 With minds full and all keyed up about the state of the world and the coming presidential election, my friends and I compare notes about our studied efforts to find peace of mind. It quickly becomes apparent that we are not very good at it. The strategies all look and sound so easy on YouTube and yet there is something in each of us that resists. I sit for meditation, and Om… my mind thinks about what I am going to do next or maybe eat next. I save my mantras for driving in urban traffic where the anarchists are equipped with wheels and probably have guns under their seats. I silently chant to the speeding driver behind me who is also on his phone: “Please don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me.” Or beg the traffic lights: “Please stay green, stay green…” I call a friend to see if she is doing any better. “How was your meditation class last night?” “I don’t know, I tuned in and fell asleep.” This is a woman who has mastered napping. She could fall asleep during child birth, but it’s not a strategy that will help us in rush hour traffic or save us from the detention camps to which all Democratic voters will be sent should the election go a certain way. I check in with another friend who is taking an eight-week Tai Chi class. I find no wisdom here. She is miserable and now dreads the dawn of each new morning. Being the super-responsible sort, she pushes herself to be tuned in by 8 AM and to attend every class even though it is virtual. Old fears of being denied graduation due to poor attendance haunt her. For this woman who is accustomed to getting things done, the slow motion is pure torture. She is reminded of having been a cheerleader in her youth: “This is like doing all of the cheers in slow motion.” She finds her peace of mind when the program ends: “Thank God that’s over,” she says. I make a mental note that God does answer prayers, and I wonder where mine are on His to-do list for I am pretty faithful about prayer which is mostly me begging and pleading along with giving God a list of people and things that need fixed, like He doesn’t already know… My friends and I are no better at mindfulness practices than we are at sky diving, but we are better practiced. There is a healing that comes through our failures. They become rich fodder for conversations that provide us with plenty of laughter. We give voices to what troubles us and release it in howls and giggles. Sometimes we laugh until we can no longer speak which is probably the answer to someone else’s prayers. Drained of our stress, we carry on—at least until the next news bulletin and the next YouTube video. Perhaps our true natures are revealed in the self-preservation methods we choose: rest and disconnect, ask questions and seek answers, beg and plead even, get things done and cheer on others. Laugh until we feel better. Let’s face it--we need to look after ourselves. We need to get out the rubbish we ingest before it festers inside us leading us to the very behaviors we despise. So, back to begging and pleading… My prayer today is that there are enough of us who are keyed up about the state of the world and not just badly practicing mindfulness but also trying to live the definition of mindful: watchful, aware, careful, attentive, sensible, and thoughtful. I say let’s make that a ballot requirement. Om…
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 Except for a stint in the army, Uncle Lloyd spent his entire life on the family farm. He remained firmly attached to his caveman roots and his family ancestry working the land. This led to some peculiarities of manner and speech. For instance, when discussing if he might wish to donate some of the family heirlooms to the local Historical Society, Lloyd repeatedly referred to the organization as the Hysterical Society. That’s just the way the word came out when he spoke. No point in correcting him. He would not have heard the distinction. If Uncle Lloyd had lived to see the COVID pandemic, we might have given him some extra credit for his prescient prognostication. Panic-stricken, agitated, frantic, distraught, beside ourselves—all manner of hysteria applied. My one retreat during that time was the library. Even when the doors closed during the worst of the pandemic, the drive-through remained open. It was during that time that I reconnected with a long-gone but much loved member of that other Hysterical Society. I write today to honor her: Happy Birthday, Erma Bombeck! Even as a kid, I loved the newspaper. Not much for the comic section, I did try to peer into my future with regular readings of my daily horoscope. I practically earned an M.D. from the Ask the Doctor column, and I built a solid foundation for my future as a therapist by reading Dear Abby, but my favorite column was At Wit’s End by Erma Bombeck. While she was facing middle age, I was facing middle school. At a time when people did not “air their dirty laundry in public,” she made a living from it – a middle age, middle class porn star to the homemaking set. She talked about things we experienced but no one else talked about openly, especially not in front of children. It was a glimpse into the foibles of family life in the suburbs and a sneak peek into the private parts of a grown up life. During the COVID pandemic, as I was at my own wit’s end, I borrowed some of her old books from the library. The titles alone were hilarious: The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank, Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, The Ties that Bind and Gag, When you Look Like Your Passport Photo, It’s Time to go Home, and I Lost Everything in the Post-Natal Depression, among others. As I read and laughed out loud, I was reminded that so many “revolutions” have come and gone. Issues that once rocked the country came and went, and we remained standing. The women’s movement, including sexual freedom and birth control, and the mass migration of families to the fresh and growing suburbs were all new to Erma and her generation. While it was simply the state of things when I was born, I was reminded that it was all new and unnerving to the folks who came before me. They adapted. As businesses closed and workers fled to their home offices, and children went to school at their dining room tables dressed their pajamas, Erma gave me some perspective: we have been through revolutionary changes before; we will get through this one, too. What a gold mine Erma would have unearthed from our pandemic experience! She knew that humor mixed with love was the antidote to just about everything, and she instinctively knew just the right mix of each to keep us laughing and healing without hurting ourselves or others. Nietschze wrote that “in heaven all of the interesting people are missing.” I’m pretty sure he is wrong, at least since 1996. Maybe what makes heaven heaven is that it is full of all the people who died laughing. See you there, Erma. |
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December 2024
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