 

I am old/young/middle-aged, and you are not. 

I am a stay-at-home/working mom, and you are not. 

I am married/single, and you are not. 

I am a parent/am childless, and you are not. 

I am liberal/conservative, and you are not. 

I am wealthy/poor, and you are not. 

I am educated/uneducated, and you are not. 

I believe in this/that, and you do not.

I look like this/that, and you do not.

In the book, The Help, one of the narrators, Aibileen, tries in her own way to teach the white child she cares for not to grow up to be a racist like those around her.  She tells stories and plays little games.  One of the games involves giving the little girl two pieces of the same candy, one wrapped in brown paper and the other wrapped in white paper.  The lesson is simple.  The wrapper doesn't matter.

As Aibileen tells Minny:  "I used to believe in em [lines].  I don't anymore.  They in our heads.  Lines between black and white ain't there neither.  Some folks just made those up, long time ago."  And as Skeeter concludes towards the end of the book:  "We are just two people. Not that much separates us.  Not nearly as much as I'd thought."

I love what Maya Angelou had to say on the subject:

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.


Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.


The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.


I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land.
I've seen the wonders of the world,
not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.


Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.


We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.


We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.


I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends
than we are unalike.


We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

With my thoughts on false lines, rules and boundaries, some well-loved lines from Robert Frost's "Mending Wall" keep coming to mind. 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it

And spills the upper boulders in the sun,

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. 

As Frost tells it, it is springtime, and the stone wall (pieced together with boulders piled one on top of the other) that separates his property from his neighbor's is in need of repair.  He and his neighbor meet, working each on his own side of the wall, restoring the dividing line that really serves no purpose.  Frost needles his neighbor, questioning why the wall should be there when the neighbor is "all pine" and Frost is "apple orchard." 

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines.

The neighbor only responds "Good fences make good neighbors."  To this, Frost questions:  

Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn't it 

Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows. 

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know 

What I was walling in or walling out, 

And to whom I was like to give offense. 

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, 

That wants it down.

In my life, I have found that whenever I think I am different, I am wrong.  We may wear different wrappers, prepare different faces, but "we are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike."  There will likely always be people who insist on mending unnecessary walls, but there will also always be "something . . . [t]hat wants it down."     

Preparing a Face

I sometimes browse and sometimes purchase on one of those popular-these-days on-line private sale boutiques.  This lovely item, amongst hundreds of other more practical items, sold out in less than a half hour the other day.

I have to ask myself, where does a person wear such a gown?  And what kind of person has somewhere to wear such a gown?  Someone far fancier than I, that's for sure. 

Wondering about this red taffeta gown (it also has an accompanying shrug, in case you care), which I would certainly never wear even if I wanted to spend the hundreds of dollars it costs and had somewhere to wear it, makes me think about a principle of happiness that sometimes alludes me.  As a general rule, most people aren't happier than you are -- even if they buy red taffeta ball gowns on a whim and have somewhere to wear them.

Several years ago, I read an interesting book called Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert, and then, last year, read Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely.  Both books look at why we do what we do, and why our choices so frequently make us unhappy.  The first focuses in particular on why and how our brains trick us into thinking we know what will make us happy, and the second focuses on hidden forces that shape our decisions -- including the principle of relativity.  A big part of the problem is that we make so many of our decisions based on faulty comparisons.  Anyway, it's something to think about.  I once heard someone say that "the people you think are the happiest are the ones you don't know very well."  As T.S. Eliot put it in his "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," so many in this world are "preparing a face to meet the faces that [they] meet."

So I'll forget the red taffeta dress and the fancy ball those women who bought it must be attending.  I'm wearing my pajamas at the moment, and that's just fine by me.