It was quite dramatic, but not in the Hollywood special effects kind of way. What I was most struck by was the quiet, impersonal way with which the water flowed down the street, taking with it small cars, at first, then large trucks, and entire buildings.

I found myself watching the deliberateness of the water — it almost seemed preordained, as if there was a well thought out game plan, a destination — and I thought, How does it know where to go?  Can water have a destiny?

(Just so there’s no confusion, let me be clear that I’m not going to a “It was God’s will,” place with this post.  I’m not suggesting there was any rhyme or reason to this.  In fact, I think more than anything, this just was.)

It’s surprisingly quiet.  As destructive as it was, there aren’t a lot of crashing sounds, no screaming from the onlookers.  There’s only the sound of waves, and the occasional, seemingly futile sirens in the background.  No one seems to be fighting it — really, what would be the point?

The water flows through, gaining strength as it increases in volume, demonstrating the kind of drive, organization, clarity of purpose, and undeniable effectiveness that we, as conscious beings, strive for — and often fail at — in so many of our trifling human campaigns.

I know it’s trite to to try to anthropomorphize a huge natural disaster like this one.  But, apparently, that’s where my head is at tonight.

I tend to take thing personally — bureaucracies, the weather, you name it.  (I’ve mentioned this before, I think.)  And lately, I’ve been thinking about death a lot.  (Again.  Still.)  When death comes knocking, we feel a natural sadness from the loss.  But we feel somewhat affronted too, I think.  Like, how could this happen to ME, or to US?

Watching this video, I started to wonder if death might not be just like that tsunami wave.  Forceful, uncompromising, but impersonal.  Just doing my job…

I recently finished the book Cutting for Stone, and was struck by the main character’s observation that Americans seem to regard death, the reality of our own mortality, with surprise.  It’s like we take it personally, as if we are unable to accept it as a universal truth.

Ah.  What’s that that I was writing about just the other night?  Common ground?

I used to describe parenthood as the universal leveler.  We parents – every one of us, mover and shaker and worker bee alike – we share a common experience of joy, love, frustration, vulnerability.

It turns out that Death is even more universal.  It affects us all.  It’s inevitable.  Inescapable.

I’ve been feeling a little je ne sais quoi lately, like maybe something is missing.  Work is good.  It’s fine.  My family is lovely, my friends delightful.  And yet.  I realized both that I spend so little time reflecting.  I think at work about work stuff.  And at home, I think about home stuff.  But what about life?  Life is more than work and home. There’s a spiritual element to all this that I spend so little time considering…

And so, this week I decided to check out the church thing.  But not the Praise Jesus, I Have Been Saved kind of church.  As non-committal as the UU church may seem, it just felt like it was probably the right level of spirituality for me.

I think I made the right choice.

This morning after I fed the boys breakfast (egg in the hole – always a hit), I drove downtown to the UU church off Colfax, and snuck in just a minute after the service had started.  There were four french horns playing at the front of the room.  It was really quite beautiful.  I learned that the theme of the month was Common Ground.  There was some relatively administrative business initially — committee reports and the like — and then the minister (is that what they call themselves in the UU church?) began a ritual of calling out to the four directions.

We stood and faced east first and listened to one of french horns play a simple, slightly mournful tune.  The minister said some words, and then we turned to face south.  Some more words and then a second french horn played, joined by the first, and the depth of the music grew.  We turned west, more words, and a third horn.  Then north, more words, and a fourth horn.  The music, at that point was genuinely moving.  We finished by facing center, facing each other, and we listened to the piece played in full, one last time.

What followed was a variety of candle lighting — the chalice, some birthdays, and some other celebrations and tributes — along with a story about farm workers and the slightly baffling passing of raisins.

And then came the main event — the sermon.  The minister was a slightly graying, slender man wearing a nice suit jacket and a maroon button up shirt, no tie.  Very NPR-chic.  “Common Ground,” he started, “is a very broad topic.  It means so many different things in so many different contexts.  It’s a challenging concept.  And I can say this with some authority, having attempted for some time to write a sermon on the topic.”  The congregation laughed appreciatively.

“And I can’t be anything but honest with you.  At 11 o’clock last night I finally realized that even though I had written pages and pages, and all of it would have been an adequate academic paper, none of it was quite right for this purpose.  So I threw it away.  I’ve decided instead to share with you a few stories.”

He went on to refer back to the calling of the directions that we had done earlier in the morning.  Just as we use the four directions — north, south, east, and west — to identify our geographic location, the minister proposed that the Universal Unitarians can use four elements to define their, what?  spiritual?  emotional? location as well.  Truth.  Love.  Respect. And faith.

He told one short story that illustrated some message related to each of these concepts.  (Truth — Joseph’s chance encounter with Ish.  Love — an overheard snippet of a conversation between his mother and a friend the day he dropped out of high school and moved out of his family’s home.  Respect — a statement from the UU church about being gay-friendly.  Faith — um.  I can’t seem to remember the faith story right now.  Shoot.)

Anyway, all this got me to thinking about what elements I would identify to define my spiritual geography.  I think the ones that the minister identified come pretty close.  Truth/honesty.  Love.  Respect/Kindness.  Faith/hope.

What about you?  What would you choose?

Here’s a note I typed up in April of this year.  (Apparently I have a thing for bubbles.)

May have gotten a bit too deep with #1 son this morning as we walked to the bus stop. Says Colin, upon finding a piece of chalk on the sidewalk, “I don’t really like chalk. Because you do all that drawing for nothing. Once it rains, it goes away.”

“Just because something is temporary doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing. There are lots of temporary things that still have value…” says me.

“Oh? Like what?”

“Well, like life itself. Life doesn’t last for ever, but it’s still worth living.”

He’s SIX, for crying out loud. Perhaps I could have pulled up some other examples. Like paper airplanes. Or bubbles.

A while ago (a long while ago) I confessed to being a friend hoarder.  (Once you’re friends with me, you’re friends for life.  You’ll have to beat me away with a stick if you want to get rid of me.  Yada yada.)  I’ve been re-thinking this position.

It’s possible that I may have felt the need to cling to friends so tightly before because I was afraid that if the relationship fizzled out, that would mean it was never really real to begin with.  I’m not sure I fee this way any longer.  Just because something ends, doesn’t mean it didn’t have value.

Part of the sadness that comes with the end of things is just a natural mourning.  But another part of that sadness may be explained by the unrealistic expectation that “it” (whatever “it” happens to be) would last forever.

Friendships, great loves, lives, bubbles and paper airplanes.  None of these things last forever.  But, perhaps, none of them were meant to.  That doesn’t mean that they weren’t meaningful, life changing, profound, beautiful or fun.

These were the words that were in my head when I woke up this morning, but I’m pretty sure that they don’t have anything to do with my dreams.

I’ve been rolling these words around in my brain all day, and I have to say, I like them.  I think there’s something kind of suggestive — not in a naughty way — about them.

Might actually do something with ‘em one of these days.  But for now, I thought I’d just jot them down here…

There’s a perverse part of me that actually looks forward to going to the dentist.  I’m not into pain — not by a long shot — but I have managed to have some pretty positive associations with going to the dentist.  And most of these associations have to do with one thing:  nitrous oxide.

I don’t drink.  I don’t smoke.  I don’t do drugs.  I watch T.V. to tune out.  And occasionally I get to go to the dentist, recline in a comfy chair, turn up my iPod, close my eyes, and plug into the bliss that is nitrous.  Laughing gas — what sweet relief!

And, yeah, there’s usually someone nearby trying to make small talk while poking at sensitive spots in my mouth with a horrid looking sharp metal pointy thing, but if the dial on the nitrous tank is turned up enough, I tend not to care.  About anything.

My pediatric dentist was pretty liberal with the N2O, so for many of my childhood years, no one even dared to shine a light in my mouth without first strapping on the porcine laughing gas mask.

When I was in college in Santa Cruz, I saw a dentist who lived a few miles back into the mountains, in the even more pronouncedly hippy town of Felton.  Turns out this guy had been one of the original Merry Pranksters, so you know I was feeling no pain after leaving his office.  (I remember one time I was still so heavily buzzed after leaving his office, that I knowingly rode my bike a mile in the wrong direction, just because I couldn’t quite figure out how to cross the road to start riding the other way…)

The thing about laughing gas is that once I’m deep in the middle of it, it kind of feels like I’m nowhere.  And I’m no authority on meditation, but isn’t that kind of what everyone’s after when they meditate?  I love how easily I’m able to recognize the comfortable familiarity of nowhere.  I love being consciously aware of the slipping away of consciousness.

The only problem is that afterward  I find that I’m a little hung over from the whole experience, my thinking skills a little less sharp, my response time slowed, and energy level a bit compromised.

I dunno.  I visit the dentist so rarely, I still think it’s worth it.  It’s like a little mini-vacay, a spa day.  A few brain cells is a small price to pay for the ability to get away from it all and find peace.

Om.

Anyway.  I’m back, I think.

The grasshoppers are taking over.  I’m not kidding.  There are swarms of grasshoppers popping up throughout the Denver area.  Visitors to the Lodo area last week reported having to gingerly choose their steps when leaving hip downtown restaurants, trying to avoid that creepy crunchy sound of grasshoppers underfoot.  Neighbors out here in Stepfordton have found gangs of grasshoppers cavorting in these postage stamp sized back yards and 2nd floor balconies.  Even in Lakewood — oh, dear Blog, have I mentioned that I have a new job with the City of Lakewood?  I’m managing the Planning – Development Assistance division — when I go walking outside at lunch, they’re there too.  Just hopping around, happy as you please.  Circling around my ankles, playing chicken with the heels of my sensible lunch time walking shoes.

It’s nuts.  And no one can explain why.  Actually, I haven’t even heard anyone try to explain why.  I mean, this can’t be good, can it?  I keep thinking that if Alfred Hitchcock were still with us, at some point he would have eventually made a quietly terrifying movie called “The Grasshoppers.”  Cuz this is just like that. Yup.

***

Besides the grasshoppers, we’ve had a few other things going on recently.  I left my last gig with the private sect0r a few weeks ago.  It was a really difficult decision, but I’m confident it was the right one.  Charley’s been going through his own complicated process of redefining himself professionally over the last few months too.  The boys are lovely — now 5 and 7, and full of all sorts of boyishness.  We’ve got just 1 1/2 weeks left to the summer and then back to the more predictable school year schedule.

Oh.  And I turn 40 next week.  Double you.  Tee.  Eff.

I’m proud to report that I have dodged that Cathy bullet.  Yes, swimming suit season still bums me out, but otherwise, I’m living the dream.  (Snort.)  Married.  Two kids.  House.  Job.  Yada yada.

Now, however, I worry that my life maybe following the path of Everyone Loves Raymond.  Here’s an example:  we have a bamboo cutting board that has started to warp a little.  It’s bowed, length-wise.  Charley insists on putting the cutting board on the counter so that the curved edges point up.  This. Drives. Me. Crazy.   Every time that I need to use the cutting board, I have to flip the thing over, because otherwise it rocks.  I’ve got vegetables to julienne!  Proteins to chop!  What am I going to to with a chopping board that rocks?

So I flip it over so that it’s slightly curved, but stable.  I chop whatever it is that needs chopping, clean up the board, and set it back on the counter so that it doesn’t wobble.  And then the next evening when I begin my chopping ritual again, the cutting board is back to rocking back and forth on the counter.  I sigh.  I flip it over.  And begin again.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The interesting (maybe) part, is that we’ve never said anything about it.  Instead we go about silently flipping, un-flipping, and re-flipping this fundamentally flawed cutting board.  Part of me thinks it’s worth bringing up one of these days.  The other part of me just wants to toss the fucking thing out and get us a shiny new — straight — cutting board.

It’s not nearly as sexy as I had envisioned my life would turn out.  But then on the other hand…  Wait.  There is no other hand.

I like to remind myself of the fact that these two little guys have changed my life for the better, particularly on those rough days  – like today – when they drive me batty.

It’s interesting to me to think about how different things would be if I had become a mother eariler, or later, in my life.  As it stands, I jumped into the motherhood pool right around the time that I was getting a handle on my so-called adult life.  Just when I getting my land legs.

And then *woosh.*

Parenthood comes along and gets you all discombobulated again.  I guess it’s just life’s way of showing you that you’ll always have new things to learn, new roles to master, new challenges to face.

Because at the time, I was starting to feel kind of in control of things.  And then I became a mom, and slowly learned that as in control as I thought I once was, now…?  Not so much.  I have changed into much more of a choose-your-battles kind of gal, which, it turns out, I kind of like.

Plus whenever I get to thinking that I’m “all that,” I come home to boys who know, with absolute certainty, that their immediate needs, their accomplishments, their failures, are more important than mine.  For now, they’re right.

]]> http://elevenbee.com/2010/01/25/kids/feed/ 0 elevenbee IMG_5387 http://elevenbee.com/2010/01/20/oh-hell-to-the-no/ http://elevenbee.com/2010/01/20/oh-hell-to-the-no/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 05:43:51 +0000 elevenbee http://elevenbee.com/?p=1026 Continue reading →]]> Our South Korean homeys have come up with something that freaks me out to no end.  In an effort to stave off high suicide rates, and stimulate productivity in the workplace, South Korean “entrepreneurs are conducting controversial forums designed to teach clients how to better appreciate life by simulating death.”

This involves the relatively benign exercise of writing of wills, or even drafting your own obituary — something western life-coaches have been recommending for years, as a way of honing in on your life goals, which I kind of get.  (“Evelyn lived a full and happy life, never afraid to take risks.  Her motto was ‘let’s see what life has in store for me…’  Her biggest joy was seeing her two sons, Colin and Kai grow in to caring and responsible men.  Remembered for being…” yada yada yada.)

But above and beyond this, this South Korean practice includes coffins.  And the getting into of coffins. And the closing of coffin lids!

There’s also a Facebook application that (jokingly) purports to be able to predict “when and how the death will catch you!”

Seems to me there’s a whole lot of planning and preparation going into something that’s going to happen whether we plan for it or not, no?