Actions Actually DO Speak Louder Than Words

...which feels ironic to write in words...

I'm not dumb. I know there's an inherent conflict in even writing about how I have experienced, more and more, that statement to be true, that age-old adage:

Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

I just can't get over how true it is, perhaps because I listen to, write, and share so many words every day, all the time. Reading books, articles, blogs; writing manuscripts, poems, essays, emails; listening to raw writings, soulful conversations and even the radio. I often say my classes are so that we know that not everything arises in finished form - that a good, solid start from the heart is necessary for clear writing, but of course when all we read is finished product, we think all the fineries - great editing, structural reconsiderations, etc, should come, too, in the first draft. I say a lot of smart and insightful things, and I even believe some of them, truly, deeply. Words are awfully sexy and wise.

Lies and Survival

"Did you ever lie to survive when you were younger?" she asked.

We were talking about our families, about our parents in particular: what was hidden, what was shared. I instantly sprang to a part of my life I felt super uncomfortable sharing for decades, but have, in the process of writing my memoir, finally "outed" and been able to talk about without shame. It wasn't lying *to* my family, it was lying *about* my family, sort of.

When my father died we had no funeral. There were many cards from students and co-workers (he was a beloved instructor at a local small tech college). Many calls. But no responses from our family (see: my mother, lost in grief) and certainly no funeral or wake. I didn't really know what those were like - my maternal grandmother had died when I was a little kid, and we had buried her at our cabin, where everyone's ashes got buried. No service, just a burial - maybe we weren't even there when our grandfather put her in the ground.

So it didn't strike me as odd. Didn't strike me as needed or even healthy to have a service. It was normal, you know, what was known, in my family's culture.

Be Careful What You Wish For

In the Summer 2011 issue of Writers Ask, a quarterly publication of Glimmer Train Stories, Armand ML Inezian notes “Oh sure, there are writers who sound very humble, but you have to have some kind of ego to get through all the rejections.” This is at the end of an interview in which he states there are two kinds of successful writers – the people who “win the lottery” and those who stick with it diligently over time, “like a glacier, slowly scouring the earth, and moving ever toward the horizon.”

Having a spouse who is transgender is great practice in this regard. This morning, she said to me “I realize that at some point I will have no control (due to hormones) over how I present myself, gender-wise. I often feel like everything is moving so slowly, way slower than I want, then, I realize, it is all beyond my control. It’s a little like that saying ‘Be careful what you wish for…’ – I want to be a woman, but secretly I am a little scared of it, or want to have more control over the process. Not quicker or just the way I want it at each moment, which is impossible.”

Our relationship to change and to fame, even to downfalls – to life overall - is very, very similar. Of course, at base, everyone wants to be recognized, observed, appreciated for who we actually are. But there’s a lot of mixed information covering that ideal – sometimes we don’t know who we are, or don’t like who we think we are. Sometimes we self-sabotage, which is both under our control and not under our control, and sometimes, as hard as we try, the world seems not to respond.

What Am I Yoked To?

Yoke:
1. (Noun) A crossbar with two U-shaped pieces that encircle the necks of a pair of oxen or other draft animals working together.

2. (Noun) A frame designed to be carried across a person's shoulders with equal loads suspended from each end.

3. (Intrans. Verb) To force into heavy labor, bondage, or subjugation.

These are some of my "favorite" definitions of "yoke" from the Free Dictionary by Farlex, the first place to come up when I went to look it up online.

They are my favorite for today because I went there looking for the definition of yoke while thinking about Depression. So now, why don't you look at those definitions again...

Cat and Mouse

"People should never die and stuff should never break."

This is what I said to Dylan this morning, while she held me, while I was softly crying while holding my "Chat et Souris" mug. It was my grandfather's, an artisan's mug, one of a kind, likely made by one of the folks he hung around with in Chicago in the 60/70's - print makers, artisans, musicians. A very formal-looking print cat and a couple of formal print mice (two cats, two mice, so the mug is both right and left-handed) stand around the saying. My grandfather, like my mother after him, spoke French and he and I would discuss things in French sometimes, and often about The French and about France. I have quite a few of his things, since he was the "last to go" - his table, which now holds my sewing machine, his Mexican blue glass collection, his general everyday mugs, and a rug or two. But this was my favorite.

Was. It broke. Last night Dylan and I were getting ready for class, which is at my house on Wednesday nights. Dylan was trying to clean things - boiled some water to get sticky honey off our table, and poured out the rest into the sink. In the sink were two things - the Chat et Souris mug, which I am always super careful about, and a dirty rice pan. I almost picked up the pan - don't know why I didn't. Maybe I thought "Ick, what a mess" and that I would take care of it last. But I was laughing with Dylan and so totally forgot, even though she had been super careful about warning me to step back and we had talked about why she was boiling water. I reached into the sink, picked up the mug and after a two second pause in which the scalding water spilled over the edge and onto my hand and nothing happened at all, I dropped it. There was a pause (likely bad for my hand) while I considered if there were ANY way I could not drop it, knowing, knowing it would break.

The pain was super intense and sudden - I spontaneously broke into tears, barely had the wherewithall to both a) announce a loud yell and alert Dylan, now out of the room and b) switch the water, which I had been using to wash on hot, to cold to run over my hand. Dylan ran in, I bawled through the burnt hand enough for her to grab an ice pack from the freezer. For an hour or two (during which I used my non-dominant hand to call and text students to cancel class) the burn ran painfully through my fingers, and even with Ibuprofen, still flared up for hours after. The only relief was ice pack.

First degree burns. Not serious, not meriting ER or Outpatient, considering we have no health insurance but catastrophic anyway. We did what I knew, from a previous bad first degree steam burn, I needed to do - ice it, ointment, ibuprofen. I fell asleep in fits and starts, my hand occasionally burning alive for a few minutes at a time.

Upon waking, dressing, making breakfast, I reached for the Chat et Souris mug like I often do in the mornings. It practically lives in the drying rack since we both use it so much, which is good. I made a choice long ago to use it - I lost my mother's wedding ring because I used to wear it, have lost numerous important earrings (including one of a set Rebecca gave to me), and more, because I used them. That's good. But hard. I worried that I had cracked the mug the night before but it looked ok - one sploosh of boiling water from same kettle and a quick glimpse inside showed a hairline crack (stunning considered I dropped it into a cast iron sink from a foot above). The water seeped through. I sniffled. Wah. Dammit.

"The mug cracked" I said to Dylan, as she was in the dining room eating breakfast. "Oh, honey." "Time to retire you," I said to the mug as I rinsed it, tried to find a place for my wet tea bag. I put it into the pottery bag I keep in the kitchen until it fills, then put it in the basement. A large collection is amassing there - one day I'll either ask a friend to make a mosaic out of my favorite dishes, or I'll do it. The bag already had one of our wedding set plates, the second to break, in it. Not a biggie: from Target, replaceable.

"We can use it for something else, even if it can't hold water," Dylan said, and I hadn't even thought of that, was grateful for the reminder, but it hurt too much to consider at the moment. Later, I did pull it out and rinse it again and set it aside to dry. She's right. She came up behind me and hugged me and I said "People should never die and stuff should never break," and cried.

All of a sudden, a counter voice:
"Sweetheart (Natalie says this a lot when addressing her critical self), Don't take it Personally." From somewhere inside my head, a voice of gentle loving reason.

What?
Don't take it personally? Of course I am not taking it persona...
Wait a second. I am taking it personally. I feel betrayed. The mug wasn't supposed to break. I lost so many people so young, the least I could get is the mug to last. A few recent deaths flash through my head: a friend's friends 21 year old son, a few students' moms or dads, another acquaintances 31 year old sister. Shit. Hey. This happens to everyone. Not just a lot of folks, but everyone. We all die.

Now I have done a LOT of meditation on death and impermanence, read books, processed a lot of my grief. And I have said that last sentence more times than I can count in more tones of voice than I can count. But all of a sudden, there was a direct line of communication between my little girl heart and my voice of reason. I could feel my inner child look up suddenly and say "You mean, it's not my fault? Not about me? Not a betrayal?"

Of course I am NOT the only one to feel this way. Read any Pema Chodron or even standard psychology text and you'll see quickly that our expectations and beliefs are what most often trigger our shock and hurt. We, as a society, are harboring some serious self-deception about death. And yet. With all the work I had done (I say this with wonder, not judgment) there it is. A tiny piece of my heart that was still holding out, still fiercely protecting herself by pretending someone fucked up, or that something was wrong with her, or that she had been hurt on purpose, she heard the message, for the first time, for now. At first it hurt, like the burn, like a bitch. I cried, but then the voice said : "Mugs break. People die. Everything is impermanent. It's not your fault, Sweetheart," and she replied, "Thank you, Thank you."

PS: I did a quick search and found out more.
And no, I will not be buying a replacement.