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I enjoy uploading pictures to Flickr. It's a wonderful place. |
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I think that dance is teaching me how to have a body. And not just any body, but a fully functioning body, one that bleeds and feels and stumbles and twirls.
— March 8, 2005 |
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The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself. — Henry Miller
People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle. —Thich Nhat Hanh
The miracles of the church seem to me to rest not so much upon faces or voices or healing power coming suddenly near to us from afar off, but upon our perceptions being made finer, so that for a moment our eyes can see and our ears can hear what is there about us always. — Willa Cather |
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I can be reached at romanlily ~at~gmail.com. Or you can join the notify list here. |
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March 19, 2006
Orange icing and string
A few years ago, when her kids were much younger, my friend Kathy would receive overly enthusiastic emails from "classroom moms" whose lives were centered around the happiness and fulfillment of their beautiful children. These were women whose sons or daughters were in the same class as Kathy's daughters. The emails were always full of plans for for the kids, plans for an exciting field trip or a thrilling science project or a super-fun social event.
I remember going out to breakfast once with Kathy and listening as she bemoaned an email she had received from one of the mothers in her daughter Kate's classroom: "Please send orange icing and string to class with Kate, so that Kate can make adorable Halloween cupcakes and adorable Halloween crafts with her classmates at school."
"Orange icing and string." It became a password in my conversations with Kathy. A symbol for a life that is much smaller than it's meant to be. These classroom moms were hung up on the small stuff. Subsisting on minutiae while life passes right by.
Now her girls are older, and Kathy is enrolled in a prestigious documentary filmmaking graduate program. Whenever I hear from her now, I am sort of stunned by the way that her life is unfolding.
She sent an email recently describing a recent trip to NYC to interview for summer internships. She had scheduled three interviews at three different studios. She went to the first two interviews and received internship offers right away. But she wanted to hold out for the internship that she really wanted. M. Films is run by Al M., a spiritual father of American documentary filmmaking. He is a big kahuna. His work has allowed him to make films with with the some of the biggest names in American culture and entertainment, as well as countless "everyday heroes."
Kathy wrote:
I called, got an interview at M. Films. While I was talking with Laura, the interviewer, Al came into the office. I saw him out of the corner of my eye and nursed a fantasy of having a private chat with him... But I did not presume it would actually happen. So Laura and I are wrapping up and Al comes over to her desk and holds my arm and pops his head around to look in my face. "Who are you?" he asked like an excited ten-year-old boy. I told him I'd love to talk with him when I finish if he didn't mind. "Sure, sure, I'll just be here." He walked over to his desk next to hers. Nothing special. Nothing distinct about it.... When I finished with Laura I went to talk with him. He was finishing some cold chili in a small plastic Gladware container. He turned his chair to face me. We chatted and I mentioned I am considering the internship. He said, "Oh, well, when I saw you, I knew I wanted you here."
I don't know just how to say how that made me feel. I wanted to weep, crawl in his lap and shake his shoulders, "Do you know how much I've been through to get here!" But instead I fought back the tears. We talked about healing through being heard, about the difference between exploiting subjects and allowing them to heal. He told me stories of his childhood, we talked of faith. He has one of the most beautiful spirits I've ever experienced.
Man, I love that story.
I love this story and am jealous of it. It's pretty incredible to bear witness Kathy, this woman who is walking in the center of their own power. Al obviously picked up on it pretty quick when he walked into the office and met her.
It's just something you want to be around. You hope it'll rub off on you.
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So I am still here, sitting in the ergonomic desk chair at the Very Large Multinational Corporation. My dilemma is so present and constant that it sometimes makes me a little crazy. How do I do work that I am passionate about while making an actual living, paying my heating bills, and having enough to share with others?
When I read the story of Al meeting Kathy and immediately offering her an internship, I felt a new urge to release the orange icing and string in my life. Many of these recent days are coated with orange icing. There is always office silliness. The co-worker with whom I spend most of my days now spends lots of time complaining, worrying, cracking under the silly manufactured office pressure that we all encounter every day.
I think about Kathy. And I wonder, where is that mountain I can climb, where the wise man will see me and say, "Oh, well, when I saw you, I knew that we wanted you here"? Where is the great altar where I can lay down the orange icing and string?
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We all want to find that place where people "get us," the place where others look at us and see our best selves and decide in an instant that they pretty much love us from tip to toe.
In real life, this doesn't happen all that often. Maybe it happens a couple of lucky times in one life.
Lately I think that maybe that longed-for place where people "get us" is more internal than external. Maybe it is a place that we need to create in ourselves, for ourselves. Maybe the bar where everybody knows your name and is always glad you came isn't necessarily confined to a particular geographic location in Boston, Massachusetts.
I guess you hear me talking about this a lot lately. The need for self-love — friendship with self — kind regard for self. It's a pretty big deal for me right now.
Internally, embodying this message is more of a tug-of-war than I like to admit. It was only recently that I expelled myself from the School of Get Over Yourself, or the University of Die to Self and Live for God, or Tough Love Academy, or whatever it's called.
I'm discovering that friendship with self is actually much more interesting and challenging than the familiar alternative.
Kathy's story also makes me want to be the kind of person that recognizes the best in others, the way that Al recognized the best in her. I want to be the kind of person that lets others' best come forward and be appreciated. What does this look like? How does it happen?
I don't know the answers to any of these questions. I do know that I don't want to live in the smallness of my old answers, in those places confined by fear and self-doubt.
I'm still trying to figure out the questions. Getting to the answers might be my next lifetime's work.
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