Life & Spirit | mulberryshoots

October 23, 2013

mums! . . .

If someone had asked me what my favorite flower was, I might have said narcissus. That’s because I’ve planted many of them over the years in drifts wherever I lived and they rewarded me with multiplying blooms of great variety: single cups, white ones, yellow ones, bicolor ones, doubles with ruffled collars. They last a long time and have a wonderfully refreshing fragrance when cut in the Springtime and placed in a pottery vase on the kitchen table. So, narcissus would definitely be one of my top choices.

Another one, I have to admit, is the chrysanthemum. This flower has an Asian heritage, especially in China and Japan where ancient chests are decorated with the flower (one of which I won at auction years ago) and it symbolizes royalty in kimono designs and paintings. For example, the “chrysanthemum throne” is the name given whereof the Japanese Emperor resides. When I visited Japan years ago, I noticed potted chrysanthemum plants, not like the ones sold here in the autumn, but a single very tall stem in a flower pot with just one bloom. Perfect and spotless. I had not seen them in this form anywhere else and wistfully thought of going back to Japan to see more of them. I also noticed chrysanthemum sprays that were trained on bamboo supports, arching outwards many feet without a single spent flower showing.

So, when I happened upon the exhibition of Japanese Chrysanthemums at the New York Botanical Garden, I sent the link to my daughter, C., who was visiting NYC last weekend to see “Eugen Onegin” at the Metropolitan Opera. I then realized that the NY Botanical Gardens was in the Bronx, quite a long distance by car from the heart of NYC where she was staying.

We had lunch together this weekend and I thought again about how much I would love to see the exhibit called “Kiku” and that it would be cheaper to drive to the Bronx in New York, then to travel by air to Japan. And the exhibition was only open until this Thursday. I sent out some emails to see if anyone else might be game to go with me but nobody else was able to get away for the day. So, I got gas in the car, changed the CDs to all Bach piano pieces played by Angela Hewitt, a Canadian pianist, took a bottle of water and a Macoun apple, got some cash and I was on my way, starting out at 8:22 a.m. this morning. I arrived about three hours later, having made good time despite a three-lane-to-one-lane merge due to a construction snafu at the Whitestone bridge on the Henry Hutchison Freeway.

After I parked, I went to the cafe where I hoped for sushi but bought a turkey sandwich and some tea instead, carrying my picnic to eat later outside among the courtyards of foliage and flowering plants. Here are photos I took beginning with outside shots of the huge glass conservatories and then the chrysanthemum show (that’s the only word for it!) inside. I hope these images will lift your spirits as much as they did mine today. Plus! you didn’t get stuck driving around the Bronx on the way back when I took a wrong turn! No harm done though. I’m so glad that I went! You’ll see why below.

From this front pool area with the arching bridges of chrysanthemums, you enter a loggia that is filled with displays on both sides:

mums pink football in a row

Behind the huge tableau of white chrysanthemums, I saw a wooden box in which a single stem was rooted, the mother of all flowers, you might say, generating ALL of the blossoms from a single plant stalk. Here’s a photo of it and a plaque that accompanied the other white tableau in the hallway.

a single stem rooted in a wooden box that generates hundreds of flowers

single plant started October 2012 with 432 flower blossoms

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October 17, 2013

“democracy” . . .

stone wall

The Republican Party protects the 1-2% of the most wealthy in this country and refuses for them to pay more taxes. They’re against the use of government funds to help those who can’t afford health care or who receive other government help like Social Security and Medicare. They are happy when they’ve “shut down the government,” (Michelle Bachman) and they have no understanding of what their ignorance, arrogance and foolhardiness make us look like to the rest of the world. Never mind the costs their actions cause to millions of working Americans that they could care less about.

Covert racism seems to be at the root of intense bullying Obama has received since he was elected (twice!). David Koch funds and plots against the President’s policies almost like a game to that billionaire, using attention-getting idiots like Ted Cruz, a junior senator from Texas. Cruz can’t even come up with his own ideas to get attention and instead copy-cats Wendy Davis, a fellow Texan who successfully filibustered for eleven hours against tightening abortion laws in Texas. That has catapulted Davis into the limelight to run for Governor of Texas which has alarmed Republicans so greatly that they are already airing nasty videos against her. Other Republicans like Rand Paul and Paul Ryan are using the current crisis-after-crisis to fine-tune their candidate platforms to run for the Presidency in 2017. All of these theatrics are being played out while the country teeters on the edge of toppling somewhere no one has ever been before. If I get it, why don’t they? They don’t care, that’s why.

Worst of all, there are enough people who think alike in these narrow prisms, elect Tea Party ideologues and who don’t care about the country more than their own self-serving agendas. That they wield this much power is appalling. Yet, there seems to be no end in sight to this Herculean problem we have in the country in which we live and work. We must stop being apathetic, hoping it will blow over. We have to vote them all out of office and deal with the gerrymandering of districts that allows them to exist.

In my opinion, what we are living through today is an example of the ugliest and most sordid side of human nature that democracy has to offer.

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October 15, 2013

NYC . . .

This morning, I was going through some newspaper and magazine clippings as part of my big clean-out to make room for reorganizing my library of overflowing books. It’s always interesting to look at what I had saved, especially the “Dear Diary” clippings that appear regularly in NYT Monday newspapers. One of them, published in August, 2011, made us laugh out loud as I read it before we sat down to have lunch.

Two boxes of books are already staged downstairs to donate to the library on Wednesday and I’m hoping to double that. As some of you know, I enjoy reading the New York Times because it stimulates and inspires me to do things I wouldn’t otherwise know about. One example is the “Kiku” Japanese Chrysanthemum Show at the New York Botanical Garden that I plan to drive down to see next week before it closes. Another is an interview with Mary Louise Parker, one of my favorite actresses, who is featured in the Broadway Play, “Snow Geese” which I might go to see by taking a Greyhound Bus down to NYC for a Wednesday Matinee sometime in early November. Taking the early morning bus, I would arrive in NYC around 12:30, catch a quick lunch and go to the 2:00 p.m. show, then take the 6:30 p.m. bus back home.

New York City has always been somewhere I liked to visit ever since I lived there in rent-controlled apartments for five years when I was first married. Subway rides were cheap at 15 cents, you could go and listen to Leonard Bernstein conducting the New York Philharmonic in Sheeps’ Meadow for free and we got to see all of George Balanchine’s ballets with Jacques d’Amboise and Suzanne Farrell at Lincoln Center, paying $1.50 for fifth ring seats. Dinners in Chinatown included heaping mounds of steaming snails in black bean sauce, white rice and a platter of chinese greens that cost less than $4.00 for four people. Those were great days to be in NYC!

A few years ago, my daughters and I went there to celebrate my birthday, saw the Rockettes in Radio Music City Hall, walked around the Christmas Tree at Rockefeller Center and also visited the gaping hole that was the site of the 9-11 attack. Sobering. We also went to a flea market at West 23rd Street where I found a little gilt ram for a few dollars that symbolized my birth sign, Capricorn.

As I happened upon this little clipping, I thought it might brighten your day with a little humor, as it did mine, while I slog through all this stuff that’s due outside for pickup tomorrow morning.

“Dear Diary” (August, 2011)

While I was sitting on the subway in mid-June, a man in his 30’s who was pushing a stroller with a baby in it and who had another baby strapped to his chest, sat down opposite me.

The woman next to me asked, “Are they twins?” He said that they were and that they were 7 months old.

The same woman next to me said, “Oh, I have twins, two boys, age 13.”

The woman next to her exclaimed, “Oh, I have twins, two boys, age 11”

The man standing up in the doorway said, “Oh, I am a twin and I have twins, a boy and a girl.”

At that point, I weighed in, “Oh, I have 38-year-old twin boys.”

At that moment, a woman sitting nearby jumped up and yelled, “I am out of here!” And she stomped down the train car.

Everyone in the subway car broke out in laughter.

~ Mark Edelman

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October 14, 2013

staying . . .

Last night was one to remember for staying to the end. Of the game, that is. On Sunday afternoon, we watched the Patriots play a frustratingly error-filled game with Tom Brady being sacked, interceptions happening right and left, and only the field goal kicker, Gostowski delivering twice to keep the Patriots seemingly in the game. Until the last five SECONDS. Yep, the stands had already started to empty with the Saints leading, 27-23 with the clock ticking down the final minutes. People wanting to get a head start getting out of the parking lot had already left. But they missed the best which came in the last five seconds as Brady shot a seventeen yard pass to the end zone for a touchdown. The guy who caught the ball was Kenbrell Thompkins, a rookie but as usual, Tom’s passes were sometimes thrown so hard that they’re almost impossible to catch–so it’s a victory when one of those bullet throws becomes an actual touchdown. With the clock at 5 seconds, I was getting ready to get up with a sigh of resignation to put supper on the table. But in a blink of an eye, they pulled it out, winning 30-27! Bill Belichick, who usually says no more than five words when interviewed after the game was so talkative from nervous energy that he stayed at the microphone for almost twenty minutes, rattling off how the players are everything and make the plays. But he also started off by saying that the dramatic finish of the game “took five years off my life!” That’s saying a lot for Bill.

Okay. After we had our supper of oven-fried chicken, corn on the cob and buttered peas, we tuned in to watch the second game of the Red Sox against Detroit in the American League playoffs at 8 o’clock. My heart fell when I saw Clay Buchholtz was pitching because watching him pitch to me is like watching figure skating and worrying that a skater will take a fall on a jump. Confidence is not something his pitching inspires, despite all the hype. Sure enough, after a very slow game and the Sox losing 5-1 in the 7th inning, we decided to go to bed and listen to the end of the game on our clock radio which we sometimes do as the night wears on interminably and they’re losing. I was almost asleep when I heard G. murmuring something like, “grand slam home run.” I sat up in bed and asked “who?” David Ortiz had just hit a grand slam home run in the 8th inning to tie the game at 5-5. I got up and turned on the TV to watch the Red Sox jumping around in the dugout and Ortiz coming out for a wave to the crowd which had erupted with crazy joy. They managed to win the game, 6-5 with Jonny Gomes and Jarrod Saltalamacchia hitting in the ninth inning for a walk-off win!

So, for Boston sports fans like us, lightning struck twice at the very last minute yesterday for both the Patriots and the Red Sox. We are fortunate to live in a world championship sports town but these two back-to-back victories on the same day brought watching sports to another level of suspense-filled winning games. Even if we might start to fall asleep before it’s all over. Lucky us!

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October 11, 2013

curiosity . . .

Congratulations to Alice Munro, Nobel Prize winner for Literature!

So, Alice Munro, a Canadian woman writing short stories, has won the Nobel Prize in Literature. This award is especially interesting because it seems to actually be for literary achievement, rather than some political gesture towards some obscure unknown writer from a foreign country. It’s also a relief that they didn’t give it to Philip Roth or Joyce Carol Oates, American writers who have been at bat the last couple of years. [And forgive me if I don’t go into reasons why I’m glad about that.] No Literature Nobel has been awarded to an American writer since Toni Morrison in 1993, I’m told.

I confess that I have tried to read Alice Munro’s short stories many times. In my bookshelf, I found a used copy of “Alice Munro’s Best” with a Foreword written by her Canadian writing compatriot, Margaret Atwood, the yang to Alice Munro’s yin personality. Truth be told, I had as hard a time getting through Atwood’s piece as I did the first couple of Munro’s short stories. The one about working in a slaughterhouse cleaning out turkeys by hand almost did me in, although I did marvel at the astringency of Munro’s descriptions.

I mean, I’m going to keep on reading through that volume beside me on the couch because I earnestly want to understand what all the fuss is about. Sometimes I find myself engaged in the beginning of the story, only to have my mind wander off when things get so convoluted I don’t care about the character anymore. I also want to say that I find myself LIKING Alice Munro because she writes about women and the situations we find ourselves in, looking for “distant pieces of ourselves” while taking care of children and minding the hearth. She carefully avoids describing herself as feminist, which I also understand and applaud. Because what she writes about that we women handle everyday in our lives over time goes way beyond feminism. Feminism has been a useful political tool and something around which frustrated women rally around, but it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what it’s like to be a woman, if you know what I mean. And many of you do, I think. So good for Munro for avoiding that easy trap.

Two articles about Munro’s Nobel appeared in the NYTimes today. One, carefully crafted by Michiko Kakutani, a literary critic who is respected and also vilified for her acerbic critiques of writers and writing. She gave a brutal review of work by Jonathan Franzen who retorted with something like, “She’s the stupidest person in New York City,” but hey, that’s the literary world we live in now. In any case, even Michiko is on Munro’s side this time.

What I found interesting is that this Nobel prize for literature comes to Munro at the age of 82 and a few months after her second husband passed away in April of this year. What a pity he’s not around to see her win this accolade. She has three daughters, though, who must be excited about this award. She’s also been or being treated for cancer and has had bypass surgery. In the other article today, she’s quoted as saying as a response to the Nobel:

“In a brief interview with Nobelprize.org, Ms. Munro explained that she had decided to stop writing because she had been working since she was about 20 years old. ‘That’s a long time to be working, and I thought, maybe it’s time to take it easy,’ she said, ‘But this may change my mind.”

One of Munro’s most frequently quoted sentences is: “The constant happiness is curiosity.” I second that for sure.

Kudos to Alice Munro for having written short stories her way, establishing along the path, a “new art form” that is even hailed by novelists, those most difficult of writers. She said she was just practicing writing in the shorter form, getting ready for writing novels someday, but never did. That’s a good thing for us readers, I guess, although I’m still working my way through a volume of her short stories today.

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October 9, 2013

“drips” . . .

I don’t know if you are a baseball fan who’s been following the seemingly endless series upon series upon series to get to the Mother of all series-es, the World Series. Who knew that with all these “wild card” playoffs, and second chances that baseball would go on so long into October? I’m not really complaining because the Red Sox are still winning after so losing last year. They won as many games as they lost last year and with all the beard-growth, seem to be having a lot of fun as teammates playing baseball. In fact, the Red Sox with 97 wins this year, have tied the existing record (St. Louis) for winning the most games in a season! This year’s triumph is so surprising and that much sweeter coming back-to-back from last year’s shameful letdown.

Much has been written about reconstructing a winning Red Sox team this year. Some say it’s due to a new business strategy (Ben Cherington, the GM, gets credit for it) of paying more short-term money for proven no-name baseball players who just want to play baseball and win for the Red Sox. Players like Joe Napoli, Shane Victorino and Jonny Gomes, are newcomers to the Red Sox roster and have done well enough so that we now recognize their names, even if we can’t always recognize their features behind some of those beards. Jacoby Ellsbury, Dustin Pedroia, Daniel Nava and Jarrod Saltimacchia have all contributed to the wins (although Salty strikes out as much as he hits.) David Ortiz hits home runs just when you need him to but I’m always nervous when Clay Buchholtz is pitching, aren’t you?

In any case, the reason I’m writing this post is that the Red Sox clinched the latest playoff with the Tampa Bay Rays last night, as described by Jacoby Ellsbury, “It’s mentally draining to play Tampa Bay but they’re a great group of guys.” Shane Victorino, one of the new guys this year, was key to their winning last night’s game, both running and hitting. In fact, Joe Maddon, the Tampa Bay Rays coach was quoted as saying, “Shane Victorino, he just drips intangibles.” I laughed out loud when I read this description, both because: a) I’ve never heard anyone described as such; b) I don’t really know which ‘intangibles’ he’s referring to, baseball-wise, and c) for it to come out of a coach’s mouth was surprisingly erudite, if you know what I mean. Here’s the actual context:

Ellsbury was stealing second on the pitch and continued to third when the ball rolled toward the backstop. Victorino beat out a slow chopper to shortstop, putting the Red Sox ahead 2-1.

“Victorino really adds a different dimension to that group, and you saw that again tonight. He just drips with intangibles,” Maddon said.

This is why I watch baseball. It’s like watching a chapter of Greek mythology playing out before our very eyes. For example, in the space of a year, we witnessed the debacle of last year’s team and coach, Bobby Valentine, burning to a crisp together in a crucible of egocentric individuals eating chicken wings and drinking beer in the locker room. Now, the Red Sox have risen from the ashes into a “One for all, All for One” bearded team (who knew beards mattered?) who seem to love helping each other out. David Ortiz was quoted as coaching his team players to “hold out for the fast ball” in the second or third playoff game with the Tampa Bay Rays. Here’s a Designated Hitter, coaching his fellow teammates how to hit the pitcher, rather than being content with being the best hitter on the team.

Hey, come to think of it, if the Los Angeles Dodgers end up winning their playoffs, last year’s Gone, Baby, Gone Trio trade (Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett) may be on the field playing against this year’s bearded Red Sox team for the World Series. Now that match-up would really drip with intangibles, don’t you think?

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October 7, 2013

poem . . .

morning glories, seen from our kitchen window

Mary Oliver, a poet who lives on Cape Cod and writes about Nature in simple language, has just come out with a new volume of poetry called “Dog Songs.” I was reading an article about her and this new publication when I came across this poem of hers:

“Every day

I see or I hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight.”

Wanted to post it here to start off the week.

Chrysanthemums with pottery and quilt made by friends in Australia and California

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October 5, 2013

knitting . . .

finished sweater in “steamers” yarn

I’ve been knitting a sweater for my daughter, C. for awhile and have been wanting to finish it so that she can wear it now that the cool weather of the Fall is upon us. Knitting is a good pastime for me because it keeps me busy while watching the Red Sox play or Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu on the show, “Elementary” trying to catch criminals on TV.

The desire to finish it, however, felt to me like the myth of Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, every day toiling to weave her tapestry and each night, that day’s work mysteriously unravelling. In her case, it served a good purpose because the completion of her weaving would have meant punishment meted out to the populace. So taking out what she had done during the day was a good thing and served a worthy moral purpose while ensuring the piece would not be finished until Odysseus showed up to rescue her and save his kingdom.

In my case, I’ve taken apart and started the cuffs a number of times, finally getting the gauge right by using much smaller needles, settling on a zigzag pattern for the cuffs that I’ve always imagined making for myself. I thought I was in the home stretch when I sewed up the sleeves and eased them into the armholes. As I sewed two rows of stitching to make sure they would not pull loose anywhere, I remember thinking to myself, “Boy, I hope I won’t have to take this apart,” (an oddly prescient thought in hindsight!) Sure enough, when I tried the sweater on myself, I noticed that the shoulder line of the back and fronts fell below my shoulder so that the sleeves were too long and the whole thing looked even bigger than I had feared it might be. Instead of stitching it together, I should have basted the sleeve into the armhole first. Although technically “finished,” I was not at all happy with the end result.

I decided to put it aside and drove to the grocery store to buy some fresh fish for dinner. Along the way, I briefly contemplated soaking the whole sweater in hot water to shrink it, but even I shrank from this crazy idea that might have ruined it forever. By the time I got home, I resolved to remove the sleeves, hem the shoulder edge to narrow the shoulders, then re-attach slightly shorter sleeves. Along with the prescient foreshadowing that I might have to take apart the double-stitching, a perfectly curved tiny snipping shears appeared out of nowhere while I was looking for some thread which made the undoing task feasible.

corrective surgery on shoulder/sleeve shape

Although this sounds like a serious intervention, it was just the ticket to reshape the sweater!

When C. was here visiting last weekend, we took a look at some mother-of-pearl buttons I had in my stash. The flower-shaped buttons were too starkly, shiny white on the right side, but turning the button over to the raw underside–the side you weren’t supposed to look at– the mottled textured surface looked just like steamer shells incarnate. In fact, the buttons looked so much like the flecked, heathered yarn that they’re hard to see. A match made in heaven, if I do say so myself!

“steamers” yarn with shell buttons

So, that seems to be it! After taking apart the fronts and re-knitting them because the neckline was too low for the collar (which turned out great!), redoing the cuffs numerous times to make them fit properly, and now taking apart the shoulder/armhole sewing; then radicalizing the shoulder line by hemming it in before re-inserting the re-knitted sleeves, you’d think I could have knitted the sweater twice! (which I did contemplate doing on smaller needles, two/thirds of the way through when I feared the sweater would be too roomy.) But all’s well that ends well, I think, and the shoulder/sleeve surgery was just what this piece needed in order to fall into place. I guess you can tell I knit from scratch without a pattern, and perhaps that’s why there is so much trial and error. Huge sigh of relief! I can’t tell why I’ve had to re-knit so much these days (maybe knitting on faith rather than measuring; or mis-estimating needle gauge to yarn?) But, it seems to be a part of my process, and like Penelope, keeps me busy, day and night. I feel good about solving vexing problems in fact. . . as long as I eventually reach a solution that I’m happy with in the end.

A knitting postscript: While I was sorting through my yarns to put them away in the closet with mothballs, I came across a thick deep red flecked yarn with an orange-red sister yarn which looks like just enough yarn to make companion vests for my granddaughter, Josie who is three and her friend, Annika who is closer to five. I’m thinking of making red fronts with orange backs, open armholes and empire length–sort of like a kid’s vest-let. It will go over their heads, and keep them warm without much weight and also last for awhile while they are growing so fast. I thought I’d knit a little heart in a contrasting color to sew on each one too. Since Annika is slightly older and bigger, her mother has been generously providing Annika’s outgrown clothes and toys for Josie since she was born–and what beautiful clothes they have been! It will be so much fun to knit these little pieces for them to wear as big and little sister. Let’s just hope I won’t have to re-do them too many times to get it right. I was thinking of a little seed stitch piece to hold them together on either side. Like a Japanese vest that I made for C. before.

yarn for josie and annika vest-lets!

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October 3, 2013

gift . . .

With all the flotsam and jetsam that floats by each day, it is heartening to read a book that engages, entertains and edifies one’s view on life, all at the same time. Such is “The Signature of All Things” by Elizabeth Gilbert. As you might recall, she became famous for her memoir, “Eat, Pray, Love” which sold 10 million copies, was made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and which has made her rich enough to begin rebuilding (including buying houses for friends) a small town in New Jersey where she lives with a husband whom she married to ensure he could stay in the U.S.A. on a green card. You might think that would be enough to handle in the past few years, along with setting up a shop of imported wares like Buddhas and other Asian things that her husband manages.

But no, apparently, that’s not been enough to occupy her time/life. With the publication of “The Signature of All Things,” Elizabeth Gilbert reveals that she has been busy researching 18th and 19th century botanical history, including the commerce of ocean trade between the West and obscure locations yielding up medicinal plants and potions that ebbed and flowed with plagues, fevers, malaria and other illnesses that could not be treated otherwise than with exotic potions and herbs. She has constructed a tale (that’s the only word for it) of a family, and especially a heroine named Alma Whittaker who is not pretty but is very intelligent, feisty and hard-working who perseveres through a life of disappointments and wishes that go unfulfilled in unwinsome ways. That this story is told in a narrative fashion (“telling” rather than “showing” through dialogue) is a huge relief because stories matter and I’m so glad to be able to simply read for pleasure without having to deal with all the annoying current artificial fads in writing/publishing.

That being said, another bonus in the writing is that for me, at least, the narrator’s voice sounds awfully familiar to that of Jane Austen. In fact, I enjoyed reading this book much more than some Jane Austen’s novels because the humor and wit come easy, comes often and is awe-inspiring in its light touch. So, it even kind of out-Austens Jane, but seems so effortless that it’s not a contest, just fun.

To be honest, I read a lot and am one of those readers who, unless engaged and interested, do not suffer books (or fools) gladly. This is the first book in a long time that I marveled at while laughing out loud. I also appreciated the more sobering discussions about the relationships of all things, (never mind the signature as explained in the novel,) and the spirited attitude of the heroine. I can’t wait to read it again, more slowly this time, and savor the writing of someone who has already won the writing lottery with “Eat, Pray, Love,” a book that I wanted to throw across the room numerous times except for the “Pray” section. Now, against some odds, she has succeeded in writing literature. No wonder Elizabeth Gilbert is smiling in the photos that accompany the book. She’s done what many of us want to accomplish in our lives: to be original in our creativity, to persevere until it is finished and to be published. I wish I had come up with something like this. But it’s more than enough pleasure for me just to hold this volume in my hands and to know I can read it more than once and enjoy it more fully after an astonishing first time through. What a gift!

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September 28, 2013

choice . . .

I’ve been thinking about choices lately. That we start making them from the moment we wake up. Whether to squeeze navel oranges for juice (sweet citrus nectar) or to pour juice from the carton. To heat up a flaky croissant in the oven because it’s Saturday morning or to eat cereal with fresh blueberries and two percent milk like the rest of the week. To drink more than one cup of coffee while savoring reading the New York Times?

Then, onto other ones. To be annoyed about goings on that disturb the peaceable morning, or to let it go since it’s really not that big a deal? To limit how much picking up to do because it doesn’t really matter since I’m the only one who seems to notice anyway? And so it goes as the day unfolds.

It seems to me that there are two sides of my brain going on most of the time: to enjoy and appreciate what I see (gorgeous mums glowing in the morning light) or (untidy hose lying near the faucet.) Experiencing the light (gorgeous melody coming out of the piano) or shadow (dissonance from misreading some of the notes.) Maybe if I didn’t think so much of the time, I’d be able to react to things without having to choose which reaction I want to stay with.

Of course, being holistic allows us to see more than either-or options. Our Western culture is bifocal: right or wrong, black or white. We could choose to see all the shades between and see a greater whole, even being at ease with ambiguity and ambivalence.

I guess the biggest choice of all, at least for me, is consciously choosing to be happy. Even if there are still concerns about how some things may turn out in the future. And, when reading the paper can be disquieting almost all the time. Or, seeing how utterly dumb some members of Congress seem to think we, the American public, are. There’s also a thick layer of self-serving earnestness going on with publicity-seekers that our media seems to think is newsworthy these days. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice on TV’s new Fall programming that isn’t about revenge, sex, guns, violence or the most vapid of (new!) situation comedies.

So, back to a choice to be happy. I guess that one could choose to stay stuck in a small shuttered vision of what life can be and resign ourselves to it: whether it’s due to a lack of resources, time (we think we’re too old), or we are hung up (frozen by indecision or habit) OR the worst argument of all: that’s the way we’ve always been and we don’t think we can change. Or, we think that other people have an idea of us and we’re stuck with that, even if we’d like to be different.

Well, I’m ready. My cousin Pei-Fen entreated me to “be happy” right before she died. I remember that often because it’s up to me, no one else. I can choose to be happy, with self-awareness and intention. It also entails giving myself permission to break my mold somehow and to be content with being happy. How hard can that be?

Postscript (two weeks later): If you’re at all interested, I’ve found a few behavioral modification tips that have raised my score for being able to be happy (how hard can it be?) It’s kind of hard, actually, unless:

1. When you react to something that feels negative, the first thing to consider is whether it’s under your control or not. If not, let it go and stop thinking about it. Do not brood about it.

2. When something IS under your control, either do something constructive about it, or let it go and stop thinking about it.

3. When something happens that makes you happy or excited, SAVOR that reaction and marinate in it for a little while. Share the good feeling with someone if you feel like it.

4. Get enough sleep.

5. Ask yourself every once in awhile if you are feeling more happy than you were before you started choosing to be happy. I’m happy to report that we are, in fact, happier! Both of us!

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Category: Life & Spirit