I believe I don't know

With age comes wisdom, so they say. I just celebrated the 64th anniversary of my birth. I told my mother, as she sat in her wheelchair staring blankly, that 64 years ago she had her first baby, and it was me. I didn't take it personally that she had no idea what I was talking about. She did smile at me before the visit ended, though.

I've been considering the difference between what I know and what I believe. I'm not the first person ever to do that ----- that much I know. I do wonder what the relationship is between my beliefs and what I perceive as reality, though. 

In my Qigong class yesterday, we had a guided meditation followed by movement and postures designed to optimize letting go of blockages, opening the way for chi to flow. I do this three times a week, and have done for more than a year. During that time, I've experienced changes in myself, mainly of the invisible sort. My sense of well-being has expanded considerably.

But yesterday, I felt newly challenged to look at the beliefs that carve me out of everything else. If I take up space ---- and I take up a lot more space than I used to ----- that means there's an Out There and an In Here. At least, that's how it seems to me. But what if it's not as simple as that? What if my configuration of molecules and cells and blood and guts is an outpicturing of my tightly held beliefs? It gets slippery here.

There was a time, about 50 years ago, when I believed strongly that any grade below a B meant that I was hopelessly stupid and not just a failure, but a total loser. When I worked as hard as I knew how and still got a D in Algebra, I fell apart. I felt doomed, embarrassed, stained with an indelible mark. I couldn't conceive of any other interpretation of that grade on a report card. I was a failure at math. Forever. That belief, from a single class, had long term repercussions --- I could not risk taking a math class in college. I scoured the catalog and chose a major that didn't involve any more than "Kiddie Math" ---- a math methods class for elementary teachers.

There have been many, many instances like that, beliefs that shaped who I experience myself to be based on nothing more substantial than other people's judgments. The most enduring has been circumference. To this day, deep inside, I can't argue myself out of the belief that somehow I have failed in life because I'm not a size 5. 

The meditation on Friday opened a little window on that, though. If it is a long-ingrained, universally reinforced belief, isn't it possible, in theory at least, to unbelieve it? In fact, isn't that the only relief there is? A never-ending thought loop is the tightest prison I know. It feeds itself perpetually and is ultimately connected to nothing in "real" life because it all happens inside my head. 

It's been about 3 weeks since I had a long talk with my dear friend Sharon about coming into our own as Crones ---- claiming our wisdom and growth without false modesty and self-deprecation. There is a great deal to be said for living long enough to learn some things, and that's what we've done and are still doing. We can reap the rewards of increased serenity, peace of mind, acceptance and yes, a slower pace. Things are not so urgent anymore. Thank Goodness!

It is not inconceivable that one day I will be in my mother's position. I don't expect it. I no longer spend much time worrying about it. But I'm not in la-la land, either. Both of my parents had Alzheimer's Disease, which may well increase my odds.

Therefore, in my mid-sixties, the time I have left is more precious than ever. Each day is fresh. There are no throw-away days. That doesn't mean I have to live in some sort of pressure cooker attempt to By God Enjoy Every Minute. That would be the exact opposite of what's called for. It actually means that I have the awareness and wisdom to focus on the present. I'm not out to save the world. I'm happy sweeping my own piece of the planet.

I've decided to engage in some thought experiments, letting those life and happiness denying beliefs slide away. Through recognition, challenges, and continuing the meditative and movement practices I already have, I can shape my thoughts and beliefs. Nobody else can. I'll be like Bill Cosby with his old joke about his kids: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out."

Shelter in the chaos

I'm in one of my writing spaces. I have the comfort of dogs and cats. Jill is a few feet away in her studio. Coffee cup at my elbow, hummingbirds outside the window, jazz playing in my ears. It's my shelter, my refuge, my safe space, my home. Not everybody has that.

Over the past week, as I've been checking in on the news sporadically, the trouble in Ferguson MO has punctured my serenity. It runs parallel to a book I'm reading at the moment, Jason Sokol's There Goes My Everything. On social media, I've seen memes and pictures and outraged comparisons to the Civil Rights movement half a century ago. (Half a century? Damn, I'm old.)

This book is subtitled: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1975. It reads like a dissertation, which I suppose was its basis, and was published in 2006. At this moment, it is helpful for me, because it provides a historical perspective.

It's not news to anybody that race is a fraught subject in the US. I don't think I have much to offer that hasn't already been said and re-said a gazillion times before. All I have to go on is my own limited experience. That's where having been on the planet for awhile comes in handy.

My own experiences with civil unrest are defined by only a couple of times in the distant past. I'm lucky that way. My neighborhood was only marginally involved. My sense of personal security was not completely destroyed, though it was definitely rattled. Neither involved overt racism. Both involved "otherness" and authoritarianism.

I have vivid memories of the armed, organized, National Guard marching on my campus, the University of Illinois at Urbana. We lived on Green Street only a couple of blocks from campus, and it was a main drag. In the morning, we would see the Guard close it to citizens and make their presence known, ostentatiously marching to the campus. They swept down the quad, gathering up students for arrest. While my sympathies did lie with the protesters, and I attended rallies and prepared to be tear-gassed, according to the steps on my "Kill The Pigs" flyer, I was still concerned with getting to class and finals. The semester was almost over. I needed those credits. But students at Kent State and Jackson State were being killed on their college campuses. People were marching and running and shouting and throwing things right there where I lived and went to school. Once, I got caught in a canyon between buildings with the Guard coming at me and thought I was in deep shit ---- I turned and ran, hoping I would not be shot.

The Revolution was upon us.

My only other brush with rioting in the streets came in San Francisco following the murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. I worked an 8pm - 4am shift in the Federal Building, back when computers took up entire rooms and had to be backed up on tape every night. That was my lonely job, in a towering building with only a front door security guard in the building, at least as far as I knew. I was too close to City Hall for comfort. Cars got turned over and ignited. People massed in the streets. There was shouting. I was afraid to come or go. I stayed put. It didn't feel like my war to fight, but harking back to my college years, my sympathies always landed with the people, not the armed authorities.

I don't know what sparks any individual riot. They may occur spontaneously, but they are not out of the blue. Unrest and rioting in the streets come from a cause, from many causes, but it seems to me it boils down to desperation. No other voice will be heard. It's the voice of people who have been ignored and shunted aside too long. 

Have you ever tried to explain yourself to someone who won't let you get a word in, who won't listen to anything you have to say, who is completely uninterested in your point of view? Don't you want to slap him (or her)? Not that it would do any good. It wouldn't change anything and would likely make it all worse and you'd wind up hurting more than you started. But still.... SMACK! "Listen to me, you righteous mother-fucker! I'm here in front of you!"

Ferguson slapped America. Selma, Detroit, Los Angeles. So many others. 

Wake up! We're here! We matter!

All of us others ----- All of us humans.

Just listen, please, with heart, not fear.

Behind those eyeballs

A facebook friend recently posed the question "If you could be anyone else for a day, who would it be?"  My rather flippant answer was "You?" That's started a chain reaction in my mind that has me up at 4 AM.

I tried to explain, but quickly found myself sounding like a creepy stalker. The thing is, the whole idea of being inside of another person's head is pretty creepy and stalker-like. Before long, I realized that while other folks on the thread wanted to be be Mother Teresa or Eleanor Roosevelt, I pretty much want to find out what it's like inside everybody. 

This hits on one of my most persistent mental constructs. Maybe this should be just between me and my therapist, but I frequently think about people I'm talking to, people I see in the store, other drivers, all looking out from behind their own eyeballs, not experiencing the same thing I am, even if we're in the same place. 

I am emphatically not a person who consumes horror media. I never watch graphically violent movies. I even close my eyes to keep from watching your run-of-the-mill shootouts and car chases. But when I think about getting inside somebody else's head, I'm drawn like a shark to the Jefferey Dahmers and Bernie Madoffs. What makes someone do things like that? What is it like in there?

Would I want to be them for a day? Hell no. But maybe for an hour or two. Eleanor Roosevelt or James Baldwin? Sure, them too. The heavily tatooed cashier at Food Lion? Yup, count me in. I'm curious about pretty much everyone --- the pre-school teacher and the plumber, the retirement-age guy who comes around to check our termite traps, even the plunderers and murderers waging holy war across Iraq right now. What is it like inside that mind?

Writing books is the closest I can get to being inside someone else's head. You often hear writers say that the characters take on a life of their own. They take off in unforeseen directions and hijack the story. I always wonder where the characters who populate my books come from. I think it's from my insatiable curiosity about what makes people tick.

I've known my wife Jill for 12 years. We've spent hours and days and weeks talking, going to couple's counselling, sharing secrets, spilling guts. Do I know her? Yes, . . . and no. We often say the same thing at the same time. I can predict with some certainty what she will say or think about many things, though she still surprises me. But I don't know what it's like to be her. I can't swim in her thoughts and look out from her unique perspective.

If I had to choose one person in the world to be for a day, I couldn't do it. The closest would be my mother, but not for a day, oh, heavens no. End stage Alzheimer's would be scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. But yes, I wish I could know what goes on in my Mama's mind. What does she see from behind those eyeballs? How much does she know? Is she still in there ----- trapped and unable to communicate? Does she know who I am? Does she know who she is?

So what do you think, is it a writer thing, this wanting to worm my way into other people's heads? Or maybe I should just call my therapist.

I wonder what goes on behind her eyeballs.