eleven bee

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?

I’m fascinated by the people around me.  I live in a pretty pleasant, easy neighborhood.  (Hence the “Stepfordton” moniker.)  My neighbors are attractive, successful, intelligent, well bred family people.  On the surface, everything just seems so, um, perfect.

And maybe this goes without saying but “perfect” is boring.

As it turns out, almost every pleasant person that I have met has an interesting story to tell.  There’s a surprising, and delightful, depth to the people I have come to know in the three years that we’ve lived here.  As much as I like to poke fun at the Pleasant-ville-y-ness of it all, I do really enjoy it, and honestly, I am rarely bored by the people here.

Until recently, the whole idea of making anonymous donations to one cause or another baffled me.  Perhaps because I’ve always been attracted, in manic-obsessive-moth-to-a-flame-fashion, to the limelight.   But with the recent outpouring of support for the people struggling in Haiti, it’s starting to make sense to me.

Everybody, and I mean everybody, has put together some kind of something to benefit Haiti.  And already, some rabble rousers, some small minded rabble rousers, are pointing fingers.  (“Why is Barack Obama directing people to the whitehouse.org website to make donations?  How do we even know that that money will make it to Haiti?”)   Some legitimate questions have come up about existing charitable non-profits.  (“Wyclef Jean’s organization has a questionable track record…”)  Celebrities are flying supplies out personally in their own jet planes, singers are donating concert profits, making sizable personal contributions, and encouraging others to do the same.  My employer, our children’s day care provider, my friend’s restaurant down the road — each of these have created matching donation programs.

I think it’s all so important to do.  The magnitude of the suffering, the devastation in Haiti is truly hard to comprehend.  And I think it says more about me than about anything else, that I’m slightly put off by the public showing of this generosity of spirit.  Who am I to question the motives, the sincerity of these gestures?  And, frankly, the situation is so dire out there, that, really, who cares why anyone does anything good to help, as long as they do?

I react the same way towards colored ribbons and rubber bracelets.  And random calls for Facebook slacktivism, for that matter.

Why, I wonder, am I more inclined to this more pessimistic interpretation of these social movements?  Why not be inspired or hopeful?

Here, for example, is a pictures of a really nice, small gesture organized by a Unitarian Universalist church in town:

This is one of those pod dealios, filled with tents and the like that folks have donated to have shipped to Haiti.  This, for some reason, touched me.  Seconds after I took this picture of the many tents that my fellow Denverites have donated, I over-heard the man tending to the pod talking to another woman about getting better media coverage of this effort.  I loved the idea that this tent thing was a small but tangible, grass-roots, ordinary-people kind of thing that I had heard about from a neighbor.  You know, word of mouth, without having been sullied by the media.

More and more, I’m seeing the appeal of quiet acts of kindness — no matter how big or small.

And on that note, here’s a list of ways to help.

When I was ten years old, Tiffany Murray, my next door neighbor, took me aside in Ms. Whitman’s fifth grade class to tell me that her friend Jackie was calling me out.  This might have concerned me more if I had had any idea what it meant to be called out.  Called out where, I remember thinking.  Out to the hall?  Does she have something to give me?  Gosh that’s nice of her — I mean, I barely even know her…

Turns out when someone calls you out, it means they want to fight you.

At ten years old, I was the smallest girl in my class.  I weighed like forty pounds.  Jackie, on the other hand, was a bigger girl and she was one year older.  Furthermore, there was no real reason why Jackie should want to beat me up.  As far as I can remember, we never actually spoke.

I mentioned to my teacher that this Jackie person apparently wanted to hurt me, she called in Jackie and gave her a good talking to, and nothing ever came of any of this, but I’m now wondering if I haven’t sidestepped some important adolescent milestone.

I bring this up only because today I’ve been socked twice in the left eye.  Once when Kai bounced his shooter marble off the floor of the playroom and then straight into my eye with remarkable force.  I think this may be the first time that either of my boys have physically hurt me to the point of tears.

And then later on this evening as I was getting out of the car I somehow managed to clip myself again in the same eye with my car keys.

I have a slight suspicion that I may end up with at least a modest little shiner tomorrow morning.  And a part of me wishes that I would be able to explain the black eye with macho description of some kind of sexy bar fight.  The truth — marbles, and my own clumsiness, for god’s sake — is much less exciting.

Guess I’ll just have to add this one to my bucket list.

So here are just a few things to help get started again…

Uh.  WTF was I going to write here?  Good god, I’m out of shape.

I’ve been thinking about nothing lately.  I mean, actively thinking about nothing — about the beautiful, precious nothingness that is it all.  I was talking to a girlfriend of mine a week or so ago about how surprisingly okay I’ve become with the idea that none of this really matters, but I quickly got the sense that my message had gotten kind of garbled along the way.  What I had thought would come across as a wise bit of zen-ness actually turned out to be a darker and not un-pessimistic slice of existential nihilism.

I generally try to avoid talking about religion or politics, even with friends whose positions along these lines I believe might be similar to my own.  Partly because if they do share my views, well then, how boring would that be?  And if they don’t, well… I don’t know.  As open minded as I consider myself to be, I don’t think I’d necessarily want to risk getting into it with people with whom I want to remain friends.

But the other night when I kind of casually mentioned that, no, I hadn’t snapped out of the “nothing really matters and that’s okay” phase, I was reminded of a third reason why I don’t typically broach these fairly personal topics:  because it leaves me open for being misunderstood.  It leaves me slightly vulnerable.  (To… to what, exactly?)

So I’m taking my quazi-homegrown mishmash spin on the closest thing I’ve ever gotten to something I might actually call spirituality, and I’m going back in the closet.  (But as I head back underground, I’m bringing with me my copy of Mindfulness in Plain English — thanks to my friend S.  🙂 )

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Also.  On another note, it’s just recently occurred to me that it’s entirely possible that those people who seem unbelievably, um, obnoxious might actually be putting on a front.  It’s a sham.  Or, at least, it might be.  For some reason, I find this comforting.

image from:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/81015532@N00/

I was about 7 months pregnant with Colin when I had a conversation with another woman who had just recently become a mom herself.  We were chatting about people’s sometimes surprising reactions to my pregnancy — “Oh  look at you!  You’re huge!” often followed with an uninvited belly pat — and she gave me a piece of advice that has stuck with me to this day.  “People don’t mean to be inappropriate,” she said.  “There’s just something about the sight of a pregnant woman that evokes this kind of emotional response.  I’ve come to realize that really, they’re just happy for you, and are trying, in their lame kind of way, to share that happiness with you.  It’s coming from a good place.  I learned to just accept these gestures in the spirit with which they are intended.”

It made sense to me then, and it still makes sense to me today.  It is a more generous, more forgiving approach to interpreting the things people say and do.

I was thinking about this earlier this month as I was scribbling little notes on the back of our holiday cards.  I’ve only recently started to hear rumblings about how the greeting “Happy Holidays!” during the Christmas season causes some Christians to bristle a bit.  Last year I heard someone complaining about how tactless it is for non-Christians to take part in the winter-time holiday celebrations.  Christmas, the argument goes, is to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  It’s a birthday party of sorts.  And if you don’t believe that Jesus Christ was the literal son of God, what makes you think you have the right to participate?  It’s like you’re crashing someone else’s birthday party.

Without getting into the theological debates about the origins of our winter holiday season (Merry Chrima-Hannu-Kwaanza-Bodhi-Stice to you, by the way), I would think that we can all agree that a simple card, with the inscription “Happy Holidays and best wishes for the New Year” is not likely intended to be an overtly aggressive gesture.  It’s just an attempt to send a friendly “Howdy.  Hope you’re well!” to the ones we love.

If the world were free from truly intentional offenses, then I guess I could maybe see the sense in looking for issues to dissect in search of possible hidden meanings.  Oh yeah?  What do you really mean by that? But there appears to be no limit to legitimate instances of intentional insensitivity.  So why not give people the benefit of the doubt?  Why not accept a smiling, “Congratulations!  You’re having a baby! Looks to be a 10 pounder at the rate you’re going!” or an innocent “Happy Holidays” as relatively innocent attempts at connecting in a positive way?

Now when an older man calls me Sweetie, or someone tells me I look like I’m not feeling well, I take into consideration what I think that person’s motivation might be.  Sure, the older man could be trying to patronize me, could be trying to reaffirm his authority over me … or he could just be attempting to use a term of endearment in addressing me, trying to show some sign of affection.  And yeah, the person could be trying to tell me that I look particularly ugly this morning… or she could just be trying to show concern for me, wanting to make sure I’m okay.

It takes some practice, and just a little bit more effort, to try to decipher what someone’s true intentions might be.  But I think it’s worth it.  I know that I’m that much happier when I take the time to consider the spirit with which these things are intended.

I had an “ah-ha” moment today.  The particulars aren’t important at all, but it was a such a relief to get to that point … finally.  Being open to considering the possibility — nay, the probability — that the problem was, after all, me, really did help to get to something of a resolution sooner rather than later.  It’s not a flip-the-switch-and-the-problem-is-solved kind of situation, but I’m fairly confident that I’m well on the path to recovery.

Switching gears for a moment — and I’ll circle back and make a connection in a paragraph or two — Colin came home from school today with a Thanksgiving card that he had made.  There’s a pop up turkey on the cover of the card, and on the inside, it says: Thank you Mom and Dad for cleaning my clothes.  Even my underwear.  And thanks for tucking me in and reading me stories at bedtime.  I love you, Mom.

There’s a conspicuous lack of symmetry to the card’s inscription.  Charley grumbled a bit about how the kids don’t appreciate him as much as they should, how they often seem to favor me.  (Colin explained that he ran out of time before he was able to finish writing the card, but that’s beside the point.)  In Charley’s mind, it’s a fluke.

Now let me go on the record here as saying that I think Charley is a great father, and that the boys really do love him… but there’s always room for improvement, right?  The thing is that if you always attribute undesireable results to factors outside of your control — a fluke of nature, the alignment of the stars, the stupidity or bad judgement of others — you sort of resign yourself to accepting the way things are.  And yes, some things truly are out of our control — God grant me the strength to change the things I can, accept the things I can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference — but some things really aren’t.  Or at least they aren’t completely out of our control.

So back to the idea that I introduced in my opening paragraph.  Being open to the possibility that the problem might be me, as it turned out, was a good thing.  A humbling thing, but a good thing.  And, ultimately, a productive thing.

Gobble gobble.

With number one son, at the very beginning when we were still making an effort to be a part of the overachieving parents club, we did indeed try the baby sign language thing.  Imagine being able to communicate with your baby months before he or is she is actually verbal, the baby sign language literature boasted.

I have a very vivid memory of watching a baby sign language video where a Birkenstocked dad explained that the sign for “toilet” was simply the letter T (thumb stuck between the pointer and middle fingers) wiggled back and forth.  “It’s still a very useful sign even now that Moon Blossom is six years old,” he explained.  “When he’s busy playing with his friends, we can stand at the door and make the toilet sign as a kind of secret way of asking if he needs to use the restroom, without embarrassing him in front of his friends.”

Because it’s normal for the parent of a six year old to hover over a group of kids making weird hand gestures to see if the kid needs to make the pee pee.  Right?

As ridiculous as all that struck me — and for the record, we never moved beyond mastering the “all done” hand gesture — I have always been somewhat intrigued by secret codes.  I tried to invent a secret language for my all-girls Chickadee club in 3rd grade.  When you see a mean boy, spell out the word “test.”  T-E-S-T.  Because it sounds kind of like “He is nasty.”  Get it?

And to this day, I still use the phrase “olive juice” as code for “I love you,” because when you silently mouth the words, it really does look like you’re saying “I love you.”  I’ve done this with Charley for as long as I can remember, and so it just naturally became something I say to the boys too.

The other day Colin stopped to ask why I say olive juice instead of I love you.  After I explained my logic — which really sounds a little silly when you spell it out — he paused for a minute and then proclaimed that he would invent his own code.  We decided that his code phrase would have to be something that you wouldn’t normally say in the context of any normal conversation.  And it couldn’t be something like “Watch out for that truck!” because that just wouldn’t be safe.  After some careful consideration, Colin came up with “brains and eyes.”  So from here on out, in the Baker house, “brains and eyes” means “I love you.”

This has given rise to a slightly peculiar exchange each night when I tuck the boys in.  Each night after backs have been scratched and kisses and hugs have been exchanged, I whisper quietly, “Olive juice.”  And each night now, the boys look up at me and respond back sweetly, “Brains and eyes.”

This evening, as I was walking out of Colin’s room, I heard him say again for emphasis, “Brains and eyes and olive juice.”  I smiled.  “And I’m not just saying that — I really mean it.”

How sweet is that?

The other day I read a really touching post on my friend Mike’s blog, and it got me to thinking.  What, exactly, is it that I’m trying to do here with this blog? I like to pretend that I don’t have any expectations for this space here, that it’s just a place where I can go to throw down a few random observations, share some light-hearted moments, record an occasional memory or two, but even with those kind of low expectations, I feel like I’ve gotten a bit lazy lately.  And it all seems so… inconsequential. Nobody really needs to know about the new funky color I’ve painted my toes (sparkly Smurf blue).

So I took a bit of a breather.  (I was also sick — again — and just feeling relatively low energy all around.  At the end of the night, after tucking the boys in bed, I’d often just pass out.  And it’s hard to write anything, no matter how meaningless, when you’re unconscious.)

I’m thinking it’s time to recharge with a Lighthouse class.  And maybe a … wait for it … fiction class.  Just to mix things up, focus on some of the more artsy elements to the act of writing.  So that I may one day actually be able to say that I come here to write and not just type.  There’s a difference you know.