our sweet cat

Poor Juniper, sweetest cat ever, blew her knee and just had her leg amputated. Even in her post-surgery grogginess, she asked for a pen, a card, and a stamp. What a cat.

the bad vibes stop here

     Once I sat at a poetry reading by someone you have heard of. She's very famous. You probably know and like some of her poetry.
     About 20 minutes into the reading, right in the middle of one of her poems, she stopped short. She took a deep breath, looked down with a knit brow, and then looked back up at the attentive audience.
     "Someone in here is giving off a very negative vibe, and I do not appreciate it," she snapped, sending a puff of impatience out the nose.
     We in the audience were instantly wide-eyed, charged with something we didn't know we were guilty of, and suddenly feeling ashamed. We tried to convey innocence with our facial expressions, to muster up the most positive vibes we could. I tried to feel where these bad vibes were coming from, but all I could get were the overwhelming, angry vibes from the famous poet.
     She scanned the room, glaring at all of us. "I would appreciate it if you would either leave or STOP IT. NOW."
     There was a long pause as the audience sat frozen in our seats. Then she went back to reading her poetry.
     I have to say: it felt impossible not to give off a bit of a negative vibe after that. I tried, but it was really tough. I was afraid bad vibes were leaking out of me, like a foul, you know, odor. I had been having a pleasant time, but once she scolded us, scattershot like that, in such a harsh, peculiar way, it was very difficult to feel safe.
     From where I sat, it felt like the wrong way to handle bad vibes: to stir up more.
     I still admire her poetry, but I don't like it any more. Not in the way you want to rest in a good poem. Now I feel like I kind of have to pinch my nose a bit. Like there's poop next to a hydrangea bush that's in full bloom. It's a bummer. 

 I feel better telling the story, though. It's been about 25 years since that afternoon. Time to let go. The bad vibes stop here, man. Look at the hydrangea -- it's in full bloom!

   

wedding bells are gonna chime

     Remember that song? "I'm hurt! She's mad! Wedding bells are gonna chime!"
     That's what I always heard in the 1960s "Do Wa Diddy" song. It wasn't until I was singing along 20 some years ago, with kids in the backseat, that my error came to light. It's awkward being busted when you're singing at full volume, but that moment was such an eye opener. The correct lyrics made so much more sense. Ohhhhh, I thought. "I'm hers, she's miiiiine." Right. That does sound better.
     But then again, so what if the lyrics didn't make sense. When the Turtles sang, "So happy together! How is the weather?" we all stomached those sorry lyrics.
     And anyway, surely some couples get married when one of them is hurt and the other a little bit mad. I thought maybe the couple in the song was getting married in spite of their moods, which was a positive indicator of the depth of their love. And they were singing happily about it all. It's almost Zen.
     Well. It was great moods all around on the day Ting and Dave got married. We all gathered to celebrate love, hope, forgiveness, gratitude, and joy itself. Why don't we have these celebrations all the time? Those are good things to celebrate.

     Your heart feels full in these moments. Somehow in the process of the wedding of your kid -- your amazing, beautiful kid, whom someone wonderful has chosen as life partner -- even as you are standing  in the very Center of Life, you can also feel yourself take a step aside.

you never have to ask me that again

     Laura and I are gradually developing a list of things we never need to ask each other again. So far she's given me permission never to ask her again: "Do you mind if I put some protein powder in the smoothie?" That's gonna save a lot of time and breath.
     I'm letting her off the hook for the following: "Is it okay that I'm not wearing a bra?"and "Do you care if my hair is like this?" It's always okay, and I never care.
     Now that we've conceived of the notion of such a list of things, I hope it becomes long and varied. Still, you want some questions to remain. I sort of hope we never get to not asking things like: "Do you feel like driving or do you want me to?" When a couple gets into automatic assumptions about who is going to drive, when either could -- I dunno. Something tends to get funky. So maybe it needs to be a short list, comprising things that are really, really okay never to ask again.
     So far, it's just those three questions.

     While I'm sharing (I know it's been awhile, for which I have some excellent alibis, and an apology), I will mention that Laura and I are today breaking in our new shoes for Ting's wedding next weekend. More to the point, we are breaking in our feet. Lots of women's feet are heel-ready; ours are not. But we are aiming to pull off the illusion that this is how we always walk: on tiptoes; legs not bending much, but instead moving past each other like the spikes of a compass. Except held together, and not making a circle.
     You can see we are still trying to get clear on the concept and its execution.

my shadow side

     Laura and I are walking at the reservoir. Swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish swish....
     "Your shorts are so loud!" she says. "Do you hear them?"
     "It's not just my shorts. It's yours, too. They're the same material, La."
     "Stop," she says. I stop. She takes a few steps and stops.
     I take a few steps and stop.
     "Wait a second." She takes a few more steps.
     "I guess you're right."
     Those are among my favorite words.
     We walk on. Our shorts are crazy loud for about a quarter of a mile, until we stop noticing the noise. Then there is just a sweet peace between us.

     At the Counseling Institute where I teach each summer, I run this ice breaker that divides the group into social styles. There's the controller, the promoter, the analyzer, the supporter. You recognize these in one form or another; they're Jungian archetypes and we all have a style that comes most naturally to us, whether we learn other ways of being or not. Push comes to shove, we lean most heavily on one, maybe two, of the styles.
    The controller tends toward formality and likes being in charge. If everyone would just do as they do, life would work so smoothly, they think.
     The supporter can spot other people's feelings a mile away, and responds to them intuitively. Their theme: only connect.
     The promoters are the hitchhikers of the world -- more spontaneous, stream of consciousness. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, but they trust themselves to improvise. They're inclusive.
     The analyzer can't decide between the sushi, which would be kind of a treat, and the giant salad, which also sounds kind of good. The analyzer can be pretty introverted, and can happily wave goodbye to clients and get back to the friends thoughts in her head. The analyzer can spend a very long time tinkering with a blog post because it doesn't sound quite right.
     Reserved yet somehow expressive, I fluctuate between the analyzer (able to think something to death, then wondering about where that expression came from, all while the waiter is waiting for my decision) and the promoter ("What's your favorite food here, Raj?"). Let's just say that on several occasions I have found it useful to give the waiter three menu options and then say "just surprise me." That kind of captures the blend.
     My shadow side is the controller. I hadn't recognized this until recently. Oh, I know I can be controlling, but whenever I describe Controllers in this workshop, I do not think I am talking about myself, at all.
     But when Sam, a beloved colleague at the Institute, put his breakfast protein powder in a plastic cup, my controller came out. "Sam!" I glared in what I hoped was a friendly way. "Hunh?" He doesn't speak friendly glare. "Protein powder in a plastic cup? You should use a glass!"
     Janet, another beloved colleague, busted me. She tapped me several times on my collarbone. "You," she said. "Your shadow side is a controller!" She beamed with delight.
     "What?? No."
     "Yes. It comes out when you care about somebody. Especially if they step on your principles."
     Like a good analyzer, I thought about it all that day. I guess I'm still thinking about it.
     She's right. If I love you, you have to deal with my shadow side and my need to tell you not to use plastic, to let you know that you're not supposed to pronounce the e in forte, and to prove that both of our shorts are making noise. If I don't feel attached, I give you a by.
     It's a tough trade-off.
     Beloved attached ones, please bear with me, including my shadow side. I'm trying to evolve here, and I can only control so much of that process.
   

vive la difference, vive la compagnie

       When Laura takes a video, she has to narrate. "It's snowing pretty hard," she'll say as she points the camera toward snow that is falling pretty hard. Or "Here we are at the beach" she'll say when we are at the beach. A good example of her narrative style of videotaping follows. This documents the day the fan installer couldn't seem to finish the job. Note the time.

     

I am less likely to narrate my humble video captures. I have a long one of me walking along the perfect rows deep within a cornfield, the stalks well above my head. The video is punctuated only toward the end when I get kind of lost. "Hmm," I say.

      We each took some video in Switzerland, of course. See if you can tell which video came from which videographer.

Switzerland trip

     Across the ocean, there is a land where there are no mosquitoes. Where the soil is so healthy and clean there are no trash plants like poison ivy -- only wildflowers and grasses. Water melts and rushes off the mountains and along the roads and paths every few hundred yards there is a trough of spring water that you can drink from. The chocolate and cheese there are so good not because of different processes but because of what the cows eat all day -- clover, gentian, buttercups, forget-me-nots, daisies.
     The troughs at the farms have a steel vat of this morning's raw milk sitting in the icy water. You slip a franc into a wooden box and pour yourself a cup. When you drink the fresh milk you can taste both its past (all those flowers) and its future (there is the slightest suggestion of the potential for a cheese unlike cheese from anywhere else).
     Even though you're not eating bread much these days, you find you must eat this land's bread because it is so simple and fresh, with a crust that is somehow crisp but not dry. The bread allows you also to savor the fresh butter that you slather over it, followed by a layer of apricot spread that your friend has just cooked up.

     You sleep at night with windows wide open. No one has screens. Why would you need screens? 

     You walk through this land, breathing in the crisp mountain air, and you imagine the possibility of living there in your old age. You'd be like Grandfather in Heidi -- wizened yet vigorous. You hope with all your might, as you walk down the mountainside after the long hike up, that you have the privilege of living a long life.