riddles and conundrums

Since my last post there have been more sad phone calls.  It would seem this is a season for major transitions on a lot of personal and more communal fronts.  The resulting shifts would be a ridiculous pile-on of happenstances and crises if life were a movie.  If recent events were the working draft of a novel, editorial process would more than likely slash and burn two thirds of the narrative in order to keep things believable and cogent.  But, as many of us know, life is essentially too messy and convoluted to authentically imitate art.  If anything, it often seems to me art imitates itself.  Not always, of course, but all too frequently.  It takes some real inspiration, in my opinion, to prevent one's creative voice from becoming an echo chamber of familiar forms, symbols, color and personal definition.

Innaways a lot of people I know are grappling with fairly profound variables at the moment.  Have been sitting here looking at that sentence for a couple of stop-time moments because I guess, in my philosophical view of the world, we're all grappling whether we actively acknowledge that fact or not.  For many it is more of a freefloating disembodied type of grappling and for others it's gotten quite personal and more than a little nasty.  How to respond to those in distress without resorting to my clinical persona, platitudes nobody really wants to hear in their hour(s) of need, or highly personalized viewpoints that shift the focus, most unbecomingly, from the person in need to the person serving as a sounding board?  Response factors need to be tailored quite a bit depending on individual personalities.  And sometimes that customized response is going to be at odds with what we wish we could say and/or would wish on our own behalf under similar circumstances.

I think all of this is relevant to this blog because it can take a lot of creativity to meet the challenge of bearing effective witness to the nitty gritty aspects of human experience.  When I was younger it used to really bother me that in my own hour(s) of need so many of the various people I would confide in quite frequently responded with I don't know what to say.  And that was that.  I would feel myself screaming internally do you think **I** knew what to say last month when you told me x, y, or z?  No!  But damn if I didn't push myself past that point in order to give you something more than a handshake with an empty glove! It's human nature, after all, to see the world through a personalized scrim of how we behave versus how others go about their business.  When the two points don't match-up very well it's second nature to quantify the gap as best we can and often that process is more about perceptual fossilization than freshly seeded insight. Thus it took me a couple of decades to realize my refusal to stop the process cold with I don't know what to say was actually indicative of the crowning glory in my personal skill set rather than a model everyone else ought to be following right along with me.  And, of course, encouraging oneself to say something more substantive doesn't necessarily mean one's guaranteed to say the right thing.  Things can get pretty complicated before we even open our mouths and maybe that's a big part of why I don't know what to say feels like such a viable safety net.

But, since I have prided myself as I have, it's taken more than half a century for me to realize such things.  The resulting growth towards greater levels of inter-personal compassion sometimes leaves me confused at an inner compass level.  The more we relate to others on their terms the harder it may be to relate to ourselves.  Because where are we under all the responses and reactions and doing what we can to be use?  My typical program has been to stop myself just shy of unworkable over-saturation and then retreat into a deliberately introverted personal landscape until further notice.  Just give me some colorful cloth, maybe a few bottles of ink, and a lovely pile of embroidery threads.  Let me listen to Love Over Gold a gazillion times in a row without finding it necessary to call Mark Knopfler a one trick pony.  For god's sakes put the recycling in the designated bin rather than letting it collect like a rush hour crowd on a subway platform right at the edge of the kitchen counter!  Usually that's how it goes for me when I feel unequal to the tasks of life's unravelling.

But this time I haven't followed my usual program.  It's been important to me to hang in there, right at the crux of so many matters that do matter to me. I've been listening to Robert Cray and the Neville Brothers.  I haven't freaked out about the recycling issue because seriously.  How easy is it to just take the damn stuff out to the bin myself rather than pitching a fit about it?  Plenty easy, it turns out, but that doesn't mean there haven't been at least three occasions recently when I've really wanted to give myself the option of not knowing what to say and admitting as much.  Last Friday I mentioned this sense of rising personal inadequacy to a colleague who replied just stop answering your phone.  Nice.  And also, in my opinion, quite akin to those who ignore national and world news in an effort to keep themselves in a pleasant balance with their surroundings.  How can I be happy if I pay attention to all that? I can't and I have to be happy don't I?  If I had seventy five cents or a dollar for every time somebody's said that to me I could buy even more colorful inks and embroidery threads and that would, at least temporarily, make me happy.  But it's a zero sum game really - this business of avoiding or ignoring unpleasant communal realities or trying to buy oneself past the first few portals of disquietude.

 I titled this post as I did because we're all such enigmatic creatures, aren't we?  It's a lot like that old adage the farther you go the less you know.  Likewise, the more determined we are to know ourselves the greater the likelihood that we feel as if we're playing one helluva game of hide and seek.  For me, a lot of the mystery and mayhem becomes at least a little clearer when I journal in whatever form.  On the study-oh couch a variety of writing and visual journals are keeping their own counsel.  I took a slew of pictures related to some favorite evolving pages in my altered book project but, unfortunately, none of them are clearly focused.  That's the project where I've been putting most of my creative attention.  Have also been self-soothing by ironing various scraps from my big sorting project.  Minimal stitching has occurred but there's been a lot of arranging, consideration, and re-arranging.  I don't really know what to say about it, so I said all these other things instead.

Comments

[Serena]

i find fabric play soothing too. gigantic pot of color and touch therapy. been doing what you seem to be doing too...

no one much calls here except telemarketers. most of our sad things get relayed to me through various channels.

i call my mama nightly, my sister every two weeks....email daily...and my nana once a month...so i've usually got some time to prepare a good response or as good of a response as i can muster to whatever is going on.

most of the time i just wing it with whatever my gut says and do my best to prep a timely and courteous recovery in case i'm totally rude and way off base....and keep a good sense of humor. i think people appreciate someone just cutting all the crap out of the situation.

i always think don't know what to say sounds like a judgey response....sort of like...bless your heart...but i'm always a little too critical of what people say in trying situations....reading in meanings when they aren't always there...or maybe are and i just pick up on what they aren't saying.

[handstories]

how you LOOK at things is just boggling to my little brain. i read and read and grasp at the edges, hoping to get more each time. it's so good for me-thank you.
the best/worst thing ever said to me, during a "crisis" - "thank god, this didn't happen to me! you can handle this, i couldn't!" as she shoved a basket of bubble bath & beach novels at me. i laughed, because it was true & she was really trying, the best she knew how-instead of avoiding me like others.
so, i keep trying. and i'll keep thinking and thinking here.

[Deb G]

Enigmatic...oh yes. I think we need to apply creativity in a lot more areas than we do as a society.

[Acey]

I so much agree with you, Deb.

[Acey]

Cindy I need to follow your example and laugh about it more. Usually I just go kinda numb and/or eat chocolate.

[Acey]

Serena, I too tend to hear the judgemental nuances in I dont know what to say and thats probably why the phrase bugs me when Im feeling needy or overwhelmed. Never thought of it as analogous to bless your heart but, yes. Exactly. Whenever I hear those words it gives me the sense Ive been summarily dismissed or am possibly being rebuked like a puppy that wont stop peeing on the rug. I love to read about your family structure and the women keeping in such close ongoing contact with each other. My mom and I talked at length several times a week. I dont miss the content of a lot of those convos but I definitely mourn the loss of the underlying bond and the sense of belonging in a matrilinear context. In addition to telemarketers we keep getting collection agency calls for the guy
who used to have our number. I have invented a whole life story for him based on those calls.

[Nancy]

"The more we relate to others on their terms the harder it may be to relate to ourselves. "
This line stopped me cold. I really want to think on this more...

[handstories]

as for following my example-ha! i laughed THAT time, because it was so ridiculous- i'm a ranter by nature.

[serena]

hahaha

we have a whole family here
the bellamy's

chris, ella and james...

literally never ending.

i know ellla owed cosmo girl magazine for quite a bit and that they've used our phone number to establish new lines of credit.

[Acey]

Nancy - perhaps this is a perspective thats hatched from the fact that my work is primarily centered on burnt out or traumatized first responders and mental health workers. But I have definitely noticed a similar phenomenon in other groups. Examples include those whose circumstances have given them the role of full-time caregivers for one or more family members, survivors of incest and abuse especially when its preverbal, and those online who constantly cater to their target audience in order to drive their Follower numbers higher and higher.

[Nancy]

Acey- I was thinking about a particular family member, but it holds true for old bosses too.

[Nancy]

Oh and Serena, we just got the W2 for the guy that lived here before me...12 years ago!!! Haha

[Hélène]

It's been very rocky for me too lately.

"The more we relate to others on their terms the harder it may be to relate to ourselves."
The last 2 or 3 years I've been working on staying centered and building an energetic protection around me. Recently, after a very dark passage, I have noticed I can stay inside my chest. My heart feels freer and ligther than ever, even in pain and sorrow, and when I listen, as there is more silence inside me, I don't get carried away as much.

Be happy.

[Acey]

Helene your comment evoked some powerful conflicting emotions. On the one hand I was glad, as always, to find you had visited the blog and also that you have experienced some healing shifts in your breathing. I am hopefully there have also been useful changed with your physical heart, as well. On the other hand I am saddened, of course, to learn that your difficulties were still ongoing during the period of silence. I had imagined otherwise and now can only offer a long distance hug and tenderness.

[Hélène]

Thank you for the hug and tenderness Acey, it's very much appreciated and I dreamt of purple last night :)

It's not so bad as it sounds for me, there has been many good moments, only some lessons must be learnt, and as I resist always, well, it takes longer :)

I do believe some major shift is happening on the communal level as you call it.

With love.