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. 

Cycling through Life

No, not that kind of cycling. Being a devotee of sloth and a delicate flower of femininity, I didn't learn to ride a bicycle until I was 15. At that point, I thought it would be fun and cute, in a Gidget sort of way, to have my boyfriend teach me how to ride. I never got past wobbling down the street trying not to fall off and bust my ass. 

I tried the same thing three years later when I reached the driving age in Spain, where I lived, and recruited my sailor boyfriend to borrow his friend's sports car and teach me to drive. I promptly massacred a young pine sapling. He married me anyway.

The cycling I have in mind today is of the "going around, coming around" variety. The cycles of life. Beginnings and endings. Reaping what you sow.

My mother, Nancy, has entered a new phase of this very long Alzheimer's Disease journey. As long as she was able, after her diagnosis, she was pretty matter-of-fact and proactive about the illness. She set the example that it was not a tragedy, it was something to deal with as you would any other change in circumstances. She took care of the legalities. She divested herself of the house and belongings, converting it all into the money it would take to cover her care. She moved into a senior living place and whooped it up and fell in love and told everyone she talked to that she had never been so happy in her whole life. And I believe it was true. She voluntarily gave up her car. She dived wholeheartedly into the activities in her community, even trying new things she had been too self-conscious or afraid to try before. She suffered the memory losses, and knew full well what was coming; she had just finished caring for my father through his prolonged trip down the same path. She was 75 years old and had a death sentence of excruciating decline and debilitation.

Alzheimer's is not merely a disease of memory loss. That often seems the most visible to outsiders, and cognitive loss the most horrifying to those in fear of developing it. Though memory blanks are frequently the first clues, that is only a starting point. As it progresses, slowly and inexorably, there are starts and stops, sometimes relatively calm plateaus followed by precipitous loss. The entire body is affected ---- coordination, visual perception, continence, touch, movement, speech. The brain disorder shows up differently in each person, with a general progression which can sometimes be predicted, but not a solid timetable.

Nine years post-diagnosis, Nancy is in the end stage now. Her legs are drawn up to her chest. Her speech is gone and her attempts to communicate come out as drawn out yells and screams. She often appears to be afraid or anxious. Her medical caregivers say she doesn't show signs of pain, but is in some sort of distress, and they are trying to find meds and environmental ways to address it. Sometimes, she still seeks eye contact and smiles. 

My mother took care of me when I was pre-verbal. I couldn't express myself except by cries, which she learned to interpret and hoped she got right. I could not walk or feed myself. I couldn't control my movements with any degree of certainty. I had to have my diapers changed. I expect that she would lie beside me on the bed and cuddle me against her body, as I did with my children, as I do now with her. I'm certain she spoke softly to me, sang to me, reassured me that everything was okay. I did that with my children. It's what mothers do. And now, I find, it's what daughters do, too.

My sister asked me the other day if I had watched Mom sleep and seen her lips sucking while she slept. I have. I used to sit with my babies on my lap and watch intently. I loved when their lips would move as though they were trying to speak. "Talking to the angels" some people call it. And the tiny sucking movements as they slept, during those first few months of life, were utterly precious to see. 

In many ways my mother has returned to infancy. Much of that instinctive behavior we see in newborns is present again. Often it makes me cry, but at the same time I'm so very grateful to be able to be with her as the circle closes. It seems a fitting end.

I Killed a Bug and I Liked It

Last night, about midnight, after Jill was asleep and I was going around making sure the lights were off and doors locked, I almost stepped on a bug in my bare feet!

In the Southland, we've got some bugs of unusual size. People who know me, know that one of my most enduring characteristics is a lifelong fear of bugs. Okay, not fear. Phobia. Twice, over the years, I've become so incapacitated by that fear that I've had to go for treatment. It's not that I think they're annoying, or ugly, or symbolic of everything evil in the universe. It's all that and more. They have all those skinny little legs. They move so fast and unpredictably. Sometimes they fly and even get ON you. And they crunch when you step on them. I could go on.

It's only been a matter of a month or so ago that I was doing the late night circuit and came upon one of those midnight visitors. As usual, I screamed uncontrollably and started doing the tiptoe dance, which brought Jill out of her much-needed sleep. She sighed and took over. She knows her job well. I cowered in the other room while she destroyed the creature, which really was THIS BIG, regardless of what she says, and worried about whether she would properly dispose of the carcass. It's a demand that goes unspoken, but has great repercussions because it can affect the next few days or longer. Unfortunately, she put it in the kitchen trash, right there on top in front of God and everybody, but since I had already ruined her slumber and she had to get up for work at 5:15, I stayed mum and sucked it up like a good soldier. First thing in the morning, I stepped on the trashcan pedal, averted my eyes, and put several perfectly good, unused paper towels on top of the monster.

I have never actually killed one of these creatures myself ----- until last night.

It's true that when I finish writing a novel, I plunge into an abyss. I don't quite know what to do with myself. I cast about for things to do, try to catch passing ideas and see if they'll spin out into some sort of narrative, read and scrabble around on the internet machine, and generally start to feel that I have no particular use in the world, or excuse for taking up oxygen. That can lead to very bad places if left unchecked. And in its wake, fears and phobias are able to resurface from their ever-present hiding places. Kind of like bugs in the walls and crevices.

I've been introspective, off balance, a little weepy, not in the pink, I guess you could say, ever since I finished the last book. In fact, I have two unopened cartons from CreateSpace sitting in the front room, with books inside. So when I encountered that wanton, six-legged varmint last night, I immediately started to freak out and dance around ----- but I didn't scream. Perhaps that is the beginning.

I made a split-second decision not to wake up my blissfully sleeping wife and take on this threat my own self. Our big, brave 55 pound dog looked on as I cast about for a weapon. Spray was my first thought, but that would involve going out to the garage, which could give this thing time to slip into a crack and disappear, and then I'd never get to sleep. No, it had to be immediate and decisive. I would have to use a flyswatter. That's what they're made for. But where was it? Not in either of the two places I usually hang it in the kitchen. Then I remembered hanging it from the cafe rod by the table. That would mean crossing in front of the beast, which would give it an opening to attack, but I had to take a chance. I leaped like a creature of the forest to the other side of the room, grabbed my weapon and ------ no. I could not come at it from the front. That would never do. It would mean not only that it could charge me, but I'd be at a disadvantage having to use a cross-body swing. I was certain to miss. 

With another heroic leap, I gained a foothold to the left of my quarry and slightly behind. Pausing only to blur my vision enough to aim for the moving spot on the floor without being able to distinguish the disgusting legs, I swung. Splat! A near miss. It shot in the direction of the refrigerator and I swung again. I was determined not to let it out of my fuzzy vision. The third time I slapped pink plastic against the kitchen floor, I winged it. It was no longer running, but wiggling in its tracks. A final swoop of the flyswatter and the deed was done. I was victorious!

I knew I had reached my limit. The clean up crew would have to take care of the remains. I left the flyswatter across the trashcan as a symbol of my triumph, and hoped that neither the dogs nor the cats would decide to munch on the carcass. It took awhile to go to sleep; I felt an odd mixture of pride and horror at the evening's adventure.

This morning I woke up long enough to announce my feat to Jill.

"I killed a bug last night!"
"So did I."
"In the kitchen?"
"Yeah."
"That's the one I killed."
"Oh, I killed it again. I thought it was just resting."

We're an unstoppable team.

Haunted by the past

                           

  Haints in the Side Yard

I just birthed another book. It's an odd feeling. Even though I've written all my life, ever since I learned how to form sentences in first grade, I never expected to have actual books out in the world. Now there are seven.

I wrote, as a child, because I could. I knew how to transfer words in my mind to paper. I could save them up ---- and I have. I could go back and read them later, and recreate the experience all over again. That seemed like magic. It still does.

Fifty-three years worth of journals repose in the blue bookcase in my upstairs room. Everything up there is dusty. I don't go upstairs often, though it's a cozy space. But my writing desk and now-stationary laptop are downstairs, and steps can seem daunting. Plus it's Buddy the Doggy's favorite place, his man cave. He can keep an eye on the neighborhood from up there.

The other day, I mentioned a long-ago incident from when my son was five years old. I became curious; memory is a tricky beast. One of the reasons I write things down is to keep myself from making things up. So I trotted upstairs and pulled that volume from the shelf, blew off the dust, pounded the couch pillow (cough, cough) and sat down to find the magic of the written word.

Life goes by day to day. In the morning, we never know what's going to happen. Something life-changing can occur at any moment. The thing is, often we don't even recognize it when it does. I was 29 years old in February of 1980. Andrew was still in his Superman phase. He spent two years in full regalia most of the time. I was feeling my oats as well --- living with my folks for free in the Azores, a fulltime Portugese grandmother to take care of Andrew by day and plenty of childcare at night as well. Single, ripe, and fancy free on an Air Force base is the stuff lurid lit is made of, and I was trying my best to live up to the genre.

What I remembered so vividly was the decision to send Andrew to live with his father in the States. In hindsight, 35 years later and 33 years sober, it was pivotal. It was the beginning of the end of my drinking. It was the realization that I was hurting my child and he needed a "normal" life. It was fear that I couldn't control myself and might actually harm him sometime. So I sent him away, rather than change myself. That, right there, that's addiction.

In my journal from February 1980, it rates a small paragraph, spliced in between accounts of cast parties, flirtations, speculation and drunkalogue. I have no way of knowing what would have happened if I had not sent him home. I'm dead sure it was the right thing to do, though once it happened, a few months later, I was bereft, and spent several pages lamenting the loss and wondering whether I would ever get him back. I did, but it took three years and getting sober before it happened.

I still keep a journal. It's sporadic. I'll write intensely when my mind is crammed and my life is feeling out of control. Then I'll go a month or two without writing at all. But I never quit. Every so often I go back and check myself like this, check in on my old self. There's a lot I don't remember. Things that seemed catastrophic at the time, have disappeared entirely from my memory. People, too. I'm surprised at how memory works, and doesn't work.

When I face a perplexing decision or emotionally-charged situation, I try to project ahead to the end of my life and look back on the present. It usually helps to change my perspective that way. Puts things in focus. In the meantime, while regular, sweet, boring life unfolds, I do what I can to stay awake to what's in front of me and, when inspired, write it down in my journal.

The new book is  called Haints in the Sideyard, a sequel to Way Out in Dog Heaven. Do you know what a haint is?

Swab Jockey

Hi Swab-Jockey:

That's how the letter between brothers begins. Lester, pictured above, was just out of boot camp in 1944, 18 years old and a recent high school grad. Eugene was a seasoned sailor, with three years under his belt, and welcomed his little squirt brother into the fold. The letter is salty and sprinkled with jargon and slang, a delicious glimpse of why the brother who "got wild" was later brought up to Captain's Mast. For me, 70 years later, it's a delight.

I've spent the past couple of days reading every single letter and postcard in bundles that were banded together with crumbling rubber bands. It's a one-sided picture, comprised almost entirely of Lester's letters home to Mom and Pop, back in Iowa. Scrubbed though they probably were, to save the sensibility of his mother and maiden aunt, hints of a wider experience come through. But what communicated to me was the first glimpse I've ever had of my father as an emerging young man, years before I was born.

Ida Keuhling and Ralph E. Bundy on their wedding day, 1918

What I knew of my dad was almost entirely on the surface. He wasn't given to talking about his feelings. First and foremost, he was a musician. Everything else was an add-on. That aspect of his life was well in place by the time he joined the war, and gave him considerable anxiety during the two years he served. Nearly every letter laments his lack of a piano, of practice time, his loss of technique and fear that he would never regain his concert career path. When I was growing up, he still sought pianos where ever we were, despite the fact that we had a sweet little baby grand at home. He would duck into churches, bars and restaurants, music stores or hotel lobbies. He could not pass up a chance to sit and play, even if it annoyed his wife and embarrassed his kids. 

I never thought of him as a small town guy with small town attitudes, but his letters reveal where he came from. We moved around a great deal when I was young, every year or two, and finally landed in Europe, teaching for the military dependent schools. My experience was one of openness, tolerance, and acceptance, though when I think of it, Dad was far more likely to criticize people than Mom ever was. It came as a shock to me to see the casual racism and jingoistic attitude expressed in my father's World War II letters. It reminds me not only that we are all subject to the cultural and normative prejudices of our times, but that we can be completely unaware of them, as well. And it begs the question I ask myself frequently ---- where are my own blind spots? What do I say or write that is unwittingly offensive?

I feel like I've been on a journey this week. So many questions arise, personal to me and my family, as well as larger speculation about the "Greatest Generation" that has come to be revered in what is undoubtedly an unrealistic haze of nostalgia and forgetfulness. They were boys, many of those who fought the war. Dad spent his two years of service not heroically saving the world, but throwing-up over the side of the "peanut shell" minesweeper he was assigned to. Join the Navy and see the world? All he wanted was to go back to his hometown, go to college, resume the life that had been interrupted to send him off to the bays and harbors of the Pacific. Repeatedly, he told his folks ---- who apparently were urging him to be happy that he could see so many foreign sights ---- that he shared too little space with too many men, the chow was not very good, fresh water was sometimes not available, he had to stand watches at all odd hours and rarely got anything but "spyglass liberty" to see these wonderful foreign sights.

Of course, he always was something of a hypochondriac and loved to let everyone know when he was unhappy.

These letters gave me a peek into his interior life, at least when he was so very young. He was a vividly descriptive writer. He had many dreams and plans for the future. He worried about his invalid mother. He sorely missed his piano and his teacher. He confessed that he didn't fit in because he didn't carouse like his shipmates, because he played classical music, because once he had run through all the westerns and mysteries aboard, he pleaded for someone back home to send him Shakespeare.

I've spent a lifetime thinking that my unexpected arrival in the world derailed my father's life. He had to get married. He had to support a family. If it weren't for me, and my untimely appearance, he could have been a concert pianist. Even after enough therapy and logic to realize that wasn't true, I don't think I got it until now. He had derailed long before I came along, for reasons unrelated to my mother, my siblings, or me.

Happy birthday, Lester William Bundy. 70 years ago you graduated from Teacher's College High School in Cedar Falls on your 18th birthday, and promptly followed so many other young people into the war effort. Tomorrow you would have been 88 years old.

Lester and my son, Andrew after a recital duet