Life of Wry

Two days ago: a clean, bright, proud ‘n perky narcissus.  Today: a rain-soaked, drop-laden, dirt-splattered, hangdog narcissus. I had to crawl around in the mud to even get this shot because the blossoms are facing the ground (so pouty!), and well, it was just hard to even get a view inside.  So I’m a little rain-soaked and dirt-splattered myself.

The things we do for our blogs.

[Shot out the back door… this is an unrelenting rain.  I know… you can’t tell…. but it is.]

More of today’s relentlessness:

Unrelenting weeds (as you can see).

Unrelenting winter weight.

Unrelenting confounding technology.

Unrelenting pile of paper.

Unrelenting tangle of chords.

Unrelenting stacks of unread books.

Unrelenting bits of news & information relentlessly flowing in unrelenting streams.

 

Everything else today seems more or less relenting.

Peter’s now listening to music in his room a lot.  Tunes in on this little boombox-of-evil.  Listens to the music of the day,  including one song, I Love the Way You Lie. Here are a few of its teen-appropriate lyrics:

He (Eminem) says:

If she ever tries to fucking leave again
Im’a tie her to the bed and set this house on fire
I’m just gonna

She (Rihanna) says:

Just gonna stand there and watch me burn
But that’s alright because I like the way it hurts
Just gonna stand there and hear me cry
But that’s alright because I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie
I love the way you lie

Etc.

And.. sigh.

As Jim says, in our email back and forth on the subject (because that’s the way we roll): “The story is way more complicated than most listeners (especially 12-year-olds) may realize.  The male character recognizes the pathology of his conduct in the relationship, but feels trapped by it.  The female character is less verbal–her words don’t reveal much self-awareness, but her actions do (she packs up and goes, but he talks her into coming back).  It’s a description of a relationship in deep trouble and unsatisfying for both partners.  Anyone experiencing that kind of relationship dynamics needs professional help.”

Duh, and yeah.. whatever. Totally complicated, and TOTALLY over the heads of its 12-year old audience (Its WHAT?! Pre-teens listen to I Love the Way You Lie? What thoughtful, conscientious parents let their kid listen to stuff like that?) (I guess we do.) (And, you know, aside from the lyrics, it’s a rockin’ song.)

This is what I think Peter hears: blah blah blah fucking blah blah blah tie her to the bed blah blah blah I like the way it hurts blah blah blah set this house on fire blah blah blah I love the way you lie.

So, man is violent, abusive, dominant. Woman loves it!  Bring it on, treat me like shit. I am victim, hear me wimper.  Nice.

Kinda fah-reaking out here. I realize I’m on a well worn battle field, living a parental cliché—and it’s both embarrassing and reassuring. Really? I’m going all Tipper Gore on my ass? (Please smile at my attempt at tough talk.) Am I really shocked at shockingly misogynistic lyrics, shockingly aimed at the teen crowd, who is appropriately shocked (even if they work hard not to show it)?

Yes. I. Am. Well, maybe less shocked, and more, Now What Do I Do?

My little doughy, naïve, guileless boy, who–his doctor told me two days ago at his well-child visit–is in stage one of puberty (with plenty more stages yet to come), must be lost at sea in the company of his vampy teenage girl counterparts, who are all now going to parties together and listening to this music, and who knows how on earth he processes those lyrics… oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD.

Conversations will be had about the respective boundaries of art and reality. Reaffirmations about the respect we show our friends, especially the girl ones. You get to listen to and enjoy the music of your generation, buddy, but, just so you know, the messages are way fucked up. It’s art, not to be mistaken for life, and it’s certainly not how men and women talk to and treat one another in the real world. Dad and me? See? We’re nice.

But before we ever take it up with Peter, Jim and I have to get our stories straight. I’m looking at the I Love The Way You Lie lyrics this morning on Peter’s computer screen after he’d left for school, and yeah, felt like a queen sized prude, my knickers in a major bummer of a twist. I march into Jim’s office and I suppose my relative hysteria gave him room to be Mr. Calm about the whole thing. (That was annoying.)  And really, I’m not hysterical so much as, Okay, it’s time, we now have to deal with song lyrics, teen angst, misogyny, rebellion.

Before we have a conversation with Peter about his music–which, it looks like now’s the time–we need to get aligned, so that we can approach it in a mature, calm, and wise way.  And we better play this right so he’s got room to be developmentally, appropriately teen-y, but doesn’t get too off the rails.

Stay tuned.

Late afternoon.  Sky’s darkening & wind’s kicking up.

Spent the last hour futzing with my Blackberry and an apparently full media card… online help forums and youtube demo videos not helping much.  Such are the realities and trials of digital gizmo dependence.  Sigh.

Hoping to get a few sips in before Peter gets home from school.

A beautiful thing is never perfect. -Egyptian proverb

Photo has no connection to my comments.  It’s the flower that was in the vase on the dining room table in Dillon Beach.  Intoxicatingly heavenly smell.  Common flower, just don’t know what it’s called.  Photo credit: Jim.

Hi. Feeling a little aimless at the moment.  Thinking about much.  Dipping my cup into the flow, I come out with a cup full of random thoughts, though not uninteresting.  Pouring it out here: Just watched a couple of beautiful Ted talks.  One, recommended this morning by David Breaux–my friend compiling a book on compassion–featuring Karen Armstrong, a religious scholar whose charter on compassion is at the heart of the compassion movement (“the compassion movement”?).  It’s a movement that focuses on compassion and suggests that that is the heart of what religion is about.  Rejects religious orthodoxy because it’s self-indulgent guesswork about matters nobody can be certain about and makes people quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. She says that true religion is about behaving differently, putting values into practice.  Acting, not just studying or spouting. And the root of all religions is, and should be the golden rule.  She talked about the positive expression of the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the negative expression, equally compelling: don’t do anything to anyone that you would not want done to you.  That is the core, the tora, she says, all else is commentary. She speaks of modern religion, how it’s been hijacked, abused, how modern religion speaks of “believing,” like that’s what it’s all about (only because the golden rule is too hard, truly loving our enemy is also too hard), and it’s become judgmental and hateful, seeking to impose values of hate on others (like dismissing same sex marriage as evil).. all due to ego and greed.  Gross stuff, religion, hypocritical.  We know this. She talks about dethroning ourselves from the center of our world and placing others in that spot instead, that by doing so, by being truly empathic and compassionate, we achieve a peace so strong… Her words, her delivery, brought many tears. The other, a talk I’ve listened to probably 4 times, given by Jill Bolte Taylor a neuro-anatomist, about her experience of having a stroke.  That part is utterly fascinating, but more moving was her conclusion about living in the right brain, not forsaking the left, but learning to trust and excel in the boundless, expansive, ego-free, un-judgmental world of the right brain, and further, that that is where you find the power to love and be truly compassionate. Moved this morning by all that.  Plus thoughts of Nepal and the choice not to go and the reasons, all having to do with Peter and family, good reasons, all the while, Peter is in full pre-teen mode, easy to love, not easy to tolerate.  He just bolted out to a baseball practice after which he’ll attend a casual girl birthday party, I think his first organized–sorta–boy/girl social event, and he struggled with, but rejected advice on, how to present a card and Baskin-Robbins gift certificate, which is fine.  Last words as he ran out: “Don’t come to watch my practice.” Which, of course is all I want to do this afternoon.  My decision to not go to Nepal was loaded.  Would love to write about it.  Would love to write about parenting a teen.  Would love to write about my latest thoughts on writing.  On gaining weight, on rejecting diets, but realizing for the umpteenth time that I cannot shed pounds without a plan, and the plan must be absolute. And all the oft thought but ill conceived ideas about weight, body image, and good fucking god, don’t get me started on that.  On wanting a kitten (which of course has more to do with the reasons we can’t have one, than wanting a kitten, though I need a kitten).  Putting any of these thoughts into a coherent, readable form is too much work for a Sunday morning. So defaulting to stream of consciousness, lazily putting down some of this morning’s random thoughts, all of which have just spilled out of the cup. Drained for now.

About this picture: it was shot a couple days ago at Dillon Beach.  According to my photo-a-day rules, I can still use the photo, even though it wasn’t shot on February 12.  Because, you know, they’re my rules.  And I really like the picture and couldn’t find a way to use it on the 10th when I did shoot it,  so… I’m using it now.  And that’s ok.

Also, it’s unrelated to the content, below.  That is also ok, according to my rules.  It’s a very lucky capture and some pretty colors and patterns, and I wanted to share it. That’s all.

Also wanted to share these:

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.

-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

-Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

About these quotes:  I didn’t write any of this (obviously), even though this is a writing blog. In my photo-a-day-write-something-everyday blog where I’m supposed to be exploring and experimenting with my own writing, I didn’t write anything, and instead shared something someone else wrote, and that, too, is ok.  I like both of these quotes very much.. both move me, and both make me think.

And… the two quotes are unrelated,  not only to the picture, but to each other.  Hell, Carl and Mahatma didn’t even know one another, unless they met when Mahatma was a very old man, and Carl little more than a toddler, which I doubt.   But they are both incredible thinkers and good, good people.  So they may likely have enjoyed one another.  But, again, I like what comes up for me in thinking about what they each said.  They both offer up a sort of cautionary tale, which is often the kind of thing that speaks to me.  (That could be another post, in itself.) So I really just wanted to share them.

Anyway, I veered a lot today, it’s all a bit untidy, but, again, no rules broken.  Take what you like, move on.

Cows have nothing but time in their day.

Thinking about leisure.  Hard not to think about leisure when you’re driving through the bucolic coastal hills of Marin County, looking at field after field, hill after hill of cows–cows who pretty much just stand around eating grass all day.

I have a lot of time these days, too.

Trying really hard to both appreciate the time I have right now, and not feel guilty about having so much of it.  It’s not like I’m standing around chewing my cud all day…I mean, I do stuff, but I just have a lot of time to do it in. It’s an intentional period of no work: clearing the decks, taking care of long-deferred projects, experimenting with writing, pondering life, work, priorities… thinking about my next move.

Really.  I promise.  I’m working hard at this.  But…

Being a person with a lot of leisure time already, it’s a bit weird taking off for a few days for Dillon Beach.  Taking off what? It felt more like a change of scenery and some time to spend alone with Jim.  I enjoy both of those things, of course, but it was not substantively different than my current day-to-day existence.  The coast is very different from Davis, but my time was not unlike my time at home…  hung out, took walks, did a bit of cooking, messed with photos, blogged, read. Lots of quiet.

Watched more movies and played more scrabble than at home… so there was that.

But leisure really needs to exist in a context of an absence of leisure in order to reap its full benefit.  Otherwise, there’s just not enough contrast.

It’s like swimming in water that is the same temperature as the air around you.  You don’t feel it, don’t get a refreshing hit off of it.  Or going to bed when you’re not tired, or getting a massage when you haven’t worked out, or eating when you’re not hungry.

Leisure is best enjoyed when you’ve worked hard to earn it.

I read this quote the other day that says it pretty well:

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. -Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)

 

 

After a few days of howling winds, a hike in the hills, above the ocean, on a warm, still day…  pretty nice.  February’s a good time on the coast because, well, all of the above, but also the ground is lush and wet and the grass new and extra green, and it makes for easy walking–easy on the legs, easy on the senses.   I guess I don’t have to say the water’s all sparkly blue.

The north coast, any time of year, really, is gorgeous.  Or maybe it works better like this: it’s gorges. (Sorry.)

Made for a cow–this place–or sheep.  There are lots of those roaming the hills inland of Dillon Beach, but we didn’t see any on this walk.  What we did see was a small herd of deer.  Most homeowners probably think of them as pests, but it’s still cool to see them, especially by the water.  I thought: nice place to be a deer.

If you peer over the edge of the cliff in the above picture, you see this, and that herd of deer.  I know…   tiny, but they’re there, and they’re bounding confidently along this steep slope.

Here’s what they looked like closer up.

We escaped the wind of the central valley, but found plenty at Dillon Beach.  Hard to tell how fierce the wind is in these photos, but it’s fierce.  These, above, are tiny, shell-created wind sheds.  They covered the beach.  I think the broken shell lodges in the sand and it creates a little protected zone where the sand can build up in its lee.

Then, there were these..not sure what initiated this effect..

Looks peaceful in these photos, but no.  The wind had to be blowing in the 50s, maybe harder.  The ocean was this dazzling, violent churn of white caps.  The waves coming into the beach were wind waves, rather than their usual measured sets, and were so frothy they left these lines of foam on the shore, pieces of which would dislodge and blow around.  The blowing sand was its own storm, but, interestingly, all its drama happened at about 8″ from the ground.  Dunes were forming and reforming all over the place as sand blew hard and steady like river currents, but all at ankle level.  Don’t think I’ve seen that before.